Talk:Hacker

I have some problems with this new version of the article. I think that it blurs the boundaries between hackers and crackers, especially in the talk of "black hat" and "white hat" hackers (terms I have never heard before). "Black hat" hacking (as I understand it) seems to be the same thing as cracking. -- Simon J Kissane

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Black Hat Hacking is intended to be the same thing as Cracking. I'm glad the point was clear even if I didn't write that particular section. (I did rearrange the content though.) In common use there are three meanings of the word Hacker, and I was trying to cover all three. The press doesn't generally say Black Hat Hacker, they just say Hacker, but it is a common usage, and thus should be described. -- ksmathers

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Well, while I admit it is a common usage, a lot of people strongly disagree with people who break into computers being called hackers, and would rather have them called crackers. And I disagree that there are three common meanings of the term. I can only count two: hacker in the sense of an expert programmer; and hacker in the sense of someone who breaks into computers. Your 'black hat'/'white hat' distinction seems to amount to little more than a 'good' cracker / 'bad' cracker distinction. And the terms 'black hat' and 'white hat' are not in common use -- the point wasn't really clear: I had to guess what you meant, and I could only do that because I am already more than familiar with what we are talking about here. So I respectfully suggest you delete this 'black hat'/'white hat' hacker discussion, and leave it just with the 'hacker'/'cracker' distinction that was there originally. - Simon J Kissane

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On the contrary, Black Hat, and White Hat are very commonly used terms among the security community. Here is a random link (http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,289893,sid9_gci550815,00) I just found. Execute a search on Google if you truly don't believe that the usage is commonplace.

I would also rather that people didn't use Hacker and Cracker interchangably. What is more I'd rather that it didn't rain on my Birthday. I can understand a certain idealistic attachment to keeping the meaning of the word secure to your own preferences, but I also have an idealistic streak. My idealistic streak is to represent without bias the actual way the world is. -- ksmathers I have recently heard of a new phrase amongst my students, (I am a computer science lecturer) which refers to hackers. It is "White Wig" hackers and refers to "Ethical hackers". The wig connection is to judges in courts of law.

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def 1. fails to include hardware hackers. This should be be rewritten to be non-specific to software. (or maybe we can redefine software...)

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The Description of "Guru" hacker is slightly off. The definition given in the article is more applicable to a kind of person (or hacker) known as a "Real Programmer" (sometimes people add (tm) to that.) . See the Jargon File. www.jargon.org

So what's a Guru then? Here's some suggestions, and I'll research those later when I have more time.

Generally Computer Scientists are the people that are referred to as Gurus.

Guru originally comes from iirc the india-n word for "Teacher". So, often a person might only be referred to as a guru if they actually also teach their hacking ability to others. This might only be common where I live, so YMMV

I always understood you could divide programmers up as to level of skill as in: amateur, professional, hacker, guru. Usage might only be local, YMMV.

--Kim Bruning

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I checked the jargon file (as the first place to look) It defines a Guru as someone who has a "wizard" level of skill, AND is known as a person who is a knowlege resource to others.

Checking the link to wizard reveals that a wizard is someone who has extensive knowlege of a certain subject.

I think the sum of this is that a guru hacker and a computer scientist will often be the same thing, contrary to what is currently being said here.

--Kim Bruning

What was actually discussed seemed to me to be the Jargon File/open source software/etc definition of hacker, so I changed the heading to read "Hacker -- Brilliant Programmer" as guru, in hackish slang, has a different meaning entirely. -- kpearce

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From the article:

A Hacker in stride can produce a couple of thousand lines of code an hour as thought translates itself directly into code.

Um, no? - Lament

That's a pretty serious exaggeration, isn't it? I'll change it to "a few hundred" for now. Don't be shy about fixing that if you don't think it's realistic. - kpearce