Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!lll-winken!grover.llnl.gov!howell
From: howell@grover.llnl.gov (Louis Howell)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: hacker = computer criminal
Keywords: hacker stoll nova
Message-ID: <69148@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV>
Date: 3 Oct 90 15:42:17 GMT
References: <4761@bone25.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV
Reply-To: howell@grover.llnl.gov (Louis Howell)
Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Lines: 33

In article <4761@bone25.UUCP>, trivedi@motcid.UUCP (Kamlesh Trivedi) writes:
|> I have read some posts here and the articles in c.u.d that try to preserve the
|> label hacker.  I think it's a lost cause.  Yesterday's _Nova_ on Cliff Stoll's
|> story proves it.  The popular media has "latched" onto the term and are
|> indiscriminately using it to mean: an individual who breaks into corporate/
|> government computers and maliciously changes things.  Stoll and the "hackers"
|> from Germany referred to the activities of the Germans as "hacking" not as
|> "intruding", "espionage", etc.

I was also disappointed in the way the show completely ignored privacy
issues, both for the "hacker" and for the other users.  Stoll was shown
making printouts of login sessions, tapping phone lines, and so on,
without any mention whatsoever that there might be other ethical issues
involved than "get the bad guy at all costs".  I expect gibberish from
the mainstream press, but Nova usually displays higher standards.

For those who haven't yet seen it, the title of the show is "The KGB,
the computer, and me".

With regard to the word hacker, we should distinguish between its use
in jargon and its use by mainstream society.  Can the word continue to
hold the meanings we know and love, even while being distorted by
outsiders?  Other words mean very different things in jargon and in
everyday usage, but does it make a difference that the word "hacker"
is so emotionally charged?

-- 
Louis Howell

  "A few sums!" retorted Martens, with a trace of his old spirit.  "A major
navigational change, like the one needed to break us away from the comet
and put us on an orbit to Earth, involves about a hundred thousand separate
calculations.  Even the computer needs several minutes for the job."