Why do Hackers hack anyway?

[Martoch]

The latest news about the Hacker changing all of our photo titles to "1" raises the question...why?

Why do hackers do what they do?
Entertainment? Bragging rights to other hackers? Financial gain?

Is it really that fun to hack? Do any of you have experience with this or know somebody who does? I'm not asking you to self-incriminate, but I'm curious...
I just don't understand the logic of using "loopholes" in the security to exploit somebody's website...all that time & money (sometimes) they spend making it all nice and pretty, user friendly, etc...then some ****** goes and messes it all up! What's the point???

Now I'm sure those hackers who break into NASA or the Pentagon have definitive goals in mind, but the average hacker has nowhere enough knowledge to pull off those jobs.

Any thoughts you have are certainly appreciated!

Mike

offensive term removed - Fingers

[ChoaticWhisper]

I didnt know the photo titles being 1 had anything to do with hackers, I thought scott was just playing around with something.

Any post about this?

I think they do it just for entertaiment.

atuaclly someone people its there job! they get paid to find flaws and holes in software!

other are wanting knowledge. some is company sabotage. someone wanting revenge.

entertainment
high
braggin rights
sometimes its purely by accident!

you name it, they do it for that reason

im sure someone would point you to this reading

it can be a bunch of things

[Epidemic]

I am a troubleshooter. I have never put my tools toward hacking. But finding a hole or a way into somewhere where I dont belong is kinda fun. The big difference is that I would not to do more than maybe a humorous hack. change someones background and such.

The ones I simply do not understand are the malicious hacks. Hacks with no money involved. They just hack to destroy other peoples day. I want them to be placed in solitary for a few years.

The ones who do it for financial gain. They are scumm and thiefs but I at least understand their motivation.

Death penalty to all but the amusing hacks like those that created macintosh viruses in the late 80''s

I loved the one that made the letters fall off the page and lay at the bottom of the screen one by one. Bwahahahaha! The thing about that hack was the document was still in tact in the end. A sweep with norton and all was well with the world.

[vass0922]

GZ http://www.techimo.com/forum/t28943.html post about the messed up photo titles

Why do they? Sometimes its simply because its there and it poses a challenge. Why do people climb mount everest? Sounds pretty stupid to me you climb all the way up nearly killing yourself and several others but hey its there!

Same logic for many others

[DangerSeeker]

I thought the definitions of hacking and cracking were recently refined. With hacking being that of legitimate expert programmers, and crackers being that of the malicious crowd.

Why do people do anything? er...everything...um, SOMETHING.

Yeah, that's the ticket...it's an ego thing [pleasure seaker].

[vass0922]

From webopedia...
Hacker

A slang term for a computer enthusiast, i.e., a person who enjoys learning programming languages and computer systems and can often be considered an expert on the subject(s). Among professional programmers, depending on how it used, the term can be either complimentary or derogatory, although it is developing an increasingly derogatory connotation. The pejorative sense of hacker is becoming more prominent largely because the popular press has coopted the term to refer to individuals who gain unauthorized access to computer systems for the purpose of stealing and corrupting data. Hackers, themselves, maintain that the proper term for such individuals is cracker.

Cracker

(1) To break into a computer system. The term was coined in the mid-80s by hackers who wanted to differentiate themselves from individuals whose sole purpose is to sneak through security systems. Whereas crackers sole aim is to break into secure systems, hackers are more interested in gaining knowledge about computer systems and possibly using this knowledge for playful pranks. Although hackers still argue that there's a big difference between what they do and what crackers do, the mass media has failed to understand the distinction, so the two terms -- hack and crack -- are often used interchangeably.

(2) To copy commercial software illegally by breaking (cracking) the various copy-protection and registration techniques being used.

[Brainchild]

Ahh they're just jealous can't stand a bunch of people having a good time

It makes no sense to me, they have nothing to gain, unless theyre cracking photopost for some other website, which is dispicable

There are two classes of hackers, malicious and non-malicious. Malicious hackers (crackers, script kiddies, etc.) will take control of a site or account to exploit the content, bandwidth, or information for either criminal or financial gains. A non-malicious hacker is a person that attempts to locate security holes in hopes of helping or even forcing a software/hardware manufacturer to "fix" their products so that attacts from malicious hackers can be avoided. Non-malicious hackers often posses the best skills, and the only trace of them ever hacking a site is usually just some type of harmless indentifier, such as changing a graphic or page header.

Catch ya' later,
Robert Richmond

[OuTpaTienT]

Yes it's fun! Or at least it use to be, back in the good ol days.

Around here there has always been a phone number to call to get the exact current time. That number has always been POPCORN. But for a while someone ran a similar service called ***-MONA. It would also give you the time but it'd do it in a sexy woman's voice. And instead of a beep the lady would moan. Kinda silly, but I guess it amused some people. I never really understood why it existed. It was a free local number and all it did was give you the time. No ads for other numbers to call or anything. Anyways, I don't remember how we discovered this, but we found out if you hit the # during the call then it gives you a service menu. One of the options on the menu was to connect via modem.

So we call using my friend's computer (this is before I even had a computer) and choose the "connect via modem" option ... and bingo, we're connected to the moaning-time-lady computer. But it was just a login screen asking for a password. We tried a number of passwords figured we were just wasting our time...it's impossible to guess a password. But then it struck me, POPCORN. Typed it in, ba-da-bing ba-da-bang, we're in.

That was way cool. And yes loads of fun. Of course we didn't know quite what to do after we got in. But the fun part was breaking in. I guess we could have deleted files or messed up the time but we weren't malicious like that. We could make her say all the numbers and moan, but that got boring awful quick.