To: cnn.feedback@cnn.com Subject: "Hacker" misused, again... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; Charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-URL: http://richard.levitte.org/ X-PGP-Key-ID: Length=2048; ID=0xE06D2CB1 X-PGP-Key-Fingerprint: 35 3E 6C 9E 8C 97 85 24 BD 9F D1 9E 8F 75 23 6B X-PGP-Key-URL: X-Date-Of-Birth: Setting Orange,the 63rd day of The Aftermath in the YOLD 3130 X-AKA: bastard@bofh.se, richard@levitte.org, levitte@lp.se X-Waved: dead chicken, dms-sig 2.2 RL1 (enhanced), rl-head 1.01, feedmail 7-beta-11/RL-mods-2 (enhanced), vmsmail2 (enhanced) To the editor and to the author of the article that was published on http://cnn.com/TECH/computing/9809/28/intlhack.idg/index.html, titled "Internationally coordinated hack attack detected": Dear Editor and Author, I am a hacker. I enjoy playing with computers, working with them, learning how they work, writing clever or elegant programs on them. I am not a cracker, it's not within my habits to break computer security. The hacking I do is nothing to be ashamed of. But when people are told I am a hacker, their first question is usually "what bank did you break into lately", or something else, as if I had just admitted doing domething bad. This because newspapers and news agencies such as yours miuse the word "hacker" now and again, giving the impression that it means "security breaker" and nothing else. Your are giving hackers a bad name, something we do not deserve. You most probably have a reason. You'll probably think that readers have become used to the insulting use of "hackers", and that you can't change it now. I disagree with that line of thought. Granted, you can't undo past mistakes, but that is no excuse to repeat them again in the future. If I was what you call a "hacker", I might threat to crack your computer. I might even have done that already. However, I don't, since I'm not a cracker but a hacker. I don't do such things. I do not need to play or tinker with your computer since I have enough at home and at work. You owe hackers an apology. But even more, you owe us ordinary respect. A few hackers you might know: Richard Stallman, head of the Free Software Foundation http://www.gnu.org/people/rms.html Jamie Zawinski, one of the main authors of the Netscape Navigator http://www.jwz.org/ (take a look at his card http://www.jwz.org/card.html) I also want to remind you that if it weren't for the hackers, we might not have the computing powers we have today. We might not have the Internet. Sincerely, Richard Levitte -- R Levitte, Levitte Programming; Spannv. 38, I; S-168 35 Bromma; SWEDEN Tel: +46-8-26 52 47; Cell: +46-708-20 09 64; Fax: +46-708-20 06 13 PGP key fingerprint = 35 3E 6C 9E 8C 97 85 24 BD 9F D1 9E 8F 75 23 6B http://richard.levitte.org/pubkey2.asc for my public key. levitte@lp.se "price, performance, quality. Choose any two you like"