Talk:Hackers

Hackers vs Crackers

In IT Circles there is a (contentious) difference between Hackers and Crackers. Contrary to what Hollywood would have us think, Hackers are less interested in taking control of NORAD and/or emptying everyone's bank account. Hacking is more akin to re-purposing or improving code or hardware, for instance "I hacked the source code for Firefox and now it displays pages 0.05% faster" or "I hacked my mouse and turned it into a finger print scanner".

Crackers on the other hand are the ones that are into breaking into NASA's systems to look for little green men, getting free phone calls or exploiting vulnerabilities to take down various systems.

Eric seems to fall into the first group, whereas the Smoking Gnu would correctly fall into the second, more specifically as Phreakers. --Megahurts 11:19, 20 October 2010 (CEST)