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  • Hacker News
  • "The message sent was of the ‘Extreme Alert’ type and contained the word ‘misanthropy’ – which means hatred towards humanity. It is probably a hacker attack,” the agency’s statement said."

    As this happens whenever there is an intrusion reported in the press, the word "hacker" is often misused:

    "There is another group of people who loudly call themselves hackers, but aren't. These are people (mainly adolescent males) who get a kick out of breaking into computers and phreaking the phone system. Real hackers call these people ‘crackers’ and want nothing to do with them. Real hackers mostly think crackers are lazy, irresponsible, and not very bright, and object that being able to break security doesn't make you a hacker any more than being able to hotwire cars makes you an automotive engineer. Unfortunately, many journalists and writers have been fooled into using the word ‘hacker’ to describe crackers; this irritates real hackers no end.

    The basic difference is this: hackers build things, crackers break them."

    http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html

    by initramfs
  • This is so lame. It's not up to you to define what's a "real hacker". Building and breaking are not exclusive to each other.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

    by _el1s7
  • I didn’t realise that people still fought this fight. it’s time to drop it, dude. It’s truly blatant language prescriptivism at this point.
    by UqWBcuFx6NV4r
  • This is like a new philosophy student objecting to someone saying, “This begs the question of whether…” It’s essentially a category error, an incorrect application of context.

    You - and Eric Raymond, who believes he’s an incarnation of the god Pan - are both using a meaning of the word that has only ever been used in a relatively tiny subculture. That meaning has no bearing on its broader use.

    by antonvs
  • Cracker News was taken
    by pluc
  • No one has used the word “hacker” with this esoteric / old school context in over 30 years.
    by vesche
  • At this point, it’s just you misusing the word. You WERE correct; it did mean the builders rather than the breakers. But to greater society outside of the tech industry, hacking is hacking, they don’t need a word to describe builders, and crackers sounds dumb and no one outside the tech industry would know what you were talking about. A cracker is a snack and a dated slang word to refer to white people.
    by rzz3
  • As programmers in programming culture, we have a distinction between hacker and, potentially, cracker that no ordinary person has. ESR’s prescriptivism is pretty much worthless in this respect: words mean what people think they mean and what people use them for, and programmers do not have a monopoly on how people use the term.

    OED has the “computer intruder” sense first cited in 1963, and the “enthusiastic programmer” sense first in 1969 (“now much less common than sense 3a”). Cracker first appears in 1968.

    Besides, it is easy to disambiguate which meaning people mean. “Hacker attack” can only refer to the common usage of the term, not programming-culture usage.

    by gnubison
  • The power to send mass messages to a whole country is the worst thing google/apple have given to governments across the world.
    by jpablo
  • Where do AI-based military target selection systems fit in your ranking?
    by antonvs
  • If you say so. In the meantime I’ll continue to appreciate the occasional tornado warning.
    by alpinisme
  • This is not related to Google or Apple. And this extreme alert, it's sent even to cable TV automatically. In a few countries, it's sent even on Fax lines.
    by vitorgrs
  • These aren't from Google or Apple, they're from the wireless providers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_Broadcast
    by murderfs
  • This implies that governments didn’t already have this ability, which appears to be largely untrue? To my understanding, many countries already had emergency messaging systems, and mobile integrations are just a way of modernizing them.

    (It seems exceedingly good that the government can warn every civilian about natural disasters, etc.)

    by woodruffw
  • misantropia é um perigo rapaziada
    by knuppar
  • porra
    by luqtas
  • Suddenly "caralho"!
    by hei-lima
  • USA has that new "Presidential Alert" right?

    wonder how that will be abused by 2029, at least once

    https://www.aau.edu/research-scholarship/featured-research-t...

    by ck2
  • My state introduced Blue Alerts for crimes against police. I’ve been woken up at 0200 for an officer shot 200 miles away, as if I’m going to gather up a posse and ride on the scallywags responsible.
    by antonymoose
  • Not “unauthorized”, but previous cellular alert false alarms:

    https://www.ctvnews.ca/toronto/article/mistaken-pickering-on...

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Hawaii_false_missile_aler...

    Ok, hackers got blamed for this one: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/09/dallas-hacke...

    by Scoundreller
  • Of all the messages they could have sent they chose the most boring.
    by mseepgood
  • At least it wasn't a crypto scam.
    by AlienRobot
  • lets play a game HN, what would be the best alert to send?

    mine would be something scifi, like "ALIENS HAVE LANDED" or "PLUTO DECLARES WAR"

    by neko_ranger
  • There was a Larry Niven story where if you tried to call a certain guy, every phone in South America would ring instead. Anyone remember which story it was? The phone thing was just a throwaway line, not a significant plot point.
    by throwaway81523
  • Ringworld. https://sciencemeetsfiction.com/2021/06/20/ringworld-theory-...

        “When we call, they are out. When we call back, the phone computer gives us a bad connection. When we ask for any member of the Brandt family, every phone in South America rings.”
    by shagie
  • It might have been the Ringworld

    "Well?"Nessus began to pace the floor. "Many disqualify themselves by obvious bad luck. Of the rest, none seem to be available. When we call, they are out. When we call back, the phone computer gives us a bad connection. When we ask for any member of the Brandt family, every phone in South America rings. There have been complaints. It is very frustrating."

    https://www.naneahoffman.com/the-blog/shelf-care-alien-archi...

    by p0w3n3d
  • TBH phones in Poland allow to call you "from" an arbitrary number (i.e. display it on your phone). Also send SMS with arbitrary source.

    This is being used by scammers who call you and tell they are from police bank etc

    by p0w3n3d
  • it’s common for cheap esim providers to route data etc through cheaper data exits, i imagine this is partly why.

    (I recently purchased an esim and was surprised to see it exiting poland instead of the country the mobile provider (Bell) resides in)

    by baconhigh
  • I constantly get scam calls from numbers that are very similar to my own in Canada. I assume this is an attempt to look like a normal trustworthy number.
    by allthetime
  • I've worked a bit on the app which calls major telco provider directly. It was a basic web service call, and sender could be entered as anything. This is basic property of cellular networks, no more safety than say standard email.
    by kakacik