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Infosec community disagrees with changing 'black hat' term

zdnet.com

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Re: Infosec community disagrees with changing 'black hat' term

#5
It's offensive in the same way as Call of Duty: Black Ops is offensive, which is "generally not actually offensive". However, it is possible to derive professional advancement from claiming that it is, so expect to see more of this in tech.

Also not offensive: Black Friday, black holes, black beans, black tea, black-eyed peas, black gold (aka oil), Black Mirror, black swans.

Re: Infosec community disagrees with changing 'black hat' term

#8
"> Discussions about the topic started late last night after David Kleidermacher[1], VP of Engineering at Google, and in charge of Android Security and the Google Play Store, withdrew from a scheduled talk he was set to give in August at the Black Hat USA 2020 security conference."

it's usually entitled white people who feel immediately offended by this. With entitled I mean, finished university working at a top position in a large company on a 6 figure salary. It's never the worker POC who is slaving away in an Amazon warehouse or working 3 jobs in the gig economy to feed their family. It's just a cheap way to get your name in the news and to me (personally) these people are very misguided. They're well read no doubt but nevertheless wrong. Guess it's easier as an exec at a multinational company to pander to this rather than tackling their transfer-pricing crimes they commit with their Double Irish / Dutch Sandwiches[2].

Banning language like this is a very dangerous path:

“Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thought-crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by eactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. . . . The process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there's no reason or excuse for commiting thought-crime. It's merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won't be any need even for that. . . . Has it ever occcured to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?” -- George Orwell "1984"

[1] https://www.linkedin.com/in/davekleidermacher/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_Islands:_Tax_Havens_a...

Re: Infosec community disagrees with changing 'black hat' term

#9
It is offensive because the word "black" in the phrase has negative connotation, right? If so, the stance Google engineer took was not progressive enough. I suggest a purge with rigorous examination on at least the following phrases on top of my mind:

black cat

black money

black sheep

black frost

black market

black humor

black plague

black widow

black monday

black ops

black hand

black death

black magic

black propaganda

black economy

black book

black prince

black eye

black marketeer

blackmail

Oh, and do remember to cancel this website: https://www.bourncreative.com/meaning-of-the-color-black/, as well as all the discussion about the sensation of the black color.

In a racist's eyes, everything is about racism.

Re: Infosec community disagrees with changing 'black hat' term

#10
It is doing the opposite of what it appears to be doing here. Blackhat is incredibly prestigious, expensive, and largely corporate and government in attendance. If there really was some association to race (I do not think there is), this would be a positive example.

What I would like to see all these people do, who are doing find and replace in repos, is to show up to local city council meetings. They should find out what changes would be most impactful for minorities in their city and fight for those.

Changing 100 tech conference names will never negate the economic damage of them blocking housing development in the single family home neighborhoods that they live in around Mountain View.

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