Any CS major at SJSU will be spending time in MacQuarrie Hall. A sign caught my eye the first time I set foot on the second floor: “Silicon Valley’s Hacker-Hatchery.” “Wait, Hacker? Isn’t that a bad thing?”
What the word “hacker” meant to me was pretty close to webster’s definition: “a person who illegally gains access to and sometimes tampers with information in a computer system.” This is the definition Hollywood prefers.
It turns out the word is much more complicated than that. There are various classifications of “hackers.” The stereotypical, criminal, basement-dwelling, hacker who is stealing your credit card informations is a “black hat” hacker. But there are also “white hat” hackers. These are people who breach security for good reasons, mainly to try breach before a black hat hacker does, so the vulnerability can be fixed.
The sign at MQH is referring to the word as the programming community (and especially GNU developers) see it: “The use of “hacker” to mean “security breaker” is a confusion on the part of the mass media. We hackers refuse to recognize that meaning, and continue using the word to mean someone who loves to program, someone who enjoys playful cleverness, or the combination of the two.” (About the GNU Project, Richard Stallman)
In the end, I think “hacker” is a great term for what we’re all striving to become in the SJSU CS program. Unfortunately, it’s easy to be misinformed on the meaning of it, and likely that many people are put off by it because of what they’ve learned from mass media. Maybe eventually “cracker” will catch on in the mainstream, so that “hacker”’s negative connotation can be completely abolished.
Fun side note: check out this site http://hackertyper.com/ (try spamming capslock and alt)
Hi Andres,
ReplyDeleteI am SJSU CS major too. I felt the same way as you did. From my understanding, hacking is a definitely bad word in the computer science field. Hackers are a group of people who steal others’ privacy information or achievement. Your blog corrects my knowledge. I know from your blog that there exists a group person who pretend as “Bad” hackers to test the security issue of the software. I agree that hacker is a person who loves and enjoys program. Your blog content is just what I feel after I understand the word, hacker.
Hey Andres, it seems like the word hacker gets thrown around a lot these days. In addition there seems to be "Hackathons" every month in MQH. I agree that hacker might be a good word to describe us but I think we should be careful where we use the term. I feel that people wont care if you are a black hat or white hat hacker, they will just apply a generic label to you.
ReplyDeleteAndres,
ReplyDeleteI liked how you wrote your post because most people do not know there are white and black hat hackers out there. I think one thing that you should have mentioned that would have been great are the grey hat hackers because not many people know who they are and sometimes look at them as black hat hackers. I agree hacker is a great area to aim for because hacking doesn’t always define a programming as someone who is trying to break through security of something, but a programmer who loves programming and always tries to improve themselves.