Are they nerdy, loners, social outcasts?
No, not at all. The people who get attention, who make it into the news, are a bit different, and a lot of them have dyed black hair and pierced noses. They make good pictures on the front page, but really most hacking is done by the guy next door–the guy who doesn’t make good news. Frankly, many people who break into systems have wives and husbands in the other room. They’re just sitting at the computer after a day of work, and they’re hacking late at night. And a lot of them have developed pretty sophisticated social systems with other hackers. For a lot of them it turns into a game played back and forth: “I’ll break into your system, you break into mine.” It’s about knowledge. You said “husbands and wives.” Are there many female hackers? It’s still predominantly male, but there are more female hackers now, and there are a few female virus writers. It didn’t become popular for girls to be in computer classes until about two years ago, so I suspect we’ll be seeing more. And Anna Moor
