Talk:Hacker/Archive 6

Latest comment: 11 months ago by ShaneMaddoxBruce in topic |To disabuse Hacker
Archive 1 Archive 4 Archive 5 Archive 6

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Hacker (computer security) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 06:14, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Minor fixes on the article on Thabo Taolo

Good day fellow wikipedians


Can you please take your time to check the grammatical errors i fixed on the mini article as i am new to this I also think the article needs a few cites as the is no proof to whether if the article

Thank you


--Itssslime 12:22, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Thabo Taolo

One of the powerful hackers in the world is found in Botswana called Thabo Taolo(Sean Carter Forbs).A 19 year old young adult born in the 29th of December 2000 at a village named Mahalapye.The kid registered his first hackers competition at the age of 5 in New York and was able to get position 2 out of 1062 contestants. Seancarter507 (talk) 19:32, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

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The word "expert"

My contention is with the word Expert in 'any skilled computer expert' as definition for hacker. Am a retired engineer and in early 1970s when I first heard the word hacker. It was in context of a similar student on west coast who with some knowledge and trial created a device for obtaining free long distance phone calls. My understanding is that the word comes from 'Hack', a rack for hanging and delivering clothing to stores. Idea coming from ready made clothing. Hence I say that a hacker was an amateur and experimenter and not an expert or any professional. My memory is of the first misuse of Hacker by Microsoft in the 80s to label a larger population instead of the 'Pirates' that were beginning to break into computer systems at the time. Ed, goraed@gmail.com. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.5.123.191 (talk) 10:25, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 March 2019

197.40.249.138 (talk) 19:35, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
  Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. NiciVampireHeart 19:36, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Proposed refinement to definition of "hacker" (first sentence of this article)

I too have some problem with the first sentence of this article, which attempts to define a hacker as: "A computer hacker is any skilled computer expert that uses their technical knowledge to overcome a problem." This reads/scans rather clumsily, and it's just not quite right.

While the spirit/intention of this definition is okay, it can be refined (actually, generalized a bit) with this proposed replacement:

"Any skilled expert (often, but not exclusively, in the context of computer technology) who uses technical knowledge, together with unorthodox thinking, approaches and methods, to overcome a problem."

The grammarian nitpick is to replace "that" with "who". The generalization is "Any skilled expert", with the parenthetical qualification to computer technology. The addition, essential I think to understanding who/what's really a hacker, is "together with unorthodox thinking, approaches and methods," -- This is substantiated by nearly all professionally accepted definitions and uses of the term (e.g., Raymond, Stallman, Linkner, et al).

Might we try this refined definition, give it the test of visibility? Thank you for your consideration!

Respectfully submitted, -- Lorin (talk) 15:55, 30 July 2019 (UTC) Lorin Ricker (07/30/2019)

Apologies for the multiple entry attempts here ... Talk page was complaining about edit collisions, but I think it was just foolin' with me. Respectfully, -- Lorin (talk) 15:06, 31 July 2019 (UTC) Lorin Ricker (07/30/2019)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 April 2020

Hacker is a term for both those who write code and those who exploit it. Even though these two groups of hackers have different end goals, both groups use similar problem-solving techniques. Since an understanding of programming helps those who exploit, and an understanding of exploitation helps those who program, many hackers do both. There are interesting hacks found in both the techniques used to write elegant code and the techniques used to exploit programs. Hacking is really just the act of finding a clever and counterintuitive solution to a problem. The hacks found in program exploits usually use the rules of the computer to bypass security in ways never intended. Programming hacks are similar in that they also use the rules of the computer in new and inventive ways, but the final goal is efficiency or smaller source code, not necessarily a security compromise. There are actually an infinite number of programs that can be written to accomplish any given task, but most of these solutions are unnecessarily large, complex, and sloppy. The few solutions that remain are small, efficient, and neat. Programs that have these qualities are said to have elegance, and the clever and inventive solutions that tend to lead to this efficiency are called hacks. Hackers on both sides of programming appreciate both the beauty of elegant code and the ingenuity of clever hacks. In the business world, more importance is placed on churning out functional code than on achieving clever hacks and elegance. Because of the tremendous exponential growth of computational power and memory, spending an extra five hours to create a slightly faster and more memoryefficient piece of code just doesn’t make business sense when dealing with modern computers that have gigahertz of processing cycles and gigabytes of memory. While time and memory optimizations go without notice by all but the most sophisticated of users, a new feature is marketable. When the bottom line is money, spending time on clever hacks for optimization just doesn’t make sense. True appreciation of programming elegance is left for the hackers: computer hobbyists whose end goal isn’t to make a profit but to squeeze every possible bit of functionality out of their old Commodore 64s, exploit writers who need to write tiny and amazing pieces of code to slip through narrow security cracks, and anyone else who appreciates the pursuit and the challenge of finding the best possible solution. These are the people who get excited about programming and really appreciate the beauty of an elegant piece of code or the ingenuity of a clever hack. Since an understanding of programming is a prerequisite to understanding how programs can be exploited, programming is a natural starting point. Vikash.vy (talk) 14:23, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

  Not done. It's not clear what changes you want to make. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 14:52, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

anna are you here — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.97.199.155 (talk) 20:52, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Hacking

I want your help Sapta001 (talk) 20:29, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Sapta001, this is Wikipedia, I'm sure we have plenty of l33t h4x0rs who'd help. For real though, this is off-topic and against TP guidelines. Ed6767 (talk) 20:30, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Hack file Kutte ka mut (talk) 18:23, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 June 2020

102.78.72.141 (talk) 09:49, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
  Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Jack Frost (talk) 10:02, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

White and Black Hat Hackers - Change Needed

Given the historical overhaul we are going through in society in addressing systematic racism of the past, and sensitives associated with colour and colour stigma's, I think it's more important to address colour oriented stigma's such as black = malicious, white = good, than to worry about the irritability of some people who don't enjoy PC culture.

I propose a need to change to the terms "White" Hat Hacker and "Black" Hat hacker as a means of addressing colour associated stigma's that are honestly just tiring to keep seeing.

I don't have any incite to what the changes should be but I propose a change should be made.

As a Computer Security student and member of two protected classes (defined by various pieces of American Legislature which I can't quite remember the name of- I am a white male, but neither of my protected minority statuses are visible), I must disagree. I only mention the detail about myself because it means I actually know what I'm talking about and have felt the pain of discrimination and (verbal and physical) violence firsthand. I think it is important to note that while many words/phrases/concepts have a discriminatory origin, most have an extraordinarily rich history and all of them influenced by its users and targets and by people who censor them, for better or worse. The concept you reference has nothing to do with race or ethnicity, instead it comes from American Old West cowboy films in which the villain wearing a black hat and the hero wearing a white was a common trope (see Black-and-white dualism) and I have found no evidence of that being in reference to ethnicity either. The concept of the white=good and black=bad is very ancient (it is certainly as old as the scriptures of the Abrahamic religions, but I'm pretty sure it's much older than that (I don't have sources for it at the moment though). In ancient times, there was (of course) no electricity and few people had access to heating (not from a fire) so light required for crop-growth, heat, and visibility (thus light=white=good), necrotizing (causing flesh to rot/die) illnesses were very common (think of the color of gangrene or plague spots), and filthy conditions frequently causing disease (I'm not describing that one because it's too gross, but it's also black). Light and therefore the color white has been associated with life since pre-history and the color black has been associated with rot and death (and black bile/ (humour)=disease was thought to be caused by evil spirits) since the same time.

I feel like although political correctness is important to the extent of reducing burden and stress on minorities (like myself), it shouldn't place heavy burdens on others (also like myself, since my minority status is invisible). I should not have to feel like I am walking on half-broken egg shells whenever I use those two colors, but I do- I feel like any time I am around strangers and a conversation topic regarding minorities comes up, I have to be very careful not to say anything remotely perceivable as not p/c or I risk being publicly accused of being a bigot- despite the fact that if I had their righteous moral-indignation (I don't) it would be just as valid as theirs.

As a final non-opinion remark, I will say that unless there is very broad coverage from reliable, unbiased sources about this need, it is not our job to make this sort of change as per WP:CENSOR, and to do so isn't in the spirit of an encyclopedia, Wikipedia especially. Have a nice day! Thanks, KnowledgeablePersona (talk) 09:44, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

"H4x0r5" listed at Redirects for discussion

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"H@x0r" listed at Redirects for discussion

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"H4x0rz" listed at Redirects for discussion

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"Hackz0rz" listed at Redirects for discussion

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Lead Section

Hi there, I made some changes to the lead section - just regarding the rewrite notice which was present on this article. Nothing too major - mostly grammatical/ sentence structuring. I also added the last sentence of the lead, which has the potential for more information to be included. ZP 64 (talk) 01:38, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 December 2020

77.30.69.203 (talk) 20:41, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
  •   Not done - your request was empty. Next time, please indicate what specific changes you think should be made to this page. Thank you ‡ Єl Cid of Valencia talk 20:43, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

  This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 25 August 2020 and 10 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Cbk5351. Peer reviewers: Apple1223.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:05, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

  This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Nlombardo97.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:57, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 February 2021

62.20.62.209 (talk) 13:39, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Gustav Vasa hade en stor påverkan på den Sverige vi nu lever i

Translation: Gustav I of Sweden had a large impact on the Sweden we live in today

  Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Hacker. If possible, please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. If you cannot edit the article's talk page, you can instead make your request at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection#Current requests for edits to a protected page. Gaioa (T C L) 13:49, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 March 2021

First sentence grammer error can you please change their to his/her Sugarface127 (talk) 16:21, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

It is fine to use the Singular they in prose. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:49, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 April 2022

I believe another paragraph on motivation needs to be added for a minor reason. One significant trend in the hacking community is not necessarily to gain appreciation from fellow hackers for the skill, but to test limits for the sake of curiosity. There have been many cases prosecutored recently in the United States that shows curiosity was the primary motivation. I believe this needs to be reflected. Crownthescholar (talk) 02:18, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

  Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 02:22, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 December 2022

Change the first image from:

[[File:Jailbreakers.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|Group of [[iOS jailbreaking|iOS jailbreakers]] at [[DEF CON]] 2011|alt=see caption]]

To:

[[File:Coding da Vinci - Der Kultur-Hackathon (14123515524).jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|People taking part in the Coding da Vinci hackathon on April 26th and 27th, 2014 in Berlin|alt=A group of people working on laptop computers at a common table]]

Why:

  • The proposed image better shows people actually doing hacking.
  • It also avoids any confusion about the ethics or legality of hacking by avoiding the term jailbreaking.
  • It contains descriptive alt text.

-- 71.227.138.128 (talk) 22:22, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

  Done RealAspects (talk) 13:20, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Hackers & Painters

Hackers are both people who circumventing controls and and people who building things in creative or unorthodox ways. At different times and in different contexts either definition can be more predominant. Should this article be rewritten to present a more balanced description of hackers, with appropriate citations of course? -- 71.227.138.128 (talk) 16:45, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

|To disabuse Hacker

being an etymology article, instead of a bunch of buzzwords such as VPN or whether it's authorized by government, or which should be separate articles of 'cracking' not 'hacking' but it was reverted.

Seems any reversion should include whatever the reviewer is 'feeling', and some type of appeal mechanism. And as far as mechanisms, that citations automatically refer to other Wikipedia, told on English help chat that would be self-referring that the producers' programmers of Wikipedia are wrong?!!


Is it that you writers don't want to be automatically called criminals as computer programmers seem to be by the offensive article? Then my revisions should be considered as disabusing. Here's a hint, capable ready people aren't going to help if having to go through months of attempting to correct something, we'll simply stop donating.


I did make three revisions, to review. Despite modern 'feelings' it's better to be called a cheap horse working tirelessly, that to be congratulated as a criminal simply because we happen to write. The article is personally offensive.

Perhaps a better infrastructure, where the reviewers ideas are reviewed by a larger voting panel? Up votes or down votes like Stack Exchange? What I just experienced of reviewers saying every wiki article is wrong and can't be referenced as 'service'.. insane.

Take the 'new' reference, a DARPA tech-transfer officer from Army ComSec, it's not a legal/illegal term, it's a methodology, hack, hammer build, versus crack, fool, scam, break. The Crackers talk about/follow/troll about Hackers, Security talks about Hackers. they are not synonyms. Sometimes it looks like instead of reviewers got some confused crackers, attacking the principles of the created site. One does wonder if they come from a disinformation campaign. "Crackers" predates Alan Turing and WWII, goes back to encryption, not a "Response to Media", please deliver contributors from those who think it's all response to mass media (those hacks).

https://www.facebook.com/Black.Eagle.Analytics.Data/posts/pfbid02rir3gQ2cd5zwcPKjmsR8dMD3zgrriXaeCWTp1jzB5jfSYcMYy2iEgkrznM8HPkVbl?__cft__[0]=AZU1eGAhz_dwg9pboKK7kJ8CmGmh1C3ZhrpqkmtxDCX_IWLfhMS0CKRQCnFL92kvVZBiTvzG_LijBICMEL8UAnzHtG3A4u41RcOumoW_0gXrKigt98nsd3wesXonLUmi3pF5fthkXjX7z_AoVjhBVdku&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R ShaneMaddoxBruce (talk) 19:28, 20 May 2023 (UTC)