18-10-2010, 01:04 PM
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This article is presented by:Rajesh Kumar. M
M.C.A III semester
HACKING
Introduction to Hacking
The Internet, like any other new media historically, provides new methods of engaging in illegal activities. That is not to say that the Internet is intrinsically 'bad', as many tabloid journalists would have us to believe, it is simply a means for human beings to express themselves and share common interests. Unfortunately, many of these common interests include pornography, trading Warez (pirated software), trading illegal MP3 files, and engaging in all kinds of fraud such as credit card fraud.
Hacking on the other hand is a greatly misrepresented activity as portrayed by the wider media and Hollywood movies. Although many hackers go on from being computer enthusiasts to Warez pirates, many also become system administrators, security consultants or website managers.
A Definition of Hacking
•Hacking generally refers to the act of a person abusing computer access, breaking into computers, or using computers without authorization.
•An Attack is the attempt of an individual or group to violate a system through some series of events. The attack can originate from someone inside or outside the network.
•An Intruder or Attacker is a person who carries out an attack. •
A Definition of Hacker
Hacker is a term used to describe different types of computer experts. It is also sometimes extended to mean any kind of expert, especially with the connotation of having particularly detailed knowledge or of cleverly circumventing limits. The meaning of the term, when used in a computer context, has changed somewhat over the decades since it first came into use, as it has been given additional and clashing meanings by new users of the word.
Currently, "hacker" is used in two main ways, one positive and one pejorative. It can be used in the computing community to describe a particularly brilliant programmer or technical expert (for example: "Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, is a genius hacker."). This is said by some to be the "correct" usage of the word (see the Jargon File definition below). In popular usage and in the media, however, it generally describes computer intruders or criminals. "Hacker" can be seen as a shibboleth, identifying those who use it in its positive sense as members of the computing community.
As a result of this conflict, the term is the subject of some controversy. The pejorative usage is disliked by many who identify themselves as hackers, and who do not like their label used negatively. Many users of the positive form say the "intruder" meaning should be deprecated, and advocate terms such as "cracker" or "black-hat" to replace it. Others prefer to follow common popular usage, arguing that the positive form is confusing and never likely to become widespread
Crackers are people who try to gain unauthorized access to computers. This is normally done through the use of a 'backdoor' program installed on your machine. A lot of crackers also try to gain access to resources through the use of password cracking software, which tries billions of passwords to find the correct one for accessing a computer.
2)History
Here is a timeline of the noun "hack" and etymologically related terms as they evolved in historical English:
• In French, haquenée means an ambling horse.
• In Old English, tohaccian meant hack to pieces.
• At some point in the 14th century, the word haquenée became hackney, meaning a horse of medium size or fair quality.
• Shortly after, hackney was shortened to hack, and in riding culture the act of "hacking" (as opposed to fox-hunting) meant riding about informally, to no particular purpose.
• 1393 (at the latest): the word had also acquired the meaning of a horse for hire and also "prostitute."
• 1596: hackney was being used as an adjective meaning tired or worn out. Shakespeare also used the word to mean "to make common and overly familiar" in Henry IV, Part I.
• 1700: a hack is a "person hired to do routine work".
• 1704: hack now also means a "carriage for hire".
• 1749: hack means "one who writes anything for hire" (still in use today among writers)
• 1802: hack is used to mean a "short, dry cough" (still in use)
• 1826: the expression "a hack writer" is first recorded though hackney writer appeared at least 50 years earlier
• 1898: hack is given the figurative sense of "a try, an attempt".
• 1950s: ham radio fans borrowed the term hacking from riding and defined it as creatively tinkering to improve performance.
• 1955: American English gives it the slang sense of "cope with" (as in "can't hack it"). On the U.S. East Coast, cars were substituted for horses, and hacking was a precursor to cruising.
• 1989: The Cuckoo's Egg by Clifford Stoll is published. It uses the term hacker in the sense of a computer criminal.
The modern, computer-related form of the term is likely rooted in the goings on at MIT in the 1960s, long before computers became common; a "hack" meant a simple, but often inelegant, solution. The term hack came to refer to any clever prank (http://hacks.mit.edu/) perpetrated by MIT students; logically the perpetrator is a hacker. To this day the terms hack and hacker are used in that way at MIT, without necessarily referring to computers. When MIT students surreptitiously put a police car atop the dome on MIT's Building 10, that was a hack, and the students involved were therefore hackers. This type of hacker is now sometimes called a Reality Hacker or Urban spelunker.
The term was fused with computers when members of the Tech Model Railroad Club started working with a Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-1 computer and applied local model railroad slang to computers.
This article is presented by:Rajesh Kumar. M
M.C.A III semester
HACKING
HACKING
Introduction to Hacking
The Internet, like any other new media historically, provides new methods of engaging in illegal activities. That is not to say that the Internet is intrinsically 'bad', as many tabloid journalists would have us to believe, it is simply a means for human beings to express themselves and share common interests. Unfortunately, many of these common interests include pornography, trading Warez (pirated software), trading illegal MP3 files, and engaging in all kinds of fraud such as credit card fraud.
Hacking on the other hand is a greatly misrepresented activity as portrayed by the wider media and Hollywood movies. Although many hackers go on from being computer enthusiasts to Warez pirates, many also become system administrators, security consultants or website managers.
A Definition of Hacking
•Hacking generally refers to the act of a person abusing computer access, breaking into computers, or using computers without authorization.
•An Attack is the attempt of an individual or group to violate a system through some series of events. The attack can originate from someone inside or outside the network.
•An Intruder or Attacker is a person who carries out an attack. •
A Definition of Hacker
Hacker is a term used to describe different types of computer experts. It is also sometimes extended to mean any kind of expert, especially with the connotation of having particularly detailed knowledge or of cleverly circumventing limits. The meaning of the term, when used in a computer context, has changed somewhat over the decades since it first came into use, as it has been given additional and clashing meanings by new users of the word.
Currently, "hacker" is used in two main ways, one positive and one pejorative. It can be used in the computing community to describe a particularly brilliant programmer or technical expert (for example: "Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, is a genius hacker."). This is said by some to be the "correct" usage of the word (see the Jargon File definition below). In popular usage and in the media, however, it generally describes computer intruders or criminals. "Hacker" can be seen as a shibboleth, identifying those who use it in its positive sense as members of the computing community.
As a result of this conflict, the term is the subject of some controversy. The pejorative usage is disliked by many who identify themselves as hackers, and who do not like their label used negatively. Many users of the positive form say the "intruder" meaning should be deprecated, and advocate terms such as "cracker" or "black-hat" to replace it. Others prefer to follow common popular usage, arguing that the positive form is confusing and never likely to become widespread
Crackers are people who try to gain unauthorized access to computers. This is normally done through the use of a 'backdoor' program installed on your machine. A lot of crackers also try to gain access to resources through the use of password cracking software, which tries billions of passwords to find the correct one for accessing a computer.
2)History
Here is a timeline of the noun "hack" and etymologically related terms as they evolved in historical English:
• In French, haquenée means an ambling horse.
• In Old English, tohaccian meant hack to pieces.
• At some point in the 14th century, the word haquenée became hackney, meaning a horse of medium size or fair quality.
• Shortly after, hackney was shortened to hack, and in riding culture the act of "hacking" (as opposed to fox-hunting) meant riding about informally, to no particular purpose.
• 1393 (at the latest): the word had also acquired the meaning of a horse for hire and also "prostitute."
• 1596: hackney was being used as an adjective meaning tired or worn out. Shakespeare also used the word to mean "to make common and overly familiar" in Henry IV, Part I.
• 1700: a hack is a "person hired to do routine work".
• 1704: hack now also means a "carriage for hire".
• 1749: hack means "one who writes anything for hire" (still in use today among writers)
• 1802: hack is used to mean a "short, dry cough" (still in use)
• 1826: the expression "a hack writer" is first recorded though hackney writer appeared at least 50 years earlier
• 1898: hack is given the figurative sense of "a try, an attempt".
• 1950s: ham radio fans borrowed the term hacking from riding and defined it as creatively tinkering to improve performance.
• 1955: American English gives it the slang sense of "cope with" (as in "can't hack it"). On the U.S. East Coast, cars were substituted for horses, and hacking was a precursor to cruising.
• 1989: The Cuckoo's Egg by Clifford Stoll is published. It uses the term hacker in the sense of a computer criminal.
The modern, computer-related form of the term is likely rooted in the goings on at MIT in the 1960s, long before computers became common; a "hack" meant a simple, but often inelegant, solution. The term hack came to refer to any clever prank (http://hacks.mit.edu/) perpetrated by MIT students; logically the perpetrator is a hacker. To this day the terms hack and hacker are used in that way at MIT, without necessarily referring to computers. When MIT students surreptitiously put a police car atop the dome on MIT's Building 10, that was a hack, and the students involved were therefore hackers. This type of hacker is now sometimes called a Reality Hacker or Urban spelunker.
The term was fused with computers when members of the Tech Model Railroad Club started working with a Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-1 computer and applied local model railroad slang to computers.
