I found this video on Youtube that actually tells people what a computer hacker really is, not what most people think it is. Its really rare to find a video on youtube about real hacking.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=564LDkCf-Zg

Basically correct. But not totally. *Someone* had to hack the cracks that get downloaded by the script-kiddies. Would that person be called a "crack-hacker"?

They could've done without the gratuitous bashing of Mac/Windows coding, as it added nothing to the point of the presentation, and actually detracted from it, showing a degree of fanboi-ism.

If the presenter wanted to get into it, they could give some examples of hacking and cracking. Captain Crunch comes to mind.

Well, the naming conventions are highly relative. The media has completely corrupted the original meaning of the term. I say the best term would be the "hat" definitons. You know "white hat", "black hat", "gray hat". This is more appropriate I think, because both crackers and hackers simply have a great deal of knowledge of systems, this knowledge can be transformed into power and used for many purposes ... some less acceptable than others.

True about hackers in the uncorrupted sense. But most crackers couldn't do anything without the tools provided by others.

You are correct that having either the knowledge or the tools gives you a lot of power.

Disagree. You don't have to have great deal of knowledge in all cases. A good disassembler combined with basic knowledge about winapi and basic knowledge assembler is enough to "crack" simple applications or make simple keygen. I believe same applies to hacking.

I don't think that hacking or cracking is unacceptible or "bad". It is a good way to learn how things work. If someone is going to tell something about piracy, then, well, making keygen/cracking application is not the same thing as when releasing that keygen for public download or selling pirated stuff. And if you managed to break into remote PC, there is always an optinion of pointing security hole to the system's administrator.

You can crack a game with a hex editor..But if you want to get rid of DRM or spoof a cd key check, you'll have to somehow disassemble the program or write something to make the game think it received a key or just loop back from when the program tries to execute that in memory.

I agree with you. The Mac/Windows bashing was a little unnecessary, but hey... Don't expect to find a perfect video about hacking on youtube.

DRM is a good example, if you crack DRM are you a cracker or a hacker. I think DRM is a bad thing, so cracking it would be good, but probably illegal. I care more about what is good that about what is legal anyway. But this is still a confusing case.

Also, there are different levels of knowledge of course, from simple software crackers to pentagon haxxors ... you can't tell me don't need knowledge for some cracking tasks. Remember there are also script kiddies that don't really know anything, they just use powerful tools made by powerful crackers or hackers.

Hacker = Someone who understands how a computer works, and is able to manipulate it, with the intention of making it do more, or work differently than before.

There are different types of hackers:

White-hat - Manipulates a system with the intention of learning. Does not intentionally damage or gain access to illicit information.

Black-hat - A hacker who manipulates the computer to gain access to information or programs that was unintended by the information/program's owner/author. The intent is generally to exploit flaws in the system with the intent to do damage or to steal. A black-hat hacker is also known as a cracker.

Script-Kiddie = Someone who uses cracker's software, but generally cannot explain in technical detail what the software does.

Update: I decided to take a look at Wiki's definition of "hacker". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_(computer_security)
I found it funny that even they define hacker as as cracker first, then later explain that a hacker can be good too. Funny. But not really.

You forgot gray hat. Which is a mix of a white hat and a black hat hacker.