Is your child a hacker?

zarf2007

With the recent mumsnet, talktalk and Ashley Maddison hacks, this article may give parents something to think about the next time little timmy is hogging the computer......


Another one got caught today, it's all over the news. "Teenager
Arrested in Computer Crime Scandal", "Hacker Arrested after Bank Tampering"...
Damn kids. They're all alike.

But did you, in your three-piece psychology and 1970's technobrain,
ever take a look behind the eyes of the hacker? Did you ever wonder what
made them tick, what forces shaped them, what may have molded them?
I am a hacker, enter my world...
Mine is a world that begins with school... I'm smarter than most of
the other kids, this crap they teach us bores me...
Damn underachiever. They're all alike.

I'm in junior high or high school. I've listened to teachers explain
for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I understand it. "No, Ms.
Smith, I didn't show my work. I did it in my head..."
Damn kid. Probably copied it. They're all alike.

I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is
cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it's because I
screwed it up. Not because it doesn't like me...
Or feels threatened by me...
Or thinks I'm a smart !!!...
Or doesn't like teaching and shouldn't be here...
Damn kid. All he does is play games. They're all alike.

And then it happened... a door opened to a world... rushing through
the phone line like heroin through an addict's veins, an electronic pulse is
sent out, a refuge from the day-to-day incompetencies is sought... a secret world is found.
"This is it... this is where I belong..."
I know everyone here... even if I've never met them, never talked to
them, may never hear from them again... I know you all...
Damn kid. Tying up the computer again. They're all alike...

You bet your !!! we're all alike... we've been spoon-fed baby food at
school when we hungered for steak... the bits of meat that you did let slip
through were pre-chewed and tasteless. We've been dominated by sadists, or
ignored by the apathetic. The few that had something to teach found us will-
ing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in the desert.

This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the
beauty of the byte. We make use of a service already existing without paying
for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and
you call us criminals. We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek
after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color,
without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals.
You build nuclear missiles, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us
and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals.

Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is
that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like.
My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me
for.

I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual,
but you can't stop us all... after all, we're all alike.

Guest101

Whats the point of this?

thorsoak

Got tired of popping his spots!

Gingernutty

Badly adapted quote from The Hacker's Manifesto as seen on YouTube.

I've clicked the :spam: button.

FreddieFrugal

Wish I hadn't wasted time reading that...

onomatopoeia99

While there is certainly a problem with politicians not understanding the technology they are legislating about, which makes for very bad law - just listen to debates in both houses concerning the Internet and you will wince if you understand it at low level at how badly informed the lawmakers are - being bored at school is no excuse for lawbreaking.

That said, I completely sympathise with this (americanisms aside) :

zarf2007 wrote: »

I'm in junior high or high school. I've listened to teachers explain
for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I understand it. "No, Ms.
Smith, I didn't show my work. I did it in my head..."
Damn kid. Probably copied it. They're all alike.

I had teachers tell me I was cheating because I didn't show my working, so I must have copied someone else. They seemed unable to accept that the problem could be solved by inspection, that is by looking at it I could see the answer or at most do a bit of mental arithmetic to get there. I could. The other thirty in the class couldn't (and this was a grammar school, not a comp or secondary modern), but I could. And I ended up with some terrible grades on my report card, for getting everything right.

Eventually those teachers worked out that rather than cheating I was actually the best in their respective classes at their subjects, but it took about six months. And yes it does increase the alienation and demoralisation that a really bright student will feel if even the teacher doesn't recognise it and marks them down because they are too good at the subject for their year. Still no excuse though.

ognum

Unlike others here I do think there is a point to this post.

Do we really know what our children are doing as they sit for hours on their PC? The latest child being interviewed regarding the Talk Talk issue is 15 years old so is certainly someone's child.

Many parents do not have the ability to know if their child is gameing or hacking!

DomRavioli

Hacking isn't new. I'm 30 now, and 15 years ago it was even easier to hack; we didn't have white hats, grey hats or black hats, we were all hackers.

Try not to blow it out of proportion. Most young people have hacked at one time or another, even if it isn't malicious/white hatting.

ognum

DomRavioli wrote: »

Hacking isn't new. I'm 30 now, and 15 years ago it was even easier to hack; we didn't have white hats, grey hats or black hats, we were all hackers.

Try not to blow it out of proportion. Most young people have hacked at one time or another, even if it isn't malicious/white hatting.

Who is blowing this out of proportion, if as you say most young people have hacked I would suggest most parents are unaware of what their children are doing, that's all

Gigervamp

Well, considering that they're teaching kids how to program in schools now, there are bound to be some kids who are curious to see if they can hack websites.

It's not really much different to those who dismantle things to see how they work.

BucksLady

DomRavioli wrote: »

Hacking isn't new. I'm 30 now, and 15 years ago it was even easier to hack; we didn't have white hats, grey hats or black hats, we were all hackers.

Try not to blow it out of proportion. Most young people have hacked at one time or another, even if it isn't malicious/white hatting.

I'm not much older than you, and to be honest I wouldn't know where to start. As for most young people having 'hacked' at some point in time - find that a really odd statement and quite worrying if it were true.