What Is a Hacker?
Many people who don't know anything about hacking believe that computer
criminals are hackers. Heck, that's what news stories call computer criminals. See our news about busted "hackers" and you'll see headlines such as (ouch)
UK hacker loses extradition fight "Glasgow-born Gary McKinnon, of north London, is accused of gaining access to 97 US military and Nasa computers...."
These reporters who call criminals "hackers" makes us real
hackers angry. Eric Raymond, author of “The New Hacker's
Dictionary,” says, “Real hackers call these people
‘crackers’ and want nothing to do with them... being
able to break security doesn’t make you a hacker any more
than being able to hot wire cars makes you an automotive engineer.
Unfortunately, many journalists and writers have been fooled
into using the word ‘hacker’ to describe crackers;
this irritates real hackers no end...
“The basic difference is, hackers build things; crackers
break them.”
The “Hacker Jargon File” (Version 2.9.6, 16 August
1991), adds that “Hacking might be characterized as `an
appropriate application of ingenuity'. Whether the result
is a quick-and-dirty patchwork job or a carefully crafted work
of art, you have to admire the cleverness that went into it.
An important secondary meaning of {hack} is `a creative practical
joke'.”
Books that will tell you more about what hacking is and who
hackers are:
- Raymond, Eric. The
New Hacker's Dictionary: MIT Press, 1996.
- Linzmayer, Owen W. Apple
Confidential; The Real Story of Apple Computer, Inc: No Starch
Press, 1999.
- Sterling, Bruce. The
Hacker Crackdown; Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier:
Bantam Books, 1993.
- Levy, Stephen. Hackers;
Heroes of the Computer Revolution: Delta Books, 1994.
Meinel, Carolyn. The Happy
Hacker: a Guide to Mostly Harmless Computer Hacking: American
Eagle Publications, 2nd ed. 1998.
- Also, see the Real Hackers series
of Guides to (mostly) Harmless Hacking to learn more about
how some of the best hackers learned their magic.
