Hackers. Those pesky good for nothing people who want to make life hard on us and ruin our online time by filling it with problems. Right? *buzz* That is not a hacker.

     Is a locksmith a criminal? Because he can help us get into our cars he's obviously a car thief. Right? ...No?..."That's different you say." Actually it's not. A true hacker is actually just someone who is curious how things work. They refuse to just settle on what someone tells them. Rather they want to know what makes it 'tick'. They examine it closely by whatever means they can. By learning it inside and out they have the ability to manipulate it, yes. But that doesn't mean they will. "Why would they do such a thing if they didn't intend on 'manipulating' it in the first place?" 

    The computer industry has progressed rapidly over the years basically because each person furthered the advancement of the last. That's true with everything we see today. Yet if a company can hold on to new findings long enough, then they can gain an edge over the competition. Some people didn't feel this was right, and having the ability they did, they 'hacked' it. And knowing how it worked then were able to share it. Thus large techs labeled 'hackers' as a whole, as a group of law breakers....bad people who did bad things and hurt the innocent population.

    Sadly people for the most part hear it, and even worse believe it. People get 'booted', they blame a 'hacker'. They get a virus, they blame a 'hacker'. "It must have been them, there's no other explanation. Computers are so reliable, it wouldn't have done that on its own. I certainly didn't do anything to it."

    Do you use VP? Do you wear mega's or other 'head's perhaps? How do you think those were made? Those are regular VP games that have been 'hacked' and customized. How about the gesture makers? How do you think people figured out how to compile a gesture? They had to know how the gesture was configured in hex. That's 'hacking'. They took it apart, found out how it worked so that they could duplicate or improve upon. Just like patches for various programs including VP.

    What about all the people who make trouble with all their boot programs and such? Hundreds of people (usually kids) looking to get a high off of booting people. Yes it is sad, but they shrink back in the real world, so they try and regain confidence in the online world. These kids run around asking everyone they know to show them how to boot or to give them a 'boot prog'.

    What about the makers of such progs? heh...the humor in that question is that 70% of the time, they weren't trying to make a booter. They just goofed up their strings and it ended up being an exploit. Hardly a feat of 'hacking'.

    I guess my main point is stop associating 'hackers' with internet terrorists and kids with toys. Stop blaming them. Its a stereotype that has been burned into our thinking, and I don't expect to really change your minds on the whole thing. At least I would like you to stop and think about it. Think about how much you actually rely on true 'hackers' before you go building up riots and mass emails complaining about them:

"To all you hackers - let this be a message to you. Nobody wants you here and nobody supports your cause. You really only have two choices - join the community as a truly contributing member, or deal with the mounting problems that are coming your way... because its only going to get worse for you from here on in." - Archon - theblackhand.net

   Well we better ban his Genesis head maker, and his Cerberus firewall, because server string manipulation is 'hacking'...Look at his brag sheet:

"Among his accomplishments are the original mapping of the VP protocol, creation of the field of head/framemaking, writing of the majority of VP patches, including the universally used Headroom patch, and the creation of the first defensive software for VP."

...hypocrite.

- suprize

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