50 lines
2.2 KiB
Org Mode
50 lines
2.2 KiB
Org Mode
#+title: Hacking
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#+summary: A simple description of what hacking is really about
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#+license: bysa
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* Hacking
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He's a *hacker*! Oh no, the pirate's going to *hack* our computer! And our mobile
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phones! And our TV! Run for your lives! He'll use our credit cards to *hack*
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even more! He might even *hack* our fridge!
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That's not a hacker. That's an evil person. Hackers are not evil. Hackers are
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curious people. The evil person described above can be called a /cracker/
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instead. Such a person can be said to /crack/ computers and mobile phones, not
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hack them. Hacking is very different.
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*Hacking* is the act of creating new ways to use objects with well-defined
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uses. It's about experimenting, being clever, and playing. Hacking does not
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have to result in something useful, though it sometimes does in the long
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run. It's about the present.
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When you've hacked something, you've created a *hack*. It can happen
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spontaneously, or it can happen because you want it to happen.
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Once, I was eating a pizza in a restaurant with a group of friends when one of
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my friends couldn't eat anymore of his hummus. I had one slice of pizza back,
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and he had a little hummus back. I realized then that I could /combine/ the
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pizza and the hummus, and tada: I ate a hummus pizza slice (which was good, by
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the way); i created a hack.
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Much more clever hacks have been created, but the hummus pizza example should
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serve as a simple example of what a real-life hack /could/ be --- a hack can be
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so many things.
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Hacking is often associated with software development, because that's often
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about finding clever solutions and being open for new ways to do things.
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** "Just stop it already. You've lost."
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One could argue that the hacking community should just accept that the media
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and the non-hacker part of the public have long ago changed the meaning of
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hacker to "person who breaks digital security", and that hackers should just
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find another word to describe themselves. But if we did that, all the history
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associated with hacking would fade as new generations came along.
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** External links
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+ [[http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker.html][The Jargon File: hacker]]
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+ [[http://stallman.org/articles/on-hacking.html][stallman.org: On Hacking]]
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