XPost: alt.2600
The Myth of the Computer Hacker
Reid Skibell
New York, USA
Information, Communication & Society 5:3 2002 336–356
(*) Abstract
The seriousness of computer hacking is not exaggerated, it is far worse
than that. The computer hacker has attained the status of myth; society associates all computer crime with a mythical perpetrator that bears no resemblance to reality. This paper will argue that in the early stages
of the myth the computer hacker was regarded as a highly skilled but
mentally disturbed youth who has an unhealthy association with
computers. The new reality of electronic commerce resulted in pressures
that culminated in the computer hacker becoming regarded as a dangerous criminal. A thorough analysis of the statistics will demonstrate that
the majority of computer intruders are neither dangerous nor highly
skilled, and thus nothing like the mythical hacker.
Full paper:
http://130.18.86.27/faculty/warkentin/securitypapers/Merrill/Skibell2002_C&S5_3_HackerMyth.pdf
(*) My reading
There are typos in the paper, which would have been easily caught by a
spell checker. Some typos are difficult to understand. For instance,
it seems that ``soldier'' has been written at various places as
``solider.'' Same typo over and over? It is written properly in at
least one place.
The author seems to use the name ``hacker'' without any mention to
computer specialists in the original sense of the word. No mention of
Steven Levy's ``Hackers'' from 1984.
Considering the length of the paper, it is not quite worth it.
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