Sign of a true lurker

[Slot]

Join Date: 07-07-2004
Total Posts: 1 (0.00 posts per day)

amazing.

[Slot]

Also so this isn't a zero content thread, I would recommend that everyone go out and pick up a copy of "Silence on the Wire" by Michal Zalewski. Interesting stuff.

[JPnyc]

Welcome back. In response to the blurb from the NY times in your sig, I find it very telling. The author unintentioinally reveals the very reason that "hackers" are often referred to as "immature kids". He equates the ability to understand coding and security protocol with maturity, when in fact they couldn't be more unrelated.

Maturity, or the lack thereof, has nothing to do with the type of intelligence or cleverness required to understand various types of technology. They are entirely separate and unrelated.

The reason hackers are referred to as "immature kids" is because of the nature of the need to hack a site in the 1st place. This need can only come from one source, that being the need to prove something, to feel powerful, to gain status, and these needs, in and of themselves, exist only in those who are in a relative state of immaturity.

Mature individuals, whether or not they have the intelligence to understand the technology necessary to hack into a site, would have no interest in doing so. They have already learned and accepted who they are, and have found more substantial reasons to respect themselves, and others.

[Slot]

Thats an interesting idea but I think you left out the need to prove things to oneself. Noted that if you are hacking the NYTimes you are probably not just trying to prove to yourself that you can do it but this is often a push for hackers to do what they do. I wish I knew the better context of that quote because if he just dropped that line into one of their pages no one would have seen it but people who were looking for it (or site admins).

Also, someone who has been on the scene for as long as I predict you have would know that there are a million definitions of a hacker, and you yourself are most definitely one of them. We all are.

[JPnyc]

I meant an overall need to prove something, both to one's self and to all others. It's a way for someone who, for whatever reason, feels powerless and insigificant, to try and remedy that issue.

I was merely referring to the reasons the author revealed. What else could a statment like

"That ‘immature kids’ were able to bypass their 25,000 dollar fire walls, bypass the security put there by admins with XX years of experience or a XXX degree from some college. Nyah Nyah"

be intended to do, if not to elevate the hacker in their own view and (hopefully) everyone else's?

Sure, there are people out there making a living from their hacking skills, and lots of companies employ them to test their own security. I'm not referring to them.

[Slot]

I won't contend that the statement is pretty immature, but hilarious nonetheless.

[IKnowNot]

... This need can only come from one source, that being the need to prove something, to feel powerful, to gain status, and these needs, in and of themselves, exist only in those who are in a relative state of immaturity.

Or unstable and/or completely insane.

[JPnyc]

I won't contend that the statement is pretty immature, but hilarious nonetheless.

Agreed. And look at the conversation it sparked! Please don't make it another 3 years till your next post!!!

[JPnyc]

Or unstable and/or completely insane.

Agreed. I see them all as various degrees of insanity, however, but I tend toward extreme viewpoints

[Slot]

Agreed. And look at the conversation it sparked! Please don't make it another 3 years till your next post!!!

I figure I may start posting at a regular pace now, AO has always been a bit slow for my personal forums taste but I guess I can get used to it . Also, my cutesy IT folks have revoked access to all my other security sites, quoting them as (hacking). Damn you WebSense.