Comment by debo_
1 year ago
> A hacker is someone who understands how the world works. It's about knowing what happens when you type "google.com" and press Enter. It's about knowing how your computer turns on, about memory training, A20, all of that. It's about modern processors, their caches, and their side channels. It's about DSi bootloaders and how the right electromagnetic faults can be used to jailbreak them. And it's about how Spotify and Widevine and AES and SGX work so you can free your music from the shackles of DRM.
This is a very... interesting definition of "the world."
I humbly suggest that you read beyond the first few paragraphs. The author goes on to significantly expand the definition.
I did read the whole article, and I liked it. As an intro, it was a bit discombobulating to see this as the first paragraph.
To know how the "world works", to know the causes of things, either includes hackers, or is identical with being a hacker. Is Aristotle a hacker? Human beings desire, by nature, to know. If you live in a technological society, it is important to understand the thicket of technology we find ourselves in, and how to navigate it. That's just prudence, and just a particular determination of the truth, that it was always good to understand oneself and one's predicament.
I guess you can call that a hacker, or count hackers among such people. But then, if the latter, you must offer a distinguishing characteristic that distinguishes hackers among others in this genus.
And what are the author's presuppositions?