While Reg readers know the difference between a true hacker and cyber-crook, for everyone else, hacking means illegal activity
- Reference: 1614942005
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/03/05/debate_hackers_against/
- Source link:
During the week you can cast your vote using the embedded poll, choosing whether you're in favor or against the motion. The final score will be announced next Tuesday, revealing whether the for or against argument was most popular. It's up to our writers to convince you to vote for their side.
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This week's motion is: [2]Hacking is not a crime , and the media should stop using 'hacker' as a pejorative. On Wednesday, we [3]published an argument for the motion.
And now, today, arguing AGAINST the motion is IAIN THOMSON...
[4]
First of all, full disclosure: I sympathize with those in favor of the 'for' argument. I know how you feel from personal experience: pretty much every journalist has been called "a hack" in a pejorative sense at some point in their lives.
Since the 18th century, authors have used the word 'hack' to refer to a scribe who could write to order, the term evolving to mean someone willing to knock out sub-standard work for a fast buck. It was used to tar whole professions, from journalists to novelists. The word is a shortened version of hackney, a breed of horse used by carriages-for-hire. Though it's not quite parallel with the history of 'hacker' and 'hacking', but us journos are aware of what it's like to be smeared with a hijacked word.
Regular Register readers can differentiate between criminal hackers who break the law and ruin people's lives, and hardware and software hackers who ingeniously lash together systems and perform miracles to get things running. But for the wider population, hacking has become synonymous with nefarious activities because - for the vast majority of people who experience it - it's in a criminal context.
It's a matter of some frustration, and we do what we can. But expecting the mainstream media to differentiate between a cracker, hacker, skimmer or script kiddie is asking a lot of education in the small soundbytes their viewers depend on.
The words 'hack' and 'hacker' are today linked to wrongdoing in advertising, government and corporate messaging, cinema, writing, theater, songs... it's usually cringeworthy from a technical standpoint but the trope is out there.
Sad to say, someone developing a particularly elegant hack, in the ethical sense, often won't get the widespread respect they deserve. But criminal coders, and the tools they create, can definitely impact millions of people in a way that guarantees an unsavory reputation and hours and pages of coverage. And, let's face it, criminal scumbags they may be but there are a tiny percentage of genuinely elegant criminal pieces of code out there.
Tablet, cloud, catfish, tag, sandbox, text, furniture. All these words and more have changed meaning over time and use. Any living language evolves. It's possible for hack, hacker, and hacking to sustain multiple meanings.
If the last dozen years covering IT security in the US have confirmed anything to me, it's that the vast majority of hackers in the original sense of the word, in the context of computing, are ethical, decent folks who love finding interesting ways to make code better, stronger, and much more useful. But for the non-technical audience, hackers remains a term loaded with suspicion.
Having said that, I've lost count of the number of people in the industry who were inspired to get into infosec by what they saw in books, TV, and movies. People have embraced the term regardless of its connotations: plenty of conferences still describe themselves as hacker events, referring to cyber-security or hardware fiddling, and that's the goal ahead - reclaiming the term.
We'll do what we can to clarify in our coverage that a hacker breaking the law is a criminal, and a hacker with a brilliant algorithm is law-abiding and admirable, but trying to override today's language in the short term is impossible: it's something for the long haul. ®
Cast your vote below. We'll close the poll on Monday night and publish the final result on Tuesday. You can track the debate's progress [5]here .
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[7]Iain Thomson is The Register's US news editor based in San Francisco and has spent the last 25 years covering technology online and in print.
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[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YEJjqsEb2HqR8MdJxtaXzAAAAI4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://www.theregister.com/Debates/2021/03/03/hacking_not_crime/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/03/debate_hackers_for/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YEJjqsEb2HqR8MdJxtaXzAAAAI4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/Debates/2021/03/03/hacking_not_crime/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YEJjqsEb2HqR8MdJxtaXzAAAAI4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://twitter.com/iainthomson
[8] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
exactly .
Ship has Sailed.
No way can ethical hackers reclaim the word.
No matter how many "life hacks" are put on youtube.
I know the real meanings of 'Hacker' and 'Hack' and know the history back to Ol' Captain Crunch days.
But you've lost that word, it's gone and you're not getting it back.
Maybe you need to think of a new one or bring back and even older one - tinkerer, modder etc
> the media should stop using 'hacker' as a pejorative
As my esteemed colleagues noted above, that horse has bolted, and even died of old age since. There is little point in running to close the stable door now.
It's just language and how it evolves, "hacker" isn't the only term which changed meaning over time.
When you see how inaccurate the popular media (Newspapers, movies, TV) are about topics you know something about, you have to wonder if they're just as sloppy about "dramatising" other areas, e.g police procedures.
But hack/hacker/hackneyed were used as pejoratives before computers were invented, so to some extent it's our own fault for appropriating the term and misusing it to mean "a clever kludge".
Which doesn't stop my blood boiling whenever I hear a "Technical" term (mis)used by knowlessmen.
Ah, well
The usage that sets me to grinding my teeth is the back-formation "mentee". Were I a hacker/cracker/malicious person, I would loose on the world a bit of code to turn every occurrence of "mentee" to "manatee".
Badly worded motion
I'd expect almost all ElReg readers to agree with "Hacking is not a crime, and the media should stop using 'hacker' as a pejorative." The real question has the shipped sailed or it is recoverable? IAIN THOMSON seem to be more resigned to the situation than arguing against the motion .
Re: Badly worded motion
I purposefully didn't vote yesterday in order to hear the argument against, but I agree, this was a weak argument. - "give up, the meaning of words change".
Too Far Gone
It absolutely makes my teeth itch whenever I see what should be called a TIP called a HACK, i.e. '7 top HACKS for creating a better whatever' So I'm fairly certain that it's too far gone be restored to it's former glory.
Looking at the vote, this is a bit of a lost argument. I guess because you are writing to readers of "The Reg" who do know the difference and tend to like precision in terms. They are also bloody minded enough to want to keep the terms for what they should mean rather than what the general usage is.