I've had some negative feedback on my company name "HackSoft Computing" on the World of Warcraft UI forums recently, and as the descussion is going off-topic, I will take it out here.

History:- (for those who have not read the thread on WoW UI.)
I'm sorry to hear this CAvengers.

Please, allow me to elaborate...

The term Hack is used to refer to an author. One who Hacks away at manuscripts on a typewriter. It was later applied to Code Authors, but adapted to Hacker. The Hacker, was then taken to be (not the original Hack away at the keyboard till your masterpiece is done) but one who hacks up code created by others and reforms it in to something new. The more immature members of the Hacker community, and those frustrated with employers unwillingness to embrace the speed of modern information technology, and at the same time unwilling to invest in securing the privacy of their valuable information, began to Hack up valuable code, creating malicious variants.

I have been coding under the company name HackSoft computing since I was about 12... for anyone that is interested, that was in the 1980s. There are two reasons why I have stuck with this commercial branding of my one man development team, the first and primary one being that my name happens to be Hackett. (Check the Documentation) The second, is that starting a program from scratch, in modern, modular, Object Oriented environments with advanced multi-process operating systems and shared common libraries, is considered incredibly bad form. In fact, if you wrote a program from scratch (as I used to) you would have to uninstall your nice OS and dedicate your PC entirely to that one single program for the rest of it's days. Therefore, I consider "Hacking" to be the correct way to write modern programs, and not, as the popular tabloid press (themselves "old Hacks") would have us believe, a bad thing. (consider my original definition)

Any program you install today is a Hacked up modified version of something else, with bits borrowed from this that or the other library, or development package, and Microsofts latest idea of .Net Framworks, is actually designed to make the distribution of these shared object code packages even easier for developers. The reason for all this, is the turnover of new software is increased, and the standardisation of applications and user experience is enhanced.

In my case, you will see I cite the original authors of all contributed code. With this program, cURL and AutoIt being the primary originators. The concept of citing the person upon whose shoulders I have stood in order to see further is *Very* important to me. Though few "Users" take the time to read the documentation which states this.

Please assure your guild members of my heartfelt sympathies with their concerns, and my explanation for it's origin. Additionally, in my experience, Malware rarely use any terminology which could possibly be construed as off-putting. ;) My name is my name, I cannot change it, and may as well not make any attempt to hide it, as I would not attempt to hide anything else I do. This is another reason why this, and many of my other programs are distributed with complete open licence and source code. Anyone who is interested enough to research this can see exactly how I have done everything I have done, and that my code contains nothing malicious.

Also, I'm very glad to hear your success story Bodger. Good luck to you and all of yours.

@farafox
Yes, but even I have employed software (not network) cracking techniques at times, to force an old program essential to working practices that is no longer under development to work under modern systems, or to add inter-operability between systems not designed to work together etc. etc.

Reverse engineering and modification of existing binaries for software you own license to is rarely prohibited, provided you do not re-distribute the modified version. The bad name in Crackers comes from those who remove copy protection and distribute their crack to enable others to use unlicensed software.

If you check Mozilla.Org they (and many other open source projects) have a section dedicated to Hacking (http://www.mozilla.org/hacking/) their product. It it this process of hacking which improves the product over time.

All of this comes down to the fear of the unknown. Because what developers and network security workers know that the users depend on and do not know, means we / they have power over users which they cannot understand. The way in which we wield that power is what makes the difference. And since it is usually the more nefarious uses which get publicised, legitimate practices which can only be correctly termed the same as less legitimate ones, get a bad name.

New:-

Ultimately, if the open source community where embraced more by the commercial arm of software development, those Dark Mages of the coding world would have a hard time of things. Open Source allows developers to profit from maintaining systems on behalf of their customers, whilst at the same time, allowing them the security of knowing exactly what the developer has done in their name. Community works enable the community to find solutions and share them with others, and the need for Hacking (Ethical or otherwise) and Cracking is diminished. See http://www.ethicalhacking.com/.

Cracks become update patches, Hacks will almost always be Ethical because they become forced into the open, and will be "patched" by the community. ;)

If you want to be concerned about a company name, try "Microsoft" Where is the source for their software? Why is it that it is so frequently exploited? And why is it that it ships with code that is frequently picked up as a data miner (http://www.imilly.com/alexa.htm)?

I do understand the reasons for closed source code, and am not a raving Open Source fanatic... usually. But it does put a different perspective on the digital underworld.

If you steal anything, and especially if you profit from it's theft, that is wrong, and you are a criminal. If you take something that works to bits, improve sections, and put it back together again so it works better, or does something else new... Well... So what? People Supe-up cars, bikes, their PC cases, so why not your software? Why should software mod-ers have a bad name?

As for network cracking, if you lock yourself out of your car, or home, you will call a locksmith to pick the lock to enable you to regain access, and nobody gives locksmiths a bad name just because they can pick locks... The question is always *how* you use your talents, not which ones you have acquired. I know Google (for a well known example) index some "secured" sites. In order to do so, they must have bypassed that security... one way or another. Many banks and credit companies employ hackers to audit their security, informing them of flaws as they find them, and advising how to correct them without loosing the functionality they require.

Well, it looks like I'm handing over the Guild Leadership tonight as there is only one official candidate.
Still, this will be a good thing for me. I have quite enough on my plate at the moment with development work and health regimes and such.

Because there is less going on in the democratic voting than I had expected I found some time to create a little internet quiz on Quizilla today too. Please feel free to play, and post your results in the comments.