Bitcoin Forum

Maybe I'm old school,  but when I was growing up the term "hacker" didn't mean the same thing it means today.

When someone used the word hacker in the 1980's, 1990's and even the early 2000's it meant someone that disassembled something, and rebuilt it better beyond it's initial design.    For example if someone developed a way to compress a proprietary video stream by 90% but retained 100% of it's clarity then that guy would be considered a hacker...  because he improved an existing technology.

It didn't apply to someone that stole from eCommerce stores...  the term hacker was never used in that context,  the term used was thief or criminal.

If someone goes in and clears out an exchange of it's bitcoins,  that's not a hacker,  that's a criminal.   It's just bugging me because the terms are mutually exclusive.. and I'm seeing them thrown around as if it's the same thing.

What about "Cracker"?

the evolution of language.

gay isn't gay anymore either.

and terrific isn't so terrific.

thats the way i look at it...lanquage is fluid and alive; it changes and evolves with time :)

but i can see your point OP...i cringe everytime someone calls my tattoo machine a "gun".

Man stop phreakin. 

yeah it's gone wrong in the mainstream too much...
we can use hacking correctly but fiat people will get it wrong.

but I'm up for using it in the right way.
cracking == bad
hacking == good

fiat people: people that have value only because of government regulation or law.

While we're at it, everyone should stop misusing the term astro too. It means star, people. Star.

verb /hak/

1.Cut with rough or heavy blows

    * - hack off the dead branches

2.Use a computer to gain unauthorized access to data in a system

    * - they hacked into a bank's computer



Wow they even used a relevant example

stfu you pretentious cry baby.  ::)

I think it has both associations - even going way back.
To 'hack' something is to make use of it in a way not intended during it's design.

This can be an act of wizardry in improving something - or combined with an act of antagonism in breaking/defeating/stealing something of somebody else's.
In the context of defeating a security device/system - whether it's 'good' or 'bad' is often debatable.

Even in the sense of 'improving' something...  to say something is a 'bit of a hack' or 'was hacked together' ... implies a certain rough practicality and taking of short-cuts in comparison to up-front design.
It's little wonder that the similar rough methodologies and reverse-engineering of systems should be termed 'hacking in' with reference to gaining unauthorised access.

I don't see how you can claim 'hacker' and 'criminal' are mutually exclusive.  They're attributes/labels that *can* both be held by one person.
It is sad that the media often seems to conflate 'criminal' and 'hacker' - not realizing that 'criminal' is an additional attribute held by a minority of hackers - but they've been using 'hacker' to refer to people breaking into computer systems since the 80's if not earlier.

I think that by now we just have to accept that 'hack', like 'fuck' - is a very versatile word.

hacking is a combination of many things.

compressing a video is RE and innovation.

although hacking can be good, they both use the same techniques to achieve a similar goal.

is hacking:
sql injection
dumping a database directly from the outside
exploiting bugs

not hacking:
dos/ddos (although you can hack into systems to get resources to dos/ddos)
client side stuff (although in gaming terms this is hacking, but in general terms it is not(its "cheating") unless the server itself if being compromised)

there is a huge amount of technicalities i don't care to remember or list. some in the list could be wrong, but whatever. i think we should instead of saying "hack" we say the user/pass database was dumped or whatever happened.

ESR has been whining about this for decades... hasn't happened. I whined about it for years too, until I wised up.

The purpose of a lexicon is to describe the way language is used, not to set hard and fast rules about how it should be used. Language evolves. We lost, it's time to get over it.

At the very least, "hacker" has dual meanings and you're using the more esoteric version. Claiming the more mainstream accepted version isn't correct is about the equivalent of throwing a temper tantrum: everyone looks at you, but they don't respect you over it and it's not going to change anything.

Agreed!

Annoys the shit out of me when I see these news stations "cnn,fox" say hackers compromised sony blah blah blah. I've emailed a few new station telling the idiots they are not hackers but crackers that are cyber criminals. Same with games, omg, pc gaming, "saying someone is hacking" annoys the shit out of me, its idiots taking someones bot and using it for walling or aim botting etc. Same goes for forums, "hacker got into my mtgox account" no, someone cracked into mtgox. Glad I am not the only one that agrees on this Fact.

Hacker people?

Evidently we're the minority on this,  but it's fine..   You can't change people's minds... 

Language evolve man, just have to live with it. No point trying to fight the tide of linguistic evolution. I used to get annoyed about these things, still remember when folks were trying to make the distinction between hackers and crackers (is this even in use today?). As well as things like the "CPU" isn't the box sitting on your table/floor. But well, it's generally waste of breath :D

today its still difficult to determine what a CPU is in server software licensing. is 1 cpu a considered a core or 1 physical cpu? don't get started on logical cores lol.

I thought they pretty much decided to settle on whichever makes them more money and/or suits their corporate direction? Anti-virtualization and profit-first goes for per core real or physical or per real/virtualized server. Pro-customer and pro-virtualization goes for per socket. :D

from wikepedia:

"Fred Shapiro thinks that "the common theory that 'hacker' originally was a benign term and the malicious connotations of the word were a later perversion is untrue." He found out that the malicious connotations were present at MIT in 1963 already (quoting The Tech, a MIT Student Magazine) and then referred to unauthorized users of the telephone network,[10][11] that is, the phreaker movement that developed into the computer security hacker subculture of today."


So basically, if I read that correctly, in 1963 the word hacker already was being used in the common way
we do now...

thus OP.. are you sure your memory is correct? ;-)

or maybe people who have this debate like the elitist usage of the word versus a person who
can "hack" into a linux box remotely/locally and more then likely has just as much skill, if not more, then
the people using the term to describe their hobby project.

Isn't a "hacker" anyone modifying something?

There are many forms of hacker's.
Like...
- Hack into a bank.
How?
- Social Engineering (Manipulating the human interface / bank teller).
- Exploits / Backdoors (SQL Injection, XSS...etc).
- Just borrow money from the safe, simple? You'd be modifying the number of [Currency] in the safe.
- ...etc

Also,
- Taking down a tree.
How?
- Hack at it... (You're modifying the stability of the tree).

yeh...gay,

use to mean happy, now it means to draw a bunch of rainbow dicks on yourself, put on a g-string and go dance around in the street like an idiot celebrating his balls out.

I really hate them for what they did to those beautiful rainbows.

Cracker isn't always bad either, it's all about how the person use their skills.

Phreakers weren't bad (necessarilly), neither hackers. Locksmiths/lockpickers can use their skills for good or for evil just the same.


It's like if people start saying traceurs (practitioners of parkour) and freerunners are people that invade private property and leave shoeprints on white walls.

I don't think the term is misused at all.

The word hacker has come to have it's own agreed upon definition by most people walking the earth.  Regardless of how you gain access to somebodies system... people are going to say you hacked and the term is acceptable.

Use cheat codes in games?  Hacking. 

not much into semanitcs but cheat codes would technically be cracking, but that is being 100% pedantic. xD

with hackers, it's pretty much set now, because no one ever hears of "good hackers" unless it has a bad connotation attached to it.

the term OP is looking for is enthusiasts I believe.
That is what most people wanted hacker to mean, but that didn't happen, the press makes the rules.

Almost spit my pop out, reading this. Yeah, I've heard this a lot as well.*facepalm* "can you take a look at my cpu, I'll bring it by" [expecting to inspect pins of the processor or something, turns out some people consider the tower a cpu]

Well "theoretically speaking", I spend all my time centrally located around this processing unit.

if 'hack' means to modify, then changing its meaning is also a hack.

We called ourselves hackers the early 90's. It meant someone who could do novel and interesting things with their computer or phone. Someone self taught who was exploring the untried potential of computing. None of this nonsense about theft and vandalism. That came later.  :'(

i agree

hahahah   :D I'm not sure how that happened forum stripped my message. but I put "or modded" after your quote.