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People like to look down on cracking (of software and computers) as being evil or juvenile once they're a sysadmin/security analyst. While I'm not going to call them wrong, I suspect that a very large number of the more knowledgeable sysadmins, system coders, and whatnot out there, have at one time or another spent some time freeriding, and learned one or two technical skills in a not-so-legitimate manner. I don't think I've talked to a UNIX guy (and I'm talking about serious sorts, not the type churned out with an IS degree and little idea what they're doing) yet who's talked about this and said "No, I've never pirated software/cracked software/broken into someone's server". I spent a lot of time cracking software back in the day. Never distributed it, and it did eat up a lot of time. However, I'm now happily using the skills that started there to do systems work. Poking at people's servers, in the same vein, breeds better security types.
Do you think having a background in warez and cracking makes us better security/admin types as the comment suggests, and if so, does that mean there's a hidden value in the warez trade? More to the point, does the software industry owe a debt to the warez pirates for giving people like us the skills to become white hats? And if so, what's the way out of this catch-22?