Path: csiph.com!v102.xanadu-bbs.net!xanadu-bbs.net!feeder.erje.net!eu.feeder.erje.net!news-1.dfn.de!news.dfn.de!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: Arno Welzel Newsgroups: comp.lang.php Subject: "Hackers" vs. "Crackers" (was: Re: Check if $_GET contains something other than what's allowed) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 17:36:40 +0100 Lines: 51 Message-ID: <528F8818.3090201@arnowelzel.de> References: <2c0d0971-a336-4691-9113-01d1f854d2f4@googlegroups.com> <12174823.8sRj21F7kL@PointedEars.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: individual.net wjeE2MaLJBEp20iuWpUDyQIVYuB2/AYRlWF4jwVtgOiwdfXauR Cancel-Lock: sha1:SgKM52MDy/kef6OTU82ykHr2WWI= User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/24.1.1 In-Reply-To: X-Enigmail-Version: 1.6 Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.php:11928 Jerry Stuckle, 2013-11-21 23:16: > On 11/21/2013 4:48 PM, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote: >> Jason C wrote: >> >>> I have a script that's constantly under attack by hackers submitting odd >> >> s/hackers/crackers/ >> >> Rule of thumb: Hackers build, crackers (attempt to) destroy. >> > > No, hackers is the correct term. You really should learn to understand > English before correcting a native speaker of it. Seems the official meaning of both words is the same. And shows, there is much more about this topic than a simple "hackers are people attacking computer systems". Anyway - "hacker" originally just referred to computer enthusiasts "hacking" on their keyboards. Also see "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution" by Steven Levy, ISBN 0-385-19195-2. Some hackers *also* used their skills to gain access to systems with poor or no special protection at all and some also sold the acquired data - but this does not mean that a "hacker" is always a bad guy. Later "hacking" also became the synonym for using technology in new ways - a "hack" is just another creative use for existing technology or to deal with technical limitations. On the opposite - "cracking" originally referred to "crack" copy protections in computer games. In the 1980ies there where a number of popular "Cracker Groups", for example: Later "cracker" was also used as a synonym for "bad" hackers with criminal intents. But today many people just say "hacker" when they actually mean "black hat" or "script kiddie". -- Arno Welzel http://arnowelzel.de http://de-rec-fahrrad.de