Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: 26 Jun 91 16:25:03 GMT From: Andy Sherman Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Please Explain the Terms 'Hacker' and 'Phreaker' Reply-To: Andy Sherman Message-ID: Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 495, Message 9 of 10 Lines: 85 In article , ninjam@csd4.csd.uwm.edu writes: > By the way, this is an UNBIASED opinion, unlike the Moderator's ... One person's bias is another person's objectivity. Yours shows every bit as much Pat's. He, I think, would acknowledge his. > A Phreak is not generally someone who rips off the phone company, > although it sometimes plays a small part. A true Phreak is someone > who is dedicated to learning about the phone system, including not > generally accessible proprietary information. This isn't ripping somebody off? Proprietary information is intellecutal property owned by the companies that paid to invent or discover it. Using a computer to steal it is no different morally than breaking down my door and rifling my filing cabinet. Would your pursuit of knowledge justify *that* as well? > As for the definition of a Hacker, yes, I agree with Pat, but I have to > strongly dissagree with his other points. A true "Hacker" is still, > and always will be someone knowledgeable about computers, and finds > them so interesting that they want to learn as much as possible. > You people write off an entire generation of Hackers as "crackers", > with out looking at everything. Most of the true Hackers out there > break in to these systems in the first place because they want to > learn about the particluar computer or network. They are driven on > for a need to learn. The original use of term "hacker" had nothing to do with breaking into systems, it had to do with a do or die style of programming. While I have many disagreements in philosophy with the "last of the true hackers", Richard Stallman, to my knowledge he has *never* advocted liberating intellectual property by stealing it, either by cat burgling or computer cracking. I suspect that the recent changes in guest policy on the gnu.ai.mit.edu machines was a personal defeat for RMS, not because he believes in cracking but because he honestly believed that he could run his systems on the basis of trust. That he was so sadly mistaken, to the extent that the GNU project could not function for all the interference on their systems, is strong testimony to how wrong you are. You want an example of a true hacker, in the positive sense of the word, go look at Stallman's work. If you are hacking at a security hole on a system that you are authorized to use for the purpose of demonstrating the problem, that may be valid, *PROVIDED* you inform the administrator (using your real name and address) before, during, and after, and you don't use the illicitly gained privileges. That is true hacking. Anonymously breaking in and using the privleges is *THEFT*. What other crimes does your "need to learn" justify. Can you break into my house and go through my stuff out of a need to learn what's there? Can your need to learn about how the human body works justify murder and human experimentation? (Mengele comes to mind. He needed to learn.) Yes, I put extreme cases to make the point. But it's hard to turn a matter of degree into a moral distinction. George Bernard Shaw once asked a prominent society woman if she would consider sleeping with him for a million pounds. She said yes. He then asked if she would sleep with him that night for 25 pounds. She replied, rather huffily, "Of course not! What do you think I am?" Shaw replied, "Well madam, we've already established that. Now we're merely haggling over the price." > I have to strongly say that it is not right for people to write off > the entire 80's generation of Hackers, and the Phone Phreakers as > dishonest scum, or as the Moderator so kindly put it "the bad guys". > You can't write off a whole group of people as malicious because some > who are malicious do what they do. That's very unfair categorizing > and stereotyping. I don't care how pure you say your intent is. Theft is theft. If you can't do the time, don't to the crime. Whine elsewhere, please. > [Moderator's Note: Thank you for clearing up my biased misconceptions > on the subject. PAT] Snicker, snicker. Andy Sherman/AT&T Bell Laboratories/Murray Hill, NJ AUDIBLE: (908) 582-5928 READABLE: andys@ulysses.att.com or att!ulysses!andys What? Me speak for AT&T? You must be joking!