Date   : Sun, 25 Aug 1985 17:06:38 PDT
From   : crash!kevinb@SDCSVAX.ARPA
Subject: Hackers vs Crashers vs Worms

Regarding the below message:

>You know, I'm getting bloody tired of the misuse and abuse of the term
>"hacker".  I worked hard to learn enough to hopefully be considered a member
>of those illustrious ranks, and do NOT like being associated with vandals,
>delinquents, criminal elements, and the like.

>I would suggest the use of the word "crasher" (as was recently used in a
>book, "The Inner Circle", so I was told) to apply to the destructive or
>criminal elements.  Hacker should remain a descriptive term of those who
>love computers and programming for their own sake.

David, Richard, and (undoubtedly) others-

       Although I agree with David's exception to the word "hackers", being
a originally positive/neutral word badly distorted by media, and also that
the word "hacker" should, if possible, be re-corrected to it's original
(glorious?) usage, I feel it a _very_ bad idea to use the name "crashers", as
used by Bill Landreth in his (ghostwritten) book, as he himself was a criminal
who escaped a more serious punishment by pleading insanity (ha ain't, folks;
read on) and age.  Instead, he was required to pay his phone bills,
and given a two-year parole that _required_ him to attend college for the next
two years. I should have such a sentence, eh? Afterward, a firm selling ghost-
written novels got in touch with him, as a result of which he is now getting
a regular income in royalties, and I believe is now a computer security
consultant making a fair amount of money doing that. Although it seems that
crime, for him, has paid fairly well, I wouldn't personally stoop so low as
to use a phrase coined by someone that has harmed the computing field in this
manner.  An alternate suggestion has been advanced in this area, which is
"worms".  The nickname is for those who "worm" there way into systems they 
don't have legal access to, and I feel that the word, with it's negative
semantic connotations, is more apropo. Also, the word has origins going back to
"tapeworms", which is the nickname for a program designed to get into systems,
gain higher access, poke into areas the security system was designed for, or
just plain be destructive (Also see: Trojan Horse).  Let's not dignify these
jerks with the kind of name _they_ call themselves; know them for the worms
they
really are.

Kevin J. Belles - UUCP {ihnp4,cbosgd,sdcsvax,noscvax}crash!kevinb
~~~~~ ~~ ~~~~~~ - ARPA crash!kevinb@{ucsd,nosc}.ARPA