How Hackers Are Different from the Rest

Via Threat Level -

Hackers who come to hacker conference, like ToorCon 9, which wraps up today, don't see computing the way the rest of us do. Now, clearly, these guys aren't true black hats, even if they came to see the attack side. The real bad hackers don't register in advance for such conventions - tho they may be hacking the machinery and watching. These ToorCon attendees are security professionals, mainly consultants, smart and full of mischief.

They don't see hacking as good or evil. It's a question of can it be done? And how?

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They give each other credit and laugh at their own awesome accomplishments.

And, tho they are finding scary stuff, they aren't scared.

"These are people who are curious and are always learning to use their tools better," says Geo, minister of propaganda for ToorCon. "This is a particularly good conference because you get five times the information of DefCon with one fourth of the liver damage."

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They tell you that search engines that study your activity (most if not all) are a greater danger to our privacy than the scariest Gonzales of the federal government.

They tell you that servers are so well secured that clients are now the problem and the single greatest threat to server safety and security comes from the clients, who metaphorically roll in filth and then bring it home to the server.

There's no hats here, not white, black or gray. Just cool t-shirts and smart folks who come to hang out together because a couple people can push the envelope farther than one.