Autistic Hackers

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Just google the term "autistic hacker" and you'll see endless news reports involving autistic hackers. I have very little doubt that people on the spectrum dominate the field of hacking. Its no mystery why. I don't know about any of you but my brain seems to be wired for things like computers and hacking. I not only love computers, IT and technology in general, I seem to have a natural talent for it. I seem to have the ability to become adept in these fields a lot easier and quicker than the average NT. While most NTs have an advantage over me in social areas, I have an advantage over them when it comes to technology. I know from talking to plenty of other people on the spectrum that this is a common thing among people on the higher functioning end of the spectrum. They seem to have a knack for technology related things and as a result they are good at not only creating/inventing them but also back engineering and hacking them. The internet is not exception. I am a chemistry student but I have a passion for computers and the internet and as a result I've been gradually becoming adept with electronics, computers and technology related things. This kinda makes it all worthwhile. Living with autism is debilitating in many ways and can make you feel subhuman but when you just gravitate towards your strong points then you realise its also makes you superhuman in many ways.

But why hacking? Hacking is defined as: "use a computer to gain unauthorized access to data in a system". More broadly, one can include viruses, malware or other means of stealing or corrupting data. These things are a nuisance to other computer users and not generally gainful for the hacker. It's like stealing copper wire, in that, more damage is done than the hacker can recoup.

"...it's not right to cause thousands of dollars worth of damage, for hundreds of dollars in profit. HEY YOU IMMORAL IDIOTS, It makes bad environmental sense to destroy more than you recoup. Angry lecture!"

http://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2011-01.html

Just imagine that computers might be developing along the same lines as television did. These days, saying you have an interest in computers, the web, etc. is sounding more and more like saying you have an interest in game shows and soap operas.

For me, I'm better than average at using a computer, but it's not too braggable. IE, I switched to Crunchbang Debian in a basically "get a Mac" kind of move. I just didn't want viruses and didn't care about playing games, so I figured that was the free way to do it. Ubuntu was too slow and crappy for my tastes, so yeah, now I'm a l337 linux user who can h4x0r the world. Also, I know how to reformat a hard drive, unplug drives, and put RAM sticks into PCs. I can even screw on another CPU fan, too. So old people consider me a computer wizard for my super duper computer skills I needed to, well, use a computer. My friend with NVLD like me is pretty much the same way. He doesn't think of himself as a hacker, doesn't generally care too much about computers, but knows enough to impress people and he, like me, just goes "wtf, you're impressed at that?" For example, he used to hack his homeschool program to change his grades, but he didn't have an interest in hacking, he just used it to accomplish a task. I'm better than like my friends at finding embedded stuff in websites, and simple "hacking" like that, but for me, unless hacking or computers accomplishes a task I wanna do, I could completely care less about it. On the other hand, I got an NT friend who's very interested in hacking, and it'd be an "obsession" of his for some reason. I don't get that at all.

To me computers is sort of boring, as it's not very concrete. I much prefer cars and motorcycles and big machines and solid objects and stuff like that. I like creating and modifying things to fit my purposes, so now people think I'm a mechanical wizard or whatever as I know how to do what I think are basic automotive repairs.

<Begin Rant>If they are criminal hackers doing harm to people's computers or stealing money I hope they are caught and end up as someone's b***h in prison. They are just another as*hole that seeks to use autism as an excuse to try to get out of trouble when they caught doing something illegal. There are several "autistic" hackers in the courts right now trying to blame their autism on their bad behavior. The public might paint all autistics with the same brush due to people using autism as the root cause of their crime. People will think we can't control ourselves. <Rant Over>

It's great some autistics are good with technology if not better than most NT's. I have absolutely no mechanical training but at the old machine shop I worked at we had three broken polishing wheels each made by a different company and different sizes. I needed to use a polishing wheel but they were all in use so I had to disassemble the three broken ones to cobble together a working polishing wheel. When I was done I fixed one polishing wheel but it was dangerously faster I had to practice how to use it so I wouldn't send a metal part flying across the shop at high speed. I did stuff like this all the time I have no idea what I am doing but I have been able to repair things. It looks ugly and slightly askew but it works.

You misunderstand the term. Hackers just gain knowledge, they don't destroy anything or steal anything for material benefits.

http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html

Well, no, I looked it up. A different word is needed for innovators who use things in unconventional ways. The word "hacker" has all sorts of negative connotations. Maybe a better word would be "mod" or some other word derived of the root word "modify".

Hackers have referred to this group longer than its had a negative connotation. The distinction tends to be hacker vs. cracker and has been for quite a long time.

There's also the fact that while there are black-hat hackers, there are also solidly white-hat hackers and grey-hat hackers. Someone breaking in another system in order to find the security holes so they are fixed before others exploit it isn't a negative thing. It's just that those people aren't the ones in the news.

I secretly wish I could be a hacker. I would never hack into home computers, unless they belong to people who have slighted me. Mine would be a type of cold war style spying.

I was on a military blog and there was an article about the CIA looking to recruit hackers. Imagine that paycheck.

Maybe I'll hire you, OP.

My natural skills are with a pencil and a sketch pad.

Urgh. "Hacker" has been in use long before it degenerated into the ridiculous term it is today. Read about the MIT hackers of the 1960-70s, e.g Richard Stallman. In fact, here is an article about hacking written by rms himself.

Now that mainstream society has latched onto the term, any idiot that knows his friend's password on facebook and uses it to post stupid messages is considered a "hacker". It's risible.

I wrote my first computer program at age 4 on a BBC BASIC (just with the 'sound' and 'goto' commands), wrote keygens and tutorials for reverse engineering software at age 15, and was arrested for computer hacking at age 16. My computer and all storage media were confiscated for several months. Was told by my school teachers I had ruined my chances of pursuing a career in computing. I stupidly believed them and became a biologist, but still know a thing or two about computers and feel like they're the only thing I can really relate to. I figured I could be just as good at bio as I was at computers but sad to report I'm pretty average so far.

No thats not what hacking is. Hacking is back engineering systems so you can figure out how they work and figure out how to control them. You don't have to do anything illegal or cause any harm. An analogy is martial arts. Just cuz you're into martial arts doesn't mean you go around kicking the s**t out of defenceless people for profit or fun. Some people with martial arts skills do that but they don't represent all martial artists.

Its not very hard to impress the average person when it comes to computers. My brother was fairly impressed when I exploited a vulnerability on his samba server, delivered a reverse TCP shell payload and from there, disabled his firewall and antivirus and installed a homemade RAT giving any indication that any of that was going on behind the scenes. Showing him that inspired him to become a linux user himself. Exploiting linux processes is no more difficult but linux vulnerabilities are patched so often you can really only rely on 0-day exploits.


Seriously, age 4? Did your parents teach you or something? As for bio, give it time. I'm studying chemistry and I find that it takes me a long time to start gaining a complete picture of things but when it eventually starts coming together, I end up with a fairly profound understanding of the concepts. My advice is just invest some money and as many good textbooks as you can afford. Theres no substitute to having a hard copy of a good book. I just got a load of 2nd hand ones on pharmacology, medical chemistry and other fields and I'm gaining mad amounts of knowledge from them. I coulda learned all this from the internet but having it all compiled into a single book makes it so much easier.

Last edited by SkipNip on 20 Sep 2011, 1:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

This. Exactly. This. I cant agree more.

I have aspergers, I know what is right and wrong, I know lots of 5 year olds who know the basic right and wrong.
Im sick of people using autism or aspergers as an excuse. Do the crime, do the time. If another aspergian did something nasty to me that was illegal, id expect the person to suffer the consequences. If they got let off because they have aspergers, then where would the line be for the rest of us aspergians.
Aspergians dont need to have more bad reputations cause of c**ts

Unfortunately, "hacker" has gained much negative connotation, however that negative connotation is NOT coming from the world of hackers. It's coming from many who misunderstand the origin of the term, and its original meaning. "Hacker" was never meant to be a negative term, nor was it meant to be positive. It was simply a term to refer to individuals who loved to work with computer code.

The correct term for hackers who do what they do, intentionally to break things and cause havoc, is "Cracker."

http://grok.lsu.edu/Article.aspx?articleId=7203

I'm certain the OP is referring to "hacker" in its original meaning and context. I don't believe he is referring to "crackers."

I'm pretty sure it's more of a high IQ thing than an "aspie" thing (Though, among high IQ groups of both types, aspies would have the advantage of tending to be being detail oriented). I know because I'm probably NT but I'm pretty skilled at that sort of thing.