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The Fall of Hacking

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: The Fall of Hacking

#21

Post by BrentRitterbeck »

pj wrote: post #18
wmf wrote: post #2

Those people are still out there; you just don't hear as much about Real Hacking as about more accessible, mainstream stuff. Also, get a blog.

I actually have a lot more respect for people who come here and type their heart out in the open for no other reason than bringing in content and sharing their ideas. Getting a blog is lame compared to that. You get a blog to get ads and attention and a following. On the contrary, noname123, came here, created an account, and wrote his/her heart out for nothing. Expecting nothing, wanting nothing except to be honest…

I've heard this line hundreds of times before. Hacking is not dead. Something can't be killed if you have the ability to turn on your computer and start doing right away. If you are concerned about whether hacking is alive or dead, perhaps you should fire up your computer and bring it back to life. It's that simple.

Re: The Fall of Hacking

#22

Post by marcocampos »

If you think that an hacker is a criminal that hides behind its CRT monitor, than you never knew what being a hacker means.

You're just mad because those damn kids stole your cool.

"I was really into Nirvana but then MTV came along and made it mainstream so I stopped listening to them. Sellouts!"

Re: The Fall of Hacking

#23

Post by _cbsz »

fallentimes wrote: post #19
pj wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually have a lot more respect for people who come here and type their heart out in the open for no other reason than bringing in content and sharing their ideas. Getting a blog is lame compared to that. You get a blog to get ads and attention and a following. On the contrary, noname123, came here, created an account, and wrote his/her heart out for nothing. Expecting nothing, wanting nothing except to be honest…

I went to sxsw interactive this year... I think you went to the wrong place.

I went to DEFCON. The signal-to-noise ratio is kind of meh.

Re: The Fall of Hacking

#24

Post by le_dominator »

Don't forget that the legal system started updating itself and now has laws on the books more akin to being charged with terrorism. Another thing to consider is people getting threatened with bogus associations to organized crime.

People keep a low profile and things are more implicitly communicated when out in the open. A good hacker is creative, so a creative individual can just as easily imagine the "alternate" possibilities of a particular technology.

Are you interested in Setec Astronomy? :D

Re: The Fall of Hacking

#26

Post by Locke1689 »

ednapiranha wrote: post #25

the movie "hackers". that was some good shit. good times, good times.

I'd probably argue that it was "bad shit," good times ;)

I know hackers is basically a bad movie, but it does have a special place in my heart. I'm not exactly sure why....

Re: The Fall of Hacking

#27

Post by andreyf »

KiwiNige wrote: post #10

Sounds like we all grew up and most of us got day jobs. EDIT: That sounds more dismissive than I meant. The post is a great read, I miss the old days too.

Well, it's a combination of that and of the amount of content respective groups generate - hackers don't have self-indulgent blogs, facebook pages, or youtube channels, and they never did. All that might have changed are the population and diversity if the internet population.

Re: The Fall of Hacking

#28

Post by n8tron »

Great post - i loved the analogies. I grew up on BBS's and VB. In my 20's, I moved into the wild-wild-web. PHP was my first inkling of becoming a programmer, but I soon learned to appreciate the history - teaching myself C/C++, learning design principles, etc., etc., because I needed to know more about the craft.

Now I've gone 'corporate' and my job entails a lot of what you've described aptly as the new new thing. For me hacking has always been about putting the many pieces together. The challenges, more than ever, are still there - it's the nature of them that have changed. Because of the many levels of abstraction, as you've noted, today's hacker needs a broader view and wider skill-set to find those big, big challenges. That's why I still love what I do.

Re: The Fall of Hacking

#30

Post by thunk »

You have to realize: the hackers before us lamented our arrival. And the Real Programmers lamented theirs. If anything, it's only right and proper to steal the term and make it suck in a new way. The point is, it doesn't matter: the real ones walk like ducks, quack like ducks.
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