My Digital Identity

Technology review recently provided another example of cyberbullying.
When people take their disagreements online and use identity information to smear someone’s reputation or attack them it is not a joke.

This topic has been debated before (the hacker definition controversy) but I am strongly in favor of using different names for people who use computers for good or evil (or at least mischief). Unfortunately the press has tended to use hackers as a term to describe both types of people and that causes not only confusion about what category people are in but also what should be understood as good and bad computer related behavior.

Here are some workable definitions based on the hackers jargon file.

Hacker
1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. RFC1392, the Internet Users’ Glossary, usefully amplifies this as: A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in particular.
2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming.
3. A person capable of appreciating hack value.
4. A person who is good at programming quickly.
5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work using it or on it; as in “a Unix hacker”. (Definitions 1 through 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.)
6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example.
7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations.

Cracker
1. Destructive computer users.
2. A person who uses their knowledge of vulnerabilities and exploits for private gain, rather than revealing them either to the general public or the manufacturer for correction.

Useful summary of things that need to be considered as a blogger about going on the record.

Reputation is being built or not by Internet publishing and there is no eraser.

BusinessWeek Online
You Are What You Post
Friday March 17, 4:23 pm ET
By Michelle Conlin

One drizzly night in Seattle in 2001, Josh Santangelo was hanging out on his computer, clicking through an obscure Web site called Fray. After reading a post that asked if anyone had ever had a bad drug trip, the 22-year-old straightened up and began banging away. “Actually yes, about 36 hours ago…” he wrote. “Two Rolls Royces and four hits of liquid later, I was at a Playboy-themed birthday party with a head as dense as a brick…. It’s hard to say no,” he explained, “when a pretty girl is popping things into your mouth.”