Explain Hacking Morally/Simply

[CaptainDanno]

I understand that hacking is different for everyone, for me, I have no interest in any illegal entry or access to someone's server, it is for curiosity and to learn defence.
So, how do you explain what it is without them automatically thinking you hack banks online and steal everyone's money? Assuming they are not aware of this sort of thing?
To me hacking doesn't seem like a very moral word, for what I would say is a moral thing to do for me.

(This is sort of ethics, but I'm more interested in explanation or word use rather than what is moral and what isn't.)

[Acidiferous]

Hi,

English is not my first language, so forgive me if I misunderstand.

Morals and ethics are two different things, as far as I understand. Ethics is the principals of conduct, which governs a group of people. Morals are the proclamation of what is right and good.

Hacking is not a very moral word. We can argue about what it meant 30 years ago, but that still wouldn’t have anything to do with morals.

Just say that you study/are into, IT security?

[Zyzoxing]

From what I've read online. Hacker is anyone who can code. While hacking can be just coding. Media and others like to sensationalize things to feel cool. For example someone leaves their Facebook logged in on your PC and you make a post saying "Hacked" though you actually didn't do anything.

[Jbraithwaite]

Take a piece of hardware or software and make it do something it wasn't designed to do. That's hacking.

[e3cb]

Hackers are people who try to gain unauthorized access to your computer. This is normally done through the use of a 'backdoor' program installed on your machine.

no

Take a piece of hardware or software and make it do something it wasn't designed to do. That's hacking.

yes

Hackers, in the security sense (ie cracker), came about from a natural progression of people who like to push the limits of things. Some of the earliest hackers were sysadmins and systems folk who were sick of Unix and wanted something better. So, they hacked at it and made something cool, something unique and something that Unix was never intended for. As the years went forwarded (and around the 80s'), people got sick of the overpriced public phone system, so they hacked and made it give out free calls. This was one of the first groups of hackers to make something do what it wasn't in a less than legal sense.

Many people today just go out and buy RAT's and exploit kits to call themselves hackers. Hell, some even write their own! But these people aren't hackers. They're criminals. They don't push the state of the, they don't innovate, they don't do anything even remotely unique. All they do is trick grandmas and VPs into clicking a shitty PDF or photos of their kids.

If you want to be a hacker, don't build/buy RATs. You're a big poo-poo head if you do! Do something cool and unique! Push some thing to do something it wasn't meant to do! Break something in a creative way that hasn't been done before

tl;dr if you pay for some 'backdoor program,' you are human trash, and a skid. If you build something cool or push the boundaries of something in unique ways, you're probably a hacker.

[tgoe]

if you pay for some 'backdoor program,' you are human trash

Windows 10 users please raise your hands

[phpholly]

When people think of the word hacking, yes the feeling of morality does come to mind. Hacking however is just making something work that wouldn't normally work that way. You can hack anything, even your physical body I suppose. So as you asked, hacking isn't moral or not moral, it's not right or wrong, it's all about how it's used. That's my philosophy anyway

[ghostheadx2]

Pushing the boundaries and being creative is what hacking is about. That said, learn a technical area and get good at it. That's the first prerequisite is learn how things work. Be curious. Have a drive to explore and learn. Do hackers ever use their skills illegally? Absolutely. Is that enough to make you one? No.Be a creator not a force of destruction. Be an innovator, etc. That said, there's nothing wrong with additionally knowing cracking I guess, but if you don't learn how things work you won't even be good at that.

Making new things and taking things apart and putting them back together in a different way to accomplish a new purpose is what you should really do. That's your long term goal. Knowing how to crack passwords is an OK plus but not the main dish in the long run.