Hackers 106
| Hackers | |
| author | Paul A. Taylor |
| pages | 224 |
| publisher | Routledge, London: 09/1999 |
| rating | 7/10 |
| reviewer | Zortoaster |
| ISBN | 0415180724 |
| summary | In lieu of the Norwegian police's crackdown on 16 -year-old hacker Jon Johansen who broke the DVD copying protection, Paul A. Taylor's book Hackers raises a series of interesting questions about crackers and cracking. The book scores high on content but lacks somewhat in presentation. |
Hackers and hacking
Hackers starts out with a discussion on the hacker, what he (as is pointed out in the book, the hacker is almost always a 'he') does, and why he does what he does. Somewhat sadly, although fairly well-founded, is Taylor's choice of terminology. He chooses to consistently address the cracker as hacker. A hacker is not a cracker, but a cracker is always a hacker (put in more technical terms: the cracker is a subset of the hacker class -- think object orientation here), which is a point Taylor seems to willfully ignore. That he chooses to use the terminology in this manner is rather sad because it puts an ugly stain on the respectability of the hackers -- those of us who not meddling in computer break-ins or other dubious activities, but merely hack code to produce cool software. Throughout the rest of this review I will be using the term cracker to refer to Taylor's hackers, and hacker when referring to real hackers
However, since crackers are a subset of hackers, much of Taylor's discussion on the hack and hacking is applicable to the hacker community at large. This is one of the things that makes Hackers an interesting read. For a newcomer to the hacker community Taylor's discussion on the 'hack' is quite enlightening. Even for oldtimers his discussion may shed some new light on the hack. Contrary to existing material on the matter, like the Jargon File, Taylor is the first to spell out the criteria implicit in earlier treatises on the hack: 1) simplicity, 2) mastery, and 3) illicitness [as in 'against the rules', reviewers comment] (p.15). This latter criteria is in its use of the 'illicitness' term only applicable to the cracking activity. In a sense it is applicable to hacking as well. Then in the shape of 'against the rules'. We are not neccessarily talking against the rules of justice, but against what the system's rules say is possible. In that sense, calling the third criteria illicitness hints at somewhat dubious activities, but is in fact not. It is an important element in the regular hack (if such thing as a regular hack does exist), too.
Taylor manages to view the hacker community from a fresh angle. Being a sociology researcher his angle is quite different from that represented by for instance Eric S. Raymond or Gisle Hannemyr. One drawback is that Taylor draws on Steven Levy's overly romanticized hacker ethics as presented in Levy's book of 1984: Hackers. It is time someone tried looking somewhat deeper into the hacker psychology to realize that while Levy's five tenets may to a certain degree represent attitudes within the hacker community, it is not, contrary to what Levy proposes, an ethos by which hackers live and die (apart from this, though, Levy's book is highly enjoyable and recommended reading). I'm also having some problems accepting the psychosexual theories on hacking that Taylor proposes. They seem a bit far fetched to me. It's been a while since everybody agreed that Freud's psycho-therapy was kind of overly sex-fixated.
Taylor addresses a largely ignored issue in hacker literature, that of the gender question. Why are there next to no female hackers? He addresses the point through looking at societal factors, by explaining how the community is a masculine environemnt -- the new wild west, so to say -- and the fact that electronic communication creates misogynity through its anonymity. At the end of the chapter it is a bit hard to grasp what Taylor's point is, though (see Presentation for more).
Another issue thoroughly treated is the question of hacker motivation. What drives the hacker to hack? Taylor's background within sociology is again helpful, as he regards the issue from a fresh perspective. Hacker motivation has previously been treated by Eric Raymond in his essay Homesteading the Noosphere . Taylor's angle is to compare academic theories on hacker motivation with the the reasons the hackers' themselves give. From the discrepancy between these two angles he lists four reasons for hacking: obsession, curiosity, boredom, and the feeling of power. If not directly contradicting Raymond's view -- that hackers hack simply to gain peer esteem and status within the community -- Taylor gives Raymond's view a more multi-faceted hue. He goes beneath the drive for esteem, trying to address the reasons why anyone would need to gain esteem from their peers. As such, Taylor manages to add something new to a discussion that has been on the brink of going stale.
Issues on computer security and cracking
Taylor's main focus on crackers is how society at large is to deal with them. Are crackers to be treated as criminal masterminds plotting to bring the world to its knees, or simply misguided kids trying to do something exciting with their computer knowledge? Several views are drawn up, with Taylor quoting representatives of each view without really making any kind of judgment himself as to the better way of handling crackers. It is an exercise in how difficult the question truly is.
A number of other quite intriguing cracker/computer security issues are spelled out by Taylor, as well. Issues include who is to blame when a computer system has been cracked? The system administrator for not maintaining sufficient security or the cracker for breaking into a system to which he doesn't have legal access? Should anti-cracking laws be targeted at stopping all kinds of illegal computer use, or are there degrees to the crime being committed? Is printing your personal CV on the company's printers even though it is explicitly forbidden to use company equipment for personal use to be treated as a computer crime equal to that of breaking into a banking system and tampering with the data?
Taylor also questions the computer security companies' motivations (and rightly so, one might add). Are they simply running a protection racket like that of the mafia, using cracking and virus alerts to scare their customers into investing in expensive counter-measure software? Or are they avenging angels siding with the innocent, the not particularly compu-fluent masses? Using the dichotomy of the computer security industry vs. the crackers, Taylor raises the issue of whether good computer security can only be achieved through knowing the enemy, the crackers. Can crackers and computer security consultants work together in a symbiosis, or are they eternal enemies never to be reconciliated?
Another issue dealt with is how crackers are to be handled. Should their acts be punished in the harshest way, or should they be helped into redirecting their activities into more useful terms? The question is whether the cracker is to be treated as a nuisance or as an asset. Taylor treats this issue quite thoroughly referring from the parliamentary discussion in Britain. He also discusses in what ways legislation can prevent cracking. He shows how little the law enforcement agencies know about cracking and how they employed overkill (refer to the Norwegian police's recent raid on the hacker who broke the DVD encryption).
Presentation
However intriguing the book might be it is presented in a very unorderly and weird way. The pages are filled with rather long quotations from various e-mails, books, interviews, etc. I gather the intention is to present the reader with the direct opinions of the book's "main characters," giving us in a way a first person view of the matter. The idea is nice, but the effect is that it ruins the fluidity of the text, making the book somewhat hard to follow. Also: it is at times quite difficult to grasp what message Taylor is trying to convey when he is expressing himself through the extracts of other people's opinions. Quotes are OK, but when, without exaggeration, 50% of the average page is taken up by quotations it is a little bit too much of the good stuff.
Having said that, the book is very structured, each chapter building nicely on previous chapters. The conclusion at the end of almost all chapters helps clarify Taylor's opinions a bit, which is nice. Still, it does not weigh up for the confusion created by the excessive use of quotations.
Conclusion
Taylor succeeds with explaining the relationship between crackers and the computer security industry, presenting the matter in a more multifaceted way than that of the mass media. The book is a definite must for those wanting an introduction to the social sides of computer security. However, I find it rather amazing that a book written in 1999 seems to totally ignore the writings of Eric Raymond, as these are probably the best works on how hackers view their own culture. Despite this, I believe Hackers might prove an interesting read even for the hardcore hacker, if only as an alternative look at our own culture.
Purchase this book at fatbrain.
Another Good Book (Score:1)
The mass media (Score:2)
quotes, emails and other fillers... (Score:1)
Interesting.... (Score:2)
One point that was mentioned was that IT is unfortunately a male-dominated reserve - and it's sad. We cannot allow this artificial dichotomy to continue.
However the Free Software movement has proven that IT can, and does, throw up changes that work.
Its a sad fact that plenty of the women I know who work in IT have to fight serious pettiness and ignorance just to be treated equally.
Re:Another Good Book (Score:3)
Informative (?) Pedantry (Score:1)
Just to stamp on a negative meme
Jules
Jon Johansen did not break the DVD copy protection (Score:2)
Thank you //Johan
Arrogant viewpoints (Score:2)
Really. I'd like to see the studies, statistics, and data indicating this conclusion. I'm a man, but I know many women in the hacking (no, not cracking, but I'll leave *that* rant to someone more eloquent) community. Granted, there are far fewer women involved in this field than men, but to say that there are "next to no female hackers" is going much too far.
This book sounds like an interesting read, if only to find out what goes on in the minds of non-techies with respect to techies, but I really hope it's not too expensive. Books are steep enough nowadays. Which reminds me... when I'm not a student anymore, I'm going to invest in a college textbook publishing company. Bloody textbook prices are driving me crazy. They must be making some major cash at those publishing companies...
Terminology (Score:1)
There is a long history of words being subverted to other meanings in the English language. Hacker now means someone who maliciously breaks into computers and any amount of moaning will not change that.
Yes yes yes! (Score:2)
Um. On the subject of [h|cr]ackers. I have given up trying to explain this to my friends. I only now resort to the "it's cracker not hacker, darnit, and hacker originally meant someone who tinkered with their computer" speech when, upon learning that I am in the midst of a game of NetHack, say, "Hack!? Are you one of those people who's hacing into Yahoo and eBay?!"
*sigh*
-Ravagin
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is NPR! And that means....it's time for a drum solo!"
Vocabulary nitpick (Score:2)
Are you sure you didn't mean to write "In light of the ..."? C'mon guys, a spellchecker doesn't replace actual proofreading.
Re:The mass media (Score:2)
Depicting the hacker as evil (no matter how clueless the movie is) for some unknown reason does not actually work. Actually the reason is well known - sticking the attribute "evil" to the hacker in general is unreal. Some of them are evil, but this is evil as people not hacker=evil.
So, do not blame holywood for now, It is the mass media that needs a beating over the head with a cluestick. With the nails left in.
Especially ABC and a few other news networks.
Re:Terminology (Score:1)
Female "Hackers" (Score:2)
Male hackers/crackers (aren't crackers something I break into my soup?) are often engaged in these activities to garner some respect and esteem from the community at large, stroke their egos, so to speak. Female participants in the community are more likely to be doing it for their own self gratification, not a pat on the back.
There is also my still-standing opinion that many women in this industry don't have the self-presence to compete effectively in the industry, simply because they take things entirely too personally. Everything sounds like an insult or sexist comment to them. It's a sad symptom of women all over the world, and applies to a lesser degree to any minority.
That said, I'm female, and because I am here for my own personal enjoyment and growth, it doesn't matter what male hackers/crackers (soup? can't stop thinking about soup...) say or do.
stop taking life so seriously. It's not out to get you.
My opinion, abuse it as you wish.
Sakhmet.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
Security is our responsibility (Score:3)
The topic of security is a fascinating one and with the proliferation of 24/7 broadband access, ie., ADSL, cable, ISDN, it is prudent that whether you plan to put a windoze box, *nix box, Mac box, or Be box on the net, you RESEARCH security before you put that box out there.
The latest DDoS attacks were blamed on zombie Linux boxen out on the net.   Alot of the reports focussed particularly on those PCs sitting on college campuses with big pipes.   I think that in the education arena, particulary in the CS departments at the colleges, driving home the issue of computer security is a MUST
.
Oops, Plain Old Text isn't (Score:1)
These are the files you should include: stdio.h, sys/types.h, time.h, stdlib.h, ctype.h
See how good Open Source is? It's easy to post corrections!
Hackers and crackers (Score:1)
I like hacking around with code, operating systems and toys. It is an extension of my childhood Lego set. I suppose I am a hacker, and most
Issue 2: Why are 'hackers' male ?
OK, computing is male dominated. The reasons are better discussed by John Katz than me. As for crackers - everyone convicted to date (to my knowledge) has been male. Once the press apply the standard 'identi-kit' hacker prose describing them and their deeds, the male hacker/cracker stereotype, with all its associated images, gets reinforced. I await the press reaction to the conviction of the first high profile female cracker with great interest.
The "hacker" Meme (Score:1)
I'm going to share an experience I had an year or two ago, when I was interviewing for a job at a local high circulation newspaper. It is illustrative of how a book like this can cause great missunderstanings.
In the course of the iterview I used the sentence "Which is something that I, as a self-respecting hacker, would never do". This was followed by a pregnant silence and "significant looks" being exchanged between by employers-to-be.
This led to a quick explanation, a frantic search for The Jargon File [tuxedo.org] and, believe it or not, a short article in the "Computers" part of the paper regarding the difference between hacker and cracker. All in all, it was a Good Thing (and I got the gig, too).
I was lucky, I had a chance to "defend myself" and managed to get the point accross, but I suspect that any person describind him/herself as a hacker will face much the same reaction - and will likely face unwarranted negative reactions. I realize that the meme is widespread, but it must be fought somehow.
There is a pretty good letter and other suggestions here [tuxedo.org]. Has your local newspaper received one yet ?
My 2 units of local currency's worth (Score:1)
This is one of the most infamous entries in the book, which broke in live on a BBC Television demonstration of the Prestel service.: The Hacker Song [poppyfields.net]
The reason there seems to be a more male bias in cracking is simple. Schools and parents encourage boys towards technical stuff, and girls towards nurturing stuff. The women crackers tend to be the rebellious ones who told their parents where they could stuff their gender roles.
If men and women were allowed to go after their own, personal interests, rather than have them dictated from On High, I suspect you'd find that the number of men and women in cracking was about equal. I suspect that the overall total would be less, too, as dictatorship & control breed far more resentment and hostility than guidance and understanding.
Right title.. wrong book. (Score:1)
Re:Yes yes yes! (Score:1)
Re:The mass media (Score:1)
You forget one of the earliest movies - "War Games".
Even though movies like "Matrix" and "The Net" show generally well meaning "hackers", the plot still has a negative overlay.
Seems that the "mad/evil scientist" plot line has been played out enough for the time being (literally over the past 100 years of movie making), and so now you have the "mad/evil hacker" to take its place.
Confusion and stupid choices. (Score:2)
have a book called "Hackers" (what keeps this particular book from
stepping on it's toes is the fact that it's full title is
"Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution".)
But still, that's pretty lame to me. Have some friggin consideration for one of
the best books on subject available to both people outside the culture,
and inside. (Yes, I'm aware of it's inaccuracies, but H:HOTCR is still a damned good read.)
Apologies for the flamage, but this pisses me off.
Re:YEAH BABY! (Score:1)
Re:Here's an important Open Source utility (Score:1)
-hemos
wrong (Score:1)
--
Re:Arrogant viewpoints (Score:1)
Really. I'd like to see the studies, statistics, and data indicating this conclusion. I'm a man, but I know many women in the hacking (no, not cracking, but I'll leave *that* rant to someone more eloquent) community. Granted, there are far fewer women involved in this field than men, but to say that there are "next to no female hackers" is going much too far.
Look at the basic anthropology of women. Women are much more hardwired than men to be social animals, and their historical roles bear this out -- attracting and keeping mates, raising children. Sitting around the basement fsck'ing around on PCs isn't a particularly social activity. And no, sending email and chat does not count as a real social activity. Yes, it's a generalization, but we are talking generalities.
My wife is very computer literate, but it's always a means to an end (buying books from Amazon for her all-female book club, for example) and not an end to itself, and typically an end towards a social goal (the aforementioned book club, using email to set up hands-on social activities). Even women's hands-on hobbies often tends towards the social -- quilting, sewing circles, bridge clubs. I've noticed that even solo activities like reading women can make into group activities, like a book club.
Even the women I have met who are predisposed towards computers as something more than appliances tend to focus on the faux-social aspects of computing (chat, email, etc), and usually because the real social reality of their circumstances was unpleasant.
The Hacker figure is much older than Hollywood (Score:2)
Folklore consists of certain universal ideas that have been mapped onto local cultures. For example, many cultures have a Trickster figure, so the Trickster may be deemed a universal; but he appears in different guises, each appropriate to a particular culture's environment. The Indians of the American Southwest called him Coyote, those of the Pacific Coast called him Raven. Europeans called him Reynard the Fox. African-Americans called him Br'er Rabbit. In twentieth-century literature he appears first as Bugs Bunny and then as the Hacker".
I think Stephenson has a point here. In nineteenth-century American literature, I suppose Huckleberry Finn could be called a Trickster too.
Moderators, take note:
1)Read the moderation guidelines before moderating anything
Re:Interesting.... (Score:2)
and why can't we allow it to continue? last time I checked, the vast majority of nurses and secretaries were females, and noone seems to be making a push to "rectify" this "travesty".
people of different sexes are not the same, and they might just statistically perfer different types of things. no need to huff and puff about artificial dichotomies and sexism - if you have a problem with the way women are treated in the industry, just make a personal effort to treat them better.
Re:Terminology (Score:1)
If the media wants to claim the word "hacker" to mean "computer criminal" (which they already have), that's perfectly fine with me. The ambiguity in different circles doesn't bother me at all.
-NooM
In *light* of (Score:1)
Sheesh.
Re:The mass media (Score:1)
Where is fatbrain.com? (Score:1)
Error- 404
Requested Information
www.fatbrain.com//
is unavailable. Failed to connect to server
www.fatbrain.com (80)
reason: hostname unknown
http-gw version 4.1 / 2 (167.92.107.160)
Any idea what's going on? All seemed well last week when I visited the site. Are they suffereing a DDoS because they run asp?
The usual link doesn't work.
Re:Female "Hackers" (Score:2)
I normally use croutons
I think hacking is both
a) competitive,
b) a solo activity
Both are environments in which women seem to fare less well, for some reason. It may be surprising that I claim hacking is a solo activity with the increasing use of groups to attack problems, but even here individual members of a group compete for the largest contribution to the solution.
Hacking/cracking perhaps has a primitive analogy in hunting, where individuals still want to stand out in what may be a group activity.
Life is out to get you, but it's out to get everyone else too!
Re:The Hacker figure is much older than Hollywood (Score:1)
As in "Wiley E.", where you would see that same behavior.
Interesting how Mr. Stephenson's research includes comments about past mythological "evil" figures, although in reality, they are not necessarily evil but more mischievous.   In that case, you can go even further back and take a look at the various mythos of the "ancient world" - the "Pan" figure from Greek and Roman mythology and the "Set" figure from Egypt, although Set was not necessarily a trickster but became more inherently evil along the lines of what came later in the Cain and Abel story...   but I digress...
Hackers and crackers will continue to exists (Score:1)
Re:cracker, the pejorative (Score:1)
Of course, what they really want is a buzzword, so looks like it'll have to be "cybercracker".
Re:Terminology (Score:1)
"Illicitness"? (Score:1)
Why use a term that has a defined and commonly understood meaning, if it's going to take fifty words to explain that you're not using that commonly understood meaning, but rather one you've invented? Particularly when it's one with emotional loading, such as "illicit".
I would use instead the phrase "outside the box" (despite the buzzwording it's suffered in recent years.) "The box" is the set of mental constraints under which the majority of people operate; I would suggest that it *is* one of the great pleasures of hacking (almost an aesthetic pleasure) to go exploring beyond those constraints and come back bearing treasures. Isn't one of the anticipated rewards of a great hack the jaw-drops of stupefied amazement from the first onlookers to behold the surprise? Isn't that, in fact, what often makes the truly great hack a pleasure to onlookers as well as to the hacker?
"Illicit" suggests that a hacker could be motivated just by the thought, "Wow, this is illegal!" (And again, I reject the idea that "illicit" and "illegal" are the right terms to use as long as you misuse "law" to mean "convention".) The thrill of defying authority figures might be what motivates a cracker. But to a hacker, that itself would be a mental constraint ("authority/law" == "automatically bad") within which they would not knowingly choose to be imprisoned.
The Psychology Of Hacking (Score:1)
A friend of mine did a study on this - he wanted to know the difference between a "normal" person and a computer freak. He found none - except that computer freaks have a tendency to hate the telephone...
I've just started a web site about the psychology of software development (http://www.devtopics.de). If you read the chapter about motivation you'll find that this applies to hackers, too, though it isn't aimed at them (maybe I should add another unfinished chapter - sigh).
There are not much female hackers for a very simple reason: women are aimed at reaching goals, they don't have the time or the nerve to play around just to find something (and sometimes nothing) out. Hackers are people think that reality is a game were you have to find the rules and were you can go farther by cheating...
Re:The mass media (Score:2)
What you say is what we would all wish for but unfortuantely, it would only occur under idealized circumstances - and we don't live in an idealized world.   When Joe Q. Public goes to the movies, he wants to be entertained.   He doesn't care whether what he watches is accurate or not as long as there's action and adventure and maybe some suprises along the way.   And until some Walter Cronkite clone (ie., someone who is inherently trust worthy to the public at large) clearly describes the difference between a hacker and a cracker and makes it clear to Joe Q., then nothing will change.   Only a very tiny percent of the world population (it can't be no more than maybe 10%, but I don't have the exact figures to back it up), are technologically-oriented and/or trained.   The rest use that technology and mainly only care about getting done what they need to get done with it.   We as techies are preaching to each other in a forum such as this but we don't have the means or the power to reach the masses.   We, having access to the web as a media form, tend to become spoiled by our ability to spread our points of view around the world, but in reality, few (except at work or in libraries, schools, etc.) have access to this alternative form of media where the message can be heard.   That's where the general media (ie., newspapers, radio, TV, cable, Satellite, etc.) come in.   And even among the media, few will buck the trend.   It will take time.
Arrogant BS (Score:2)
Bull. Neither men not women are "hardwired" for anything, other than a few relexive responses which, revealingly, are the same across the gender line. Response to loud noises, the eye-blink reflex, etc. There is little else in human beings that is hardwired AT ALL. Sure there are differences between male and female humans, but most of them are hardware. Men grow beards, women grow breasts. The social stuff, however, is far too complex to be left to the slow, unreliable hardware. Social things change too fast. The fast responses that software allows are the only solution. So humans learn, grow, and adapt. Faster than their hardwiring would allow.
Hardwiring is for insects.
Sitting around the basement fsck'ing around on PCs isn't a particularly social activity.
No? It is when I do it!
Sure, some (stereotypically) women's hobbies are social. But so are some of men's. In fact, the opposite argument used to be made regarding (stereotypically) women's sports. That they tend to be individual competitions (tennis, gymnastics) rather than team sports.
But I digress. The hacker does not hack for individual glory or profit, or because of the social contacts that it affords. He (or she) hacks "because it's there."
Maybe the women hackers are just better at not getting caught (when they're breaking rules) or avoiding attention (when they're just bending them).
Re:Oops, Plain Old Text isn't (Score:2)
If this was POT:
this wouldn't be bold
this wouldn't be italic
this wouldn't be a link [linuxvideo.org]
this wouldn't be teletype
this would lack emphasis
this would be weak
break
break
Re:Interesting.... (Score:1)
I know plenty of women in IT who suffer discrimination simply because of their chromosone's.
I try my best to treat everyone equally - and in fact if you read my post you will see that I was trying (not very well, it seems. Sorry) to say that we should look at the reasons why. If it is statistical and women simply don't prefer IT - then fine.
But I know one female VB developer who gets some serious peer pressure simply because of her gender.
Even though she is one damn fine coder, and has been doing it for years!
I was arguing that we should ensure that people have choice - not pigeonhole them.
I am sorry if it came out wrong.
Biscuits for cheese (Score:1)
Couldn't somebody find a less heavily loaded term that doesn't deride my favourite snack.
I'm sure that thousands of people like me object to being labelled a criminal for doing nothing more offensive than devoting a small portion of our time to eating.
Thanks!!
-----------------------------------
Re:cracker, the pejorative (Score:1)
The media seems to like anything with the world "cyber" in it - eg., cyberpunk.   Maybe "cybercracker" would be the best moniker to push for.
Re:illiterates (Score:1)
Seriously, this is a pretty bad mistake, certainly not a typo. Is there someplace (on the web, that is) we can direct these clueless folks for vocabulary and grammer help? If so, might be worth putting a link to it in a signature line. I suppose I'd have to figure out how. I suppose it would be worth while.
Misguided reviewer (Score:1)
Re: Let 'em have it (Score:2)
No flamage necessary.
But - why not concede defeat on this terminology battle? I think that hacker is firmly imprinted on the collective retinas of our culture as a bad thing. All the whining in the world from a bunch of fucking phreaks on slashdot won't get people to say "cracker" instead of "hacker".
Very true.
And personally, as a programmer I've always thought of a "hack" as not partucularly good anyway.
And per your above comment, you actually include the term that was always used for those who wrote code - "programmer", which is what folks could go back to using.
I am not a programmer or hacker or coder.   I prefer the networking and adminstering side of things.   But I will say this - folks who go into any techy field are often labeled by the non-techs as "geeks" or "nerds" in the negative sense, invoking images of someone with taped up glasses and pocket protectors and high-water pants and such.   BUT...   look at the rapid change of the term "geek" and "nerd"?   As I noted previously, those terms were considered and portrayed (again in the media - particularly TV, movies) as negative, social outcasts, blah.   NOW, the terms "geek" and "nerd" are considered cool - and you can thank media outlets like Wired for that.   So if the term "hacker" (which I think was an attempt to get away from the stereotype that had formed around the term "programmer" as non-social outcast) was a term that programmers used for themselves to get rid of the negative image, and then the media twisted it around (almost like a one for one trade by giving up on nerd/geek and now focussing negativism on hacker), so too can hacker be reversed back to its original meaning.   But again, it'll take some time.
Re:Interesting.... (Score:1)
Now, women are supposed to be a little bit better at mathematics, and have better hand-eye, and men are designed to spread heat throughout their bodies because you need those fingers and toes to hunt, whereas you can still pop out babies without 'em. But some basic physical differences aside, it's arguable that it's environment from there on out. Frankly, I don't think having a penis gives me a leg up (no pun intended) on the women as far as working on computers goes. I blame my geekiness on having computers from an early age.
So basically, I don't see anything wrong with forcing the computer programs on girls, as long as you force them on the boys, too. Put another way, EVERYONE is exposed to physical activities (PE), Mathematics, History, Chemistry, and so on. Perhaps it's time that computer courses were a forced part of the curriculum as well (And in some places, that is indeed the case.) Girls aren't going to automatically want to work with computers any more than their tripod counterparts are, but if they're never really exposed to it, that's going to hurt.
And while we're on the subject, if you're a parent, and your kid is at the age where it can read, get them a damn computer. Give them a chance to get a head start on it if they want. Just don't blow more than five hundred bucks on it or so. If they're not into it, they're not into it, and no amount of wishing will make it so. Try and get your kids interested in painting houses, I'm sure that won't go past the first half hour or so, either.
Re:My 2 units of local currency's worth (Score:2)
Schools and parents encourage boys towards technical stuff, and girls towards nurturing stuff.
If men and women were allowed to go after their own, personal interests, rather than have them dictated from On High, I suspect you'd find that the number of men and women in cracking was about equal.
Doubt it. This is the whole "nature vs nurture" thing. If you look at animals, the females tend to be more nurturing, the males tend to go out and hunt (generalizing broadly, of course). Humans are the same way. Quite a while ago, I read a newspaper column about this, and the writer made the comment that she had given her son toys that weren't the typical masculine toys (no trucks, soldiers, etc) for his whole life. She watched him playing one day, and he was using a doll, pushing it across the carpet saying "vroom vroom!" pretending it was a truck.
I suspect that hacking and cracking are things that appeal to males' need to hunt, and that that is at least as much of a factor as the way people are guided in school and by parents.
Re:My 2 units of local currency's worth (Score:1)
Hmmm...   tell that to the entire feline family of animals, where the male sortof sits on his duff and the female (eg., the lioness) does the hunting.
'Nuff said.  
Re:Arrogant viewpoints (Score:2)
This may be true. And the female hackers may not think of themselves as hackers at all, but something else.
This is similar to the great difference in male and female attitudes toward sex that you see on the web. Go into any chat room and you'll see endless guys making crass come ons that nobody would ever be excited by (except for men posing as women). But even so, any woman you see over, say, 20 has done, to a real guy, exactly what the crass chat room men are always asking for. The difference is that women aren't running around obsessed about it. If there are large numbers of so-called female hackers, then I bet they don't read Slashdot and they don't obssess about the same things typical male hackers do (new kernels, down with Microsoft, lookit how fast my Athlon is).
Re:My 2 units of local currency's worth (Score:1)
Depending on who you listen to it must be one or the other. But the truth is all these self proclaimed experts are talking out of their respective arses. No one has done a REAL study on this. Instead they quote their experiances and un scientific questioinaires.
To really answer this question you would have to do a massive study where random children are taken from birth and bundled into two groups. Males and females that are tought what women are tought today. And the 2nd group of males and females that are tought the way males are. And of course make sure they are not influenced by outside circumstances.
At the end of a 20 year time see what careers they chose and how they faired compared to the population at large. Of course such a study would never happen. We might not like the answer it provides.
where did it all go wrong? (Score:1)
Re:Arrogant BS (Score:5)
Bull. Neither men not women are "hardwired" for anything, other than a few relexive responses which, revealingly, are the same across the gender line. Response to loud noises, the eye-blink reflex, etc. There is little else in human beings that is hardwired AT ALL. Sure there are differences between male and female humans, but most of them are hardware. Men grow beards, women grow breasts. The social stuff, however, is far too complex to be left to the slow, unreliable hardware. Social things change too fast. The fast responses that software allows are the only solution. So humans learn, grow, and adapt. Faster than their hardwiring would allow.
I am SOOOOOOO sick of this PC bullshit, it's not funny. Are you an idiot? Go have a look at a PET or CAT scan of a human female, and then do the same for a male. Do you still need a clue? Men and women are wired DIFFERENTLY. Yes, that's right, the Y chromosome-challenged are indeed physically different than those that aren't. That's right - men and women are PHYSICALLY DIFFERENT. In the HEAD.
Maybe the women hackers are just better at not getting caught (when they're breaking rules) or avoiding attention (when they're just bending them).
This is bullshit, too. I've played on both sides of the hacking fence, and I'd guess maybe 10% of the community is female. The number is about the same for my electrical engineering grad class, too - and it's been about constant since women started getting involved.
It might not be nice and PC to say, but for whatever reason, most women are not interested in computers. Most guys aren't either. I suspect that hacking is some sort of disorder - this has merit - most of the sexual deviants in the world, are, low and behold, male as well. It took me hundreds and thousands of solitary hours hacking and reading and coding to get where I am now. I don't think I'm well adjusted by normal means. I don't think this is a problem, either. The correlations and implications are interesting - Someone should look into THAT. But, fsck science. It's not politically correct.
Kudos!
General Misconception (Score:2)
I think its a very VERY prevalent miconception to all new computer users.
I run a mud and I get asked 'what are you doing?'
My reply is usually 'hacking leave me alone
Then they respond with 'whoa you run the mud but you are hacking your own mud...' *sighs*
Its like a lost cause outside of the community. For every person I sit down and explain it to 20 others wont ever hear the speech and will propogate to 20 of there friends what a hacker 'really' is *laugh*
:-(
Re:Arrogant viewpoints (Score:1)
1) Sheer numbers
2) Human disposition.
Come is this really anything new, Men are using drawn more towards the technological side then women, I am *not* saying women can't perform In this function, Im just saying men tend to have a disposition whether though social upbringing, or testoterone.
Re:Arrogant viewpoints (Score:1)
Re:Female "Hackers" (Score:1)
We take insults and injury personally sometimes regardless of the fact that men tend to sling them around as a form of comraderie. That doesn't mean we take things "too personally".
There are a lot of insults toward women in this industry. We know. We live there. It has nothing to do with being a minority.
Re:Arrogant BS (Score:1)
Perhaps your subject provides more insight into the content of your message than is apparently obvious.
To start off, I'm not disagreeing that men and women are "wired differently." Its practically a biological requirement. However, I would like you to prove to me that this affects how they think. Go ahead. Show me the studies. Prove scientifically that women are no good at computers.
Also, I'm willing to bet that just as many women as men are interested in computers. One of the best programmers I've ever met (IRL) is female. But guess what the attitude of most "hacker" guys towards women is? Not very appealing, I know that much.
-RickHunter
--"We are gray. We stand between the candle and the star."
--Gray council, Babylon 5.
Re:My 2 units of local currency's worth (Score:2)
Seems to me that many birds would disagree, too. Male and Female penguins take it in turn to look after the egg and/or chick, whilst the other hunts.
Sometimes, it gets really complex. Some species change gender, during their lifecycle. Since they don't get a brain transplant, their attitudes and experiences must be the same.
Even if you look at humans, is it =REALLY= that true that the males are the "hunters"? Think about history, for a moment. Elizabeth I, Bodecca and Cleopatra would have disagreed. In more modern times, Baroness Thatcher (former PM of England and one of the most ruthless leaders England has had in over 1,000 years), Monica Lewinsky and Nancy Reagan certainly wielded very un-nurturing, commanding power over others.
I'd say that the "males need to hunt" is wildly over-exaggerated. I suspect you'll find as many men in monastaries as women in nunnaries. Not exactly a place for stalking prey, either way.
Re:Arrogant BS (Score:3)
Men and women are definitely wired differently. Hence the growing discipline of 'gender dimorphism', which study of the differences.
Examples of this include peripheral vision - men's is better because of millions of years of hunting. Men are proven better at map-reading, and women are better at listening. Women have a more sensitive palate, which is why scottish whisky blending houses employ women tasters. The list goes on
Check out "Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps" by Allan Pease [peasetraining.com], which tells you more about it.
Yes, Plain Old Text IS! (Score:2)
Make that, "Since this is POT, [it has all those styles that you demonstrated]"
A lot of people don't seem to get this, but think about how this works: the Slashdot server code doesn't somehow "make" the text display in those styles; it just sends text to your browser, which is the one that displays it. The entire page is one big HTML document and the text of your comment is pasted into the body of that document. If it contains tags, the browser responds to them and displays the text as appropriate.
The "Plain Old Text" mode means that Slashdot does not do any preprocessing (e.g., escaping "<" characters by replacing them with "<" sequences) to the text that you enter before pasting it into the HTML document, so any tags that you type appear directly in the page that the browser receives. The one exception is that it inserts <BR> tags between paragraphs, so you don't have to. Otherwise, what you type is exactly the text that appears in the corresponding part of the HTML page, tags and all, which means that the browser will use those tags as formatting information in displaying the page.
If you use the "Extrans" mode, those special characters are replaced by escape sequences, so any tags you type appear as source rather than being interpreted as formatting information.
Note: all of the above is based on my observing how Slashdot behaves and thinking about the logic of it. It's not like i've read the SLASH source or anything.
#include <std_disclaimer.h>
David Gould
Re:Arrogant BS (Score:1)
Well for a start it's attitudes like that women don't want to put up with. While men sit around comparing whose hard drive is biggest, women are getting together on the web to work together toward common goals. They're staying away from the male bastions and you'll find a lot of ideas flowing in the women oriented groups. They may not be there in equal numbers, but they are there, if not as visible.
It might not be nice and PC to say, but for whatever reason, most women are not interested in computers. Most guys aren't either. I suspect that hacking is some sort of disorder - this has merit - most of the sexual deviants in the world, are, low and behold, male as well. It took me hundreds and thousands of solitary hours hacking and reading and coding to get where I am now. I don't think I'm well adjusted by normal means. I don't think this is a problem, either. The correlations and implications are interesting - Someone should look into THAT. But, fsck science. It's not politically correct.
You logic almost runs the gambit of telling people that hackers are male sexual diviants. Well I won't go there. ;-)
Being different genderwise does not that mean that only one gender is going to be interest in a certain career. I believe as more women are seen in these fields, young girls might start moving into these fields as they see there are contributions to be made that hold their interests. There are many ideas created that are "male oriented". I'm a lover of gadgets, but some women aren't. But they might be if they were items that helped to solve their problems.
For example, take home automation. One one hand you have some very interesting ideas. One of my favorite sites is Home Automation Times [homeautomationtimes.com] which happens to be run by a woman. Now one thing that was mentioned was that a good selling point for a woman customer would be security features. But if you go by ZNet or any other myriad of sites, you get bombarded by ads for X-10 which are practically soft-porn in nature. Really stupid as you are now going to piss off a lot of potential customers and, believe me, decision makers because you are assuming only men are going to be interested in your product.
I see the change, even though it's not always out in the open: women are encouraging other women in these fields and groups of networks are expanding. You may not see us at Comdex or other 'male' get-togethers, because we don't do the topless bar/Las Vegas scene, but we're getting together in our own way. At last we can network across global boundaries. You may not see us yet, but oh yes, we are there!
Re:Arrogant BS (Score:1)
Women have to read maps since guys don't ask for directions....
Well there's also a book out that says that rape was used as a means of procreation. (Presumably, I guess, so ugly cavemen could pass their genes on too.) So the authors concusion is rape is about sex rather than violence and for women not to 'dress provocatively'. Somehow I don't think they'll be able to explain why an 80-year-old woman or 3-year-old child gets raped.
Loads of 'scientific study' out there that reaches really stupid, illogical conclusions....
Re:Arrogant BS (Score:2)
Remember that geeks' lives tend more than most to revolve around their work, and lack of peer-group females at work means a lack of opportunity to socialize with the said females. The gender ratio in Silicon Valley is said to be particularly extreme.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Re:Right title.. wrong book. (Score:1)
Re:Arrogant BS (Score:2)
What differences? I see the only ones mentioned were peripheral vision and taste sensitivity (I'm discounting map-reading and listening because they're most definitely learned rather than hardwired), neither of which has anything to do with whether one is going to be socially engaged (as someone claimed women "naturally" are, and which I dismissed as BS) or solitary (as the same person claimed that men "naturally" are, and which I also dismissed as BS). I consider peripheral vision differences, taste sensitivity differences, and some if not all of the other gender-based differences (in humans) that gender morphology studies have uncovered to be physical differences. No different, really, than those beards and breasts that, I freely acknowledge, DO differ between men and women. They have little or nothing to do with behavior.
Examples of this include peripheral vision - men's is better because of millions of years of hunting.
I love this - cite an acknowledged, measurable difference between men and women, and then propose an entirely untested - indeed probably untestable - reason for that difference. Millions of years of hunting? How is it that you know that's the reason?
(digression)
I recall a discussion with a neurologist who noted a difference in the region of greatest visual acuity between men and women. Though there is a lot of overlap (which was conveniently ignored), women have the greatest acuity in a region around the center of their field of vision, while men have greatest acuity in a region from center to lower. This neurologist then claimed that this was due to men having "for millions of years" to hunt for creatures below their usual line of sight, while women were not subject to this pressure. He ignored several other possible (and IMHO much more probable, and measurable even today) reasons for such a condition.
For starters... Visual acuity is not particularly vital for hunting. A hunter needs to see game, but does not need to discern tiny details about it. Where visual acuity is most vital - particularly in social animals like humans and wolves (and wolves have a highly developed sense so they don't need to rely on the visual acuity so much) is to determine the moods of ones conspecifics. Consider the range of emotion displayed in the human face, and the very tiny differences that mark such displays. Staring because one is interested in something, or staring because one is crazed with anger and poised to attack - there is very little difference between these facial displays. Fractions of a millimeter in eyelid position; barely-perceptible twitches in a clenched jaw as opposed to a relaxed one... yet humans - male and female - can easily tell the difference due to their fine visual acuity. I suggest that the (very real) difference in visual acuity in men and women is due to the fact that men tend to be about the same height (as other men) or taller (than women and children) than others in their tribe while women tend to be taller than some (the children), about the same height as others (the women) and shorter than still others (the men). In order to best evaluate the emotional states of the others in ones group (a valuable survival skill) it would be best to have ones greatest visual acuity near where one would see the faces of those in the group. For men, that's center and below; for women it would tend more toward center.
Same trait, two wildly different proposed reasons for its existence. One is accepted, not because of any evidence, but because it supports the popular notion of "man the hunter". I have no doubt that, if the situations had been reversed (women with greatest acuity at center and lower; men with greatest visual acuity around the center), the same explanation would have been given. Women would suddenly have needed this extra acuity below their usual line of sight because of "millions of years" of plant-gathering and child-watching, both of which involve looking at things below the normal woman's line of sight. Men would have needed acuity near the center of their field of vision to spot distant game on the horizon. When opposite traits are explained by identical scenarios, it's time to look out for bad science.
As for the sensitive palate, IIRC the sensitive palate trait is quite rare in both genders. Very few women are supertasters, but even fewer men are. While it may be a hardware difference, it's hardly a survival skill for either gender - if it were, most of us would be in serious trouble.
Re:Arrogant BS (Score:2)
I am SOOOOOOO sick of this PC bullshit, it's not funny. Are you an idiot?
I find it interesting that you dismiss my arguments as "PC bullshit". Is that so you don't have to disprove them logically? If it's PC, it must be wrong, just because?
If it matters, I'm not particularly PC. I just dislike bad science. And jumping to conclusions about the reasons for differences between men and women is bad science.
Go have a look at a PET or CAT scan of a human female, and then do the same for a male. Do you still need a clue? Men and women are wired DIFFERENTLY. Yes, that's right, the Y chromosome-challenged are indeed physically different than those that aren't. That's right - men and women are PHYSICALLY DIFFERENT. In the HEAD.
Did you even READ my post before venting? Go back and try it. You'll see that I never claimed that physical differences between men and women don't exist. They do! I acknowledge them!
What I dismiss as BS is the notion that these physical differences translate into "hardwired" behavioral differences. The behavioral differences are learned. They have to be, because physical "hardwired" differences change slowly, by natural selection, over many generations. That's perfectly adequate for insects and bacteria and the like, who have hundreds or thousands of offspring and who go through many generations in a short time. But it's far too slow for K-selected social animals like humans. We have to learn most of our behaviors, so that we can change them as the need arises. Good thing we got the big brains that allow us to do just that.
I've played on both sides of the hacking fence, and I'd guess maybe 10% of the community is female.
10% is a lot more than none. What I (and several others) are disputing, among other things, is the notion that (for whatever reason) female hackers don't exist at all. I particularly object when someone (not you - the author of the post I was refuting back there) suggests that the reason there are few (or no) female hackers is biological. Hardwired. Why is it that when most men are disinterested in something, they're just disinterested, but when most women are, it's because they're hardwired to prefer making babies instead? THIS is the kind of bad science that infuriates me, not the (quite reasonable, testable) claim that male hackers outnumber female ones.
Re: Let 'em have it (Score:1)
As far as conceding the debate, I did that a long time ago. As someone who's primarily a legitimate techie, but has sometimes engaged in cracking, I used to be very keen on telling the difference, but it really isn't worth it. (Though I'd be quite pleased if we could get the media to adopt 'Code Gods' as suggested earlier in this thread...)
Re:Arrogant viewpoints (Score:1)
Look, it's not meant to be an insult, and a simple survey of world cultures will show you a pretty dramatically similar picture of women enganging in one set of behaviors and men engaging in another. That there is a split in gender behavior across extremely diverse georgraphic and cultural boundaries is not opinion, it is fact. Moreover it is prima facie evidence that there is something inherently different in the way that men and women approach basic activities and in which activities they perform.
What I really don't understand is why women (and I'll assume you're a woman with a Slashdot handle of Samantha) get so bent out of shape when hearing this explanation; it's neither an insult nor some kind of indictment of women's abilities or capabilities, and nothing in my original message suggests that it is so. I'm clearly aware of women's abilities; my wife makes twice as much as I do, and works in a field AND an industry dominated by men.
Re:Arrogant BS (Score:1)
That's what I said.
I find it interesting that you dismiss my arguments as "PC bullshit". Is that so you don't have to disprove them logically? If it's PC, it must be wrong, just because?
It's a natural reaction to usual rage and flurry of handwaving that happens when an idea that challenges the PC agenda, like, say arguing that there are inherent differences in men and women.
What I dismiss as BS is the notion that these physical differences translate into "hardwired" behavioral differences. The behavioral differences are learned. They have to be, because physical "hardwired" differences change slowly, by natural selection, over many generations. That's perfectly adequate for insects and bacteria and the like, who have hundreds or thousands of offspring and who go through many generations in a short time. But it's far too slow for K-selected social animals like humans. We have to learn most of our behaviors, so that we can change them as the need arises. Good thing we got the big brains that allow us to do just that.
If the differences between male and female behavior are purely social constructs and have no real basis in biology, how do you explain the enormous similarity in gender behavior across wide cultural and geographic boundaries? If we assume that these shared gender behaviors are purely learned, as you suggest, and have no neurological basis, then these must be very successful behaviors because there's very little variation in them from place to place.
I would suggest that there is a physical basis to these behaviors in the brain biology of men and women. This does not mean that these are immutable, predestined behaviors, but subtle yet powerful influences for behavior.
I have numerous friends with small children. Their parents are all University educated, two of them with Ph.Ds in medicine, neither of which pursues any of the stereotypically 'male' or 'female' behaviors (ie, excessively feminine dress, overtly masculine habits, etc) and all of them are baffled when their sons and daughters start demonstrating behaviors that match their genders. Some of them actively try to provide "...environments free of gendered attitudes..." (their phrase, not mine), and all of them do a good job of keeping their children away from television and other mass culture influences. And my wife and I have had the same conversation with each of them, "Where did Emilia/Jon ever get the idea to do ____?" I (and they) don't know how to explain this other than the idea that there must be *something* about their brains that causes them to pursue behaviors based on gender.
Why is it that when most men are disinterested in something, they're just disinterested, but when most women are, it's because they're hardwired to prefer making babies instead?
Why are you totally misrepresenting my argument in that fashion? It's that kind of snide, knee-jerk comment that brings out the PC label.
Re:Arrogant BS (Score:1)
A similar argument was once articulated by an 'eminent' High Court Judge in Britain. It got the adverse publicity it deserved. He 'retired' soon after.
Re:Arrogant BS (Score:1)
Behavioural differences do exist between men and women. Centuries of observation back this up. Whether this is due to nature or nurture is a metter of pure conjecture, but science starts with observation. Currently, no-one has the either the instruments or capabilities to produce any empirical data on this matter. So, as a species we still know nothing about how the brain works. The technology we think is cool for measuring neurological activity is still too crude to tell us anything
Re:Informative (?) Pedantry (Score:1)
Seriously, though: I agree. A review with this sort of mistake should never have been posted.
Thomas
Re:Female "Hackers" (Score:1)
I hope to get it fixed soon.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Hugs all,
Sakhmet.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
Re:Arrogant BS (Score:1)
go read some books on genetics and brain/thinking research. you will see that we are MUCH more hardwired then we would like to admit.
lot (most?) of the hard-wired stuff can be overruled by conscious thinking but only if you are aware of it being hardwired, otherwise you think you want it (the way it's hardwired)!
I am not going to give specific data here but it is easy enough to find books on this (both 'real' science and popular (but still fairly precise) science). I liked the Living with our genes book.
erik
Re:Female "Hackers" (Score:1)
erik
Re:Arrogant BS (Score:1)
Sadly, you're probably right on the 10% issue. For whatever reason, as you say. I spent last week as the only female (and the youngest student) on the Red Hat Certified Engineer course - in a class of 10-12ish - and when I skipped lunch to play with the kernel configuration, comments along the lines of "oh, not eating, it's a girlie thing" were apparently made by the assembled company of male unix admins... Enlightened, aren't we? I spent the whole week feeling twice as stressed as I should have done because I felt that I had something to prove. You can't say that's biological.
hacking is some sort of disorder [etc]
What, so now you're comparing hacking to sexual deviancy? Either that or you're just pointing out that both are practised by men, which isn't making any sort of point that I can see. An intense interest in computing is comparable to an intense interest in something else - line dancing, jazz trombone, whatever. Every obsession has a typical lifestyle that goes with it... maybe there is a particular personality or background type that gravitates towards hacking, but to say it's a (mental? behavioural?) disorder just seems unnecessarily self-castigating...
You may think I'm talking bullshit as well, of course.
It can be used for the good (Score:1)
My terminology (Score:1)
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