The original meaning of hacker was positive. When IT staff and programmers were working with mainframe computers and the first programming languages, they had to “hack” the current systems to make them work better. Both software and hardware hacks were necessary.  But anything can be taken to the nth degree.  Hackers evolved into the attackers and nefarious types.

But what has been interesting over the past several years is the continuing evolution of hackers. Take for example the “Anonymous” group. Some would say they are Hacktivists doing some social justice but if you ask Sony or Mastercard, they would say “Anonymous” was a group of attackers put to destroy the corporate world. The same can be said for Wikileaks. The companies and governments who lost data to Wikileaks would call Julian Asange a bad guy but there was talk of him up for the Nobel Peace Prize  (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wikileaks-julian-assange-nominated-nobel-peace-prize/story?id=12825383)

The continuing evolution of Hacker has started to back to a positive reference. We are seeing a lot of Hackathons that are geared at positive results, creating new tools and software and changing the way the world works.  This week at TechCruch Disrupt (http://techcrunch.com/disrupt/),  the Hackathon brings together people worldwide to create something new.

Another positive force is the Hackathon for Occupy Wall Street,  (http://mashable.com/2011/10/19/occupy-wall-street-hackathons-2/) As the article says “Groups of programmers gathered in three cities this weekend to build digital tools for the Occupy Wall Street movement. Several of those tools have already launched, and in many cases they’re being maintained by activists who’ve never held a sign in a park.”

I hope this type of hacking continues and we see changes for the better out of these types of Hackathons.

Gary Bahadur

KRAA Security

www.kraasecurity.com