Re: Boycott O'Reilly

[davido]

Boycotting a publisher (depriving all of its fine authors of their due royalties) because they chose to use the word "hacks" or "hacker" in one of their books? How silly, especially since we all aspire to be Just another Perl hacker.

Hacking doesn't necessarily carry with it a negative connotation. It is a common misconception to see "hackers" as the Wargames Kid. A true hacker is one who strives to hone his skill as a programmer / systems administrator. The direction in which he applies his hacks has no bearing on the fact that a hacker is a hacker, for good, bad, or indifference.

Hacker, Hack, Hacking, etc. is a connotation-neutral word.

If the book in question (whos exact name you didn't give, and whos actual publisher you didn't list) is truely a cookbook for systems cracking, it might be seen as irresponsible that it's been published (though I kind of disagree). But I don't think that you (nor I) have read the book, and therefore aren't qualified to comment on its content. One observation that can be made, however, is that even if it is a recipe book for system cracks, most of that info is already publically accessible from CERN, linux/unix security alert mailing lists, Microsoft security alert lists, etc. The information is publically available from responsible, legitimate sources.

As for the copyright dating issue, remember, in the world of periodical magazines, you always receive the July issue in June, the June issue in May, etc. Automobile manufacturers release their 2004 model cars in fall 2003.