Essay About Word Hacker And Educational Sport

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INTRODUCTION
The word hacker is used in two different but associated
ways: for some, a hacker is merely a computer enthusiast of any kind,
who loves working with the beasties for their own sake, as opposed to
operating them in order to enrich a company or research project –or
to play games.
This book uses the word in a more restricted sense: hacking is a
recreational and educational sport. It consists of attempting to make
unauthorised entry into computers and to explore what is there. The
sports aims and purposes have been widely misunderstood; most
hackers are not interested in perpetrating massive frauds, modifying
their personal banking, taxation and employee records, or inducing
one world super-power into inadvertently commencing Armageddon in the
mistaken belief that another super-power is about to attack it. Every
hacker I have ever come across has been quite clear about where the
fun lies: it is in developing an understanding of a system and
finally producing the skills and tools to defeat it. In the vast
majority of cases, the process of getting in is much more
satisfying than what is discovered in the protected computer files.
In this respect, the hacker is the direct descendant of the phone
phreaks of fifteen years ago. Phone phreaking became interesting as
intra-nation and international subscriber trunk dialling was
introduced, but when the London-based phreak finally chained his way
through to Hawaii, he usually had no one there to speak to except the
local weather service or American Express office, to confirm that the
desired target had indeed been hit. One of the earliest of the
present generation of hackers, Susan Headley, only 17 when she began
her exploits in California in 1977, chose as her target the local
phone company and, with the information extracted from her hacks, ran
all over the telephone network. She retired four years later, when
friends started developing schemes to shut down part of the phone
system.
There is also a strong affinity with program copy-protection
crunchers. Most commercial software for micros is sold in a form to
prevent obvious casual copying, say by loading a cassette, cartridge
or disk into memory and then executing a save on to a
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blank cassette or disk. Copy-protection devices vary greatly in
their methodology and sophistication and there are those who, without
any commercial motive, enjoy nothing so much as defeating them. Every
computer buff has met at least one cruncher with a vast store of
commercial programs, all of which have somehow had the protection
removed–and perhaps the main title subtly altered to show the
crunchers technical skills–but which are then never actually used
at all.
Perhaps I should tell you what you can reasonably expect from this
handbook. Hacking is an activity like few others: it is semi-legal,
seldom encouraged, and in its full extent so vast that no individual
or group, short of an organisation like GCHQ or NSA, could hope to
grasp a fraction of the possibilities. So this is not one of those
books with titles like Games Programming with the 6502 where, if the
book is any good and if you are any good, you will emerge with some
mastery of the subject-matter. The aim of this book is merely to give
you some grasp of methodology, help you develop the appropriate
attitudes and skills, provide essential background and some
referencing material–and point you in the right directions for more
knowledge. Up to a point, each chapter may be read by itself; I have
compiled extensive appendices, containing material which will be of
use long after the main body of the text has been absorbed.
It is one of the characteristics of hacking anecdotes,