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ABC News' The Answer Geek Defends Hackers 25

Rolan writes "An article I found today on ABC News Online actually defends hackers and puts into the media the difference. Take a look, it's short, but better than nothing! " It's a good thing to see that the media can actually get things right sometimes. Although I'm sure katz would disagree.
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ABC News' The Answer Geek Defends Hackers

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  • Posted by Mike@ABC:

    The gent who writes that column is, in my estimation, not only a good writer, but a solid example of a hacker as well. Unlike many, however, he's decided to take the time and explain all of this high-tech stuff to average folks. And he's darn good at it.

    If only the rest of the hackers out there felt the same way toward the mainstream media AND the "clueless" masses, you might find that hacker/cracker misconception start to fade.

    Of course, that's just my opinion.

    BTW, that particular column is at least six months old, if not older.

  • Most *self-proclaimed* hackers, perhaps. Those types tend to be the IRC script kiddies that think they know something, so they label themselves "hackers" to all of their friends and co-workers, who in reality know they're idiots.
  • It most certainly is not nothing. I for one routinely read the Tech section of the ABCNEWS site, and there's always a new "answer geek" question there along the sidebar that I glance over at. I'd bet it gets more readers than Slashdot by several orders of magnitude.
  • You seem to be making the assumption that being a hacker is mutually exclusive with being a software engineer. You're right, each approach has its strengths and weaknesses.

    If I need something done quick, and only once, I'll make a quick hack. If I find that I'm using the same hack frequently, I'll switch hats, and redesign/rewrite the thing to be more generalized and robust.
  • It's about time someone on the Media side decided to say something about this. I, for one, think this is ABSOLUTELY a step in the right direction for the HACKER communuty. While I don't think this one article will have an immediate effect, similar articles like this one will help tremendously.

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • Rome wasn't built in a day. The images of hackers as menacing crackers won't be fixed the same way either. I'm glad that it got some press, but your comments are very noteworthy. I doubt if this article had any significant impact.

    Perhaps we really shouldn't worry about the label. Just think of what some other professions have to got through! Like Lawyers and cops.

    But the one part of the article that got me was a claim that the profession would grow at a rate similar to other professions. I know this is not true. In fact, despite the number of jobs in technology fields, fewer kids are going to school to study cs, ee, or comp e.
  • Here's a copy of a letter that I sent to CBS Morning News. Hope you don't mind but I included a link to the HellMouth thread on Slashdot. I don't really expect it to do any good, but I couldn't let it go without at least an attempt.

    --BEGIN--

    The news seems to be focusing on the fact that the two Littleton, Colorado killers were "geeks". That they were outsiders. That they were different.

    As a teenager, I attended both a junior high and a high school that were very clique-ish. If you weren't a jock or socially active (or a wannabe), you were subject to ostracism and abuse. Jocks felt free to heap ridicule on the geeks and the geeks were powerless to stop it. School administrators chose not to see the problem. Coaches actually encouraged the behavior.

    Please understand that, in no way, am I condoning the murders in Littleton. Nor do I consider violence an acceptable response unless you are acting in defense of yourself or your loved ones. What I am trying to point out is that the stereotypical image of geeks was, in a way, the seminal cause of this tragedy. That image is promoted by Hollywood and is currently being reinforced by the news media. That image and the baggage that accompanies it can be the cause for a great deal of pain when you are young and trying to grow and find out who you are.

    No, I'm not placing blame for the murders on the media. That responsibility lies solely on the two murderers and their parents. I faced similar problems growing up and, I'm proud to say, overcame them and feel that I am stronger for it. What I am saying is that being labeled a geek or a nerd gives society free reign to shower you with ridicule and abuse. And now, with the Littleton tragedy so fresh in everyone's minds and with the Media reinforcing the image of geeks as "different" or "outsiders" and therefore not to be trusted, the abuse and ostracism can only increase.

    I am a geek. I have grown up with that stereotype and the abuse, both physical and emotional, which accompany it. But I am also a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a boss, an employee, thirty-something, brown haired, average build, ticklish, a romantic and many other labels. No single one of these labels defines who I am. Even looking at me through the combined filter of all of these labels won't show you who I am because you are still filtering me through your labels. You're not seeing me as I actually am.

    Calling someone a 'Geek' or a 'Nerd' is prejudice. It differs from racial or sexual prejudice only in kind. Anytime you choose to place a label on a person to the exclusion of everything else that person is, it's prejudice. And that is something that we've had far too much of in this country.

    With that in mind, I'm asking you to put aside your prejudices. Look at people and try to see who they really are. Don't filter your perception through the labels that society puts on them. As members of the Media, I challenge you to brush off your reputations as unbiased observers and reporters. Look at all sides of this issue...and all the others...and report facts. Report the truth. Ungarnished, unbiased and unfiltered.

    Take a look at and report on the Web Site that I've included a link to and report on the other side of the story. Look at your handiwork and see if it's good. Help educate and inform the public. People don't need any help holding on to our personal prejudices and biases. What we need from the Media and from the entertainment industry, is help opening our minds to the wonders and truths that surround us in everyday life. We need help seeing that every person is special and that we should like or dislike them based on their individual merits, not on the labels that they wear, regardless of whether that label reads black, white, rich, poor, Catholic, Protestant, jock or even geek.

    Sincerely,

    John S. Coxen

    http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/04/25/1438 249&mode=nocomment&threshold=0

    --END--
  • I think the word "cracker" is simply an attempt to come up with some sort of in-between with the media in describing somebody that breaks into systems. Most journalists don't use that term; they use the term "hacker" instead. Anyway, I think a better term to describe people that break into systems is "criminal."

    The author's description of a hacker as somebody that makes furniture with an axe is probably correct entymologically; it reminds me of watching those guys at state fairs with chain saws attacking a log the size of Hulk Hogan's leg and creating a pretty statue while everybody else just gawks. But you probably wouldn't want your living room to be populated by that kind of furniture.

    Hackers are good for getting a job done quickly, and even artistically.

    In my experience, it is usually best for a larger project if you team up a hacker and a software engineer with more experience... the hacker will be chomping at the bit trying to write the code, and the engineer will be starting off with a real design. Usually the hacker will end up facing a brick wall while the engineer will have a pretty good design ready for the two of them to code. If the hacker is willing to learn his/her trade, such a pairing will usually end up with two pretty competent engineers.

    There's a time and a place for hacking code. There's also a time and a place for good design. And there is no place for a "cracker" in my world. [smile]
    --
  • I think the word "cracker" is simply an attempt to come up with some sort of in-between with the media in describing somebody that breaks into systems. Most journalists don't use that term; they use the term "hacker" instead. Anyway, I think a better term to describe people that break into systems is "criminal."

    Would you also argue that a person who steals things from stores, one who steals money from his company, and one who kills the innocent should all be best described as "criminals"? Personally, I find it more informative to describe them as "shoplifter", "embezzler", and "murderer". Why, then, not have a to describe those criminals who break into other people's systems?

    There's a time and a place for hacking code. There's also a time and a place for good design.

    As someone often described as a "hacker" who's spent a large portion of the last few weeks on design work, I see no reason to consider hacking and design to be mutually exclusive. But that's probably just an indication that, of the many different definitions of "hacker" that are out there, I don't go by the same one as you do.

  • I don't think the mainstream media is likely to change it's use of 'hacker' anytime soon. It's a term that's become part of the 'popular' folklore.

    How many films have we seen where the computer geek is described as a 'hacker'. Or the action of breaking into a computer system is described as 'hacking'.
  • More jobs for the rest of us! And probably better paying too ('cause we'll be in demand!) :)
  • What difference does the name make anyway? Even if journalists and the public at large clued in to the definitions of 'hacker' and 'cracker', they'd act the same way. They'll still fear what they don't understand and every time a government machine gets cracked, the feds will panic, the media will panic, and every 'hacker' will be labeled 'cracker' and we'll all be right back were we started. The only difference will be instead of saying 'no, no, hackers don't do that', you'll be saying 'no, no, I'm not a cracker, I'm a hacker'. You'll still be getting the same side-long looks and the same hassles.

    sed s/hacker/cracker/g cnn.old > cnn.new

    The article will be just a misinformed as it was before. The President will make the same speeches, the media will spread the same FUD and every hacker will have the same hassles as he/she had before.

    The message the media and the public at large have to learn is not an english lesson, it's a simple idea...

    Technology is not a bad thing.

  • Hey now, It's not totally hopeless.

    I think I got the hacker/cracker thing right in a story [forbes.com] I wrote last summer.

    True, there are few reporters that care enough to make the distinction, but our numbers are, I think, growing.

    -Josh McHugh
  • ...is the fact that they have no word embodying the concept of hackers as you'd describe them. So you can't let the media stick to their term and adopt another, for strictly PR terms, let's say.
  • by {*} ( 36377 )
    Let us say Stallman is a hacker. Let us say gcc is a well designed compiler. Ummm....

    Let us say that hackers may not _necessarily_ bad coders. Can?
  • Sigh. It's a sad, sad day when you are considered a biggot for calling someone a hacker. You'll be prejudice for picking McDonalds over Burger King, or Linux over Windows, or red over blue (red IS better than blue though..)
    If any of you guys were hackers you'd just agree with me that as a whole, they are a buncha geeks that are up to no good. I dont see why everyone gets all touchy about it. You dont have to be a pasty nerd that sits on the computer all day, you are to blame, not "them".
    The internet is one of the few places in the world where you dont have to worry about stuff like this.. you are spoiling a good thing.
    -X Con
  • When I first wrote the hackers vs. crackers article in June of last year (1998), I had no idea that it would generate this much interest almost a year later.

    My background is not in journalism but in UNIX and network admin. I too get frusterated when clueless editors use a term that oversimplifies. Case(s) in point: hackers, computer viruses, etc.
    But that's what the media does. They have to wrap issues into neat, tidy packages and present them to the masses. Otherwise they'll lose their audiences and ratings. It's wrong, yes. Will they ever change? No.

    And I'm quite sure that we, the hacker community, are not the only group that has this complaint. Every field has had run-ins with the media. Just peruse the list of corrections in your favorite local rag and you'll see what I mean. Personally, I'm constantly complaining to my editor because he will often edit my articles for "brevity" and lose the meaning in the process. Then the flame mail rolls in. Arg.

    The flood of email I've received from /. readers has been great. I'm glad someone is reading the column :) Maybe things will change when computers become so pervasive they won't be a hot story for the tabloid news. Then again, they need all the fodder they can get ...

    Jack Valko
    aka The Answer Geek
  • Articles timely- Me? 58- 3 Nerds for Kids-
    2 adjusted OK one may be about to go down in personal flames in a jet and my old biplane is struggling to carry enough water to put out flames- recent communication lines reopened-will be using slashdot to keep rusty doors open in cranium area still cabable of thought.
    Discovered you through my favorite NERD

    PS I Am a surviving older version NERD Thank you for articles
  • To me, a hacker is someone who programs like a chicken without a head, and actually can get something running sometimes.
    Most "hackers" don't have any clue about software design....

Your password is pitifully obvious.

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