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RE[7]: Bah - hacking skills
by Alfman on Mon 20th Jun 2011 02:30 UTC in reply to "RE[6]: Bah - hacking skills"
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"[jabbotts] I might suggest though that if the person developing the system is not themselves a hacker or employing hackers they are being negligent in there duties."


"So banks should be employing thieves when they design their bank vaults? Having a generally idea about how hacking works is useful, yes, but specific knowledge is worthless for this purpose."

Wait, how did you get from someone being a hacker to that person being a thief? Or any sort of criminal for that matter? Many hackers are in professional occupations and there is nothing unethical about it.

I think maybe there's cross talking going on due to a difference in the definition of "hacker" - yours seems to imply a criminal element, but many hackers don't consider themselves criminals (and nor does the law for that matter).

"True but unlikely."

Can you elaborate?

"That's a really lame excuse and it's just confirms that these people are indeed assholes."

Maybe they are assholes, but they're still skilled ones.

"Is that like being a law abiding bank robber?"

No, not at all the same thing. Robbing banks implies a criminal element, hacking does not.

"Would probably help if the term 'hacker' wasn't so ambiguous. Are we talking about hackers who write code or hackers who (try to) break into systems? Two different beasts, same term."

Security hackers can break into their own systems, do you agree that it's neither illegal nor immoral? They can hack into third party systems with permission, same deal there, right? It's not the skill of hacking which is evil, it's the intent.

Of course, it may be unwise to hire a hacker who's previously demonstrated skill but has also shown malicious intent. However this doesn't describe the majority of hackers, most of whom just hack their own systems to learn about security.

The only reason we hear about all these "evil hackers" is because they're the ones which catch headlines, the good hackers don't get any attention - it's unfair but that's the media for you.

Edit - I guess this is already the conclusion on this thread, so I didn't need to post. Oh well.

Edited 2011-06-20 02:45 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 2

RE[8]: Bah - hacking skills
by Soulbender on Mon 20th Jun 2011 17:23 in reply to "RE[7]: Bah - hacking skills"
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Edited 2011-06-20 17:23 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 2