Friday, November 25, 2011

AddThis Now Supports Sharing to Pinterest

AddThis Now Supports Sharing to Pinterest

AddThis Now Supports Sharing to Pinterest

November 22nd, 2011 by Kori Hill in Updates, Using AddThis, What's New

This morning we are very excited to announce that AddThis now supports sharing to Pinterest! You can now start pinning interesting and fun images to your board.

Pinterest is a rapidly-growing image sharing social network which according to Businessweek has seen traffic grow 7x in the past 5 months. The site allows users to create “boards” for inspiration and has been furiously adopted by DIY crafters and bloggers.

To get your site set up with a Pinterest button follow the steps here. Please let us know if you have any questions!

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Shirts Worth Sharing

November 18th, 2011 by jeffwongdesign in Uncategorized

Our team wanted to take a moment to thank CustomInk for taking us on a tour of their office. They have one of the coolest spaces in Tysons Corner. They make great shirts and their team has a penchant for customer service. If you’re looking for inspiration or need to order some gear, check ‘em out.

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AlwaysOn Venture Summit Top 100

November 17th, 2011 by Kori Hill in Milestones, Promotional

(Originally posted on the Clearspring blog.)

Just a week away from Thanksgiving, we are counting our many blessings here at Clearspring. We’ve just been named among the AlwaysOn 2011 Venture Summit Mid-Atlantic Top 100 for being among the most promising private companies “creating new, vital solutions that will lead to industry disruption and huge value creation.” The honor stems from nominations by several top firms including Morgan Stanley, Technology Partners, DFJ, SAP and KPMG.

It’s great to be recognized, especially on the heels of a very busy past couple of months. In late September, we welcomed Ramsey McGrory, formerly of Yahoo! and RMX as our new CEO. In October, we took a look back at five years of sharing and analytics as we celebrated the fifth anniversary of our social sharing platform, AddThis (check us out in Adweek). Last week, AddThis hit another milestone as the largest social sharing platform – in a 24 hour period, we saw 3,000,000,000 (that’s 3 billion!) views. And, we recently announced our acquisition of data science company, XGraph. Together, we’ve created the largest multi-graph platform on the open web. By multi-graph, we mean that our understanding of an audience is multi-dimensional where a single-graph would only represent one dimension of how people are connected (like social ties, for instance). Based on 1.2 billion users, the extensive multi-graph capability has incredible implications for all of our partners across the board.

Whew! It’s been busy and we wouldn’t have it any other way. It couldn’t be more appropriate that all of this comes right before we each take a moment to give thanks. We are incredibly grateful to all of our clients, partners, investors and supporters. Thank you AlwaysOn, those that nominated and voted for us for this honor, and all of you for continuing to keep us motivated and inspired. As always, please reach out and let us know how we can better serve you.

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It’s the Great Pumpkin, Clearspring!

November 4th, 2011 by Kori Hill in Fun

(Originally posted on the Clearspring blog.)

It’s been a very busy week here at Clearspring with the announcement of XGraph joining the family. So busy, we didn’t get a chance to blog about our very first Halloween Costume Contest!

To give a quick rundown from some of our offices — Winnie the Pooh was spotted writing code and the iCloud was shedding “water droplets” all over the floors at HQ in McLean, VA. NYC was was raided by a zombie and a Richard Simmons exercise video extra showed up. LA even saw dead people.

Here are some pictures, including the winners of the three categories – Funniest, Scariest and Most Creative.

HQ’s Elizabeth Leiser won Most Creative with her rendition of the iCloud.

HQ’s Collin Hughes won Funniest for dressing up as fellow Clearspringer Ted Pearson. Here’s a reference:

LA’s Will Watson won Scariest for his interpretation of Dia de Los Muertos.

Some honorable mentions:

Rebecca Salerno of our NYC office dressed as a hostess turned zombie. She has rats in her hair!

NYC’s David S. just got back from filming his latest exercise video with Richard Simmons.

Charlie the Pooh.

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Track Your StumbleUpon Clicks with AddThis Analytics

November 3rd, 2011 by Kori Hill in Using AddThis, What's New

StumbleUpon is one of the most popular sharing services on AddThis and can be an important driver of new traffic to your site. Now you can use AddThis analytics to track the number of clicks to your content from StumbleUpon, also known as “Stumbles”.

Just like our Facebook, bit.ly and Twitter integrations, you do not need to make any changes to start receiving StumbleUpon data. StumbleUpon stats are shown on the Content Detail page of the associated story, which you can find by clicking on any piece on content in your Analytics dashboard or from the Content tab.

If you have any feedback or requests for other 3rd party tracking services you would like to see in the AddThis Analytics, please post in the comments below or email us.

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Welcome Aboard, XGraph!

November 1st, 2011 by susan in Milestones, Promotional

We’re excited to announce that Clearspring has acquired XGraph!

XGraph is the leading data science company focused on modeling web-wide connections between people. Clearspring’s scalable data processing and massive reach via AddThis coupled with XGraph’s technology create the largest multi-graph platform on the open web—mapping 1.2 billion user’s connections by brand affiliation, intent and social behavior.

The social graph, the data structure that maps the connections we have with our friends, has taken the web by storm. This has proven to be a powerful platform, but this single graph only represents one dimension of how we are connected to one another. XGraph not only models these social connections, but also multiple other types of connections such as how we are related by brand affiliations, intent and more. This is the multi-graph.

With our new multi-graph platform, Clearspring has a truly differentiated capability to deliver powerful results to our publishers and advertisers. For publishers, we will use this graph platform to enable deeper audience insight, monetization and actionable data products in the near future. And, that’s just the beginning.

Thank you, as always, to our customers, partners and investors for making this possible. Welcome XGraph into the Clearspring family!

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AddThis Integrates with Google Social Plugin Analytics

October 28th, 2011 by Greg Cypes in Tips, Using AddThis, What's New

We know many of you out there use Google Analytics to help measure your site traffic and how users explore and engage with your content. We also know how you rely on AddThis to enable sharing and to provide social analytics for your website.

Over the summer we have been working with Google to integrate AddThis analytics into Google Analytics via their social plugin analytics. Today the Google Analytics team announced that publishers using AddThis “will now have first class integrations with Social Plugin Analytics.”

For publishers who use Google as their primary source for site analytics, injecting AddThis social insight data into Google Analytics enables you to analyze user interactions from our sharing tools as well as Facebook Like and Twitter Tweet right inside Google’s dashboard. Of course all of your real-time and rich audience data will still be available in your AddThis dashboard, too.

It is very easy to get AddThis for your site, and even easier to integrate Google Analytics. Get started today.

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Twitter Mentions in AddThis Analytics Now in Real-Time

October 19th, 2011 by Kori Hill in Milestones, Using AddThis, What's New

Along with our 5th birthday, AddThis is closing in on another fun milestone: 2 million Twitter followers! We wanted to say thanks to all our supporters today, particularly our Tweeps. We have loved connecting with you in 140 characters or less!

To celebrate, AddThis Analytics’ Twitter Mentions feature is now in real-time! This means anytime a URL from your domain is publicly tweeted, you will be able to see it – RIGHT when it’s been sent. You can find the Twitter Mentions on the Summary tab of your analytics as well as on each content detail page. See what people are saying on Twitter about your brand or specific content in real-time.

As always, we love hearing your feedback. What is your favorite part of the AddThis Analytics? What other pieces of data would you like to see that will help you understand the social interactions taking place on your site? We’re all ears!

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25 Hours of Racing

October 12th, 2011 by Drew Stephens in Engineering, Fun

Last weekend the Clearspring Motor Club racing team, Cobra Kai, raced their Swedish Race Truck at Nelson Ledges Road Course in Ohio as part of the ChumpCar Longer Longest Day. After 25 hours, 25 minutes, and 25 seconds of racing—stopping only to change drivers and refuel the car every 2 hours—the checker flag dropped with our car in 13th place overall, a great result from a field of 74 cars that started the race.

ChumpCar is a racing series similar to the 24 Hours of LeMons. The premise is simple: buy a car for less than $500 and run it on a racetrack for hours on end. The car that accumulates the most laps over the race is declared the winner. This sort of “crap can” racing isn’t just orbiting a circle track, nor is it a demolition derby. The tracks are complex and difficult to master. The danger is real, too—we wear helmets, head-to-toe fire gear, all of the cars have full roll cages, and the safety rules are extensive.

In endurance racing the biggest factor is reliability. As long as you can keep out on the track without problems you have the basis for a good race. Performance can only take you so far and since the $500 price of the car includes any performance modifications, options there are limited. Our team has made great use of cutting things off of the car to improve performance. Before our first race we cut the springs and filled them with tennis balls to make the suspension stiffer. At our second race, the ChumpCar 24 Hours at VIR, we turned the race wagon into a truck by chopping the roof off while waiting in line to get into the racetrack. Our car’s performance from this weight-saving modification were enough to encourage another team at our most recent race to do the same with their Volvo.

Overall we had a great race without any problems that kept us off the track. Ending up in 13th place—ahead of dozens of cars that were turning faster laps when they were on track—is an wonderful achievement. For complete details on our race, check out this post on the CS Motor Club blog. Next time, we’re shooting for the top ten!

Think this is awesome? Check out the jobs page, we’re always looking for new drivers folks at Clearspring.

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Happy Birthday AddThis!

October 11th, 2011 by Dominique Vonarburg in Milestones

This month, we celebrate five years of sharing with AddThis. It began with a simple idea – make bookmarking and sharing easier. After a few months of coding, AddThis was born. At first, it was a single button with a few bookmarking services used by a few small publishers. But it quickly spread across the web and we started to see some interesting trends in how and what people share. With that information in hand, we introduced sharing analytics to offer this same insight to publishers.

In 2008, AddThis became part of Clearspring. Our vision was simple – create the web’s sharing platform. It took a lot of work, but together with you guys, we really made a dent in this goal. AddThis is now the largest content sharing platform on the web. Used by 10 million websites reaching over 1.2 billion people each month, the platform enables users to easily share to over 300 sharing destinations in over 70 languages. We are truly a global platform. Our in-house data processing capabilities, coupled with this huge reach, has put us in a great position to serve publishers in new and unique ways. This year, we introduced real-time analytics and the ability to track sharing that occurs via copy/paste actions on the address bar. The new suite of analytics helps publishers understand how people interact with their content right now, what their interests and influences are, and how they can increase engagement and social reach. With this same technology, we can derive insight into consumer interests and deliver more relevant advertising to users across the web. And that’s just the beginning.

Thank you so much for your loyalty and support over these last five years. It’s been an amazing ride and we are excited to work with you to have an even better next five years. In honor of our birthday, please enjoy this tasty infographic that captures some of what we’ve learned about sharing over the last half decade. Enjoy!

Note: We have replaced the originally posted infographic to reflect the correct number of unqiue users in 2008 to 330M.

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Imagination

For other uses, see Imagination (disambiguation).
Olin Levi Warner, Imagination (1896). Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building, Washington, D.C.
Imagination, also called the faculty of imagining, is the ability of forming mental images, sensations and concepts, in a moment when they are not perceived through sight, hearing or other senses. Imagination helps provide meaning to experience and understanding to knowledge; it is a fundamental facility through which people make sense of the world,[1][2][3] and it also plays a key role in the learning process.[1][4] A basic training for imagination is listening to storytelling (narrative),[1][5] in which the exactness of the chosen words is the fundamental factor to "evoke worlds."[6]
It is accepted as the innate ability and process of inventing partial or complete personal realms within the mind from elements derived from sense perceptions of the shared world.[citation needed] The term is technically used in psychology for the process of reviving in the mind, percepts of objects formerly given in sense perception. Since this use of the term conflicts with that of ordinary language, some psychologists have preferred to describe this process as "imaging" or "imagery" or to speak of it as "reproductive" as opposed to "productive" or "constructive" imagination. Imagined images are seen with the "mind's eye."
Imagination can also be expressed through stories such as fairy tales or fantasies. Most famous inventions or entertainment products were developed from the inspiration of someone's imagination.
Children often use narratives or pretend play in order to exercise their imagination. When children develop fantasy they play at two levels: first, they use role playing to act out what they have developed with their imagination, and at the second level they play again with their make-believe situation by acting as if what they have developed is an actual reality that already exists in narrative myth.[7]

Contents

 [hide] 

[edit] Description

"Imagination is an effort of the mind to develop a discourse that had previously been known, a development of a concept of what is already there by the help of our reason, to develop a results of new thinking." The common use of the term is for the process of forming new images in the mind that have not been previously experienced with the help of what has been seen, heard, or felt before, or at least only partially or in different combinations. Some typical examples follow:
Imagination in this sense, not being limited to the acquisition of exact knowledge by the requirements of practical necessity, is, up to a certain point, free from objective restraints. The ability to imagine one's self in another person's place is very important to social relations and understanding. Albert Einstein said, "Imagination ... is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."[8]
But in reality, without knowledge, imagination can not be developed.
In various spheres, however, even imagination is in practice limited: thus a person whose imaginations do violence to the elementary laws of thought, or to the necessary principles of practical possibility, or to the reasonable probabilities of a given case is regarded as insane.
The same limitations beset imagination in the field of scientific hypothesis. Progress in scientific research is due largely to provisional explanations which are developed by imagination, but such hypotheses must be framed in relation to previously ascertained facts and in accordance with the principles of the particular science.
Imagination is an experimental partition of the mind used to develop theories and ideas based on functions. Taking objects from real perceptions, the imagination uses complex IF-functions to develop new or revised ideas. This part of the mind is vital to developing better and easier ways to accomplish old and new tasks. These experimental ideas can be safely conducted inside a virtual world and then, if the idea is probable and the function is true, the idea can be actualized in reality. Imagination is the key to new development of the mind and can be shared with others, progressing collectively.
Regarding the volunteer effort, imagination can be classified as:
  • voluntary (the dream from the sleep, the daydream)
  • involuntary (the reproductive imagination, the creative imagination, the dream of perspective)

[edit] Psychology of imagination

Psychologists have studied imaginative thought, not only in its exotic form of creativity and artistic expression but also in its mundane form of everyday imagination.[9] Ruth M.J. Byrne has proposed that everyday imaginative thoughts about counterfactual alternatives to reality may be based on the same cognitive processes that rational thoughts are based on.[10] Children can engage in the creation of imaginative alternatives to reality from their very early years.[11]

[edit] Imagination and Memory

Memory and imagination have been shown to be affected by one another, found through research in Priscilla Long's piece My Brain On My Mind "Images made by functional magnetic resonance imaging technology show that remembering and imagining sends blood to identical parts of the brain."[12] An optimal balance of intrinsic, extraneous, and germane form of information processing can heighten the chance of the brain to retain information as long term memories, rather than short term, memories. This is significant because experiences stored as long term memories are easier to be recalled, as they are ingrained deeper in the mind. Each of these forms require information to be taught in a specific manner so as to use various regions of the brain when being processed.[13] This information can potentially help develop programs for young students to cultivate or further enhance their creative abilities from a young age. The Neocortex and Thalamus are responsible for controlling the brain's imagination, along with many of the brain's other functions such as consciousness and abstract thought.[14] Since imagination involves many different brain functions, such as emotions, memory, thoughts etc., portions of the brain where multiple functions occur-- such as the Thalamus and Neocortex-- are the main regions where imaginative processing has been documented.[15] The understanding of how memory and imagination are linked in the brain, paves the way to better understand one's ability to link significant past experiences with their imagination.

[edit] Imagination and perception

From the work of Piaget it is known that perceptions depend on the world view of a person. The world view is the result of arranging perceptions into existing imagery by imagination. Piaget cites the example of a child saying that the moon is following her when she walks around the village at night. Like this, perceptions are integrated into the world view to make sense. Imagination is needed to make sense of perceptions.[16]

[edit] Imagination vs. belief

Imagination differs fundamentally from belief because the subject understands that what is personally invented by the mind does not necessarily impact the course of action taken in the apparently shared world, while beliefs are part of what one holds as truths about both the shared and personal worlds. The play of imagination, apart from the obvious limitations (e.g. of avoiding explicit self-contradiction), is conditioned only by the general trend of the mind at a given moment. Belief, on the other hand, is immediately related to practical activity: it is perfectly possible to imagine oneself a millionaire, but unless one believes it one does not, therefore, act as such. Belief endeavors to conform to the subject's experienced conditions or faith in the possibility of those conditions; whereas imagination as such is specifically free. The dividing line between imagination and belief varies widely in different stages of technological development. Thus in more extreme cases, someone from a primitive culture who ill frames an ideal reconstruction of the causes of his illness, and attributes it to the hostile magic of an enemy based on faith and tradition rather than science. In ignorance of the science of pathology the subject is satisfied with this explanation, and actually believes in it, sometimes to the point of death, due to what is known as the nocebo effect.
It follows that the learned distinction between imagination and belief depends in practice on religion, tradition, and culture.

[edit] Imagination as a reality

The world as experienced is an interpretation of data arriving from the senses; as such, it is perceived as real by contrast to most thoughts and imaginings. Users of hallucinogenic drugs are said to have a heightened imagination. This difference is only one of degree and can be altered by several historic causes, namely changes to brain chemistry, hypnosis or other altered states of consciousness, meditation, many hallucinogenic drugs, and electricity applied directly to specific parts of the brain. The difference between imagined and perceived reality can be proven by psychosis. Many mental illnesses can be attributed to this inability to distinguish between the sensed and the internally created worlds. Some cultures and traditions even view the apparently shared world as an illusion of the mind as with the Buddhist maya, or go to the opposite extreme and accept the imagined and dreamed realms as of equal validity to the apparently shared world as the Australian Aborigines do with their concept of dreamtime.
Imagination, because of having freedom from external limitations, can often become a source of real pleasure and unnecessary suffering. Consistent with this idea, imagining pleasurable and fearful events is found to engage emotional circuits involved in emotional perception and experience.[17] A person of vivid imagination often suffers acutely from the imagined perils besetting friends, relatives, or even strangers such as celebrities. Also crippling fear can result from taking an imagined painful future too seriously.
Imagination can also produce some symptoms of real illnesses. In some cases, they can seem so "real" that specific physical manifestations occur such as rashes and bruises appearing on the skin, as though imagination had passed into belief or the events imagined were actually in progress. See, for example, psychosomatic illness and folie a deux.
It has also been proposed that the whole of human cognition is based upon imagination. That is, nothing that is perceived is purely observation but all is a morph between sense and imagination.
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Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Top 10 Most Famous Hackers of All Time

The portrayal of hackers in the media has ranged from the high-tech super-spy, as in Mission Impossible where Ethan Hunt repels from the ceiling to hack the CIA computer system and steal the "NOC list," to the lonely anti-social teen who is simply looking for entertainment.
The reality, however, is that hackers are a very diverse bunch, a group simultaneously blamed with causing billions of dollars in damages as well as credited with the development of the World Wide Web and the founding of major tech companies. In this article, we test the theory that truth is better than fiction by introducing you to ten of the most famous hackers, both nefarious and heroic, to let you decide for yourself.
Black Hat Crackers
The Internet abounds with hackers, known as crackers or "black hats," who work to exploit computer systems. They are the ones you've seen on the news being hauled away for cybercrimes. Some of them do it for fun and curiosity, while others are looking for personal gain. In this section we profile five of the most famous and interesting "black hat" hackers.
  1. Jonathan James: James gained notoriety when he became the first juvenile to be sent to prison for hacking. He was sentenced at 16 years old. In an anonymous PBS interview, he professes, "I was just looking around, playing around. What was fun for me was a challenge to see what I could pull off."
    James's major intrusions targeted high-profile organizations. He installed a backdoor into a Defense Threat Reduction Agency server. The DTRA is an agency of the Department of Defense charged with reducing the threat to the U.S. and its allies from nuclear, biological, chemical, conventional and special weapons. The backdoor he created enabled him to view sensitive emails and capture employee usernames and passwords.
    James also cracked into NASA computers, stealing software worth approximately $1.7 million. According to the Department of Justice, "The software supported the International Space Station's physical environment, including control of the temperature and humidity within the living space." NASA was forced to shut down its computer systems, ultimately racking up a $41,000 cost. James explained that he downloaded the code to supplement his studies on C programming, but contended, "The code itself was crappy . . . certainly not worth $1.7 million like they claimed."
    Given the extent of his intrusions, if James, also known as "c0mrade," had been an adult he likely would have served at least 10 years. Instead, he was banned from recreational computer use and was slated to serve a six-month sentence under house arrest with probation. However, he served six months in prison for violation of parole. Today, James asserts that he's learned his lesson and might start a computer security company.
  2. Adrian Lamo: Lamo's claim to fame is his break-ins at major organizations like The New York Times and Microsoft. Dubbed the "homeless hacker," he used Internet connections at Kinko's, coffee shops and libraries to do his intrusions. In a profile article, "He Hacks by Day, Squats by Night," Lamo reflects, "I have a laptop in Pittsburgh, a change of clothes in D.C. It kind of redefines the term multi-jurisdictional."
    Lamo's intrusions consisted mainly of penetration testing, in which he found flaws in security, exploited them and then informed companies of their shortcomings. His hits include Yahoo!, Bank of America, Citigroup and Cingular. When white hat hackers are hired by companies to do penetration testing, it's legal. What Lamo did is not.
    When he broke into The New York Times' intranet, things got serious. He added himself to a list of experts and viewed personal information on contributors, including Social Security numbers. Lamo also hacked into The Times' LexisNexis account to research high-profile subject matter.
    For his intrusion at The New York Times, Lamo was ordered to pay approximately $65,000 in restitution. He was also sentenced to six months of home confinement and two years of probation, which expired January 16, 2007. Lamo is currently working as an award-winning journalist and public speaker.
  3. Kevin Mitnick: A self-proclaimed "hacker poster boy," Mitnick went through a highly publicized pursuit by authorities. His mischief was hyped by the media but his actual offenses may be less notable than his notoriety suggests. The Department of Justice describes him as "the most wanted computer criminal in United States history." His exploits were detailed in two movies: Freedom Downtime and Takedown.
    Mitnick had a bit of hacking experience before committing the offenses that made him famous. He started out exploiting the Los Angeles bus punch card system to get free rides. Then, like Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, dabbled in phone phreaking. Although there were numerous offenses, Mitnick was ultimately convicted for breaking into the Digital Equipment Corporation's computer network and stealing software.
    Mitnick's mischief got serious when he went on a two and a half year "coast-to-coast hacking spree." The CNN article, "Legendary computer hacker released from prison," explains that "he hacked into computers, stole corporate secrets, scrambled phone networks and broke into the national defense warning system." He then hacked into computer expert and fellow hacker Tsutomu Shimomura's home computer, which led to his undoing.
    Today, Mitnick has been able to move past his role as a black hat hacker and become a productive member of society. He served five years, about 8 months of it in solitary confinement, and is now a computer security consultant, author and speaker.
  4. Kevin Poulsen: Also known as Dark Dante, Poulsen gained recognition for his hack of LA radio's KIIS-FM phone lines, which earned him a brand new Porsche, among other items. Law enforcement dubbed him "the Hannibal Lecter of computer crime."
    Authorities began to pursue Poulsen after he hacked into a federal investigation database. During this pursuit, he further drew the ire of the FBI by hacking into federal computers for wiretap information.
    His hacking specialty, however, revolved around telephones. Poulsen's most famous hack, KIIS-FM, was accomplished by taking over all of the station's phone lines. In a related feat, Poulsen also "reactivated old Yellow Page escort telephone numbers for an acquaintance who then ran a virtual escort agency." Later, when his photo came up on the show Unsolved Mysteries, 1-800 phone lines for the program crashed. Ultimately, Poulsen was captured in a supermarket and served a sentence of five years.
    Since serving time, Poulsen has worked as a journalist. He is now a senior editor for Wired News. His most prominent article details his work on identifying 744 sex offenders with MySpace profiles.
  5. Robert Tappan Morris: Morris, son of former National Security Agency scientist Robert Morris, is known as the creator of the Morris Worm, the first computer worm to be unleashed on the Internet. As a result of this crime, he was the first person prosecuted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
    Morris wrote the code for the worm while he was a student at Cornell. He asserts that he intended to use it to see how large the Internet was. The worm, however, replicated itself excessively, slowing computers down so that they were no longer usable. It is not possible to know exactly how many computers were affected, but experts estimate an impact of 6,000 machines. He was sentenced to three years' probation, 400 hours of community service and a fined $10,500.
    Morris is currently working as a tenured professor at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. He principally researches computer network architectures including distributed hash tables such as Chord and wireless mesh networks such as Roofnet.
White Hat Hackers
Hackers that use their skills for good are classified as "white hat." These white hats often work as certified "Ethical Hackers," hired by companies to test the integrity of their systems. Others, operate without company permission by bending but not breaking laws and in the process have created some really cool stuff. In this section we profile five white hat hackers and the technologies they have developed.
  1. Stephen Wozniak: "Woz" is famous for being the "other Steve" of Apple. Wozniak, along with current Apple CEO Steve Jobs, co-founded Apple Computer. He has been awarded with the National Medal of Technology as well as honorary doctorates from Kettering University and Nova Southeastern University. Additionally, Woz was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in September 2000.
    Woz got his start in hacking making blue boxes, devices that bypass telephone-switching mechanisms to make free long-distance calls. After reading an article about phone phreaking in Esquire, Wozniak called up his buddy Jobs. The pair did research on frequencies, then built and sold blue boxes to their classmates in college. Wozniak even used a blue box to call the Pope while pretending to be Henry Kissinger.
    Wozniak dropped out of college and came up with the computer that eventually made him famous. Jobs had the bright idea to sell the computer as a fully assembled PC board. The Steves sold Wozniak's cherished scientific calculator and Jobs' VW van for capital and got to work assembling prototypes in Jobs' garage. Wozniak designed the hardware and most of the software. In the Letters section of Woz.org, he recalls doing "what Ed Roberts and Bill Gates and Paul Allen did and tons more, with no help." Wozniak and Jobs sold the first 100 of the Apple I to a local dealer for $666.66 each.
    Woz no longer works full time for Apple, focusing primarily on philanthropy instead. Most notable is his function as fairy godfather to the Los Gatos, Calif. School District. "Wozniak 'adopted' the Los Gatos School District, providing students and teachers with hands-on teaching and donations of state-of-the-art technology equipment."
  2. Tim Berners-Lee: Berners-Lee is famed as the inventor of the World Wide Web, the system that we use to access sites, documents and files on the Internet. He has received numerous recognitions, most notably the Millennium Technology Prize.
    While a student at Oxford University, Berners-Lee was caught hacking access with a friend and subsequently banned from University computers. w3.org reports, "Whilst [at Oxford], he built his first computer with a soldering iron, TTL gates, an M6800 processor and an old television." Technological innovation seems to have run in his genes, as Berners-Lee's parents were mathematicians who worked on the Manchester Mark1, one of the earliest electronic computers.
    While working with CERN, a European nuclear research organization, Berners-Lee created a hypertext prototype system that helped researchers share and update information easily. He later realized that hypertext could be joined with the Internet. Berners-Lee recounts how he put them together: "I just had to take the hypertext idea and connect it to the TCP and DNS ideas and – ta-da! – the World Wide Web."
    Since his creation of the World Wide Web, Berners-Lee founded the World Wide Web Consortium at MIT. The W3C describes itself as "an international consortium where Member organizations, a full-time staff and the public work together to develop Web standards." Berners-Lee's World Wide Web idea, as well as standards from the W3C, is distributed freely with no patent or royalties due.
  3. Linus Torvalds: Torvalds fathered Linux, the very popular Unix-based operating system. He calls himself "an engineer," and has said that his aspirations are simple, "I just want to have fun making the best damn operating system I can."
    Torvalds got his start in computers with a Commodore VIC-20, an 8-bit home computer. He then moved on to a Sinclair QL. Wikipedia reports that he modified the Sinclair "extensively, especially its operating system." Specifically, Torvalds hacks included "an assembler and a text editor…as well as a few games."
    Torvalds created the Linux kernel in 1991, using the Minix operating system as inspiration. He started with a task switcher in Intel 80386 assembly and a terminal driver. After that, he put out a call for others to contribute code, which they did. Currently, only about 2 percent of the current Linux kernel is written by Torvalds himself. The success of this public invitation to contribute code for Linux is touted as one of the most prominent examples of free/open source software.
    Currently, Torvalds serves as the Linux ringleader, coordinating the code that volunteer programmers contribute to the kernel. He has had an asteroid named after him and received honorary doctorates from Stockholm University and University of Helsinki. He was also featured in Time Magazine's "60 Years of Heroes."
  4. Richard Stallman: Stallman's fame derives from the GNU Project, which he founded to develop a free operating system. For this, he's known as the father of free software. His "Serious Bio" asserts, "Non-free software keeps users divided and helpless, forbidden to share it and unable to change it. A free operating system is essential for people to be able to use computers in freedom."
    Stallman, who prefers to be called rms, got his start hacking at MIT. He worked as a "staff hacker" on the Emacs project and others. He was a critic of restricted computer access in the lab. When a password system was installed, Stallman broke it down, resetting passwords to null strings, then sent users messages informing them of the removal of the password system.
    Stallman's crusade for free software started with a printer. At the MIT lab, he and other hackers were allowed to modify code on printers so that they sent convenient alert messages. However, a new printer came along – one that they were not allowed to modify. It was located away from the lab and the absence of the alerts presented an inconvenience. It was at this point that he was "convinced…of the ethical need to require free software."
    With this inspiration, he began work on GNU. Stallman wrote an essay, "The GNU Project," in which he recalls choosing to work on an operating system because it's a foundation, "the crucial software to use a computer." At this time, the GNU/Linux version of the operating system uses the Linux kernel started by Torvalds. GNU is distributed under "copyleft," a method that employs copyright law to allow users to use, modify, copy and distribute the software.
    Stallman's life continues to revolve around the promotion of free software. He works against movements like Digital Rights Management (or as he prefers, Digital Restrictions Management) through organizations like Free Software Foundation and League for Programming Freedom. He has received extensive recognition for his work, including awards, fellowships and four honorary doctorates.
  5. Tsutomu Shimomura: Shimomura reached fame in an unfortunate manner: he was hacked by Kevin Mitnick. Following this personal attack, he made it his cause to help the FBI capture him.
    Shimomura's work to catch Mitnick is commendable, but he is not without his own dark side. Author Bruce Sterling recalls: "He pulls out this AT&T cellphone, pulls it out of the shrinkwrap, finger-hacks it, and starts monitoring phone calls going up and down Capitol Hill while an FBI agent is standing at his shoulder, listening to him."
    Shimomura out-hacked Mitnick to bring him down. Shortly after finding out about the intrusion, he rallied a team and got to work finding Mitnick. Using Mitnick's cell phone, they tracked him near Raleigh-Durham International Airport. The article, "SDSC Computer Experts Help FBI Capture Computer Terrorist" recounts how Shimomura pinpointed Mitnick's location. Armed with a technician from the phone company, Shimomura "used a cellular frequency direction-finding antenna hooked up to a laptop to narrow the search to an apartment complex." Mitnick was arrested shortly thereafter. Following the pursuit, Shimomura wrote a book about the incident with journalist John Markoff, which was later turned into a movie.
We hope you have enjoyed our introduction to some of the most famous real-life hackers, both white and black alike, and have gotten a clearer impression of who hackers really are. To find out more about hacking, cracking, these or other famous hackers, or just how to keep your computer safe from all of the above, check out the following resources:
  1. Kevin Mitnick's Security Advice
  2. IT Security: 10 Steps to Make Your Firewall More Secure
  3. Frontline: Hackers
  4. InfoSEC Institute Ethical Hacking

21 Comments

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Jim
Posted on July 29, 2009
Legitimate hackers to this day hate the media's use of the work "hacker" to describe computer criminals. Most of these people have limited computer skills (as demonstrated by only 2 out of your 5 black hats working in the computer industry today) and generally gain entry into computer systems either by exploiting lax systems administration at the target, or in the case of Mitnik, via social engineering.
I've also got to say that your list of white hats is rather lacking. Google some of these names: Ken Thompson, Guy Steele, Brian Kernighan, Dennis Richie, Donald Knuth, Larry Wall, Alfred Aho, Bert Bos, David Moon, Dave Cutler, Brian Behlendorf, Vinton Cerf, Grace Hopper, David Moon, Rob Pike, Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, Leonard Adleman, Blake Ross, Eric Raymond, John Warnock. Without these people, computer software, both business and recreational, operating systems, and networking as we know it today wouldn't exist.
By the way, it's "rappel", not "repel".http://www.focus.com/fyi/top-10-most-famous-hackers-all-time/
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