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Monday, January 2, 2012

The difference between Hackers and Crackers

When most people think about computer protection the word hacker comes to their mind. Another word that is also associated with bad computer behaviour is cracker and most of the time the two words are used interchangeably but they are not the same thing.

A hacker is a someone who has a great deal of computing skills and enjoys the challenges of solving technical issues. This includes breaking and infiltrating computers and networks. The aim of hackers is not to cause damage but the technical aspects and how to overcome them fascinates them and they see it as learning and as a status seal surrounded by the hacker community.

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An personel does not give himself the title hacker but it is left up to the community to confer that title if the someone has demonstrated the required knowledge and proved it. A hacker feels that facts should be free so they document how they went about overcoming sure difficulties so others can learn from them. This sharing raises the status of the personel involved and as a whole the community benefits.

Unlike a hacker the aim of a cracker is to cause mischief and gain some benefit by causing harm to the owner of the computer or network broken into e.g. By stealing prestige card details or installing some malicious software.

Hackers see crackers as lowlifes and try very hard to distinguish themselves from them but this is not easy especially when the media insists on calling everyone a hacker.

The dissimilarity between a hacker and a cracker might not seem a lot to the average someone because after all both of them break into unauthorised computers and networks but in reality there is a big dissimilarity because what matters is what the someone does after he/she infiltrates a network.

The difference between Hackers and Crackers

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