How to tell a lamer from a hacker
From Hack Story
HOW TO TELL A LAMER FROM A HACKER (v1.10) Intro
This text was inspired in an IT exam, half an hour to the end; as I looked around the room and noticed just how similar the hackers were and how stereotypical the lame "wanna be but failed" hackers are. This is by no means a huge study into hacker life style and is only my opion but there are a few things which seam to stick out.
I'm not saying that the elite hackers fall into the "Hacker" category since I don't know any well enough to say, so for this text hacker refers to "medium" skilled people who have passed the main learning stage are can call them selves hackers without being laughed at. Maybe in a few years I'll be able to add an elite section!
Computer
Hacker
Home grown up to date system. 90% of earnings have been spent on upgrading it from a "Super Fast" 386 to something more respectable, the only component that's survived the upgrades is the floppy drive and that's only because the hacker is too mean to buy a new one.
Lamer
Shop bought Packard Bell. It hasn't been updated in years because all of the earnings have gone on non-computer based past times. It still has all of the stickers on the case like "Intel Inside" and "For technical help ring 0891 282930".
School
Hacker
An all round good student apart from a single subject they hate like French. The hacker's typical grades are around A-B excelling at Maths and Science.
Lamer
A slacker at school. The lamer thinks it's funny to make noises from the back of an exam and will do anything to avoid a whole range of subjects and to annoy the teachers in those subjects he/she actually goes to.
Apperence
Hacker
T-shirt and jeans. The T-shirt is typically black or a dark colour and may or may not have a large logo on it. The jeans are anything but white, white stands out too much.
Lamer
Anything fashionable. They're other hobbies include women (urgh!) and so must look wonderful at all times. They spend more than 20 seconds a day doing their hair and wear zero-cool shades for hacking.
Interests
Hacker
Computers and has been since the age of 8. There's is a bit of room for other interests such as electronics and music that annoys people.
Lamer
Anything which is seen as cool such as snowboarding (even though the closest they've come to snow in years was making a snow man with their little sister) and films (what else would have inspired their zero-cool nick name?)
Web Pages
Hacker
Lots of technical information text files laid out well. Site probably created in a plain text editor with nice looking source code, similar to their programming ability.
Lamer
Black background and lime green text. Organ music in the background and a huge list of "members" AKA "the fellow lamer list". Made with a "very powerful" web page editor like FrontPage Express or Word. Lots of dead links to very old point and click hacking programs e.g. AOL hell. Not forgetting the classic "I'll be your mentor" page, wow I love them. Oh and one last thing, a bad, very bad, e-zine which died at issue two and contains 1 paragraph articles that have been leeched off other sites/zines.
Handles
Hacker
Something computer related or their real name, they're not going to get caught so what's the point of hiding behind a handle? There are a third class that use a handle which they've gained in other ways which aren't to do with computers.
Lamer
Typically double barrelled which makes no sense when put together. A true lamer has a handle off a TV show or film (or a super leet hacker has a TV character named after them :) )
Newsgroup Posts
Hacker
Informative question answering and rising good points of discussion.
Lamer
Requests for "phil3z" or asking someone to hack something on their behalf or give them passwords for something so they can "hack" it. Off topic posts or flames are also signs of the greater spotted lamer. One true sign is posting under their parents' name but signing the post with the handle.
Reasons For Becoming A Hacker
Hacker
To learn about something well enough that you can break the restrictions imposed by those in power and do what you want to do.
Lamer
To delete work. To be able to say "I'm a hacker" since hacking is soooo cool. To piss someone off who's very good at taking the piss outta them.
Final Thoughts
Please note that I know a lot of skilled hackers that fall into the "Lamer" category for some sections, that's probably because certain aspects have stayed through the progression from newbie to hacker, so don't flame me to death!
