hacker

A hacker is a person who heavily modifies the software or hardware of their own computer system. It includes building, rebuilding, modifying, and creating software (software cracking, demo scene) or electronic hardware (hardware hacking, modding), either to make it better, faster, to give it added features or to make it do something it was never intended to do.

Another type of hacker is one who creates novel hardware modifications. Hardware hackers are those who modify hardware (not limited to computers) to expand capabilities; this group blurs into the culture of hobbyist inventors and professional electronics engineering. A sample of such modification includes the addition of TCP/IP Internet capabilities.

Hackers who have the ability to write circuit-level code, device drivers, firmware, low-level networking, (and even more impressively, using these techniques to make devices do things outside of their spec sheets), are typically in very high regard among hacker communities. This is primarily due to the difficulty and enormous complexity of this type of work, and the electrical engineering knowledge required to do so.

Hardware hacking can consist of either making new hardware, or simply modifying old hardware (known as "modding"). Real hardware hackers perform novel and perhaps dangerous modifications to hardware, to make it suit their needs.

                     Today’s CEOs and management not only need to worry about profit margins, market
analysis, and mergers and acquisitions. Now they need to step into a world of practicing
security due care, understanding and complying with new government privacy and
information security regulations, risking civil and criminal liability for security failures
(including the possibility of being held personally liable for certain security breaches),
and trying to comprehend and address the myriad of ways in which information security
problems can affect their companies. Business managers must develop at least a
passing familiarity with the technical, systemic, and physical elements of information
security. They also need to become sufficiently well-versed in the legal and regulatory
requirements to address the competitive pressures and consumer expectations associated
with privacy and security that affect decision making in the information security
area, which is a large and growing area of our economy.
Just as businesspeople must increasingly turn to security professionals for advice in
seeking to protect their company’s assets, operations, and infrastructure, so too must
they turn to legal professionals for assistance in navigating the changing legal landscape
in the privacy and information security area. Laws and related investigative techniques
are being constantly updated in an effort by legislators, governmental and private information security organizations, and law enforcement professionals to counter each
new and emerging form of attack and technique that the bad guys come up with. Thus,
the security technology developers and other professionals are constantly trying to outsmart
the sophisticated attackers, and vice versa. In this context, the laws provide an
accumulated and constantly evolving set of rules that tries to stay in step with the new
crime types and how they are carried out.