Talk:Hacker

Trying to get something going here

I'm trying to get something going on this article... I'm kind of tired and a little burnt out for today though. Maybe I'll revisit it tomorrow. There's a lot to say about "both sides of the coin." I "helped create a better free encyclopedia" enough today lol --Eric M Gearhart 16:47, 9 April 2007 (CDT)

Eric Raymond's "A Brief History of Hackerdom" is an excellent resource. I believe it will be an invaluable aid in the writing of this article. --Joshua David Williams 14:01, 18 April 2007 (CDT)

"Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution" tells the MIT side of the story quite well too. I don't have a copy nearby, or I'd be drawing from it for this article :( Maybe I'll order it on eBay (there's not Barnes and Noble in Iraq unfortunately) Eric M Gearhart

Whoa it's a free ebook on Gutenberg now! Sweet. I will take a look Eric M Gearhart

That's awesome. I'll read it ASAP. I've found that vi and a tty is a great combination for reading eBooks. It's a lot easier on the eyes than reading it in X. That's how I've been reading The Cathedral and the Bazaar. Eric Raymond is an excellent writer. --Joshua David Williams 14:17, 18 April 2007 (CDT)

Well it looks like it's only chapters 1 & 2. Oh well. Back to Amazon.com. It looks like only around $10 on there anyways. Also yea I have Konsole set to green text on a black background because it makes reading with nano so much easier :) Eric M Gearhart

• • Eric in case you are interested I have a OCR scanned version of a 300 page book on the rise (and fall?) of the traditional hacker. It describes both the start of hacking as it is known in the US (telephone phreaking amongst others) and as it is known in Europe, with a complete chapter on the notorious CCC (http://www.chaoscomputerclub.de/) who during a certain period had control over all telephone lines in Germany, an were able to break any code thrown at them.
    (The German postal service changed all their security codes and settings and made a press release regarding it (because CCC was already VERY publicly known by then, and everyone knew they had hacked into the complete system), and lo and behold in less than 4 minutes after the press release went public CCC sent an addendum to that same press release stating Nice try, but I thought these new codes were unbreakable.
    Well if you're interested drop me a line (SPAM dot 5 squiglysign DSE dot NL) I guess you get the gest, and yes that IS a real (alias of my) mailaddress.

Re-organise?

I'd like to re-organise and largely rewrite this. We currently mention the MIT stuff twice, once in the "precursors" section and again in the "other uses". Eric Raymond is the editor of the Jargon File, but we do not mention him when we link to the file. Not do e explain the importance of his work (cited in three places) as part of hacker culture. The conflicting usage of "hacker" is mentioned in the intro, then gets its own section later.

I think it needs three main sections. Origins at MIT, Later hacker culture (with explanation of & links to Raymond), Hacker as criminal. It seemed better to ask here before undertaking such a major rewrite, though. Sandy Harris 04:55, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Goes in somewhere

One in four US black hats is an FIB or CIA informant, according to the Guardian. [1] Sandy Harris 00:47, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

white-hat and black-hat hackers

I've frequently heard hackers characterized as either white-hat (benevolent) or black-hat (destructive). I think it would be useful to see if those terms can be documented and worked into the article.Pat Palmer 02:14, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

It already is, at Hacker#Hat_colors, though there coud be more said. Sandy Harris 02:33, 7 June 2011 (UTC)