07-06-2005 19:20									#1
	Article about Halo 2 in Wired... Inflate your Upload Space

What on earth is a black hat? The story is here:

http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2...n_story_related

Carolus

	07-06-2005 20:20									#2
	Suffering from ads?

A Black Hat is a "bad" hacker. A White Hack is a "good" hacker. a Grey Hat is somewhere in between.

	07-06-2005 20:25									#3
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

i think it comes from wizards, or some such thing(black=evil, Gandalf the grey etc)?
But basicaly bad hacker,good(ethical) hacker,neutral(good and bad) hacker.

	07-06-2005 21:14									#4
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

So a "good" hacker is someone who actively looks for (and finds) loopholes in software to iron them out (and not exploit them)... Whereas the black hats are "real" hackers...

Thanks!

Carolus

	07-06-2005 21:33									#5
	Support Apolyton

quote: Originally posted by child of Thor i think it comes from wizards, or some such thing(black=evil, Gandalf the grey etc)? But basicaly bad hacker,good(ethical) hacker,neutral(good and bad) hacker.

Actually, it probably comes from westerns. Good cowboys wear white hats; bad cowboys, black hats.

	07-06-2005 22:05									#6
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

quote: So a "good" hacker is someone who actively looks for (and finds) loopholes in software to iron them out (and not exploit them)... Whereas the black hats are "real" hackers...

A "good" hacker is one that doesn't damage anything he works with.

A "bad" hacker would better be called a vandal, the ones that launch DOSes, write viruses, etc.

	07-06-2005 22:11									#7
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

A simple example of a white-hat hacker is a security analyst for one of those security companies that notifies the vendor of the security hole they found, and allow them time to patch it before making it public.

A black-hat hacker is one that finds the same security hole and uses it to exploit computers, steal data, write viruses, etc.

A grey-hat hacker is one that finds the same security hole, makes it public before a patch is available, and usually also makes available an exploit for it.

	07-06-2005 23:06									#8
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

quote: Originally posted by Carolus Rex So a "good" hacker is someone who actively looks for (and finds) loopholes in software to iron them out (and not exploit them)... Whereas the black hats are "real" hackers... Thanks! Carolus

IIRC the term hacker originally referred to largely the good kind, but over time has become to be synonymous with the bad kind.