ABSTRACT
Criminologists have described hackers in less glorified terms. Donn Parker calls them “electronic trespassers”
and August Bequai
describes them as “electronic vandals.” Both of them, while they acknowledge that the activity of hackers is generally illegal, shy away from the label of “computer criminal.” They draw a clear distinction between the joyriding hacker and the trusted white collar employee who turns bad. Thus, we are seemingly left with a definition that has two extremes. The modern day bank robber at one end, the trespassing teenager at the other. Either activity (and any which falls in between) could be classified as “hacking.” Hardly what one would consider to be a precise and insightful conceptualization.
