Hackers

I am going to be honest; before I read the reading by Douglas Thomas I had the same preconception of ‘hackers’ that he describes many to hold – criminals who hack to destroy and make financial gains of some kind.

Thomas describes how the popular image of hackers as ‘criminals’ is mainly spread by the media, and that this is because the stories most frequently reported involve “damage or financial gain”. This is one side about the media and news organizations that bugs me, they only report things that are “newsworthy” and only report the dramatic side of the story – such as hackers partaking in criminal activities. Last week on Nightline there was a story about “why it’s powerful men who always cheat on their wives”, but this is the same thing happening! It only SEEMS like they are the majority because it wouldn’t be interesting if Joe Bloggs from down the street was reported on having an affair, or hacking a website without damaging it - just to prove to himself he can, which as I have now found out is all a lot of hackers are doing.

I remember back at high school and there were several groups of guys who would go on about how they have been hacking into certain websites (or trying to at least), or hacking into someone’s ‘neopets’ account just to muck around. At the time I never actually associated them with what my opinion of an “actual hacker” was, because I was purely following the media’s representation; however, after week 3 of COMS205 I have now learnt that hacking is a ‘boy culture’ and predominantly between the ages of 14 and 20 anyway. So little to my knowledge, I have in fact met several real-life hackers!