User:Toker-boy

A black hat (also called a cracker or Darkside hacker) is a malicious or criminal hacker. This term is seldom used outside of the security industry and by some modern programmers. The general public use the term hacker to refer to the same thing. In computer jargon the meaning of "hacker" can be much more broad. The name comes from the opposite of White Hat hackers.

Usually a Black hat is a person who maintains knowledge of the vulnerabilities and exploits they find as secret for private advantage, not revealing them either to the general public or the manufacturer for correction. Many Black Hats promote individual freedom and accessibility over privacy and security. Black Hats may seek to expand holes in systems; any attempts made to patch software are generally to prevent others from also compromising a system they have already obtained secure control over. A Black Hat hacker may have access to 0-day exploits (private software that exploits security vulnerabilities; 0-day exploits have not been distributed to the public). In the most extreme cases, Black Hats may work to cause damage maliciously, and/or make threats to do so for blackmail purposes.

Black-hat hacking is the act of compromising the security of a system without permission from an authorized party, usually with the intent of accessing computers connected to the network (the somewhat similar activity of defeating copy prevention devices in software - which may or may not be illegal depending on the laws of the given country - is actually software cracking).

The term cracker was coined by Richard Stallman to provide an alternative to abusing the existing word hacker for this meaning. This term's use is limited (as well as "black hat") mostly to some areas of the computer and security field and even there is considered controversial. One group that refers to themselves as hackers consists of skilled computer enthusiasts. The other, and more common usage, refers to people who attempt to gain unauthorized access to computer systems. Many members of the first group attempt to convince people that intruders should be called crackers rather than hackers, but the common usage remains ingrained.

Techniques for breaking into systems can vary from using advanced programming skills and social engineering to using semi-automatic software developed by others without understanding how it works. Crackers who rely on the latter technique are often referred to as script kiddies (unskilled crackers are far more common than highly skilled ones). Common software weaknesses exploited include buffer overflows, integer overflow, memory corruption, format string attacks, race condition, cross-site scripting, cross-site request forgery, code injection and SQL injection bugs.

The reference to colored hats comes from Hollywood’s use of hats in old black-and-white Western movies to help an audience differentiate between the good guys (white hats) and the bad guys (black hats). The 'hat' terms do not fall under common use. Even inside the computing field they are very controversial.

A brown hat hacker is one who thinks before acting or committing a Malice or Nonmalice deed. A grey hat commonly refers to a hacker who releases information about any exploits or security holes they find openly to the public. They do so without concern for how the information is used in the end (whether for patching or exploiting).]]]]