“An earlier term for gaining unauthorized access to computers
was “cracking” (as in safe cracking), whereas “hacking” applied to
people that pushed computers and software to their limits (and
beyond). Over time, the media has bastardized the term “hacking”,
leaving “cracking” to pedantic geeks and the history books. The
term hacker is now applied equally to people like Linus Torvalds
(father of Linux) or Tim Berners-Lee (father of the modern WWW),
and criminals that steal information or execute attacks on network
sites.”
“What is a hacker (ignoring the law-abiding definition)? It’s
anyone who tries to intrude into other computers and networks. This
definition covers almost anything modern — from corporate networks
to the phone system and power grid. Anything remotely complex in
the modern world is invariably controlled by computers, and people
have discovered that networked computers are more useful and easier
to manage then standalone computers.”
“The first thing to realize is that the majority of hackers
possess very little expertise. Teenagers have managed to take major
online companies (like Yahoo and CNN) offline with network-based
attacks. How can it be that they are not geniuses? To put it
bluntly, because the state of computer security, on average, is
terrible. The fundamental protocols used for communicating on
networks were designed a long time ago in a less hostile
environment, and in many cases, these protocols were not meant to
survive this long. The majority of computers placed on networks are
insecure, because securing a modern OS takes a significant amount
of effort. In most cases, you must disable services, remove
unneeded software, upgrade and patch the system, make sure the OS
is hardened, and then worry about users running foreign content
sent to them in emails labeled “I love you”. Most admins don’t have
the time or resources to properly secure their infrastructure, and
far too many projects (especially online e-commerce ones) are
rushed to completion.”