Is it me or is there a hacking fest on gaming communities

loki1985 · Post by **loki1985** » Sun Jun 19, 2011 11:53 am

Insomniacp wrote:Computers are as smart as you make them. They are also very good and long tedious work such as analyzing things. It isn't far fetched to think that a hack can be automated these days considering how much technology has advanced. I wonder, why do you say it is not possible? Script kiddies "hack" all the time without knowing what they are doing, why can a program not be written that is smarter than the average script kiddie?(not very hard to do imo).

because computers do not think logically (or at all for that matter), something which even script kiddies do. how would a machine even know where to search for data, how to conclude which hacking steps to perform, etc. the computer does not understand if the database he currently could download is relevant data or just a backup of the latest website which is publicly available, this not relevant.

hacking is not long, tedious work. it is only a few steps, but a few steps requiring very sharp thinking and understanding of the situations.

hacking needs a certain understanding, which even "script kiddies" do possess. there are always unpredictable configurations and situations which you have to react to.

all i am saying is that i am convinced you never cracked a system and also dont know much about it, or else you would clearly understand what i mean.

also dont underestimate LulzSec. they surely are not script kiddies, as some of their hacks clearly prove.

/EDIT: that being said, there _are_ hacks which are automated. just remember the chinese SQL slammer attacks which infected loads of websites automatically. but the type of cracking you suggest here (entering an assailants machine and deleting running programs on it) is the type which cannot be automated in a general, well working manner.

Radikalizm · Post by **Radikalizm** » Sun Jun 19, 2011 12:46 pm

I hate it when the term 'hacking' is immediately associated with 'doing illegal stuff with a computer', there's a really common misconception even within the more computer-educated community about what hacking is exactly

There is a huge difference between hacking and cracking, hacking can be digging into the internals of any type of system, be it a piece of software running on your machine, a piece of software running on a remote machine, or even a system managing a remote machine (where do you think the term 'linux kernel hacker' comes from?)
Hacking of remote systems will eventually lead to the possibility of cracking, since through the use of hacking you can find exploits within a system, which you can then use to gain access to normally restricted areas of the mentioned system (eg. gaining root access on a remote box)
Hacking in itself can be a long and tedious process, since in the current age where security is a high priority for all large systems exploits do not surface that easily, and it requires real talent and knowledge of the targeted system to find them
Script kiddies therefore are not hackers, they usually download some premade software which just requires them to enter some data of the machine they want to target, which in the end makes them crackers, but definitely not hackers; it gets even worse when people claim to be hackers after using a DDoS tool like LOIC, which in fact is nothing more than a polished naive spamming tool

Real hackers are the people who know how to dig through a system, who know how to piece together functionality of said system, and who know how to find flaws in its implementation to eventually report them to the maintainer of the system so they can be fixed, or to use them for malicious purposes
This is something regular script kiddies don't know how to do

Jake-GR · Post by **Jake-GR** » Sun Jun 19, 2011 5:24 pm

@Radikalizm: Thank You!
surprised how many ppl still confuse the two terms, simply put hacking does not have malicious intent, whereas cracking does.

Lil Margin · Post by **Lil Margin** » Sun Jun 19, 2011 5:38 pm

somewhere i heard that they refer both crackers and hackers as hackers, that saying crackers and hackers is the old term, its just hackers now...don't know if its true tho because hacking isn't my field.

Insomniacp · Post by **Insomniacp** » Sun Jun 19, 2011 6:15 pm

Sigh... all a hack consists of is getting access to a system I don't care about the data part that is just a matter of clever programming which isn't that difficult, most systems follow the same basic layouts and you can easily do keyword searches to determine the usefulness of a file or database. It is possible for a program to use an exploit and gain access to a system and making a program that compiles a huge list of exploits is all one needs to hack into a system. A program can sit and analyze 1000 web pages looking for a single spot it can exploit in a matter of seconds where a human would take days. For other forms of hacking an exploit is used and you can teach a computer all the exploits you want. As for getting physical data from dumpster diving or phone calls no it can't do that but for any hacking process of just the hacker on a computer a program can be written to perform those tasks.

I don't want to join a hacker/cracker debate so I will leave that part alone...

Radikalizm · Post by **Radikalizm** » Sun Jun 19, 2011 6:59 pm

Insomniacp wrote:Sigh... all a hack consists of is getting access to a system I don't care about the data part that is just a matter of clever programming which isn't that difficult, most systems follow the same basic layouts and you can easily do keyword searches to determine the usefulness of a file or database. It is possible for a program to use an exploit and gain access to a system and making a program that compiles a huge list of exploits is all one needs to hack into a system. A program can sit and analyze 1000 web pages looking for a single spot it can exploit in a matter of seconds where a human would take days. For other forms of hacking an exploit is used and you can teach a computer all the exploits you want. As for getting physical data from dumpster diving or phone calls no it can't do that but for any hacking process of just the hacker on a computer a program can be written to perform those tasks.

I don't want to join a hacker/cracker debate so I will leave that part alone...

So according to you a hack is merely intruding a system? Last time I checked, that was called 'an intrusion', not a hack

(I don't want to start a flame war here, this is just an interesting discussion)

Let's talk about that program of yours which scans websites for exploits; it is absolutely true that there are programs which are used to check for exploits, however these programs are not able to figure exploits out by themselves, if that were the case exploits would be found at a ridiculous speed and nobody online would be safe at any cost
To allow a program to look for exploits, it has to know what it's looking for exactly, and to 'teach' this to a program you need someone who has gone through the targeted system and who has found the exploit manually, only to program detection mechanisms for it later on
What the program is doing is cracking, it is using known info on exploits to intrude in a system and possibly gain access to restricted parts of said system
The hacking is done by the hacker, who has gone through the system or software or whatever he's targeting, and who has found an exploit or bug which he could use to his advantage, and this certainly requires a lot of skill, because you can trust me on the fact that all systems are not the same at all

If a program should exist which could figure out exploits all on its own, it would mean that programmers would not be needed at all, since such a tool could very well be used for creating functionality and for debugging (if it can figure out exploits it is also able to figure out how to fix them), I would even go as far as to say that exploits would be non-existent in the end, since these tools could also be used to fix every known exploit in a program or system

Intruding in a system is not hacking, figuring out how to make that intrusion possible however is, and hacking is certainly not limited to only finding intrusions (again, look at the term hacker when used for people who work on/with the linux kernel)

loki1985 · Post by **loki1985** » Mon Jun 20, 2011 9:42 am

@Insomniacp: meh, whatever. it still is obvious you do not have any expertise whatsoever in this field. also you cannot admit that fact. end of discussion for me.

HerrAlmanack · Post by **HerrAlmanack** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 2:30 pm

guys, sheesh stop bickering, look!

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/06 ... ted-in-uk/

Lil Margin · Post by **Lil Margin** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 2:16 am

http://www.abc.net.au/technology/articl ... 250742.htm

Seems like the skiddies got hacked...

HerrAlmanack · Post by **HerrAlmanack** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 2:19 am

Hacking group TeamPoison has claimed it has hacked the notorious Lulzsec hacking group. A message was posted on an alleged Dutch Lulzsec member's website which has since been taken down. The group says it is planning to release names, addresses and pictures of the Lulzsec team.

Those who live by the sword die by the sword

Although of course maybe Lulzsec would WANT to have the information about them released. Although it is pretty pathetic for any group to be that desperate for attention.

Lil Margin · Post by **Lil Margin** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 2:25 am

why would they want that?

HerrAlmanack · Post by **HerrAlmanack** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 2:40 am

Lil Margin wrote:why would they want that?

you never know