The Vatican Lauds Hackers 375
angry tapir writes "Internet hackers have acquired a dubious reputation for piracy, sabotage and the spilling of sensitive secrets, but an authoritative Vatican publication appears to rehabilitate them and traces parallels between hacker philosophy and the teachings of Christianity. The charitable view of hackers was expressed by the Jesuit priest Father Antonio Spadaro in an article for the fortnightly magazine Civilta Cattolica, the text of which is vetted by the Vatican Secretariat of State prior to publication. Hackers should not be confused with crackers, Spadaro wrote, citing a definition penned by technology writer Eric S. Raymond: "Hackers build things, crackers break them.""
Re:Hackers=christians?? (Score:4, Informative)
FTFA:
For all the common ground between Christians and hackers over the concepts of sharing, creativity and idealism, Spadaro acknowledged there were problems of compatibility between the Catholic Church's hierarchical organization and its focus on a "revealed truth" and the hackers' rejection of authority and of any hierarchy of knowledge.
Interesting (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Eh... (Score:5, Informative)
100 million hours of intellectual work, which is the equivalent of the time the citizens of the United States spend watching advertising on TV in a single weekend,"
The math works out to about ten minutes per person per day. Considering that a typical one-hour show has about twenty minutes of commercials, the 100 million hour figure is probably about right.
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Re:Hackers=christians?? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Hackers=christians?? (Score:4, Informative)
The Copts would disagree with you. As would several ethnic Christian groups in the far-East that were founded by Apostles other than Peter. Catholicism is as much a branch as they are.