Conduct Unbecoming of a Hacker (2014)

Re:Conduct Unbecoming of a Hacker (2014) by norswap on Wednesday May 31, 2017 @06:20PM (#14456388)

This is the "hacker news"* definition of "hacker". What you're referring too is what HN will call a "cracker" (or "phracker" for cracking communication systems).

A "hacker" on here is just someone that does neat technical stuff (purposefully simplify, don't nitpick).

*Which is much older than that of course, dating to the BBS era and earlier.

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Re:Conduct Unbecoming of a Hacker (2014) by tomc1985 on Wednesday May 31, 2017 @06:39PM (#14456492)

That's what a hacker has always been -- even the 'h4x0r' definition. There is a necessary component of deviance and anti-authority in the word that nearly everyone seems to have forgotten about.

If you're making computers do something they're not supposed to be doing, you're hacking. The "entrepreneur hacking away at his business" definition hearkens back to the word they use for a bad writer: a "hack".

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