What is a Hacker?

In some point of your life you may have heard about hacker, depending on where you heard about it your opinion towards hacker may be good or bad. This is not your fault as mainstream media often mistake the real hacker with cracker (the bad guy). While there is no official definition of hacker, most people agree with this definition : “Hacker is people who committed to circumvention of computer security”. Now just like good movies there’s always bad guy who use security weakness for malicious intend, we call this people ‘black hat’; and of course there is also the good guy, the ‘white hat’, these people who debug or fix security problems.

There is also a hybrid between black hat and white hat, which is grey hat. Grey hat refers to hacker who use his/her skill sometimes in goodwill and sometimes not. They usually don’t hack for personal gain or malicious intend but at some point they sometimes use their skill to commit “crimes”.

According to their skills a Hacker can be categorized to five levels:

• Elite
  Also known as 3l33t, 3l337, or a combination of that, is the spearhead of the network security industry. They get out in the operating system, able to configure and connect a global network. They are like stealth can enter the system undetected
• Semi Elite
  These hackers are usually younger than the Elite. They also have the ability and extensive knowledge of computer. They understand all the operating systems (including holes). Usually equipped with a small amount sufficient to change the program exploits the program
• Developed Kiddie
  The term is primarily because this group are young and still in school. They tried various platforms to ultimately succeed and proclaimed victory to another. Generally they are still using the graphic user interface (GUI) and just learn the basic of UNIX, without being able find a new weakness hole in the operating system.
• Script Kiddie
  Like developed kiddie, Kiddie Script normally done on the activity. Like Lamers, they only have technical knowledge of networking is very minimal. Usually not separated from the GUI. Hacking done using Trojans to frighten and distress some Internet users live.
• Lamer
  They are people without experience and knowledge who want to become hackers. Use of the computers mainly to play games, IRC, exchange software, steal credit card. Usually done by using software hacking Trojans, and DoS nuke. Usually boast etc. via IRC channels.

The history of hackers is dated back in the late 1960s, A community of enthusiast computer programmers and system designers around MIT Tech Model Railroad Club and MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. If you want to learn more about Hacker history I recommend you to read ‘Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution’.

And time for hall of fame, the following people have set the standard for hacking, the great ones, the ones we admire.

1. Kevin Mitnick
   The Man. The Myth. The Legend. This guy was the top hacker in the world for a good part of the late 70s and early 80s. He was one of the first, and in his time, gave the pre-sillicon valley tech bigwigs a good shakedown. He broke into systems owned by Sun Microsystems, IBM, DEC, Motorola, and even managed (allegedly) to wiretap FBI conversations. He did time for it, but now works as a security consultant. Though most hackers today consider his technical knowledge to be archaic, he has one of the sharpest minds in social engineering even today. He even got a movie dedicated to him ‘Takedown’.
2. Fyodor
   Fyodor, aka Gordon Lyon, gave us hackers one of our greatest tools. NMAP. NMAP is a powerful piece of software that lets us analyze the topography of any given network. With a quick nmap session, we can tell what Operating System is running on a given machine or set of machines, we can tell what services are running on the network, and we can tell what IP Addresses are active or inactive within any given network, among an infinite number of other function. NMAP is indispensible and hacker would be virtually shooting the dark without it. Today, Fyodor is responsible for overseeing the Honeynet Project, a distributed computing project that uses false open access points in a network (honeypots), to gather data regarding intrusion attempts on networks all over the world.
3. Michal Zalewski
   Michal is currently in the employ of Google as a security researcher, but has been active in the hacker community since the early 90s as someone known for finding vulnerabilities where no one else could. His knowledge of web browser security is unparalleled.
4. Eric Corley
   Eric founded the H.O.P.E hacker conference as well as 2600: The Hacker Quarterly, a quarterly magazine about hacker culture. He’s been an active member in the community since the 80s.
5. Solar Designer
   Solar, aka Alexander Peslyak, is a Russian hacker responsible for the Openwall GNU/Linux project. Openwall is Security-hardened Linux distribution meant for servers. In addition to his responsibilities with Openwall, he has been responsible for some of the most influential exploits within the Open Source community.
6. Robin Wood
   Robin may be new to the scene, but he’s definitely been talked about. You might have heard about man-in-the-middle attacks and a piece of firmware called Jasager? Well, that’s his baby. He wrote it and designed it. The man is a genius with anything wireless. Jasager’s popularity though, is owed largely to the next name on the list.
7. Darren Kitchen
   Darren is the host of Hak5, a web show dedicated to information security and generally making electronic devices do things they weren’t intended to do. The show is hosted by Darren, his girlfriend Shannon (aka Snubs) and Matt Lestock. He always has his ear to the ground and always knows what’s going on in the scence.

Recommended Reading:

1. How to Become a Hacker by Eric Steven Raymond
2. The Jargon File

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