By Brian Hatch as Glenn

I have no idea if Charles is a hacker. Or rather, I know he s a hacker; I just don t know if he wears a white or black hat.

Anyone with mad skills is a hacker?hacker is good word: it describes an intimate familiarity with how computers work. But it doesn t describe how you apply that knowledge, which is where the old white-hat/black-hat bit comes from. I still prefer using hacker and cracker, rather than hat color. If you re hacking, you re doing something cool, ingenious, for the purposes of doing it. If you re cracking, then you re trying to get access to resources that aren t yours. Good versus bad. Honorable versus dishonest.

Unfortunately, I am not a hacker. Nor am I a cracker. I ve got a lot of Unix knowledge, but it s all been gained the legitimate, more bookish way. No hanging out in IRC channels, no illicit conversations with people who use sexy handles and alter egos, no trading secrets with folks on the other side of the globe. I m a programmer, and sometimes a system administrator. I work for the IT department of my alma mater; that s what you do when you are too lazy to go looking for a real job after graduation. I had a work-study job, which turned into full-time employment when I was done with school. After all, there s not much work out there for philosophy majors.

Charles went a different route. Or should I call him Bl@ckTo\/\/3r? Yesterday he was...