#2 : Why is so mean ? 323637

The history of hackers from the dawn of humanity to the present day. Hackers ≠ villains “Hacker” simply means someone who pushes a system beyond its intended use; ethics split them into white hats(defenders) and black hats (attackers). Flaws are human, not machine Bugs stem from programming mistakes; early example: 1950s “bugs” were literal moths in tube computers. Hackers exploit such flaws just as lock-pickers exploit bad locks. First big hack (1834) The Blanc brothers bribed operators on ’s optical-telegraph network to slip stock tips through the error-correction mechanism, beating the market by days. Phone-phreak era (1950s-1970s) Captain Crunch’s 2600 Hz whistle fooled switches into granting free calls; Jobs & Wozniak sold “blue boxes” doing the same. Internet dawn & celebrity hackers Kevin Poulsen rerouted radio contests; Robert Morris’s worm crashed 10 % of the fledgling Internet; Kevin Mitnick mixed technical hacks with social engineering, landing on the FBI’s “Most Wanted.” Hacker collectivism Cypherpunks (1992): privacy, decentralization, crypto manifesto (free access, distrust authority). Anonymous: leaderless “digital flock” coordinating online protests. Chaos Computer Club (Berlin): white-hat research and public audits (e.g., ’s COVID app). Four modern tribes White hats / researchers – find and disclose bugs, defend privacy. Criminal crews – profit-driven ransomware, card theft, etc. Mercenaries – vendors of spyware like Pegasus, sold to states. Nation-states – build cyber-armies; Stuxnet showed state-grade sabotage. Why the bad reputation? Cyber-crime now out-earns all other transnational crime combined; 83 % of SMEs still lack basic defenses. As stakes rise—from personal data to national security—every hacker action feels existential. Bottom line: Hackers can be guardians or predators; their tools are neutral, but in a hyper-connected world the consequences—and the fear—have never been bigger. Hosted by Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information. 4r5755