A 'hacker' is somebody who writes good machine code, often late at night, and with a wizard-like talent. Examples some might pick would be Torvalds, or Alan Cox, or someone like Bill Joy or Kirk McKusik.
A 'cracker' is the term for someone who is expert with debugging tools and can step through the code of a copy-protected game or other computer program and find the bits to NOP out or otherwise circumvent.
Those are both the sorts of skills that it takes time to acquire, and that an attention-deficit loser with no moral sense will probably NEVER acquire.
Really, in the case of Mitnick and his ilk, the term is 'pathological lying anti-social S.O.B.'
But that lacks the all-important 'image of coolness' that's so important.
Now can we settle it once and for all? (Score:4, Funny)
Is it "cracker" or "hacker"?
Re:Now can we settle it once and for all? (Score:1)
Re:Now can we settle it once and for all? (Score:1)
A 'hacker' is somebody who writes good machine code, often late at night, and with a wizard-like talent. Examples some might pick would be Torvalds, or Alan Cox, or someone like Bill Joy or Kirk McKusik.
A 'cracker' is the term for someone who is expert with debugging tools and can step through the code of a copy-protected game or other computer program and find the bits to NOP out or otherwise circumvent.
Those are both the sorts of skills that it takes time to acquire, and that an attention-deficit loser with no moral sense will probably NEVER acquire.
Really, in the case of Mitnick and his ilk, the term is 'pathological lying anti-social S.O.B.'
But that lacks the all-important 'image of coolness' that's so important.
Oh well.
Re:Now can we settle it once and for all? (Score:1)