For those who can appreciate the old-school definition and are not following the "mass hysteria" of the media by using the wrong word (meaning those who use "hacker" instead of "cracker"), there is some hope 
Not all of the media is ignorant in these things thankfully. There are a lot of people associated with media outlets that do use the term correctly. And for this, I am very thankful. Over the years, I have written articles (or rants) such as Hacking to Learn - What the Media Does’t Tell You and others in hope that the general population would someday come to understand the difference and learn to appreciate hacking again.. as an Art or even a Science.
From one of those who know and understand the difference, I was very happy and intrigued to run across was an article on the Whitedust Security Site
. Hacking: Art or Science? is a very informative article about another point of view of hacking that I actually had not though of before. Mark Hinge has done an excellent job of explaining the ultimate question in this article: "Does the creative thinking required to be a successful “hacker” outweigh the necessity for scientific process?
In the article, Mark sums up "hacking" as just another way of "tinkering". I love how this is presented! I really feel the way he has brought this out depicts the true meaning of hacking. He goes on to stress the points and differences between hacking and cracking. Although a cracker can use hacking to achieve his or her goals, all hackers are not malicious crackers. Kudos to Mark for being among the ones who know and can appreciate the real meaning of hacking.
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Hacking is not a bad thing. Hacking is a good thing! It is about learning, not being malicious. Learn what hacking is all about, and realize no one can teach you! Hacking IS about learning. you teach yourself by hacking.. hacking to learn more. The more you learn about computers, how they work, what they do, how they do it, the more you are computer hacking. And then, you take that knowledge and learn to apply it in future scenarios. In the end, you’ll ask more questions, find more answers, and learn more. You are hacking to learn.. not learning to hack.
Check out places like HowThingsWork, Whatis, Textfiles, Security Forums, and Google. Learn to use search engines to search for what you find interesting and want to learn more about. Using the right terms in search engines to try to get the results you are looking for can give you narrower or broader results. Play with search engines by using + and " " and - in the search, and see how different search engines react to different things you enter. Most search engines have a "how to search" section. Read about different ones, Boolean searches, and narrowing down your search. Start from a broad topic and narrow it down to what you are specifically wanting. Many search engines are different, so read about different techniques each use. There are some helpful guides on searching at places like The Spiders Apprentice . Start learning to search by searching for how to search.
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GirlGeekteete dotNet Tags: hacking, exploits, nmap, insecure, insecure.org, bugtraq, securityfocus, hack, exploit
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