[U-Bones]

Originally Posted by shegeek72

To understand this one needs to learn about the hacker / cracker community. In the beginning, most malicious hackers were just people (script kiddies) with the right skills (programming, code writing, etc.) attempting to break into, and compromise, a computer or network, either for fun or to access restricted data, introduce a Trojan, etc.

For example, what prompted me to find out about hacking happened when someone was accessing the auto-fill info in IE on my computer (through my firewall) and changing the information into funny names -- but he could've easily compromised my system. That began my foray into the interesting world of hacking.

Now-a-days, malicious hacking is more organized and actually profitable. The best way to avoid being compromised is having strong security / passwords and encryption. Oh, and I dumped Internet Explorer and switched to Firefox and have not had another intrusion.
--


Now crackers

You are still glamorizing them, and there is nothing new to figure out, they are exactly like other criminals. I know about them because my machines have been a daily target for the last 7 years at my place of employment. What you are saying is commonly held - but is in error because it fails to expose them for what they are: simple criminals.

I feel like I am repeating myself on this ?

I also use and recommend Firefox, but there have been numerous vunerabilities in it during the past few months, so don't be lulled by that either.