It can be so hard to find just the right photo to illustrate a story about hacking. Luckily, stock photo agencies have stepped up to the challenge.

But how to navigate through all the options? Do you go for the keyboard wrapped in chains, or the skeleton in a blazer on a laptop? Thankfully, BoingBoing’s Rob Beschizza has created an illustrated field guide to stock photos of hacking to help you navigate.

For instance, next to a picture of ghostly hand coming through the screen of a laptop, he writes, “Hackers can reach through the internet like it’s some kind of fucking seance.” A picture of a timed out connection to cia.gov has the caption, “Many hacking stories can be illustrated by a photo of a website at an unusual angle. Suggest tragedy with error messages.”

It’s all very amusing but it also makes you think about the messages media is conveying depending on the type of photo they put with stories about security intrusions. Largely, the message is that they have no idea what they’re talking about.

Hacker stock art [BoingBoing]

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