A person, usually a teenage male, with minimal knowledge of computer systems that executes code (often called "exploits") or follows procedures created by more knowledgeable
people to
break into computer systems or commit "denial of service" (DoS) attacks against other
people. These kids are often portrayed by the media and other non-technically savvy parties as being very intelligent and having tremendous technical knowledge despite the fact that very few of these so-called "hackers" can write their own computer programs (of any sort) or even possess even the most rudimentary technical understanding of the underlying systems that they are attacking or using (e.g., CPU architecture, network protocols, algorithms, etc). The wide-spread and trivial availability of these exploits/scripts for "hacking" and denial-of-service attacks allows these kids to cause serious problems from
time-to-
time and thus they get themselves into trouble way out of proportion to their skill set.
To leap to the assumption that one of these script kids has significant computer knowledge based on his ability to successfully execute exploits/scripts/DoS attacks created by other
people is equivalent to assuming that the functionally-
illiterate 14 year old that shoots a clerk at a convenience store must be a
physics expert because he managed to fire a gun. It'
s point and clock--it's just that simple. To further
torture this analogy, beyond these kids' lack of subject-matter knowledge, they often get themselves into trouble by being extraordinarily stupid and naive in their crimes, e.g., bragging, keeping evidence of their crimes, attacking the wrong
people, getting themselves in the press, etc.
<vato> *
User has quit (Ping Timeout)
<vato> l0l d00d. t0talln pwn3d. I r smart :>
*
User joins
<User> You're such a script
kid.
<vato> d00d i'm gonna pack3t j0 4ever n0w.
