Let's not even go into how the meaning of "hacking" or "hacker" was hijacked. :oldmanyellsatmoon:

I made my way into the coffee kitchen at work, and unplugged the power cords for all the coffee maker machines...instant productivity killer...making me haxor supr3m3!!! Kidding of course!

While i agree with you on the hijacking of the term, i do support more people getting involved with security and especially security awareness. The more, the merrier! So, overall its a good thing, even if it creates a little pain for folks who are more kung fu gurus of the hacking way. I think a more general term like "security practitioner" might be more apt...but headlines gonna be headlines, hence writers gonna jazz things up with "hacker". Then again, what do i know.

Yeah I think the original definition retains somehow in the hobbyists communities.

“Can you hack-up a noddy to sort out that file corruption?” - Early 90’s software house.

(Very rarely seen “noddy” used to describe an extremely rough throwaway utility program since then, though)

I would say so, considering the website we're on;)

This happened 30 years ago, maybe it's time to get over it.

The former meaning is still prevalent and rising in use. Enough so that the story was confusing until I figured out which "hacking" they meant.

That's a bit strange given that we're on hacker news.

Ask a stranger in a motel what they think "Hacker News" is about though. I too prefer the original meaning of the term but it's clear which meaning has "won".

Does the dark moon howl?

"Having a CS degree" (or equiv. experience) is basically baseline knowledge floor for hacking. It's not possible to get someone with 0 computer skills in May 2021, and have them cracking bounties by 2022.

One of our most prolific bug bounty hunters did exactly that. And what is even more impressive / exotic is how he finds the bugs. With "just" a browser and very little Burping.

Anecdotical, but it happens.

Honestly that sounds more like a problem with your code base rather than any exceptional skill.

Hosting multiple 100's of internally build complex services tends to enlarge the attack space quite drastically.

Where I agree most bugs are self inflicted, there are plenty found in acquired software too.

Where may I read more about said person

I am not at liberty to dox him :) Asked him but he pervers his relative anonymity.

Flat out untrue, I know a friend who started in the field out of high school and was getting DA in places before he could even drink.

EDIT: My bad, misread your comment.

What's DA?

Domain Admin. Total control of a Windows network, equivalent to having root on a Linux box.

Direct Access?

Lmao indeed