Dailydave: Re: Firefox bugs

["James (njan) Eaton-Lee" <james.mailing () gmail com>]

Rob Lemos wrote:

> On Wed, 2006-10-04 at 00:10 +0200, endrazine wrote:
> > > What's next? Spammers working with anti-spam companies? :>
> > Well, no offense Dave, but aren't you a hacker working against
> > hackers yourself ? ;) This schyzophrenia is part of the the process
> > of living from your security research, right ?
> The hackers-security relationship is not the same as the
> spammer-anti-spam/security relationship. 
Not to mention the fact that the preceding e-mail leverages a popular 
misconception as to what, exactly, Schizophrenia is.

It is not, as generally thought, a disorder involving manifestations of 
more than one personality. There is a common confusion here between 
Schizophrenia and the aptly named Dissociative Identity 
Disorder/Multiple Personality Disorder. The wikipedia entries on both 
topics are quite informative if anyone's interested in finding out more.

Sorry, just had to point that one out - this one really irks me. (Wait 
until someone mis-uses the phrase "begs the question"...)

On top of that, of course, there's the misspelling... ;)

> Calling someone a hacker defines their mindset, their approach to a
> problem. A spammer is someone who has already chosen a certain path. A
> hacker could be a spammer and vice versa, but I think the intersection
> of the two would be a pretty small population. 
>
> A hacker can have all sorts of ethics, but a spammer has already pretty
> much chosen their ethical position.
But yes.. as another poster points out, this is another reformulation of 
the classic debate as to the meaning of the term 'hacker'; considerable 
debate can be had on points like these solely semantically.

In this case I think the confusion arises based on the very loose use of 
the word 'hacker' to simultaneously describe (i) a group of all 
individuals, and also (ii) what is otherwise being assumed for the sake 
of maligning this "skyzophrenia" to be two distinct groups of individuals.

I think someone needs to introduce venn diagrams to the discussion.. ;)

  - James.

-- 
   James (njan) Eaton-Lee | 10807960 | http://www.jeremiad.org
   Semper Monemus Sed Non Audiunt, Ergo Lartus - (Jean-Croix)

sites: https://www.bsrf.org.uk ~ http://www.security-forums.com
    ca: https://www.cacert.org/index.php?id=3
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