Now this was interesting. Today I had a lecture at Uni for Internet Technologies as a part of my degree course for Computing and Networks. Nothing out of the ordinary there you might think. And indeed there wasn't...
...up until the point where our lecturer goes "Now, one thing we'll also be teaching you about is hacking." Cue several of the students suddenly looking thoroughly more interested! Me included...
It turns out that it's a part of our education on security: seeing through the eyes of "the enemy" as it were.The theory is, you've no idea how secure your network is till you try hacking it from the outside. Thus, they'll be teaching us about hacking for this very purpose.
There were some other interesting things our lecturer told us about, like the fact that himself, some of the other staff and a former graduate from the Uni are working on a collaborative project with NCR (I think that was the name) on experimenting on NCR's ATM security. Not only that, our Uni offers a course on hacking (though at 800 for all the four modules, it's expensive), where at the end you're a qualified CEH - Certified Ethical Hacker. There was also mention of CCNA, but I forget what that means and it was expensive.
But yeah. The Uni intends to teach us teh 1337 haxx0r skillz. How cool is that? XD
~LightStrike! (aka SilverShadow).
Heh. The 'hacker' in the mainstream definition is actually called a cracker.
Hacker = One who is proficient at using or programming a computer; a computer buff
Cracker = programmer who `cracks' (gains unauthorized access to) computers, typically to do malicious things
Pretty much all crackers are mistakenly called hackers.
...that's not quite right Ultra. Crackers are usually those who "crack" software, ie, using key generation programs to illegally gain full access to a program's features; or "patching" it to gain the same result.
A hacker is someone who gains illegal access to information or data stored on another party's computer by "hacking" into it. If the "mainstream" term is different, then it's thoroughly misleading.
~LightStrike!
Actually, the both of you are right.
The words over all just have too many meanings.
It's pretty well-known at this point that most good network security techs are former hackers, or are extremely familliar with hacking. Every post-secondary school on earth with a compsci department offers courses on hacking. Hell, even some high-school IT curriculums touch on the subject, assuming the teacher on hand knows his stuff.
And just to clear things up, originally, a hacker was just basically anyone who owned a computer and knew how to use it. Then a sh-tty movie came out about a nine-year-old kid who "hacks the mainframe" and blows up the world with nuclear bombs, thus changing the commonly-accepted definition of "hacker" from "technology enthusiast/hobbyist" to "malicious user who blows up the world".
From Wikipedia: Hacker is a term used to describe people proficient in computers. In programming communities, the term refers to people skilled in computer programming, administration and security with legitimate goals. Popular media and the general population use the word hacker to mean a black hat hacker, that is, a network security hacker who partakes in illegal activity or lacks in ethics. Those inside some programming communities have taken to calling these criminals "crackers".
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There was also mention of CCNA, but I forget what that means and it was expensive.
Cisco Certified Networking Academy.
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Then a sh-tty movie came out about a nine-year-old kid who "hacks the mainframe" and blows up the world with nuclear bombs, thus changing the commonly-accepted definition of "hacker" from "technology enthusiast/hobbyist" to "malicious user who blows up the world".
There was, of course, the film "Hackers", which merely tried to make them seem cool rather than geeky.
Hackers may be out-of-date and full of contrived lines and technical inaccuracies, but the cast was effing brilliant. Especially appreciated was 19-year-old Angelina Jolie, whose role included a nude scene that was cut for the VHS edition but reappeared in the DVD.
The movie I mentioned is called WarGames and stars Matthew Broderick.
CCNA = Cisco Certified Network Administrator, at least last time I checked. Most acronyms have multiple meanings anymore.
Jimro
