The Truth about Hackers

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Recommended: Merits and demerits of hackers and crackers

The Truth about Hackers

The Truth about Hackers In the winter of the year 2000 an eighteen year old hacker, who went by the name Curador accessed about 26, 000 credit card numbers and put them on the internet. With the help of an ex-hacker, Curador was eventually tracked down and sentenced. All of this was explained in a frontline interview with Curador himself also known as Raphael Gray. Who are these so called hackers? Are peoples assumptions about teenage hackers correct? In 1995 the movie Hackers portrayed the images and lifestyles of hackers similar to the one mentioned above. The characters in Hackers show a media example of finding themselves in cyberspace by forming a community which creates their own boundaries. According to Coppin, hacking is the process of writing and reading code. People who code in an open range of society are hackers. The term a hack is often meant as a fast and dirty solution. Hackers are often confused with hackers are crackers. Crackers are people who break into or crack computer security systems (Coppin). In Hackers, high school cyberpunk teenagers get together and associate with the rave lifestyle known as techno. Due to the medias portrayal of the average hacker, people constantly associate hackers as teens with a love for techno music and rave-like gatherings. This is not necessarily true. Anyone can be a hacker. Even those with a family, a job, and an ideal lifestyle, including females have the potential of being a hacker. Therefore, no stereotypical labels should be placed on hackers due to their possible diversity. Hackers influences the way people tend to associate how everyday hackers are supposed to be. Hackers also show how hackers form their own cyber communities. They share simil...

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...se would not have been solved.

Work Cited

Coppin, Sharon. Computer Hacking Statistics. August 2003. 30 September 2003. <html://www.amu.edu.au/mail- archives/link/link0008/0255.html>

Gordon, Sarah. Studying the Psychology of Virus Writers and Hackers. March 2003. 30 September 2003. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/hackers/ whoare/psycho.html>

Gray, (Curador) Raphael. Who are Hackers? March 2003. 30 September 2003. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/hackers/whoare. html> Hackers. Dir. Iain Softly. Metro Goldwyn Mayer, 1995.

Holeton, Richard. Composing Cyberspace Identity, Community, and Knowledge in the Electronic Age. The McGraw Hill Companies, Inc. 1998. Reid and Count Zero. Cult of the Dead Cow. March 2003. 30 September 2003. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/hackers/interviews/reidcount. html>

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