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Comment by Matsta | Hacker News Reader

Using the term 'blackhat' is pretty darn vague. It's just as vague as using the word 'cloud' (Basically a buzz word).

I wouldn't call this guy Blackhat though, if he's stealing credit cards then that's straight up fraud.

Usually when people use the term 'blackhat', they are referring to someone who breaks companies terms of service but just below actually breaking the law.

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Generally blackhat is accepted as the term for anything less legal than greyhat. There's no "lower bound" like "Oh, he broke into a non-profit! That's not consistent with blackhat ethics!"

EDIT: To be clear, that doesn't mean that whatever community she's in doesn't disapprove of that behaviour, but douchebag and blackhat are not mutually exclusive.

No, that's greyhat - the morally grey area. It's finding a hole and dicking around to see how it works.

Blackhat is outright stealing/espionage/manipulation of other devices for your own gain.

Not necessarily. Blackhat folks are generally divided into 2 basic groups...the type you described, and the kind that for example break into servers just to show off their skills but they don't do anything other than prove to their peers that they were in...and the more difficult the server they get into , the more praise they get from the "scene."

There are whitehat folks who do the same...the difference being blackhat don't tell the company whose server they broke into how they did it.

No, that isn't accurate. Most blackhats I've known don't steal anything or benefit at all from their conquests. They think hacking is fun, that's it.

Doing it for bragging rights is not accurate either. Plenty of them brag, sure, but they hack because they like to hack. People always want to make that more than it is.

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