Thread: i dont even know what hacking means anymore

I've done plenty of tricky things to people in my day. Before I knew how to program, I downloaded that nasty program Sub7, sent the server file to my friends via ICQ and had lots of fun (like, fetishistic fun, made their printers print stuff, had fake message boxes pop up, took control of their mouse, inverted their screen, changed their wallpaper, etc).

Once I started to learn how to program I got the passwords from the computer teachers at school by writing a keylogger. I also managed to spy on my family by augmenting my key logger to also take screenshots every minute or so, and save it to a hidden location.

It was fun and all, but I never considered it hacking. But, everything I read nowadays, regardless of how complex a scheme it is, they are referred to as 'script kiddies' or 'not real hackers,' etc. I mean, I viewed a comment someone posted on a CNN news story about some guy that stole millions of dollars via his computer that said "wow, that guy is just a script kiddy, I bet he doesn't even know how to format his own hard drive." I don't know how hard it would be, realistically, to steal millions of dollars. Granted, the guy didnt get away with it either.

Please make pretty comments on my thread. I will heart you forever.

Adequacy is t3h 53CK5!

My 16 year old definition: Cracking is any unauthorized entrance to a computer or program with malicious intent.

EDITED

. . . "with malicious intent" sounds better.

When I think of hacking, I think of cracking. Other people think hacking is nothing to do with cracking, but believe it to be ethical hacking (programmer). It depends on what you think I guess...

Ethical hacking is a highly disputable term. Jeremy Hammond would consider himself an ethical hacker by hacking in attempt to absolve what he thinks is wrong, but his means of doing so was both harmful to others and the system as it dodges certain checks and balances. I try to avoid any phrase that contains such a relative term like "Ethical".

Part of the reason I made this thread was that I knew you would not come up with a consistent answer, which makes me feel better about my own anxiety on the matter.

I'm just using you guys...be mean to me.

Where the hell is bubba? He didn't even comment on my hovertank program. Probably out impregnating his neighborhood, that stud.

When you add "with malicious intent", it's no longer hacking...it then becomes cracking.

Christ....People have different views on it, there isn't a solid answer. Did you even read my edited post?

YOU SUCK, BOB!!! I'M A HACK j00 1337ORZ STYLEZ!!!!!

Man, I hate... umm... uhh... hacking.

Why not use the legal definition:
"Unauthorised access to computer equipment"

intent has no part of that definition.

the legal definition mean that you are guilty of hacking if you are sitting at someone elses computer using it, without asking them first.
[ which is silly, if it's your friend's place and they let you in, you can claim implied consent. ]

Where the hell is bubba? He didn't even comment on my hovertank program. Probably out impregnating his neighborhood, that stud.

LOL. I don't think my wife would appreciate that so no I'm not out impregnating the neighbors.

I do not feel that any form of hacking is legitimate and it is my opinion that justifiying it or trying to twist it to be good is why we now have spyware, malware, and other wares that add nothing to the field of computer science.

Hacking or any attempt to gain access to a program with malicious intent in my book is 100% unacceptable.

Hacking for the purpose of illegal copying
I have over 260 games in my collection (just got 10 more in the last year) and everyone of them is bought and paid for. All of my music is bought and paid for and all of my utlities are bought and paid for. The ONLY exception to this is my Visual Studio which was given to one of my relatives at a MSVS release expo where they gave away FREE copies of MSVS standard. His company does not use MSVS and has abandoned all MS dev products so he gave it to me.

No-cd cracks
This is one area of game cracking that I have mixed views on. It is very nice to be able to run a game without the CD being in the drive. However this type of practice also allows others who have not purchased the game to gain illegal access to it. No-cd cracks should be distributed by the dev company and only granted to those who have purchased the game. Could you monitor this? Not in a million years. This and other cracking devices have come full circle. Now older games are being cracked so we can play them and/or they are games we once owned. Since these games are no longer being sold and could never turn a profit the company should release them to the community as freeware. Some of the older games far surpass the crapola we see so often today.

Remote access to other systems
This is never acceptable unless you have permission to do so. This would most certainly fall under corporate espionage, credit card fraud, identity theft (not necessarily remote theft), etc.

Game hacking for the purpose of cheating
Never acceptable. This is the number one reason companies lose money on multiplayer games. Those who cheat make it suck for those who play legit and therefore most simply leave. Cheating in a game or running a third party program in a game for the purpose of cheating is considered by most game servers to be a bannable offense.
Novalogic finally got around to removing tons of cheaters from their servers and the world has been a better place there because of it.

Whether someone understands exactly how the program works that they use to hack with or if they even understand programming is irrelevant to the fact that they are attempting to gain access to a product with malicious intent. Script kiddy or not they are still in my book hackers. Are they programmers? No way.

creating a keylogger doesnt make you a hacker... it makes you a coder
spying on people you know using a trojan doesnt make you a hacker... its just makes u a trojan user
coding a trojan (which i did) doesnt make me a hacker either... just a coder again.
using exploits to infiltrate machines... doesnt make you a hacker either...

a hacker to my beleif is someone who innovates by creating a "fix" to a problem either that be creating an exploit code, creating a patch, finding specific ways to do certain things.

e.g: coding a web downloader :- programmer
making the web downloader bypass firewalls by making it reside on or above the TCP stack :- hacker

using exploit code published on sites and making a worm :- script kiddie
softicing IIS and finding an overflow that can be used to take over the server and writing a POC for it... :- hacker

http://www.guninski.com/ :- hacker website
http://prorat.net/downloads.php :- script kiddy site

EDIT:
whether it be acceptable legal or otherwise it exists.most of the best coders around are hackers. the best network admins are hackers. hacking is the quest for knowledge. a hacker doesnt always infiltrate systems, they prove it possible. most hackers dont code viruses, they find the flaw that can make the virus viable. hackers dont cheat in games or pirate music. thats a cracker.

Game hacking for the purpose of cheating

I sort of disagree bubba. As an avid game designer yourself, game developers MUST cheat
do test their products before they go onto the market. Take QA teams. They spend hours a day playing the same parts of a game for a living writting down anything that happens that shouldnt and passing it on to higher authoriites. If QA were not given cheats, they might get stuck themselves on a tricky part of the game!

But I do in theory agree with you on some aspects. Take the tony hawks skateboarding genre of games. Each game enables the player to enter a cheat code ( a hack ) to disable or enable a certain program feature. Why would the developers of the game make this possible if they originally intended for the game to be challenging in the first place? It boggles the mind.

As soon as new game is developed, I can garantee you there will be a cheat for it on the internet within a few hours. Some people sit at home faddling out cheats all day for the latest games. So, in retospect, can we call them hackers?