Hacker is someone having excellence in making
Yesterday i was in serious discussion with one of my friend, like other thousands of people, he was also with the opinion that the term Hacker is just for bad.
I am in difference with his opinion and with people having similar thoughts. Why this thought comes up, is just because the immature knowledge on the topic. Sorry if i am rude, but let me explain my justification over the subject.
Who is hacker? Hacker could be anyone who is smart, intelligent and having out-of-the-box capabilities to deal with logic. Someone who is highly enthusiast about computer and its technologies. Someone who wants to learn about how stuff works. If this is bad, then the top nosh people sitting on the boards of technology are bad too. With hacking, they are serving you with better world.
I take the privilege to honor myself as a Hacker. I did few things which might not be correct in some others dictionary, but a hacker must be differentiated from the other illegal activists working out there just for destruction.
There are actually three type of hackers sitting in this so called innocent world. I will define and give you some brief about all of them:
- White Hat Hackers
People who are segmented as White Hat Hackers are also termed as โEthical Hackersโ or a computer security experts. IBM also implied the existence of these terms in conjunction to support the talent and excellence. These hackers engages penetration testing and other testing methodologies to ensure that the organization/company systems are safe and cannot be breached.So what will make White Hat Hackers? These people attack software and other technical development work done by specific communities, with their due permission. The idea behind is to ensure if a bad hacker will try to crack the software, will he be able to do that. And if any such loophole is identified then they help developers to solve it. Isnโt it a nice way to secure your software/system?
These hackers scan ports and study the identified loopholes which requires patches and fixes. They also perform methods like, Reverse engineering, Social engineering, DoS attacks, DDos attacks and other stuffs to ensure that in which condition the software/application/system will crash or become vulnerable and if something is identified then how to fix it.Some good time hackers (White Hat), who are pleased by everyone for their valuable contribution towards the enrichment of the technology.
Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, Tim Berners-Lee, Julian Assange, Tsutomu Shimomura, Eric Corley, Mark Abene.Some bad time hackers (Black Hat), who later understood the fact of destruction caused by them and are now serving a huge society with their brilliance. They are no more Black Hat hackers.
Kevin Mitnick, Adrian Lamo, Robert Tappan Morris, Kevin Poulsen - Grey Hat Hackers
These hackers always caught in between good or bad. But to be more precise, they could really be both. They call themselves as activists, and brand themselves as people doing hacking for good will. Their motto is never to hack for any personal gain or for any malicious intentions. Intuitively they work as motivators and advisers for other hackers available there in the market, and help them gain the respect and more information on the subject of โHacking for good causeโ. They stand against anyone who is against the freedom of hackers.So what will make Grey Hat Hackers? In April 2000, hackers known as โ{}โ and โHardbeatโ gained unauthorized access to Apache.org. They chose to alert Apache crew of the problems rather than try to damage the Apache.org servers.
Recently in 2011 a hacktivist group Anonymous was in limelight because of their hacking activities. They opposed Internet censorship and surveillance, and has hacked various government websites. Anonymous used โLow Orbit Ion Cannonโ (LOIC) to attack supporters of Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) on January 19, 2012. Anonymous claimed this to be their largest attack with over 5,635 people participating in the DDoS attack via LOIC. - Black Hat Hackers
These hackers perform illegal operations for personal gain or for malicious destruction. and are the bad face people of this industry. Actually these are the type of hackers who actually started the DDos attacks to gain access on sites and steal confidential information. Some of the major operations which came up in information security because of their activities are brute force attacks, keyloggers and website hijacking using sessions and cookies. The White Hat Hackers strive to defeat these people only.Some known Black Hat Hackers, who were genius brains but had no sense over society.
Gary McKinnon, Jonathan James, Raphael Gray, Vladimir Levin
In final note i just want to conclude that if someone thinks that all the hackers in this world are just there for illegal and bad things, then there inception is wrong, as many of the most respected people of the IT industry are hackers too 