Are Mobile Devices as Hacker-Friendly as Desktop Machines?
The word "hacker" is perhaps the most badly-abused term in history. From its origins in the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) programming groups of the 1960s, where it originally meant "good programmer", it has been seized by the media and turned into a word meaning "cybercriminal".
Then the distinction had to be made between the first and second meaning, and they borrowed a metaphor from bad cowboy movies and called them "white-hat hackers" and "black-hat hackers". Then people had to start calling themselves "gray-hat hackers", which seems to mean they're security professionals who maintain a knowledge of how to break systems in order to know how to protect them... How can we go on?
Anyway, we're stuck with that word. So for the purposes of this article, assume "hacker" to mean the good, smart, innovative user of technology kind of hacker.
This recent post at LinuxInsider asserts that with our current global economic crisis, we need hackers in our society. While we agree with the basic thrust of the statement, it is important to point out an entirely different reason altogether: hackers are the innovators. They solve problems where no solution existed before. They invent new things, and hence make new value out of nothing, adding to the economy instead of subtracting from it with dodgy financial dealings. Hackers found companies like Dell, Google, and Apple. You get the gist of it, right?
So. The thing with the creative, innovative kind of hacking is, it isn't done without tools. For hacking software, it isn't something you can accomplish with a web browser, an office suite, and some games. You need design tools, a lot of knowledge, and most importantly, a keyboard! In fact, a keyboard, plus a command line, a very plain editor, a compiler, and very little else. So far, mobile devices (excluding anything larger than a notebook) just aren't breeding a thriving market in programming. The common knowledge goes, you design on the big machine, run it on the small machine. That's why programs like the Microsoft Device Emulator exist.
However, we're seeing a change of the tide. It was only recently that mobile phones weren't able to run a game more sophisticated than Tetris, but look at them now. And of course, we only recently saw the rise of the UMPC platform. PDAs, GPS receivers, digital cameras, and mobile phones have all come together to converge into the smartphone, such as the brightly innovative HTC Touch Pro.
It would also at first appear that desktop machines have another advantage for hackers: you can change out the parts. Really, with you and a screwdriver, how would you give your smartphone more memory? On a desktop PC, that takes a minute. But the fact is, hackers are a playful, and thus persistent lot. Modded mobile devices abound, as sites like Boing Boing, Lifehacker, and MakerFaire.com show.
Finally, more and more software is entering the mobile scene. From the PC platform, we have the same three horses entering the mobile race; Microsoft with Windows Mobile, Apple with the iPhone, and now Google is bringing in Android, with Linux flowing in its veins. The gang's all here! Let the competition begin!
So in the end, we must come to the conclusion that the mobile platform will develop into the same thriving culture that the desktop once was. And this is a good thing, and also a point of inspiration for any bright, young entrepreneurs out there. The mobile platform, thus far, has not found its own Steve Wozniac, Bill Gates, or even Richard Stallman. It just has the hand-me-down companies from the desktop era of a generation ago.
Are you the next hacker entrepreneur from the Pocket PC culture? Where is our demoscene? That's an important Petri dish for evolving the next generation of tech wizards. When a platform gets its own demoscene, you know that's where the next exciting industry will happen.
Filed Under: Security Technology
