The future is for the hackers (you can be a hacker)

     The hacker movement began in the '70s, when Internet was born. There is quite a good documentary about the theme in Youtube 'Ciberguerrilla', between 9 and 13 minutes speaking about the begining of this movement with John Draper. Their main target was to discover security holes of computing systems and telecominication systems, and exploit them to prove it could be done.
     There is a very good too that speaks of the theme that's called Track Down, also known as Takedown. It's a movie from the year 2000 about the computer hacker Kevin Mitnick.
     Julianne Assange is another hacker. Although he is a programer, he has used his knowledge to make information of government of the United States known to the public. This is making it a struggle to hold him at the Embassy of Ecuador in London since more than three years. Which is said soon. I don't go into valuations on if the information that is exposed in Wikileaks is that the CIA wants to know and everything is actually staged.
     Well, this is the concept, more or less, that there is about hackers: researchers who break their computer systems security and access data. If you realize this concept is of attack and intrusion; something which is illegal for governments.
     At present, the spirit is the same, and although its main focus is software, hardware systems also study checking their operations and weaknesses. The economic objective, if they have it, is not important. The important thing is to learn, to study, make it worthwhile-and I say it does not have to be economic- and improve it.
     Regarding the software used, they use Linux operating systems. This is a policy based on assurances and permissions to access files and run programs written on UNIX but from scratch. Its source code is free, which means you can view, study and improve (or rewrite) it to your liking.

     In the field of the Arduino hardware system it is very useful to show how it works and learn electronics to make your own devices. There are some others, like Raspherry Pi or versions that are all the rage now in China.

     This is all very well but, how I can I be a hacker if I have no clue about computing or electronics? Well, although it is not described anywhere and I just invented the term, you can be a defensive hacker. Let me explain the concept: Today, in a globalized world, our data is shared, studied and analyzed for all kinds of purposes. In this aspect government organizations and large private firms are large hackers against us. Just look at the data policy you have with your PayPal users. The same can be applied to Visa, MasterCard, etc. Large companies also have your own data and can access more data if they give you a loyalty card with which keeps track of everything that you buy. Telecommunications companies are required to keep email users for 1 year, and governments can access them in case of threat. If we add that you and I, happily, give part of our personal life on social networks, and mixed with the above information, it makes a curious cocktail with all your data, which after 10 years makes an amount of 5 GB of personal information. And all this is legal for governments.

     After having laid the foundation for why the biggest hackers are governments and large companies, you have only the possibility to defend, a defensive hacker begins:
     – Do not use the social networks to give personal information. In fact, giving a "like" is giving information about your tastes, so you're already giving information about your psychological profile. Do not use social networks (related post).
     – Do not pay by credit card on premises. Take the money directly from the cashier and pay with cash. The database of your purchases should be minimal. In this regard the elderly are ahead of us, because they take money from the cashier and pay.
     – Use Linux. It is a free and open operating system, and has no Trojans. Microsoft itself is a Trojan, since it accesses your information even though they say it's anonymously. In addition, although they say they have viruses, they are eradicated very fast and security holes are few and dealt with quickly.
     – Put passwords on all your digital devices.
     – Do not accept loyalty cards from companies. Even though you make a big discount of 2%.
     – Have your own Internet domain to an email from your own domain. That's all very personal and not transferable.
     – Do not use the GPS system in your phone. Such information is not only yours, it also belongs to the company that provides you the application for "statistical" purposes.
     – Do not watch television. Watching TV you're being brainwashed.
     – Do not use WhatsApp. Since Facebook bought it, it can read your personal messages on the pretext of giving you ads. You can use Telegram instead which is exactly the same but free and open.
     – Don't play being a hacker with programs that take keys from social networks of your friends. He who has made the program can and is taking away your own key and your contact's key for his or her purposes.

     Globalization is a fact. Now we just have to know if your government is able to monitor all of your actions, storing all the information you post on your social networks, knowing what you consume just watching what you paid for with your credit card, where you are traveling, the movies you see, or even what you say by mobile phone. It depends on you having 5GB of information after 10 years, 10 GB or 500 MB.

     But human beings are unpredictable and can, for example, make you aware of what you are reading and will now use less credit cards and pay more with cash for everything. You may begin to consume less electronic systems such as mobiles, and you extend their useful life up to five or six years. You may start using a Linux system for added security so Microsoft does not monitor the applications that are using or where you are browsing. You might not see TV junk, maybe even limit yourself to see very little television. You may think of writing occasional letters to the people you have far away, instead of writing an email or talking on the phone forever. You may even want to speak personally with some people. You might not take pictures all the time and hang them on social networks. In fact you can start this without any problems because, apart from very rare cases, it is not important to know at every moment what you ate, where you have been at all times or who you have been with; that's only important to you and the people you've been with. But surely Mark Zuckerberg is more interested in what you're wearing, what you've eaten and where you are at every moment more than me.

      It's posible that you might begin to get curios about what living like a hacker would be like, doing hacker things, and without raising any suspicion that you're a hacker. Then you begin to live in anonymity quietly in the XXII century.

     @eltiopacote
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