Tal Kollander’s history divides neatly into two halves: first as an active hacker and then as the block that stops hacks.
Based in Tel Aviv, Israel, Tal Kollander has the mindset of a hacker (we’re talking specifically about computer hackers). She believes hackers use creative skills to access computers by ‘non-legit’, basically criminal but creative, methods. A hacker to Kollander is anyone who accesses a computer without proper authorization to do so.
Hackers are then subdivided by their subsequent actions. A ‘good’ hacker will report findings to the computer owner. “This is what I found. Now go fix it,” explains Kollander. These are white hat hackers.
A ‘bad’ hacker accesses a computer for personal gain: such as money, kudos, or political advantage. These are black hat hackers. They do not report their findings to the computer owner, but they may circulate or sell the access method to other hackers or brokers on the criminal underground.
The two basic categories of computer hacker can thus be viewed as either moral or immoral. But just as morality has a third category, amoral (neither one nor the other, perhaps both), so there is a third color to hackers – grey hats who play both sides, sometimes white and sometimes black.
