Hackers and Crackers
For ordinary people, there is no significant difference between a hacker and a cracker. When they hear these two words, they typically think of piracy, unauthorized accessing of files and security numbers, information theft, viruses or generally giving person problems with their normal computer usage.
A hacker is a person adept with the in’s and out’s of computers and the underlying programs who tries to push its way into a system. This is the typical connotation when someone hears the word hacker. However, in today’s world, there are two types of hackers, the white hat hackers or the ethical hackers and those black hat or unethical hackers (crackers). White hat hackers are hackers who try to intrude into a computer system for the purpose of testing the software. Possible intrusion scenarios are identified and tried on a particular organizations system with their permission to test for possible vulnerabilities which they could check later on. (Goodwin, 2008) Sometimes, a person wants to be a hacker to gain more knowledge of a particular system.
Black hackers or the crackers, on the other hand, are hackers who hack a particular system for their own personal reasons. They can either be a network hacker, who can sabotage important data, get access to one’s PIN numbers of do some other damages to an organization’s system. Software crackers are people who try to” crack” the security or installation codes of licensed software to be able use the specific software even without the buying the licence. A cracker can also be a virus attacker who writes programs for the purpose of interrupting the normal operation of one’s computer.
The main difference between a hacker and a cracker lies with their intentions. Basically, one starts on being a hacker and once his intention ships from software testing and education to harming other’s files, stealing from others, or pirating other’s works, they become crackers.(Security-FAQs.com, 2012)
The psychological attributes and intent of the hackers should be considered when making punishments for people who are caught, because, those people who hack for the purpose of learning must be given consideration. How could they learn if they will not be try? However, people who have the intention of inflicting problems must be punished according to the degree of damage they made.
References
Goodwin, David A. (2008). “A Profile of a Typical Hacker”. Helium.com. Retrieved on 2012 March 2 from http://www.helium.com/items/843947-the-profile-of-a-typical-hacker
Security-FAQs.com. (2012). “What Makes a Hacker Hack, A Cracker Crack?”. Retrieved on 2012 March 2 from http://www.security-faqs.com/what-makes-a-hacker-hack-and-a-cracker-crack.html