--Originally published at Stories by Juan Andrés Rocha on Medium

Hacking is a word often perceived as negative and really far from “ethics” and “good things”. But it is not.

Before we judge the so-called hackers, we must get familiar with the hacker culture:

Hacker culture emerged from a fusion of intellectual curiosity, counter-culture and a hate-on for any technology that you couldn’t easily get access to or tamper with. — Forbes

Basically, a hacker is a person who finds creative workarounds to turn their devices or technology pieces into something more useful to them, even if it means breaking, modifying or creating ‘frankensteins’ with them.

Some companies are trying to make hacking of their devices illegal, which I think shouldn’t be, because if you already paid for a device, and it could fit better your necessities, and you know how to change it to do so, why wouldn’t you? Why would a company limit what you can do with the devices you already paid for? Voiding the warranty is valid. Making it illegal is not.

A good example of the above is Jailbreaking iOS, which might seem unharmful, if you use it correctly (it also voids your warranty, so be careful) but it can be used for wrong, like pirating apps or downloading illegal content on your phone.

There’s also the issue of Ethical hacking. You might be wondering if that’s possible, and it might be, sometimes even necessary, for example: If you’re a network administrator, you should try to hack it every way possible to find vulnerabilities in your own creation, this will help you prevent other malicious persons gain access to your network in the future.

So, what do you think? Is Ethical Hacking a thing?