Hacking?

I recently met someone who claimed to be a hacker.  How broad is the definition of a "hacker" and how far can it go before it is considered illegal?  Appreciate any insight!

My understanding is there are diffrent types.   A broad genralization is the white and black hat hackers.  White hat hackers do things against there own systems that they are responsible for to help strengthen their own security.  Black hat hackers try to go into systems they are not intended to get into to find stuff they are not meant to see or do other things against the proper owners will.  Red hat hackers dabble in Linux (sorry bad joke in reffrence to Red Hat Linux).  I myself like to hack hardware.  I splice stuff around the house into other than inteneded configurations and will naturally grow into the realm of an overclocker as soon as my wallet agrees with my mind.  So in all honesty it's a broad term to cover many people some that are very honest and work only in the forces of light and then there are those that divert more to the dark side.  Let me know if you have any more questions.

THANK YOU!!!  That was very informative and actually very enlightening!

wot the media classes as 'hacker' is really a cracker

a hacker is some1 who likes to write code (generally a programmer)

it becomes illegal when you access some1 elses property without their permission

white hat: cracks for good reasons, improve security, only with permission

grey hat: for gud reasons, asks for permission after gettin in the system but doesn't mess with it

black hat: bad reasons, will do something malicious

most crackers use linux though, never herd of 'red hat' used before

Hacking is in any form what so ever Illegal, but it is widely used from Police agencies also, I may add,  to control the vast amount of internet sites with Illegal contents etc.

Netangels, has over the last few years recruited Hackers,
To take a look at the inside contents of sites [ due to one major fact that the police do not have permission to ]
mostly porn / terrorists
Then collect the logged E mail addresses etc and pass these onto the CIA.
Now Netangels is a setup where people being stalked etc go to for help, they recruited the Hackerz that defaced certain
O B L [ insert your own swear words about this freak ]
sites after September 11th, these registered members "kind off" have the backing from the CIA.?

A nice piece of information over one grc.com about a 13 year old ( windows user ) using a denial of service attack to remove two T1 servers,but being under age and not causing $5000 the FBI ...
well read it

Cracking, has nothing to do with Hacking, mostly carried out by windows users down loading Programs to stress test Webmasters OWN server, mostly brute force programs to gain User/passowords
Cracking is also considered when you gain those illegal
Crackz to make your downloaded trail version full versions

@thetechfreak: [qoute] most crackers use linux though, never herd of 'red hat' used before . this is funny but not TRUE

Hackers use Linux due to the fact most servers that get hacked are UNIX based, after all the web was designed for UNIX, not as many would think WindowZ.
Also Linux is open source. Therefore all my Programs etc are Legal, I will not get into the Windowz movement any more
But why should  Linux user Crack Seriallz to free software, ?
thats for windowz users

there are many other forms like Phreaking etc.

At the end of the day, it isnt right.

hacking is someone who reads/writes/edits code (as in programming code)

cracking is when you try to get access to a computer you shouldn't be

honestlly i aint ever herd the term 'red hat' before (xcept for the linux distro o course)

linux is widely used for a cracking platform as it has better tools for security (not just keeping it but breaching it)
and also most web services are based on a linux platform (well the decent ones anyway)

[Uranium-235]

*sigh* alright. let me clear this up for everybody


the term "hacker" does not refer to someone who breaks into networks. It just means somebody who tried to figure out how stuff works using any means possible. It's not illegal. I'm techincally a "hacker" cause I try to figure out how comptuers work. now somebody that tried to figure out how other peoples networks work, and use that information to get in...yeah...that part of hacking is illegal

[quote author=JohnDoez link=board=securehack&num=995392527&start=0#4 date=11/08/01 at 04:29:58]
>Hacking is in any form what so ever Illegal, but it is widely >used from Police agencies also, I may add,  to control the >vast amount of internet sites with Illegal contents etc.

How wrong you are, the term hacking implies taking things apart to see how they work, this is illegal? You are talking about the commonly misrepresented cracker.

>Netangels, has over the last few years recruited Hackers,
>To take a look at the inside contents of sites [ due to one >major fact that the police do not have permission to ]
>mostly porn / terrorists
>Then collect the logged E mail addresses etc and pass these >onto the CIA.

This is a recent development and not where the definition of the term originally comes from.

>Now Netangels is a setup where people being stalked etc go >to for help, they recruited the Hackerz that defaced certain
>O B L [ insert your own swear words about this freak ]
>sites after September 11th, these registered members "kind >
>off" have the backing from the CIA.?
You've really only gottten into this recently haven't you, or are you just malking this up as you go along? Security expert since 9/11

>A nice piece of information over one grc.com about a 13 >year old ( windows user ) using a denial of service attack to >remove two T1 servers,but being under age and not causing >$5000 the FBI ...
>well read it

This kid used tools available on the web, he was a script kiddie not a hacker or even a cracker, get your terms right.

>Cracking, has nothing to do with Hacking, mostly carried out >by windows users down loading Programs to stress test >Webmasters OWN server, mostly brute force programs to >gain User/passowords
>Cracking is also considered when you gain those illegal
>Crackz to make your downloaded trail version full versions

STOP THIS HURTS!!! What about John the Ripper a password cracking tool and all the password crackers that run in a nix environment.

>>@thetechfreak: [qoute] most crackers use linux though, >>never herd of 'red hat' used before . this is funny but not >>TRUE

>Hackers use Linux due to the fact most servers that get >hacked are UNIX based, after all the web was designed for >UNIX, not as many would think WindowZ.

Hackers use linux due to the fact that tcpip is originally a unix suite, correct (once in a post aint bad!).

>Also Linux is open source. Therefore all my Programs etc are >Legal, I will not get into the Windowz movement any more
>But why should  Linux user Crack Seriallz to free software, ?
>thats for windowz users

Reverse engineering is a form of hacking cracking is cracking


>there are many other forms like Phreaking etc.

>At the end of the day, it isnt right.

You need to learn before you attemot to talk with authority on the subject now go away and read some material before you comment on hacking and mix it up with all sorts of other things. Mosty linux users would class themselves as hackers due to the fact that they have to fix/ rewrite a lot of crappy open source software which they download, is this illegal???
Is this not right?? Go back to reading the register they will teach you all you need to know muahahaha.


[/quote]

I never expected so many responses.  I suppose hacking or cracking or whatever its called is typically understood by most people as a term describing criminal activity.  My real question is, is just "breaking in" to another's computer or system illegal, or do you actually have to "do" something to it?

[Keefe]

In the past, some hackers who have found holes in certain companies systems and then told them about it have been punished.  There is a very fine line between snooping and hacking these days.