The Difference between a Web Designer and a Hacker

Being  a Professional Web Designer can at times be a very trying time when it comes to interacting with friends, family and the general public.

So much has shifted from traditional ways of being accomplished to being handled online that the general view has been unable to catch up. So, what really is the differentials between what a Web Designer does and what qualifies a person as a "Hacker" anyway?

First, lets take a look at the Web Designer. A question I get asked often is "What does a Web Designer actually do?"

 My solution to explaining this actually hit me a couple years ago when My parents relayed me the detail that they were having a tough time explaining to My elderly Grandmother what I do.

Lucky for me, since My Grandmother had, years earlier, helped in the publication of a book that chronicled the local history of My home town. I told My parents to describe it as being like a layout editor on a book, only instead of physical photos, paper and using scotch tape, my workspace is a computer screen and the published work is read like reading something on a TV.

Now, lets be honest, that is a pretty basic description as Web Designers work with many programs, platforms and coding languages. Those coding languages is really the common ground between a Web Designer and a Hacker however.

Hackers come in three classifications. White Hat, Grey Hat and Black Hat Hackers, and yes the descriptions are very much like the wild west with the White Hats working to expose problems in coding platforms and the Black Hats exploiting those code issues for their own gain.

Many of them have knowledge of the same programming languages that us Web Designers do, as well as many languages, software and hardware tools that the average Digital Publisher, and lets be honest, really that is what a Web Designer is, would use in day to day activities.

Web Designers, are a unique breed, We spend our days positioning images, creating interactive elements and positioning images in order to get our customer's messages out to their intended target audiences.  As such, We come equipped with knowledge of multiple platforms. We write code that allows content to resize to what ever size screen the end user is accessing information on.

as for the interaction with our code and Hackers, there are limits as to just what the public facing Web Designer can account for. Most of the exploits that place user information in danger of being exposed occur at the platform level, usually due to a hole in a Flash, Javascript or other platform- including the programming code of the browser or even the Operating System.

Hackers, be they White Hats, Black Hats or the line balancing Grey Hats, serve a valuable purpose. They cause evolution of programming platforms and languages, leading to the patching of holes in code or, in some cases, the retirement of a platform all together.

More information on the Hacking Lifestyle, ways to keep yourself safe and other questions can always be researched online. Two suggestions I would Make is to look up the websites of Steve Gibson's GRC research and Darren Kitchen's hak5.org


Dave for Inertial Zen Designs