What I worry about with many of these recovery stories is that you're probably not humiliating the criminal, just some unlucky person who bought the computer on Craigslist.
Why you don't steal from a hacker.
101–110 of 166 posts
Re: Why you don't steal from a hacker.
#102A lot of bits wasted here about semantics but not a single one raising the multiple racist allusions on the linked blog post.
Re: Why you don't steal from a hacker.
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a value judgement. As a hacker you can't do everything . Prey is a polished product that you can trust to work. If you are into this sort of thing, certainly you can achieve more functionality and better security by rolling your own, but I don't consider it a prerequisite to hackerdom anymore than soldering your own motherboards. How often do you expect your laptop to be stolen anyway?
The thing is: rolling my own takes less time than installing Prey. Of course, it won't have bells and whistles, but it'll be much less limited.
I'm sorry but that claim has no credibility with me. Setting up the proper cron jobs, server-side components, and verifying that everything is working under a variety of circumstances will take much more than the 5 mins it takes to install Prey.
Just because you've already done it and you have a pre-rolled solution doesn't mean you didn't invest that time, and don't fool yourself.
Re: Why you don't steal from a hacker.
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
no it's not. and please don't start with this over again. we (the Prey team) don't have the time or the interest to pay people, thieves or whomever to build and publish these elaborate stories. I spent almost all afternoon yesterday on Reddit -- where some guy published a similar story -- trying to make it clear that we had nothing to do with it (besides having developed the software). I'd be happy to answer any ques…
Thanks for your software, i think u guys are latin-americans? ...
yup that's right, at least me and most of the guys that work for Fork (the company I founded after Prey took off). however there's lots of contributors from Europe, the US and Asia.
Re: Why you don't steal from a hacker.
#105Re: Why you don't steal from a hacker.
#106Selling corporate firewall hardware doesn't make you a hacker
Well, who knows - maybe he has a life outside his job?
Re: Why you don't steal from a hacker.
#107This article seems to imply this "hacker" used some actual skill set to retrieve their stolen goods. Installing tracking software on a mac and then bragging about it when stolen and then found doesn't fit with what I'd call being a hacker. Nice story though. And I'm happy another rioting / looting is going to court to answer for there actions.
The down votes seem to imply that I'm wrong. Please could someone enlighten me as to why I'm out of line here. Yeah, sure this guy calls himself a "Security Evangelist" but this has absolutely nothing to do with his skill set being used as a "hacker". Any Joe on the street could and likely has done what he has .. the title is sensationalism and frankly I've become tired of this nonsense in the media over these riots.
I suppose it's people being tired by the whole "hacker" hoopla, especially when people use the term to compare their e-peen, but also when the media confuses hackers with crackers.
To me, the hacker/cracker thing is just a lost battle and thus a big waste of time.
That being said, I'd only use "hacker" in the original sense, i.e. the hacker philosophy about exploring, learning and teaching. To me, a person with no clue about cars that learns to fix it themselves is by definition a hacker.
You all too often see people pulling the e-peen thing on the net, which I find sad, as it's also just another waste of time. The "correct" use of the term hacker is just a pretense imho.
In the same vein of whining and bitching: has there been another influx from reddit lately or is the cooling effect (or what it's called) only gradually noticeable? I've noticed that I'm more disappointed with the content and comments on HN lately, even more so on reddit obviously.
Re: Why you don't steal from a hacker.
#108This article seems to imply this "hacker" used some actual skill set to retrieve their stolen goods. Installing tracking software on a mac and then bragging about it when stolen and then found doesn't fit with what I'd call being a hacker. Nice story though. And I'm happy another rioting / looting is going to court to answer for there actions.
The down votes seem to imply that I'm wrong. Please could someone enlighten me as to why I'm out of line here. Yeah, sure this guy calls himself a "Security Evangelist" but this has absolutely nothing to do with his skill set being used as a "hacker". Any Joe on the street could and likely has done what he has .. the title is sensationalism and frankly I've become tired of this nonsense in the media over these riots.
You're getting downvoted because he's not implying that installing Prey makes him a hacker. He updated his post as follows (possibly after you posted your comments?):
>Updated: to quell the comments, I did not choose the title to imply downloading tracking software is hacking, I am a hacker by profession and have been most my life.
Re: Why you don't steal from a hacker.
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, I'm saddened by all the responses here making the basic logical fallacy of affirming the consequent. It seemed perfectly clear to me that you meant that a hacker is going to have some means of finding his stolen laptop rather than that using Prey makes you some kind of hacker. And to the criticism that you are running a product, that's ridiculous as well. Do we all solder our own motherboards? Devout Not-Invente…
It's sad that many of the people who say the word "hacker" means all these positive and inclusive things are often the same people who lambast someone for actually using the word that way to refer to themselves. Make up your minds. Is it the inclusive, "explorers of technology" meaning where it's more about curiosity and open-mindedness than skill level, or is it your little l337 boys club badge of honor?
It's highly desirable to be called a genius, but in general people calling themselves geniuses are looked down upon.
I think among people who do use the word "hacker" to mean someone skilled with computers, it's considered poor form to call yourself a hacker but high praise to be named a hacker. Eric Raymond wrote long screeds about this way back in the 90s when people still gave a damn about him.
Personally, I call somebody who is skilled at breaking systems a hacker. The guy who discovers how to Man-in-the-middle attack an SSL connection is a hacker. The morons in black trenchcoats and leather fedoras who then download a .EXE to automatically do just that and harvest passwords at Starbucks... are fucking scum of the earth script kiddies.
Re: Why you don't steal from a hacker.
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
The down votes seem to imply that I'm wrong. Please could someone enlighten me as to why I'm out of line here. Yeah, sure this guy calls himself a "Security Evangelist" but this has absolutely nothing to do with his skill set being used as a "hacker". Any Joe on the street could and likely has done what he has .. the title is sensationalism and frankly I've become tired of this nonsense in the media over these riots.
I suppose it's people being tired by the whole "hacker" hoopla, especially when people use the term to compare their e-peen, but also when the media confuses hackers with crackers. To me, the hacker/cracker thing is just a lost battle and thus a big waste of time. That being said, I'd only use "hacker" in the original sense, i.e. the hacker philosophy about exploring, learning and teaching. To me, a person with no cl…
Couldn't agree with you more.
If you're a mechanic, you don't brag about calling the AA to home-start your wheels. You would be pretty shocked to see a mechanic post a story about his home-start on a hobby enthusiasts news site and see the community there voting the story up.