- Socrates said: People have ethics. Hackers are people.
Therefore, hackers have ethics.
- The bottom line is, action (or inaction) is value-laden. Value
judgments involve ethics. Hackers do things:
with computers, to each other, to other people. Hacking activities
don't usually take place spontaneously or impulsively. Thus,
ethical decision making must take place.
- I tried to specify some characteristics and behaviors associated
with ethics in The
Hacker's Code.
- A drawback of the world we live in today is that ill-informed
people can't distinguish between hacking activities and simple
vandalism, thoughtlessness or incompetence. Computer intrusion
doesn't imply hacking, and the majority of computer intrusions
we hear about are not committed by hackers.
- In other words, a simple Web page defacement or
well-known expliot, committed against a random target, involves
little skill and is not hacking.
- Nevertheless, hackers can act unethically, or (perhaps more
likely) develop tools that can be used in a manner inconsistent
with their ethics.
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