I laugh at this. It's the same as it's always been. People in an influencial position write articles trying to shape the opinion of the general public. These people are usually ignorant of the details or the truth (though some of it may well be true) and never show both sides of the fence. Obviously there are digerati (I will use this term rather than labelling someone as a hacker or cracker...you can look up the definition here) that use their knowledge and skill for malicious intentions, but there are also those who use their ability for good. Human knowledge belongs to the world as the saying goes, but like all power (which knowledge is a form of), it comes with responsibility. It's unfortunate that people don't realize that it's these digerati that propell our technology forward and protect us from the irresponsible ones. I think it would do well for society to have most people learn more about computers and to allow those who are skilled in the ways of 'hacking' show their side of the story. One of these media publications needs to grow a set of balls and ask a digerati to write a guest article...something along the lines of: [gloworange]Hackers on the Subject of Hackers[/gloworange]. Let the public form their own opinion by hearing both sides of the story. Unfortunately, the only place you'll find such articles are on hacking websites, where the only audience is fellow 'in-the-know' people. I just think we need to start doing something other than bitching on forums. If it really bothers people to be mislabeled then I would suggest that someone here with the right to be called a digerati take the initiative and approach a media company with a request for an article. I do have an intrigue for learning as much as I can about everything computer related and would one day like to contribute to improving our technology, but I'm in no way what most people would call a hacker. I think we need someone with a real authority on the subject to go for it and lets see what happens. I'm sure the public is not as dumb as a stump and can form their own educated decisions once they have all sides of the issue.

Anyway, enough from me. This is just an opinion.

[shadow]agent.idle[/shadow]