Hackers by definition are not malicious at all. Any programmer would be considered a hacker. However, the name has stuck and the malicious hackers are what are most commonly referred to as being a hacker. But it's so misused.
Technically, there are 3 flavors of hackers...
White Hat - a non malicious hacker who simply creates things that benefits everybody.
Gray Hat - Somewhere between the White Hat and Black Hat.
Black Hat - a malicious hacker that does create trojans, worms and such to gain access to other machines to steal data or do other harm. They also hack directly from one source to another... scanning for open ports, back doors and such to enter into. Even running lists of usernames and passwords against a login to gain entry. Or searching for weak points in a website and exploiting them. There are many things they do.
It is my understanding that crackers simply make cracks for software so that it can be downloaded and used without paying for it.
I'm a programmer for 25 years now... I've seen it all and rode the ride.
ActiveX is the worst thing that could have hit the web. And I can understand that some unknowing folks would have "run scripts" enabled on Internet Explorer. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER use Internet Explorer. Get FireFox!! And get the add-on called "NoScript" and "CookieSafe" isn't a bad option either.
And folks, please be sure to go through your options and/or preferences and make sure you disable things like activex scripts from running. Set your settings... if you're not sure about something, ask me... I'll help.
Zeus
Feb 17, 2009 @ 09:51:03
