Hacking away ...

Hackers and crackers … the good and the evil!

Hackers are not always seen as malicious people, take for example the on-line technical dictionary whatis.com, they look at it from a very different perspective. Hackers are presented as “clever programmer[s]”, people who fit one of five different characteristics, which all of us would probably fit in. There is a difference between a hacker and a cracker they say, it is the cracker who enjoys ‘cracking’ (this is, breacking into) other people's or organization’s computers. But the media has made a big mess out of this and usually portrays crackers as hackers. Ross, the author of this chapter, does so too.

I believe Ross tries to establish a fine line between the good and the evil 'hackers' (this is crackers) can do. He argues that hackers “directly or indirectly, … legitimate needs of industrial R&D” (p. 337). In this particular case, 'hackers' push for more research in the security area as they venture in different computer systems and leave their mark.

In the last section of this chapter, Ross also explores the impact of technology on culture: the use of technology for surveillance, the amount of personal information available on the Internet about each of us, the necessary ‘technoskepticism’ for social change. The idea that no product is good enough, making people wait for a new product to substitute the old one, encouraging people to continue buying new technology, even though they probably don’t need it.

Somehow this chapter was discouraging to me. To say out loud, to glorify 'hacking' because of the need for new research and development; and to acknowledge the impact of new developments and artificially created needs in a consumerist society, seems to lead to nowhere instead of to a brighter future.

References:

Ross, A. (1991). Hacking away at the counterculture. In C. Penley & A. Ross (Eds.), Technoculture (107-134). Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. [Chapter 10].

Whatis.com. (2003). Retrieved on Sunday, November 30, 2003 from http://whatis.techtarget.com/.