L337 H4xx0rz
A long time ago … before even I was born … hackers were people with an affinity for, and desire to engage with, technology. They made things. They modified and enhanced things. They hacked things together ¹.
Sometimes, some of them even broke (into) things in order to learn how they worked.
Some of the ones who broke (into) things learned that cracking their ‘code’ (be it software or hardware) could be lucrative — people were willing to pay for the results of their efforts and/or they could simply siphon off the rewards for themselves directly. These people became known as crackers.
Some of them hacked/cracked the telephone systems of the day, learned how to crack them and became known as phreak/ers.
It wasn’t until computer technology became more widespread that the average person learned of their existence by way of the typically misinformed, hysterical organs of the gutter Press … and since then the term ‘hacker’ has been misused to describe every permutation on ‘someone with an affinity for computer technology’, but mostly in the negative sense of ‘cracker.’
So, given that even I find the use of the term ‘cracker’ so antiquated these days that I feel weirdly uncomfortable using anything other than ‘hacker’ to describe everyone and letting the context do the talking vis-à-vis .which specific type is in question, I shall use the terms ‘hack’/’hacking’/’hacker’ to mean ‘crack’/’cracking’/’cracker’ like the rest of you — also because, if I were to use ‘crack’/’cracking’/’cracker’, I’d lose at least half of you, before I even started … and some of you might even get it into your heads that I were talking about illicit substance abuse and things would rapidly derail in the way of a marriage ceremony involving hangry cats and rats down the groom’s trousers.
But, at least you’ve had an education about the origins of the terms and might (probably won’t, but there you go) now appreciate why people avail themselves of cracks and cracked software rather than hacks and hacked software.
Aaaaaaaaanyhow … all that aside, what I’m really pondering is why nobody who hacks online game networks ever does anything useful with their skills.
I mean sure, they might empty people’s accounts … which might be considered useful insofar as it provides them with a value return for their efforts.
Or they might use the network as a springboard to infiltrating the wider network of the service provider; I don’t know whether the XBox or Playstation networks are connected to the wider company infrastructure or ‘airgapped’ as it were, but I’d be surprised to learn that there weren’t some route from one to the other, even if only by way of the business supplier of the gaming network being linked to the parent companies at a higher level and it thus being possible to leapfrog from the one to the other by way of email — you know how these things work.
Some people hack the systems in order to gain advantage (better/powerful items, wealth, the usual) in the games they play — which they can sometimes sell for realworld money to (other) players.
But nobody does the really useful thing for which the whole World would cheer them on.
If could be bothered to online game, I’d do it myself.
I can’t though … for the reason that (if I could be) I would hack the system and become the patron saint of videogamers everywhere; namely, once you leave the confines of a well designed solo experience and step out onto the killing grounds of co-op and PvP gaming, you’re in a world of pain — the world of Pop Racing in Borderlands The Pre-Sequel, in which every player you encounter is an annoying, little shit whom you want to kill slowly and painfully … then revive so that you can kill them slowly and painfully all over again (again).
What really needs doing is for someone to hack the game networks, filter the customer/user data and patch the games such that giving anyone under the age of … let’s say twenty-two … even so much as a hard look results in an instakill.
Imagine it … a world without teens or tweens on the gaming networks.
Wouldn’t that be fine?
We’d be living in a world of make-believe, with flowers and bells and leprechauns and magic frogs with funny little hats — I might even reconsider my avowed intent never to game online in that case.
</just a thought>
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¹ No, have no idea how you ‘glue’ things together with an axe or hatchet either, but if you start out by expecting American to make any sense in terms of English, you’re going to have a long and bumpy ride — it’s possibly the result of a sophisticated joke in which one uses the opposite word/concept ².
² Like No Equals Yes Day ³.
³ Q: “Do you want a wedgie?”
A: “No!”
Result: “Today is [arbitrarily] No Equals Yes Day,” so you get a wedgie.
