I just read an article on CNN.COM (here). It kinda perked my curiosity a bit on some things. (During the article, I also noticed the shout-out for the upcoming Def Con conference.)
This could be started as the Def Con thread, but my real question is: what is the prefered operating system of hackers and why? And how would they configure it? I would assume Linux, but what build do they use and how is it configured?
I see the pic of the guys in the hammocks in the Netherlands with laptops and I’m just imagining that whatever OS they are using it looks and operates cool. If it is Linux they are using, I think I would like to install it on my laptop without loosing my current setup. Hrmm…I know, I can’t think straight right now.
Also, to keep this post from getting locked, I am not asking for instructions for anything illegal or malicious. I am just curious. I would assume that the average hacker is just a computer nerd like the rest of us too.
I use Debian on the servers, OS X on my laptop (ALL of my security related tools are cross compiled for OS X) and the rest of the department uses Windows.
Seriously paranoid hackers who are trying to avoid getting hacked frequently use OpenBSD.
Many Unix types would consider it the most secure OS out there. That is a proposition the consideration of which would be off topic in this forum.
Some hackers would run Linux, some FreeBSD, some Macs, and some would in fact run Windows.
If you undertook this question as a serious subject of study I expect that you would discover that there’s at least one hacker out there running any current operating system, and quite a few hackers that use operating systems that are more or less obsolete.
Your biggest problem wouldn’t be counting OSes. It would actually be defining “hackers” and then getting the people you think of as “hackers” to identify themselves as such. Hacker is about as touchy of a word to certain computing experts as a certain ethnic phrase beginning with n is in certain quarters.
