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   White hat hackers are a group of people who believe it is their obligation to promote the fair and beneficial use of knowledge and technology.

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What Is A White Hat Hacker?

   According to Hollywood, a hacker can be a wiz kid who spends too much time with computers and suddenly finds himself submerged in the world of cyber-security or criminal conspirators. On the other hand, he can be a master criminal who wants to obtain huge amounts of money for him, or even worse, dominate the world.
   In the movie Matrix, the concept of hackers changed a bit. Although the agents of the Matrix considered them terrorists, the truth is that they were rebels fighting for the liberty of humanity. Things do not need to reach that extreme, though. We are not at war with intelligent ma chines so that kind of scenario is a bit dramatic.

   Therefore, a hacker is an individual who is capable of modifying computer hardware, or software. They made their appearance before the advent of computers, when determined individuals were fascinated with the possibility of modifying machines. For example, entering a determine code in a telephone in order to make free international calls.
   When computers appeared, this people found a new realm where they could exploit their skills. Now they were not limited to the constraints of the physical world, instead, they could travel through the virtual world of computers. Before the internet, they used Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) to communicate and exchange information. However, the real explosion occurred when the Internet appeared.

 
   Today, anyone can become a hacker. Within that denomination, there are three types of hackers. The first one is the black hacker, also known as a cracker, someone who uses his computer knowledge in criminal activ ities in order to obtain personal benefits. A typical example is a person who exploits the weaknesses of the systems of a financial institution for making some money.

   On the other side is the white hat hacker. Although white hat hacking can be considered similar to a black hacker, there is an important difference. A white hacker does it with no criminal intention in mind. Companies around the world, who want to test their systems, contract white hackers. They will test how secure are their systems, and point any faults that they may found. If you want to become a hacker with a white hat, linux, a PC and an internet connection is all you need.

       Black Hat Hackers 

   Thanks to Hollywood, black hat hackers have become the iconic image of all hackers around the world. For the majority of computer users, the word hacker has become a synonym for social misfits and criminals. Of course, that is an injustice created by our own interpretation of the mass media, so it is important for us to learn what a hacker is and what a black hacker (or cracker) does. So, let's learn about black hat techniques and how they make our lives a little more difficult. What Is Black Hat Hacking? A black hat hacker, also known as a cracker or a dark side hacker (this last definition is a direct reference to the Star Wars movies and the dark side of the force), is someone who uses his skills with a criminal intent.

    Some examples are: cracking bank accounts in order to make transferences to their own accounts, stealing information to be sold in the black market, or attacking the computer network of an organization for money.

Differences Between White Hat And A Black Hat Hacker

   The difference between black hat and white hat hackers is that white hat hacker uses their skills and knowledge as a way to defend someone from attackers. That means that white hat hackers offer their services to corporations, public organizations and educational institutions. These services include a complete revision of their computer network security, implementation of new security systems (they may be hardware or software), user training and future recommendations. All these measures will be able to combat unauthorized hacking; black hat hackers, however, will continue trying.
   Some famous cases of black hat hacking include Kevin Mitnick, who used his black hat hackers skills to enter the computers of organizations such as Nokia, Fujitsu, Motorola and Sun Microsystems (it must be mentioned that he is now a white hat hacker); Kevin Poulsen, who took control of all the phone lines in Los Angeles in order to win a radio contest (the prize was a Porsche 944 S2); and Vladimir Levin, which is the handle of the mastermind behind the stealing of $10'000,000 to Citigroup.

   Differences Between White Hat And A Black Hat Hacker .

Grey Hat

   A grey hat hacker is someone who is in between these two concepts. He may use his skills for legal or illegal acts, but not for personal gains. Grey hackers use their skills in order to prove themselves that they can accomplish a determined feat, but never do it in order to make money out of it. The moment they cross that boundary, they become black hackers.
For example, they may hack the computer network of a public agency, let us say, NOAA. That is a federal crime.
   If the authorities capture them, they will feel the long arm of justice. However, if they only get inside, and post, let us say, their handle, and get out without causing any kind of damage, then they can be considered grey hackers.

   If you want to know more about hackers, then you can attend one of their annual conventions. Every year, hackers from all over the US, and from different parts of the world, reunite and meet at DEF CON. These conventions are much concurred. In the last one, 6,600 people attended it.

   Every year, DEF CON is celebrated at Las Vegas, Nevada. However, hackers are not the only ones who go to this event. There are also computer journalists, computer security professionals, lawyers, and employees of the federal government. The event is composed by tracks of different kind, all of them related, in some way, to the world of hackers (computer security, worms, viruses, new technologies, coding, etc). Besides the tracks, there are contests that involve hacking computers, l ock picking and even robot related events. Ethical hacking, white hat hacking or whatever names you wish to use, at the end, it has a purpose: to protect the systems of organizations, public or private, around the world. After all, hackers can now be located anywhere, and they can be counted by the millions. Soon, concepts like white hat, linux operating system or grey hat will become common knowledge. A real proof of how much has our society been influenced by technology.

Sometimes what you're looking for is staring right back at you.

THEORY

 Cyberspace and the Changing Landscape of the Self

•  What is CyberAnthropology?
  
• The Hidden Center of the Gutenberg Galaxy
  
• Anthropocybersynchronicity (a mouthful)
  
• Lost in Cyberspace: the Cultural Geography of Noplace 
• Visions of Excess in Cyberspace

REFLECTIONS

Reflections

• The Ghost in the Machine: Voudoun in Gibson's Matrix
• And PKD Wept: Previsions of Cyberpunk in Radio Free Albemuth

• Artificial Life: its origins and its meanings
• Information Technology and Sustainable Development
• The Many Meanings of "Virtual Reality"
• Timothy Leary, Cyberpunk
• The Flesh Made Word: information, energy, entropy, and time

PREDICTIONS

Predictions

• A Somewhat Biased Review of Competing for the Future
• A Futurist Scenario for 2005: the Media Landscape
• A 2nd Futurist Scenario for 2005

• Space Frontier Foundation and Living Universe Foundation - formerly Millenial Project - promoting space colonization
• Life Extension Foundation - extending the human lifespan
• Human Cloning Foundation - promoting cloning and genetic engineering
• Bucky Fuller page - a futurist visionary
• Self Organizing Systems
• Extropians - these techno-visionaries go way beyond any of my beliefs about human potentials
• Mutate Project - You must MUTATE NOW
• Philip K. Dick - the first cyberpunk visionary
• Alife.org - everything on Artificial Life

ETHNOGENESIS

Ethnogenesis

• Iterative Discourse and the Formation of New Subcultures
• New Selves for the 21st Century: Technology and the Transformation of Identity
• Technoculture by Andrew Ross
• Utopian American Communities: in the U.S. from the 1700s to the Space Age

RAVE ON: Youth Cultures and Electronic Music

Rave On

• Ambient Music FAQ
• Is there Music in the House?: an Ethnomusicology of Techno/Rave
  
• Zippies! 
• A Spirited Defense of Techno  

THE COMPUTER UNDERGROUND

The Computer Underground 

• The Baudy World of the Byte Bandit by Meyer and Thomas
• The Electronic Discourse of the Computer Underground
• Is there a Hacker Ethic for 90s Hackers? 
• Old vs. New Hackers 

• Modern Primitives: The Collision of Past and Future
• Stelarc: Post-Human
• Survival Research Labs

• Star Wanderers: Lakota Ethnoastronomy
• Thunderbird and Trickster : sacred clowns (heyoka) and the Thunderbird
• The White Roads of the Yucatan: the Mayan sacbeob and how they form an early "world wide web"

VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES

Virtual Communities

• MUDs as a Psychological Laboratory
• A Slice of Life in My Virtual Community by Howard Rheingold 
• To Define Culture in a Virtual World
  

• CyberCraft
• Technoshamanism
• Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth (TOPY)