We used to call those who would fall for these tricks "script kiddies", as all they know about how to "hack" is to blindly run things others have made.
"Don't even talk to me if your computer doesn't have homemade transistors".
While I get the difference between creators vs users, in the end we're all users in someone else's perspective.
Maybe you've built your own tools, but that's just applying someone else's library.
Maybe you've built your own library, but that's just using someone else's OS and IDE.
Maybe you've built your own OS, but you're still just applying a language that an actually smart person developed.
Maybe you've developed your own language, but that's just an abstraction of actual hardware activity, which the actual geniuses who tamed silicon built.
Maybe you've built your own hardware, but you're really just applying physical and chemical discoveries that actual smart humans made.
Maybe you've even discovered physical and chemical discoveries yourself! But that's nothing, you're just observing the laws of nature.
Maybe you've created laws of nature yourself, but you're nothing next to your mother, who gave birth to a god.
I'm being generous and interpreting this as humor.
Otherwise, we can't disregard that there's a spectrum here, and somehow move the "goalpost of lol" all the way to the extreme end. You get to be smug at anyone who is on the "more naive" side of you on this spectrum.
Sounds like GP is just remembering and recalling the days when they were more sophisticated than most.
"Script kiddie" always referred more to the level of expertise and knowledge that these folks had, more so than any elitist DIY ethic.
A script kiddie would only know enough to be dangerous, how to download and run the prepackaged kit, and wouldn't understand how/why it works or fails.
Whereas a seasoned cracker may apply the same tools in a systematic way that's informed by knowledge of the underlying concepts, and how to make the most out of options, and adapt to particular targets.
"Maybe you've developed your own language, but that's just an abstraction of actual hardware activity, which the actual geniuses who tamed silicon built."
Tangent: the language isn't an abstraction of the hardware. Hardware has nothing to do with programming languages per se. This is why I dislike the term "low-level language", as if this were some kind of computational atomism. There is no inherent relationship between assembly and C++, for example. C++ is a language, full stop. But if we want to simulate a language on a particular piece of hardware, we must simulate it using the language of the hardware. We must translate it into the language of the hardware. That is, after all, what a compiler is: a translator.
> the language isn't an abstraction of the hardware
Programming languages were designed to do useful stuff. They can't do this without hardware. There are always concerns of practicality.
> as if this were some kind of computational atomism
NAND gates are computationally atomic, IMO, since to go a level below them you get to the level of physical processes (e.g. electronics) that implement them.
> Programming languages were designed to do useful stuff. They can't do this without hardware. There are always concerns of practicality.
Programming languages are formalisms, and formalisms predate machines that simulate them, even if programming languages only really took off with machinery able to simulate them. You can simulate a programming language entirely with pen and paper if you wanted (tedious, but possible; the lambda calculus was entirely theoretical when when conceived). Regardless, while the utility of programming languages is related to there being machines that can simulate them, the distinction remains.
> NAND gates are computationally atomic
They're an implementation detail of the hardware being used. There is no necessarily relation between a language and a NAND gate. It is not as if, by dissecting a language, you will discover a bunch of NAND gates bounding around underneath. A language doesn't reduce to NAND gate operations. It just so happens that NAND gates are incredibly useful for implementation and simulation. You can implement a fully mechanical computer, or a water computer, if you wanted, even if it isn't very practical.
Software is a mental construct that hardware can simulate.
If you're implementing things in, say, Minecraft it might be, but the computer you wrote that on uses NAND gates. NANDs take fewer transistors to implement, are faster, use less power, and thus everyone uses NAND gates as their foundational gate.
This tries hard to sound deep, but it's nonsense. There's a very big difference between someone who can just swing a hammer and a carpenter. Saying that the two are the same because they both use a tool someone else made is absurd.
Not only that but there's a difference between someone who can make the tools they use but doesn't for reasons like efficiency or practicality and the kind of people who can't make the tools they use but won't or the people who will never be able to make the tools they use.
I wouldnt call it good. This is criminals stealing from other criminals, which is still crime. Just as how gangland wars can impact innocent bystanders, these nested layers of illegality and theft of information can cause harm to others.
Possession of stolen goods. Possession of cocaine. It doesn't matter where you got it. Criminals also still have property rights. Stealing a car from Bernie Madoff is still stealing a car.
In my experience, this sort of attack will affect non-criminals too - the vast majority of people who will fall for this sort of thing are young people using a family computer or the like.
How many crimes does one have to commit before they "are a criminal"? If someone broke a law, but the law was later amended so the act is now legal, are they still a criminal? (E.g. cannabis)
Yes. A town raising a speed limit on a road doesn't mean everyone who ever got a ticket previous to the change wasn't speeding. That's why it takes special laws and acts by executive authorities to take retroactive action, if the deem doing so a good idea.
If they were also using software to steal from someone then I would guess that their inertial moment would serve as neither a defense nor detriment to their case.
People do get killed quite often in cases of mistaken identity. Not by the police, usually, but criminal gang wars are not without innocent victims.
Criminals do get charged with theft from other criminals. The only benefit to stealing from criminals is that they won't go to the police, but that doesn't mean they won't report you once they get caught. They may even get out if jail earlier by coming clean and listing every criminal they've interacted with.
Ah, a classic. I 'member this kind of stuff from decades ago already, and of course also with cheat tools, keygens and whatnot. No chance I'd run a keygen outside of a VM, and for good reasons.
