So, I  woke up this morning, doing my usual ‘news’ rounds, seeing if anything interesting had happened, and lo and behold, I ran across this article , in my rounds. This is just disturbing for more and more reasons, but, the most important reason? Well, read more to find out.

During the two week “cyber war” against Estonia, hackers shut down the websites of banks, governments and political parties using “denial-of-service” (DoS) attacks, which knock websites offline by swamping servers with page requests.

Seriously, folks, a ddos is NOT a ‘hack’ . This is just ridiculous nonsense put out by media that is clueless, absolutely clueless as to what a real hack is, or a real hacker DOES.

So, I thought I’d take a while, explain what ‘hacking’ is, what the different types of ‘hacking’ are, how to be safe from them (you can’t ever be completely safe, mind you), and the general ‘ethics’ of hacking. This is going to be something that will be discussed over what will probably take a good month or two, weekly articles as I find the time. I’ve been looking for something creative to write about, and this just seems to fit the bill.

For starters:
I have been the victim of true hacking in the past, and let me tell you it’s not fun, or funny. It is what started me down the path of administration and security actually, and it was something that the hacker and I laugh about every year when we see each other.

You see, in the pre-2000 Linux distribution era, security was a concern, but there just wasn’t as much of it. I ran howlin (Oh those were the days) and managed to piss off the wrong person (or group of people), so they took control of the server (which a friend was generous enough to provide, no root access mind you) through my shell (the coder had the password), gained root privs through a sudo (IIRC) exploit, and poof, he was root.

Of course, again, it should be pointed out that I had no root access to the server, this was a friend’s “network pc” that it was being hosted on, and, well, what could I have done, right? Lesson learned? Coders can be a pain in the ass to work with . I got a copy of my code back, but I was never allowed back on that server again, as the ‘admin’ was a bit paranoid about the person who’d hacked him in the first place.

I share that only to share a perfect example of what ‘being hacked’ is, or what a ‘hacker’ does. Now, I’m not saying a DDOS (or dos) is bad, but, kids, it’s NOT a hack! Seriously. The reporter from the BBC that quoted this as ‘hacking’ should literally be fired for incompetence. When you WRITE stuff, you’d damn well bettter know what it is.

Anyways, I digress. Next week, the topic of ‘hacking’, what is it? What really is involved in a true ‘hack’, what KINDS of hacking are there, and, what kinds of ethics are behind those who truly think they’re hacking ‘ethically’. Till then, keep coming back for more!

Tom