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Web Definition: Hacker - A slang term for a computer enthusiast. Among professional programmers, the term hacker implies an amateur or a programmer who lacks formal training. Depending on how it used, the term can be either complimentary or derogatory, although it is developing an increasingly derogatory connotation. The pejorative sense of hacker is becoming more prominent largely because the popular press has co-opted the term to refer to individuals who gain unauthorised access to computer systems for the purpose of stealing and corrupting data. Hackers, themselves, maintain that the proper term for such individuals is cracker.
-cracker - commonly mistaken for a hacker, these people intentionally break systems security or attempt to "crack" codes and passwords. although to the common PC user they seem intelligent, most lack significant programming ability, or experience with UNIX and VMS. they simply use common tricks, or previously written programs. to real hackers, these crackers are regarded as a lower life form.
-phreaking - this form of "hacking" involves cracking the phone network in order to usually make free long distance calls. although it isn't used as much as the old days with their "blue boxs", some true hackers will ocasionally test their skill on the latest system.
-lamers - this is the word used to describe those that intentionally mess around with other's systems for the sole purpose of annoying. they lack true hacking skills and basically use other hacker's programs as they pretend to be a cool "hacker".(usually these are the "wannabee" kids sitting behind their pc clone in their bedroom trying to impress their friend on what they can "do" on the computer).
the word hacker gets its true defenition from the programmers of the old school days. back when "hacking" was the writing of programs and intense knowledge of UNIX and other operating systems. a hacker had to know the system they were on like the back of their hand and was educated in things that the average computer user couldn't comprehend.
today the word hacker has been tarnished and is used instead to describe those that do damage and break into other's systems and databases. the terminology and lingo of today better describes what and how each "hacker" works.
hacker: n.
[originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe]
1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. RFC1392, the Internet Users' Glossary, usefully amplifies this as: A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in particular.
2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming.
3. A person capable of appreciating hack value.
4. A person who is good at programming quickly.
5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work using it or on it; as in 'a Unix hacker'. (Definitions 1 through 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.)
6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example.
7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations.
8. [deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information by poking around. Hence password hacker, network hacker. The correct term for this sense is cracker.
here's something interesting for all to read:
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In 1961, the MIT recieved for free the first PDP-1 computer prototype. It's assembler was average, and group of hackers led by Alan Kotok suggested to Jack Dennis, the person who was in charge of the PDP-1, to improve the assembler, which looked like a bad idea to Jack. Kotok, willing to have the perfect tool asked: "If we write this program over the weekend and have it working, would you pay us for the time?". Jack accepted, and thus six hackers worked around two hundred and fifty man-hours that weekend, writing code, debugging, and washing down take-out Chinese food with massive quantities of Coca-Cola. It was a programming orgy, and when Jack Dennis came in that Monday he was astonished to find an assembler loaded into the PDP-1, which as a demonstration was assembling its own code into binary.
By sheer dint of hacking, the PDP-1 hackers had turned out a program in a weekend that it would have taken the computer industry weeks, maybe even months to pull off. It was a project that would probably not be undertaken by the computer industry without a long and tedious process of requisitions, studies, meetings, and executive vacillating, most likely with considerable compromise along the way. It might never have been done at all. The project was a triumph for the Hacker Ethic.
