Hacking:
1) What do you know about hacking?
2) Why do you think hackers do what they do?
3) Do you think hackers add to new technology developments?
4) What do you think technology companies think about hackers?
5) Are you worried someone could hack into your computer?
6) What could you lose if someone hacked into your computer and how upset would you be?
7) Do you always download security updates to protect your computer from hackers?
8) Do you think large companies fear hackers?
9) Who do you think is ahead of the game, the hackers or the software companies?
10) What kind of damage could terrorist hackers do?
11) Have you heard of any big hacking cases?
12) Many companies hide hacking attempts against them because of public relations embarrassment. Do you think hacking is a bigger problem than we hear about?
13) What punishment should a hacker receive?
14) What do you think of the schoolchild hackers that get in the news?
15) Do you think your computer is becoming less or more secure?
16) Do you think it’s possible for a hacker to steal and take over your whole identity and life?
17) Do you think a hacker could take over another country?
18) Do you worry that hackers read your e-mail or credit card details?
19) What question would you like to ask a hacker?
20) What do you think his / her answer would be and why?
Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress. About a woman, Susan Fletcher who has a high IQ and works for the NSA at
Lockley, Massachusettes. The director there is Trevor Strathmore, a married man with a secret crush on her.
An ex, employee, Ensei Tankado, a deformed 3 finger Japanese orphan whose parents died in the Hiroshima bomb was fired for protesting strathmores use of the TRANSLTR, a supercomputer with a million processors that can break any code, stealing peoples private information.later, tankado invents a program whose code changes itself like a virus and threatens to release it into the market unless, Strathmore reveals translatr to the public.refusing, Strathmore sends fletcher’s boyfriend, David Becker to Spanish city, Seville to take a gold ring after another of strathmore’s men shoots a special gun at him which gives a heartartack..Not knowing he is on the same team, they try to kill eachother following the trail of the gold ring that is passed through the hands of many people.Becker kills him and gets the ring. Meanwhile, Strathmore has
Fletcher, trace Ndakota’s email (sent by the supposed friend of tankado) who turns out to be greg hale, an
NSA employee who tries to stop feltcher and whom flethcer hates because of how many times he comes on to her.
Strathmore downloads one of tankados encrypted encoders which turns out to be a virus..An NSA employee is killed
Hacker (computer security) Motivated by profit, protest, or because of the challenge. The subculture is often referred to as the computer underground but it is now an open community. Computer programmers argue that someone breaking into computers is better called a cracker, not making a difference between computer criminals (" black hats ") and computer security experts (" white hats "). Some white hat hackers claim that they also deserve the title hacker, and that only black hats should be called crackers.
History Bruce Sterling traces part of the roots of the computer underground to the Yippies , a 1960s counterculture movement which published the Technological Assistance Program (TAP) newsletter.TAP was a phone phreaking (tamper with phone lines) newsletter that taught the techniques necessary for the unauthorized exploration of the phone network. Many people from the phreaking community are also active in the hacking community even today, and vice versa.
Artifacts and customs The computer underground has produced its own slang and various forms of unusual alphabet use, for example 1337speak (also known as eleet or leetspeak, is an alternative alphabet for the
English language that is used primarily on the Internet . It uses various combinations of ASCII characters to replace Latinate letters. For example, leet spellings of the word leet include 1337 and l33t) . Political attitude usually includes views for freedom of information, freedom of speech, a right for anonymity and most have a strong opposition against copyright. Writing programs and performing other activities to support these views is referred to as hacktivism . Some go as far as seeing illegal cracking ethically justified for this goal; a common form is website defacement . The computer underground is frequently compared to the Wild

West. It is common among hackers to use aliases for the purpose of concealing identity, rather than revealing their real names.
Hacker groups and conventions hacker conventions or "hacker cons" support undergraond hackers. These draw many people every year including SummerCon (Summer), DEF CON , HoHoCon (Christmas), ShmooCon (February),
BlackHat, Hacker Halted, and H.O.P.E.
.In the early 1980s Hacker Groups became popular, Hacker groups provided access to information and resources, and a place to learn from other members. Hackers could also gain credibility by being affiliated with an elite group.
Hacker attitudes Eric S. Raymond (author of The New Hacker's Dictionary ) advocates that members of the computer underground should be called crackers. Yet, those people see themselves as hackers and even try to include the views of Raymond in what they see as one wider hacker culture, a view harshly rejected by
Raymond himself. Instead of a hacker/cracker dichotomy, they give more emphasis to a spectrum of different categories, such as white hat , grey hat , black hat and script kiddie . In contrast to Raymond, they usually reserve the term cracker. According to (Clifford R.D. 2006) a cracker or cracking is to "gain unauthorized access to a computer in order to commit another crime such as destroying information contained in that system".
White hat Breaks security for non-malicious reasons, for instance testing their own security system. The term "white hat" in Internet slang refers to an ethical hacker . The International Council of Electronic Commerce Consultants, also known as the EC-Council has developed certifications, courseware, classes, and online training covering the diverse arena of Ethical Hacking.
Black hat is one that "violates computer security for little reason beyond maliciousness or for personal gain"(Moore,2005). Black Hat
Hackers break into secure networks to destroy data or make the network unusable for those who are authorized to use the network.
The way Black Hat Hackers choose the networks that they are going to break into is a process of two parts. This is called the prehacking stage.
Part 1 Targeting Targeting is when the hacker determines what network to break into. The target may be of particular interest to the hacker, or the hacker may "Port Scan" a network to determine if it is vulnerable to attacks. A port is defined as "an opening through which the computer receives data via the network". Open ports will allow a hacker to access the system.
Part 2 Research and Information Gathering It is in this stage that the hacker will visit or contact the target in some way in hopes of finding out vital information that will help them access the system. The main way that hackers get desired results from this stage is from Social Engineering, which will be explained below. They also use a technique called Dumpster Diving to find documents literally.
Grey hat is a combination of a Black Hat and a White Hat Hacker. A Grey Hat Hacker may surf the internet and hack into a computer system for the sole purpose of notifying the administrator that their system has been hacked, for example. Then they may offer to repair their system for a small fee.
Elite hacker A social status among hackers, elite is used to describe the most skilled. Newly discovered exploits will circulate among these hackers. Elite groups such as Masters of Deception conferred a kind of credibility on their members.
Script kiddie A script kiddie is a non-expert who breaks into computer systems by using pre-packaged automated tools written by others, usually with little understanding of the underlying concept—hence the term script (i.e. a prearranged plan or set of activities) kiddie
Neophyte A neophyte, "n00b", or " newbie " is someone who is new to hacking or phreaking and has almost no knowledge or experience of the workings of technology, and hacking.
Blue hat A blue hat hacker is someone outside computer security consulting firms who is used to bug test a system prior to its launch, looking for exploits so they can be closed. Microsoft also uses the term BlueHat to represent a series of security briefing events.
Hacktivist A hacktivist is a hacker who utilizes technology to announce a social, ideological, religious, or political message. In general, most hacktivism involves website defacement or denial-of-service attacks .
Attacks :A typical approach in an attack on Internet-connected system is:
1.
Network enumeration : Discovering information about the intended target.
2.
Vulnerability analysis : Identifying potential ways of attack.
3.
Exploitation : Attempting to compromise the system by employing the vulnerabilities found through the vulnerability analysis.
Security Exploits A security exploit is a prepared application that takes advantage of a known weakness.
Common examples of security exploits are SQL injection , Cross Site Scripting and Cross Site Request Forgery which abuse security holes that may result from substandard programming practice. Other exploits would be

able to be used through FTP , HTTP , PHP , SSH , Telnet and some web-pages. These are very common in website/domain hacking.
Techniques: Vulnerability scanner A vulnerability scanner is a tool used to quickly check computers on a network for known weaknesses. Hackers also commonly use port scanners . These check to see which ports on a specified computer are "open" or available to access the computer, and sometimes will detect what program or service is listening on that port, and its version number.
(Note that firewalls defend computers from intruders by limiting access to ports/machines both inbound and outbound, but can still be circumvented.)
Password cracking Password cracking is the process of recovering passwords from data that has been stored in or transmitted by a computer system. A common approach is to repeatedly try guesses for the password.
Packet sniffer A packet sniffer is an application that captures data packets, which can be used to capture passwords and other data in transit over the network.
Spoofing attack (Phishing) A spoofing attack involves one program, system, or website successfully masquerading as another by falsifying data and thereby being treated as a trusted system by a user or another program. The purpose of this is usually to fool programs, systems, or users into revealing confidential information, such as user names and passwords, to the attacker.
Rootkit A rootkit is designed to conceal the compromise of a computer's security, and can represent any of a set of programs which work to subvert control of an operating system from its legitimate operators. Usually, a rootkit will obscure its installation and attempt to prevent its removal through a subversion of standard system security. Rootkits may include replacements for system binaries so that it becomes impossible for the legitimate user to detect the presence of the intruder on the system by looking at process tables .
Social engineering Social engineering When a Hacker, typically a black hat, is in the second stage of the targeting process, he or she will typically use some social engineering tactics to get enough information to access the network. A common practice for hackers who use this technique, is to contact the system administrator and play the role of a user who cannot get access to his or her system.
Hackers who use this technique have to be quite savvy and choose the words they use carefully, in order to trick the system administrator into giving them information. In some cases only an employed help desk user will answer the phone and they are generally easy to trick. Another typical hacker approach is for the hacker to act like a very angry supervisor and when the his/her authority is questioned they will threaten the help desk user with their job. Social Engineering is so effective because users are the most vulnerable part of an organization. All the security devices and programs in the world won't keep an organization safe if an employee gives away a password. Black Hat Hackers take advantage of this fact. Social Engineering can also be broken down into four sub-groups. These are intimidation, helpfulness, technical, and name-dropping.

Intimidation As stated above, with the angry supervisor, the hacker attacks the person who answers the phone with threats to their job. Many people at this point will accept that the hacker is a supervisor and give them the needed information.

Helpfulness Opposite to intimidation, helpfulness is taking advantage of a person natural instinct to help someone with a problem. The hacker will not get angry instead act very distressed and concerned. The help desk is the most vulnerable to this type of Social Engineering, because they generally have the authority to change or reset passwords which is exactly what the hacker needs.

Name-Dropping Simply put the hacker uses the names of advanced users as "key words", and gets the person who answers the phone to believe that they are part of the company because of this. Some information, like web page ownership, can be obtained easily on the web. Other information such as president and vice president names might have to be obtained via dumpster diving.

Technical Using technology to get information is also a great way to get it. A hacker can send a fax or an email to a legitimate user in hopes to get a response containing vital information. Many times the hacker will act like he/she is involved with law enforcement and needs certain data for record keeping purposes or investigations.
Trojan horses A Trojan horse is a program which seems to be doing one thing, but is actually doing another. A trojan horse can be used to set up a back door in a computer system such that the intruder can gain access later. (The name refers to the horse from the
Trojan War , with conceptually similar function of deceiving defenders into bringing an intruder inside.)
Viruses A virus is a self-replicating program that spreads by inserting copies of itself into other executable code or documents.
Therefore, a computer virus behaves in a way similar to a biological virus , which spreads by inserting itself into living cells.
While some are harmless or mere hoaxes most computer viruses are considered malicious.
Worms Like a virus, a worm is also a self-replicating program. A worm differs from a virus in that it propagates through computer networks without user intervention. Unlike a virus, it does not need to attach itself to an existing program. Many people conflate the terms "virus" and "worm", using them both to describe any self-propagating program.
Key loggers A key logger is a tool designed to record ('log') every keystroke on an affected machine for later retrieval. Its purpose is usually to allow the user of this tool to gain access to confidential information typed on the affected machine, such as a user's password or other private data. Some key loggers uses virus-, trojan-, and rootkit-like methods to remain active and hidden. However, some key loggers are used in legitimate ways and sometimes to even enhance computer security. As an example, a business might have a key logger on a computer used at a point of sale and data collected by the key logger could be used for catching employee fraud.
List of computer criminals
Convicted computer criminals are people who are caught and convicted of computer crimes such as breaking into computers or computer networks . Computer crime can be broadly defined as criminal activity involving information technology infrastructure, including illegal access (unauthorized access), illegal interception

(by technical means of non-public transmissions of computer data to, from or within a computer system), data interference (unauthorized damaging, deletion, deterioration, alteration or suppression of computer data), systems interference (interfering with the functioning of a computer system by inputting, transmitting, damaging, deleting, deteriorating, altering or suppressing computer data), misuse of devices, forgery (or identity theft ) and electronic fraud.
In the infancy of the hacker subculture and the computer underground, criminal convictions were rare because there was an informal code of ethics that was followed by white hat hackers . Proponents of hacking claim to be motivated by artistic and political ends, but are often unconcerned about the use of criminal means to achieve them. White hat hackers break past computer security for non-malicious reasons and do no damage, akin to breaking into a house and looking around. They enjoy learning and working with computer systems, and by this experience gain a deeper understanding of electronic security. As the computer industry matured, individuals with malicious intentions ( black hats ) would emerge to exploit computer systems for their own personal profit. Convictions of computer crimes, or hacking, began as early as 1983 with the case of The 414s from the 414 area code in Milwaukee . In that case, six teenagers broke into a number of high-profile computer systems, including Los Alamos National Laboratory , Sloan-
Kettering Cancer Center and Security Pacific Bank . On May 1, 1983, one of the 414s, Gerald Wondra , was sentenced to two years of probation. As of 2009, the longest prison term for computer crimes—nearly five years—was handed down to Jeanson James Ancheta , who created hundreds of zombie computers to do his bidding via giant bot networks or botnets . He then sold the botnets to the highest bidder who in turn used them for
Denial-of-service (DoS) attacks .
Computer criminals
Name
Mark Abene
Jeanson James
Ancheta
Mike Calce
Nahshon Even-
Chaim
Julian Paul
Assange
Adam Botbyl
Chad Davis unknown
Handle Nationality Conviction(s)
Sentencing date(s)
Penalty
Misdemeanor theft-of-service for a free-call scam to a 900 number
Phiber
Optik
United States
One count of computer trespass and one count of computer conspiracy
1991
1993
35 hours of community service
One-year jail sentence
— United States
Pled guilty to four federal charges of violating United States Code Section
1030, Fraud and Related Activity in
Connection with Computers, specifically subsections (a)(5)(A)(i),
1030 (a)(5)(B)(i) and 1030(b)
57 months in prison, forfeit a 1993
BMW and more than US$58,000 in
May 8, 2006 profit
Restitution of US$15,000 to the U.S. federal government for infecting military computers
—
United States
Conspiracy to steal credit card numbers from the Lowe's chain of home improvement stores
MafiaBoy Canada
Pled guilty to 56 charges of
"mischief to data"
December
16, 2004
September
12, 2001
Two years and two months imprisonment, followed by two years of supervised release
Eight months "open custody," by the
Montreal Youth Court, one-year of probation, restricted use of the
Internet and a small fine
Mindphasr United States
Intentionally hacking a protected computer and wilfully causing damage
March 1,
2000
Six months in prison, US$8,054 in restitution and three years probation
Phoenix
Mendax
Prime
Suspect
Australia
Australia
Australia
15 charges including trespassing on the University of Texas computer network, altering data at NASA and the theft of the ZARDOZ file
1993
31 charges of hacking and related charges. Pled guilty to 25 charges, the remaining 6 were dropped.
One-year suspended sentence:
AU $1,000 good-behaviour bond and
500 hours community service
5 December
1996
A recorded conviction on all counts, a reparation payment of AU $2,100 to ANU (to be paid in 3 months time) and a AU $5,000 goodbehaviour bond.
26 charges of hacking and related charges. Pled guilty to all charges and turned witness against fellow hackers, Mendax and Trax.
A recorded conviction on all counts, a reparation payment of AU $2,100 to Australian National University (to
21 July 1995 be paid in about 12 months time),a
AU $500 three-year good-behaviour bond and forfeiture of the Apple computer seized during a police raid

on his residence.
unknown Trax Australia
6 counts of hacking and phreaking.
Pled guilty to all charges.
20
September
1995
20
September
1995
(Due to a history of mental illness) no recorded conviction and a
AU $500 three-year good-behaviour bond
Raphael Gray
Jerome
Heckenkamp
Curador
United
Kingdom
Pled guilty to theft and hacking offenses which fall under the
Computer Misuse Act and six charges of intentionally accessing sites containing credit card details and using this information for financial gain
MagicFX United States
Admitted the hacking and pleaded guilty to two felonies in 2004.
July 6, 2001
2004
Jonathan James c0mrade United States Two counts of juvenile delinquency
September
21, 2000
Three years of psychiatric treatment after evidence emerged that he was suffering from a mental condition which needed medical treatment rather than incarceration
Sentenced to Time Served after spending 7 months in prison.
Six-month prison sentence and probation until the age of eighteen
Richard Jones Electron Australia
Trespassing on the University of
Texas computer network and theft of the ZARDOZ file
1993
One year and six months suspended sentence, 300 hours of community service and psychiatric assessment and treatment
Samy Kamkar samy United States
Pled guilty to violating California
Penal Code 502(c)(8) for creating the "Samy is my hero" XSS worm that spread across the MySpace social networking site
2007
Cameron
Lacroix cam0 United States
Pled guilty to hacking into the cellphone account of celebrity Paris
Hilton and participated in an attack on data-collection firm LexisNexis
Group that exposed personal records of more than 300,000 consumers
September
13, 2005
Adrian Lamo
—
United States
One-count of computer crimes against Microsoft , LexisNexis and
The New York Times
July 15,
2004
Kevin Mitnick Condor United States
Four counts of wire fraud, two counts of computer fraud and one count of illegally intercepting a wire communication
August 9,
1999
Three years of formal probation, 90 days of community service, restitution paid to MySpace, restrictions on computer use
11 months in a Massachusetts juvenile detention facility
Six months detention at his parent's home plus two years probation and roughly US$65,000 in restitution
46 months in federal prison
Dennis Moran Coolio United States Misdemeanor charges of hacking
March 9,
2001
Robert Tappan
Morris
Rouabah Basset
Jeffrey Lee
Parson rtm
Al Hack
United States
Intentional access of federal interest computers without authorization thereby preventing authorized access
May 16,
1990 and causing a loss in excess of
US$1,000
Algeria
Access to the Department of
Intelligence and Security computers without authorization and causing a loss in excess of US$ 129,117.00, access to 1312 personal computer in
Algeria and damage all of them, stopping internet service for 1 hour
17 minutes in B.B.A. city.
[ citation needed ]
January 30,
1990
T33kid United States
Pled guilty on August 11, 2004 to one count of intentionally causing or attempting to cause damage to a protected computer via his version of the Blaster computer worm
January 1,
2005
Nine months in jail and US$5,000 in restitution to each victim
Three years probation and 400 hours of community service in a manner determined by the Probation Office and approved by the Court
18 months in prison and 100 hours of community service
No jail, because there is no law in
Algeria against this
[ citation needed ]
Kevin Poulsen
Dark
Dante
United States
Pled guilty to seven counts of mail, wire and computer fraud, money laundering and obstruction of justice
June 1, 1994
51 months in prison and ordered to pay US$56,000 in restitution
Leonard Rose Terminus United States Illicit use of proprietary software June 12, One-year jail sentence

( UNIX 3.2
code) owned by AT&T and 2 counts of computer fraud and three counts of interstate transportation of stolen property.
1991
David L. Smith Kwyjibo United States
Pled guilty to knowingly spreading a computer virus, the Melissa virus , with the intent to cause damage
May 1, 2002
20 months in federal prison,
US$5,000 fine and 100 hours of community service upon release
Ehud
Tenenbaum
Analyzer Israel
Admitted to cracking US and Israeli computers, and pled guilty to conspiracy, wrongful infiltration of computerized material, disruption of computer use and destroying evidence
June 15,
2001
Six months of community service, one-year of probation, a two-year suspended prison sentence and fined about US$18,000
Simon Vallor
Jan de Wit
Gobo
OnTheFly
United
Kingdom
Netherlands
Writing and distributing three computer viruses
January 21,
2003
Spreading data into a computer network with the intention of causing damage as the creator of the
Anna Kournikova virus
September
27, 2001
Two-year jail sentence
Gerald Wondra The 414s United States
Unauthorized access to computers at the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and a Los Angeles bank and two counts of "making harassing telephone calls"
May 1, 1983 Two years probation
150 hours community service
Notable Security Hackers

Kevin Mitnick is a computer security consultant and author, formerly the most wanted computer criminal in United States history.

Eric Corley (also known as Emmanuel Goldstein ) is the long standing publisher of 2600: The Hacker Quarterly . He is also the founder of the H.O.P.E.
conferences. He has been part of the hacker community since the late '70s.

Gordon Lyon , known by the handle Fyodor, authored the Nmap Security Scanner as well as many network security books and web sites. He is a founding member of the Honeynet Project and Vice President of Computer Professionals for Social

Responsibility .
Solar Designer is the pseudonym of the founder of the Openwall Project .

Rafael Núñez
aka RaFa was a notorious most wanted hacker by the FBI since 2001.

Michał Zalewski (lcamtuf) is a prominent security researcher.

Gary McKinnon is a Scottish hacker facing extradition to the United States to face charges of perpetrating what has been described as the "biggest military computer hack of all time".
Hacking and the Media
Hacker Magazines The most notable hacker-oriented magazine publications are Phrack , Hakin9 and 2600: The
Hacker Quarterly . While the information contained in hacker magazines and ezines was often outdated, they improved the reputations of those who contributed by documenting their successes.
Hackers in fisction Hackers often show an interest in fictional cyberpunk and cyberculture literature and movies. Absorption of fictional pseudonyms , symbols, values, and metaphors from these fictional works is very common.
[ citation needed ]
Books portraying hackers:

The cyberpunk novels of William Gibson — especially the Sprawl Trilogy — are very popular with hackers.

Merlin , the protagonist of the second series in The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny is a young immortal hacker-

 mage prince who has the ability to traverse shadow dimensions.
Hackers (short stories)
Snow Crash

Helba from the .hack
manga and anime series.


Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
Rice Tea by Julien McArdle


Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Films also portray hackers:

Cypher

Tron

WarGames


The Matrix series
Hackers

Swordfish

The Net

The Net 2.0

Antitrust


Enemy of the State
Sneakers

Untraceable

Firewall

Die Hard "4": Live Free or Die Hard

Eagle Eye

Take Down

Weird Science

Pirates of silicon valley (related to hacker like Steve Jobs , not crackers)
Non-fiction books

Hacking: The Art of Exploitation, Second Edition by Jon Erickson

The Hacker Crackdown

The Art of Intrusion by Kevin D. Mitnick

The Art of Deception by Kevin D. Mitnick


Ghost in the Wires by Kevin D. Mitnick
Takedown

The Hacker's Handbook



The Cuckoo's Egg by Clifford Stoll
Underground by Suelette Dreyfus
Stealing the Network: How to Own the Box, How to Own an Identity, and How to Own an Continent by various authors
Fiction books

Ender's Game


Neuromancer
Evil Genius (novel)

Snow Crash
A hacker is a member of the computer programmer subculture originated in the 1960s in the United States academia, in particular around the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)'s Tech Model Railroad Club
(TMRC) and MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory .
[ citation needed ] The "hacker" community tends to differentiate themselves from "crackers", or people who use the skills of hacking for malicious or criminal purposes.
Defintion The Jargon File , a compendium of hacker slang, defines hacker as "A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and stretching their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary." The Request for Comments (RFC) 1392, the Internet Users' Glossary, amplifies this meaning as "A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in particular." As documented in the Jargon File, these hackers are disappointed by the mass media and general public's usage of the word hacker to refer to security breakers , calling them “crackers” instead. This includes both “good” crackers (“ white hat hackers ”) who use their computer security related skills and knowledge to learn more about how systems and networks work and to help to discover and fix security holes, as well as those more "evil" crackers (“ black hat hackers ”) who use the same skills to author harmful software (like viruses, trojans, etc.) and illegally infiltrate secure systems with the intention of doing harm to the system. The programmer subculture of hackers, in contrast to the cracker community, generally sees computer security related activities as contrary to the ideals of the original and true meaning of the hacker term that instead related to playful cleverness.

History Before communications between computers and computer users were as networked as they are now, there were multiple independent and parallel hacker subcultures, often unaware or only partially aware of each others' existence. All of these had certain important traits in common: Creating software and sharing it with each other


Placing a high value on freedom of inquiry; hostility to secrecy
Information-sharing as both an ideal and a practical strategy

Upholding the right to fork

Emphasis on rationality

Distaste for authority

Playful cleverness, taking the serious humorously and their humor seriously
These sorts of subcultures were commonly found at academic settings such as college campuses . The MIT
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory , the University of California, Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon University were particularly well-known hotbeds of early hacker culture. They evolved in parallel, and largely unconsciously, until the Internet , where a legendary PDP-10 machine at MIT, called AI, that was running ITS , provided an early meeting point of the hacker community. This and other developments such as the rise of the free software movement drew together a critically large population and encouraged the spread of a conscious, common, and systematic ethos. Symptomatic of this evolution were an increasing adoption of common slang and a shared view of history, similar to the way in which other occupational groups have professionalized themselves but without the formal credentialing process characteristic of most professional groups. Over time, the academic hacker subculture has tended to become more conscious, more cohesive, and better organized. The most important consciousness-raising moments have included the composition of the first
Jargon File in 1973, the promulgation of the GNU Manifesto in 1985, and the publication of The Cathedral and the Bazaar in 1997. Correlated with this has been the gradual recognition of a set of shared culture heroes, including: Bill Joy , Donald Knuth , Dennis Ritchie , Alan Kay , Ken Thompson , Richard M. Stallman , Linus
Torvalds , Larry Wall , and Guido Van Rossum . The concentration of academic hacker subculture has paralleled and partly been driven by the commoditization of computer and networking technology, and has in turn accelerated that process. In 1975, hackerdom was scattered across several different families of operating systems and disparate networks; [ citation needed ] today it is largely a Unix and TCP/IP phenomenon, and is concentrated around various operating systems based on free software and open-source software development.
Hacker Ethics Many of the values and tenets of the free and open source software movement stem from the hacker ethics that originated at MIT and at the Homebrew Computer Club .
[ citation needed ] The Hacker Ethics were chronicled by Steven Levy in Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution and in other texts. Hacker ethics are concerned primarily with sharing, openness, collaboration, and engaging in the Hands-On Imperative.
Linus Torvalds , one of the leaders of the Open Source movement (Known primarily for developing Linux's core), has noted in the book "The Hacker Ethic" that these principles have evolved from the known Protestant
Ethics and incorporates the spirits of capitalism, as introduced in the early 20th century by Max Weber .
The Glider , proposed as an emblem of the "hacker community" by Eric S. Raymond . The academic hacker subculture is defined by shared work and play focused around central artifacts.
[ citation needed ]
Some of these artifacts are very large; the Internet , the World Wide
Web , the GNU Project , and the Linux kernel are all hacker creations,
[ citation needed ]
works of which the subculture considers itself primary

custodian.
The academic hacker subculture has developed a rich range of symbols that serve as recognition symbols and reinforce its group identity.
GNU 's Gnu ; the BSD Daemon ; Tux , the Linux penguin ; and the Perl Camel stand out as examples. The use of the glider structure from Conway's Game of Life as a general Hacker Emblem has been proposed by Eric S. Raymond .
The academic hacker subculture has an annual ceremonial day— April Fool's .
There is a long tradition of perpetrating elaborate jokes, hoaxes , pranks and fake websites on this date, which includes the publication of the annual joke RFC .
Use ouside of computing While the word hacker to refer to someone who enjoys playful cleverness is most often applied to computer programmers, it is sometimes used for people who apply the same attitude to other fields. For example, Richard Stallman describes the silent composition 4′33″ by John Cage and the 14th century palindromic three-part piece "Ma Fin Est Mon Commencement" by Guillaume de Machaut as hacks.
According to the Jargon File, the word hacker was used in a similar sense among radio amateurs in the 1950s, predating the software hacking community.
Hack value Hack value is the notion used by hackers to express that something is worth doing or is interesting. This is something that hackers often feel intuitively about a problem or solution; the feeling approaches the mystical for some. An aspect of hack value is performing feats for the sake of showing that they can be done, even if others think it is difficult. Using things in a unique way outside their intended purpose is often perceived as having hack value. Examples are using a dot matrix impact printer to produce musical notes, using a flatbed scanner to take ultra-high-resolution photographs or using an optical mouse as barcode reader . A solution or feat has hack value if it is done in a way that has finesse, cleverness or brilliance. So creativity is an important part of the meaning. For example, picking a difficult lock has hack value; smashing a lock does not. As another example, proving Fermat's last theorem by linking together most of modern mathematics has hack value; solving the four color map problem by exhaustively trying all possibilities does not (both of these long-standing mathematical challenges have now in fact been proven).
In home computing, a hacker is a person who heavily modifies the software or hardware of their own computer system. It includes building, rebuilding, modifying, and creating software ( software cracking , demo scene ) or electronic hardware (hardware hacking, modding ), either to make it better, faster, to give it added features or to make it do something it was never intended to do. Hobby home computer hacking originated around the MITS Altair .
Harware modifier Hardware hackers are those who modify hardware (not limited to computers) to expand capabilities; this group blurs into the culture of hobbyist inventors and professional electronics engineering. A sample of such modification includes the addition of TCP/IP Internet capabilities to a number of vending machines and coffee makers during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Hackers who have the ability to write circuit-level code, device drivers , firmware , low-level networking, (and even more impressively, using these techniques to make devices do things outside of their spec sheets), are typically in very high regard among hacker communities. This is primarily due to the difficulty and enormous complexity of this type of work, and the electrical engineering knowledge required to do so. Hardware hacking can consist of either making new hardware , or simply modifying existing hardware (known as "modding"). Real hardware hackers perform novel and perhaps dangerous modifications to hardware, to make it suit their needs or simply to test the limits of what can be done with certain hardware.
Hacker artists Hacker artists create art by hacking on technology as an artistic medium . Such artists may work with graphics , computer hardware , sculpture , music and other audio , animation , video , software , simulations , mathematics , reactive sensory systems, text, poetry , literature , or any combination thereof.
Dartmouth College musician Larry Polansky states: "Technology and art are inextricably related. Many musicians, video artists, graphic artists, and even poets who work with technology—whether designing it or using it—consider themselves to be part of the 'hacker community.' Computer artists, like non-art hackers, often find themselves on society’s fringes, developing strange, innovative uses of existing technology.
There is an empathetic relationship between those, for example, who design experimental music software and hackers who write communications freeware ." Another description is offered by Jenny Marketou: "Hacker artists operate as culture hackers who manipulate existing technosemiotic structures towards a different end, to get inside cultural systems on the net and make them do things they were never intended to do." A successful software and hardware hacker artist is Mark Lottor (mkl), who has created the 3-D light art projects entitled the Cubatron , and the Big Round Cubatron . This art is made using custom computer technology, with specially designed circuit boards and programming for microprocessor chips to manipulate the LED lights. Don Hopkins is a software hacker artist well-known for his artistic cellular automata. This art, created by a cellular automata computer program, generates objects which randomly bump into each other and in turn create more objects and designs, similar to a lava lamp, except that the parts change color and form through interaction. Says Hopkins, "Cellular automata are simple rules that are applied to a grid of cells, or the pixel values of an image. The same rule is applied to every cell, to determine its next state,

based on the previous state of that cell and its neighboring cells. There are many interesting cellular automata rules, and they all look very different, with amazing animated dynamic effects. ' Life ' is a widely known cellular automata rule, but many other lesser known rules are much more interesting." Some hacker artists create art by writing computer code, and others, by developing hardware. Some create with existing software tools such as Adobe Photoshop or GIMP . The creative process of hacker artists can be more abstract than artists using non-technological media. For example, mathematicians have produced visually stunning graphic presentations of fractals , which hackers have further enhanced, often producing detailed and intricate graphics and animations from simple mathematical formulas.