Hacker, concepts thereof ★ 21.10.11

The Telegraph:

The Foreign Secretary revealed that Britain has developed new weapons to counter the threat from computer hackers and is prepared to strike first to defend the nation’s infrastructure and businesses. … The Government is investing an extra £650 million to develop deterrents to hostile viruses and hackers.

Joe Grand, grandideastudio.com:

My idealistic view of hacker is someone that is always asking questions, learning and has a thirst for knowledge. A hacker tries things that other people think are impossible and it’s someone that solves problems in a clever way.

Frankfurt Allgemeine Zeitung:

Wie der Staatstrojaner zerlegt wurde: Die Hacker vom Chaos Computer Club haben die Überwachungssoftware gefunden, analysiert – und gehackt.
(Reverse engineering a state trojan: Hackers of the CCC found, analysed and hacked the surveillance software.)

Justice by Slavery? The meanings of crowdsourcing  8.12.09

There are several concepts, partly overlapping, partly different, that are used to describe phenomena that seem to be somewhat similar if not the same: social production, peer production, crowdsourcing, or collaboration. As so often with buzzwords, theses concepts are, if at all, vaguely defined. Take crowdsourcing. Columnists and researchers use it it such different ways, that the definitions in certain aspects are diametric.

Dan Woods had an intersting column on the “Myth of Crowdsourcing” on Forbes online the other day. Best quotes:
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