Who Are the Hackers?

The latest article from Newsfactor gives good insight into the realm of many types of hackers, but fails to realize that the vast majority "casual hackers" don’t really fit in a single category. Instead it’s probably best to break that category down into sub categories. You've got your “script kiddy wannabes”, and the “IT school geeks” that break software and security policies just to see if they can. These “IT school geeks” aren’t looking for any kind of publicity rather just gratification of their intelligence over those who made the software or hardware that they were able to break. The most intelligent of all are the elite casual hackers, the "super geeks". People like this are 100% book worms, can write at least 5 different computer languages fluently, and only "hack" to further his/her knowledge of a particular piece of software or hardware.

While the above profiles are important in criminal investigations, do they not provide little to no other use? Why is it that we’re all so intrigued with the minds of computer geeks? There are hundreds of people interested in car mechanics, but we never see mechanics break into 69 corvettes to see how the engine works, or to see if when they take the same car over 120 miles an hour if it crashes. I guess the “computer geek” and “computer hacker” are just permutations of an ever evolving digital society.