Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!halley!bei
From: bei@halley.UUCP (Bob Izenberg)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: hacker = computer criminal
Message-ID: <1025@halley.UUCP>
Date: 5 Oct 90 14:32:16 GMT
References: <4761@bone25.UUCP> <69148@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> <20225:Oct319:48:5690@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> <20959@well.sf.ca.us>
Reply-To: bei@halley.UUCP (Bob Izenberg)
Organization: Tandem Computers, Austin, TX
Lines: 20

In article <20959@well.sf.ca.us> tenney@well.sf.ca.us (Glenn S. Tenney) writes:

>p.s.
>
>Every time I heard Cliff use the word "hacker" as if the word equated
>"criminal"reminded me of a thing my kid said when he saw a slanted
>news piece about The Hackers Conference -->  Why did they say
>*that*, we're not criminals?

I remember reading a good putdown somewhere... so-and-so "likes to get his
labels on straight."  Remember, the Nova episode (and the book?) was a
dramatization.  To my dad, who is "digiphobic" in the extreme, Cliff Stoll
>and< the Germans were all hackers.  The use of the label depends upon who's
using it.  I do feel that Nova fell into the habit that some film-makers
have, of introducing a protagonist portrayed in an unrealistic light, so as
to make the protagonist's fight more black and white.
-- 

                       Bob Izenberg [ ] Tandem Computers, Inc.
           cs.utexas.edu!halley!bei [ ] 512 244 8837