Hacker News Reader

Comment by simias | Hacker News Reader

I don't usually care for the meaning of "hacker" (tinkerer or pirate) but in this case calling them "hacker", even in the mainstream meaning of the word is giving them too much credit.

They're not hacking anything any more that 4chan users "hack" websites by flooding them, there's no "hack" involved in any meaning of the word. I'm sure they love being called "hackers" by the media.

So yeah, I'm definitely in favor of calling them script kiddies. It's much easier to understand, even for a mainstream audience. And I assume they'd find the attention they're getting less rewarding if they were called script kiddies everywhere...

View on HN

Complaints about the terms are 'no true Scotsman...' arguments. DDOSing and Botnet attacks are crude, brute-force attacks, but finesse has never been a requirement for a good hack - it's the icing on the cake but ultimately it's the result that matters. Being pompous about terms just comes across to the general public as nerd rage, much like gun aficionados whining about terminological niceties following reports of a mass shooting incident.

> Complaints about the terms are 'no true Scotsman...' arguments.

They really aren't.

> Being pompous about terms just comes across to the general public as nerd rage, much like gun aficionados whining about terminological niceties following reports of a mass shooting incident.

Words matter. If some fools are caught with a Molotov cocktail and the media starts reporting that they had a "nuclear weapon" because gasoline contains some radioactive carbon-14, the sane people are the ones telling anyone who will listen how stupid that is.

Calling those who maliciously break shit "hackers" is like calling those who drink too much "Irishmen." It's an offensive misuse of the word.

I'm old enough to remember when 'hacker' meant exactly that. Now its hip to be called a hacker; does that change its meaning? What does it mean to be a 'gangsta'?

Languages change. That doesn't mean its offensive when somebody still uses the old meaning, because its how they grew up using it.

Sure, languages change, but not in a vacuum. If the media starts using the word "businesswoman" to mean an infertile woman, the jackasses are not the people who object to that usage.

Ask anyone under 30 what they think a Phreaker is I bet they wouldn't have a clue, "phone freak" even the word freak these days may be misinterpreted too since it meant someone really into some hobby.

Maybe we should call this script kiddies "scriddies" since it seems the average Joe and TV/newspapers like a single catchy word.

Well, it's probably a little late to save the term. Job descriptions for devs routinely state they are looking for "hackers" with Ruby. Not to mention, we're commenting on a site called "Hacker News", which features more posts about NASA and the latest JS framework than anything "Hacker".

Words do matter, but some are abused to a point wherein they take on new meanings; grating as that may be for those who knew and appreciated the original meanings.

Words matter, but that doesn't mean one group gets to establish the definition that suits itself. 'Hacker' has been used in popular culture to include malicious computer activity since the 1980s, notwithstanding the existence of the jargon file, and folks such as yourself have been grumbling about that not being 'the true meaning' just as long. The fact is that you don't own the word, and the negative meaning has at least as much common currency as the nerdy one.

Wildly disproportionate analogies are not a good way to get taken more seriously.

> 'Hacker' has been used in popular culture to include malicious computer activity since the 1980s

I don't think his point is that the term shouldn't be used in a negative way, but that the negative way is more along the lines of someone who breaks in to computers, not just floods them with a bunch of packets. Is someone who pours water on a computer and fries the circuits a hacker now too? Petty vandalism just doesn't seem the same as actually gaining unauthorized access, which is how I've always understood to be the popular definition of the word.

I tried to tell a group of friends yesterday that the N Korean internet could have been brought down by script kiddies. When asked what that meant, I said "hackers" and everyone shook their head in agreement and said "ahh, hackers."

Hackers is just a generic term these days, no use getting upset about it.

When asked what a Script Kiddie was, you could have just said they figured out how to press the Refresh button faster than most other people.

Calling them Hackers is giving in, as is looking at it as "that ship has sailed". Language is fluid, it's always changing, and all we have to do to keep the term Hacker is to keep correcting people who mis-use it.

Did Electrical Engineers give in and start calling it "sodder"? No. They correct you when you mis-pronounce the word solder. I argue this is no different.

Where does one acquire a botnet with zero skills?

You can purchase ddos attacks for $1-2 via paypal.

Nowhere near this size though, and those selling bigger attacks on e.g. darkode would charge extra for the heat. If they're paying for the attacks, they must be paying closer to $1000 per hour.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com