h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Let's see. Hmmmm. A hacker don't intentionally do damage? Right?
No - wrong. The acclaimed "non-destructiveness" of a hacker is a nice romantic dream, mostly used as an excuse by those that's been caught or by the renegades that's hoping to be a "real" hacker sometime.
Simply put: I have newer seen a hacker that haven't been destructive in some way (and I have had the unpleasentnes to stop and track and cleanup after hackers at numerous occasions the last 8 years) (Ask anybody that's been "visited" by a hacker for that matter).
A hackers activities have (at least) two destructive impacts on the victims:
Modification of the system (no modification -> no hacker gaining entry -> just annoyance) ranging from the stupid obvious modified files, to the sublime invisible penetration. I've heard allmost every excuse for this. One of the most funny are: "It was so poorly managed, so I trimmed it so now it's working much better..." Pheew - that's scaring - he can read our mind's - he knows what we are planning to use the system for.... And in our stupidity(?) we spend days and weeks of reconfiguring/cleaning/tracking on that "nicely trimmed" system afterwards.
Destructive impact number two:
Embarrassment. That can cost at lot; the life of a company, the jobs of someone within the IT-staff.... (arh... it's their own fault?)

They are not criminal. Ahaa..... perhaps just 'socially impaired technofreaks that got the special humanright to express themselves through a little "me playing god"' ?...
An example: My (allmost) new car is standing in the street. A "nice young man" decides it's my own fault to leave it there (locked - but that is no obstacle). He borrows it for a quick stroll, but don't like the color or the tuning of the engine or the tyres or the seats or the lock. So he "reconfigures" it, leave it back (now with a new lock).
Should I be thankfull? Is it allright that i have to ask for permission to use my own car? Or is it ok to think it was theft in the first place?

Fear of their technical skill's....etc.... That one really made me laugh.
Of course,- anybody with a little sense should be really scared when encountering extreme skills combined with extreme asocial behaviour. I for one don't like the tought of "the man with the finger on the trigger to THE bomb going gaga".
Feared of the technical skills as an subject? I admire skills, I hire people with better skills than me (otherwise I would have to do the job myself). But don't overestimate the need for skills.

Conclusion: Your article miss the point with an avarage 20-30 lightyears. You are describing another universe. Dont greet hackers, FEAR them. They are posses more destructive powers than you can imagine.

But if your posting was ment sarkastic,- then you might put a little more emphasis on that.