Hackers of today

Hackers, having started as toy railroad circuitry designers in the late fifties, are completely new people now. Once turned to computers, they became gods and devils. Nowadays holders and users of the World Wide Web hide their PCs under passwords when the keyword “hacker” is heard. When and how did this change take place? Why are we so frightened of Hacker The Mighty and The Elusive?

One of the legends says that hackers have changed under the influence of “crackers” – the people who liked to talk on the phone at somebody else’s expense. Those people hooked up to any number and enjoyed the pleasure of telephone conversation, leaving the most fun – bills – for the victim. Another legend tells us that modern hackers were born when a new computer game concept was invented. Rules were very simple: two computer programs were fighting for the reign on the computer. The results of this game are two in number and are well known: hackers and computer viruses. One more story tells that the “new” hackers came to existence when the two students of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found an error in a network program. They informed people, responsible for the network, about this mistake but with no result. The offended students wrote a code that completely paralyzed the network and only after that the error was fixed. By the way, those students founded The Motorola Company later.

Today, when the Internet has entered everyone’s house there is no shield between a hacker and your PC. You can password yourself up, but then either a hacker will crack your PC anyway or nobody will enter your site, because passwords kill accessibility. If your PC is easy to access no one can guarantee what will happen to your computer – hackers, you know them.

Monster? Chimeras? No! Every hacker is a human being and every hacker has his soft spots: good food, pretty girls or boys, classical music, hot chocolate at the fireplace, apple pie on Sunday. First of all, hacker is a connoisseur, a professional with no computer secret out of his experience. And how he uses his skill and knowledge depends on him, God, and Holy Spirit.