Full Stack Developer and lifelong all things computer enthusiast here..hackers exist. It's nothing like in movies though lol definitely not as glamorous. I think theres a general misconception of what hacking really is. Hacking should be called exploiting. Most hackers are essentially social engineers.

wanted to say this. Thank you.

3 taps on the keyboard : “IM IN THE MAINFRAME”

Or programmers yes. Many think you can just hack into a system just like that even with the right tools. But in reality you needn't do recon and figure out which systems they are running.. Just sending an exploit in an email is nice but that's not going to get you anywhere if the target don't click on it. Getting dozens of random targets isn't hard. But getting thst one specific one can be.

Data analyst, with knowledge of special language to interpret what the average person see’s as gibberish. Maybe?

Yes. However, the stereotypes put forth in media are mostly inaccurate. System penetration is high risk. Most hackers spend their time looking for software and hardware exploits and then sell those exploits to others or get paid through legit 'bug bounty' programs. The ones who are doing the hacks that you hear about are either working through government organizations(like NSA) or organized crime syndicates. If you would like to hear interviews with hackers(both white hat and black hat), I would recommend a podcast called Darknet Diaries. It's really interesting stuff.

System penetration is the easy part. Opsec and avoiding crimes concerning international law and national security is the hard part

Cyber Threat Analyst here. Most hackers you hear about taking huge ransoms and shutting down supply lines are state actors. Welcome to the digital battlefield.

I like to read conspiracy theories about the lizard people.

wow, thank you for saying out loud what the majority of us are thinking, it’s used as a disinformation campaign to extract more money out of tax payers and keep otherwise pointless jobs in the government. the rich get richer because they “legally” rob us. it’s important to remind people that this is a democracy, we the people, do not work for the government, the government works for the people. we are not their employees, they are ours. there is no king of america, and if we find out there is, there won’t be for too long. because that is not how a free and democratic society operates. rant over

Does that make incidents like with Sony, Equifax, Twitch, etcetera... More or less worrying, in your opinion? Or rather, what's your thought process when you hear of these events?

The best of the best are making money hacking, usually for their governments. Too much risk involved to try and be a hero. Anonymous isn’t a real group either. Never has been nor have they ever claimed to be. It’s simply an ideology and name others have taken to make their little streaks sound cooler. All the recent Anon Hacks have been against websites with very weak security as well.

There's a great documentary about them that came out in the mid 90's called 'Hackers' definitely worth checking out.

It's an interesting and valid point. The likes of Anonymous don't have the swing they used to but I agree with you, you would think there would be more noise from the group's than what there is ☹️

notice when they were used, it was during an election, then they calmed down and disappeared. if anonymous was truly who they said they were, they wouldn’t be used like a prop during a major event. you would hear them operate in other areas as well during non important times

Zero Cool is real, but Anonymous hasn't been 'real' in a long time, if they ever were

Anonymous is 100% a psyop

The hackers are certainly real, however we need to differentiate which are government controlled and which are hacktivists like anonymous, if anonymous isn't government controlled at this point. And by government I'm not necessarily talking about any country in particular.

Anonymous IS government controlled

Hackers are real, Anonymous are NOT

Hackers try to exploit banking software to make money. That or they create viruses to attempt to hit standard pc’s. Simple shit like keyloggers, password crackers, rats, exploits. The coolest thing to come out of them recently was the silent crypto miners. I always thought it’d eventually become a thing AND IT DID. The name of the game is keeping a low profile, to avoid the feds.

OP is an AI

Anonymous just hacked Epik. They also defaced the Texas Republicans abortion website. They're out and about for sure.

Kinda off topic but a few years ago I was at my daughters elementary school (Christmas fundraiser performance thing) and they had 4 kids up there, top of their class, taking turns talking in the microphone. Well the first 3 kids said normal kid things like “please donate so we can have field trips!” The last kid… 5th grader in his Boy Scout/Eagle Scout uniform grabs the microphone all dramatic like and says “many people believe America has many enemies, but the real enemy?? …. dramatic pause …. HACKERS!” He started to explain and the lady running the show was fast walking following him around the stage trying to grab the microphone away from him. It was so amazingly brilliant. My husband and I just stared like “wow that just happened.”