Definition of Hacker
The
term hacker , from English, refers to a computer expert . The
concept has two broad meanings as it can refer to a hacker (a person
who illegally accesses a system to take control or obtain private data) or
an expert who is responsible for protecting and improving computer
security.
Both
meanings are accepted by the Royal Spanish Academy ( RAE )
in its dictionary.
Anyway, the word cracker is often
used to specifically name the computer criminal and reserves the use of
hacker for the specialist to analyze the security of a system to improve it.
Leaving
illegal activity aside, therefore, a hacker is a programmer who, thanks to his
technical knowledge, can study the security of a software . It
is common for the hacker to look for system failures or vulnerabilities to
report these flaws to the developer or even to the users in general.
Hackers, in
this sense, are dedicated to solving problems that affect a system . Many
times its function is to find an alternative or a way that the developers could
not discover. There is
a hacker ethic and a hacker attitude that tend to be a
reason for reflection.
These principles are formed from postulates that
indicate how hackers must act morally to avoid causing evil. When the
idea of a hacker goes to a hacker, there is no longer an ethic that regulates
the action. In these cases, the hacker uses his knowledge to gain
personal benefit , violating the rights of other people.
