Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!ittvax!ittral!hall From: hall@ittral.UUCP (Doug Hall) Newsgroups: net.followup Subject: Re: Hackers and others take note Message-ID: <485@ittral.UUCP> Date: Wed, 5-Dec-84 23:39:22 EST Article-I.D.: ittral.485 Posted: Wed Dec 5 23:39:22 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 7-Dec-84 02:05:29 EST References: dartvax.2612 Lines: 21 The thing that upsets me the most is the picture that the media has painted of hackers. What this guy (and most other reporters, be it newspaper, magazine, or television) has done is to mistake jerks and criminals for hackers. The public by and large is very misinformed. Nothing wrong with being a hacker. In fact, I'm kinda proud of it. Any bad conotations have come from the stupid media. I don't approve of breaking into systems, posting card numbers, and that kind of stuff, but I have a hard time feeling sorry for this guy. It's guys like him that give guys like me a bad name. I've always felt that being a hacker was kind of like going a step beyond just being a good programmer. A good programmer gets the job done. A hacker is always poking around, looking for a way to make the system do just a little bit more, run a little bit faster, make the code a little bit tighter. Schools teach programming (some of them anyway :-) ) but hacking is learned, well, by just hacking. At any rate, it may be too late to undo the damage the media has caused. If things keep up they'll make as big a mess of computers as they have politics. ~r .sig [The comments above are my own, not necessarily etc etc etc.]