A hack is a novel solution using existing technology outside of its primary intended use case. Even though this is a 'social hack', a hack is nonetheless exactly what this is.

It can be taken too far though. If I go shoplifting am I "hacking the shop"? If my shower breaks and I pour bottled water over myself to clean am I "hacking bottled water"?

Shoplifting can be a bit of an art. I agree with you that the “hacking” thing is overused, but I think it makes sense to call something like booster bags a “hack”, for example. There are lots of “hacks” for shoplifting.

Aren't hackers notorious for being interested in things like lockpicking? And that interest is based on an interest in taking apart a system? Shoplifting has worse consequences than recreational lockpicking, but I could see it having some of the same system deconstruction appeal if approached in the right way (not advocating shoplifting, by the way)

I completely agree, except I am advocating shoplifting. I also wish there were more hackers who would use their lockpicking skills for more than just recreation. I feel like the idea that “hacking” can only be motivated by pure curiousity, and not by anything political or in any way threatening, is an idea that serves the interests of the people in power. They don't want us to think about or analyse our political situation, or to try to change it; they would rather divert our attention and our abilities towards solving rather pointless puzzles, which at best are inconsequential, or at worst just make them even more money.

It's a matter of intent, i.e., theft versus exploration.

Shoplifting is anticipated and not at all novel. It's not out of scope of the shops primary function (one of which is to protect the retailer).

Perhaps 'trick' would be a better term in this airport case. I guess the difference between a trick and a hack is that you can't trick a machine (it does what it's told and doesn't care what your intentions are) but you can certainly trick people (they can be fooled in to misreading your intentions and responding dynamically). Also a trick is usually just about improving device utility rather than re-purposing it.

Is there any technology at work here? How is this not a bad faith scam?

I agree that the word is overused. Just like "hacker" is. For instance I don't think half the articles linked here on Hacker News have anything to do with hacking (I'm not saying this is bad), and a lot of them pretend to be by having "hacker" in the title (and this, I think, is bad: no, it's not because you coded that in Ruby or Node.js instead of PHP that your blogging platform is for hackers…).

But clearly "hacking" can be used for things other than computer related stuff, and I feel like calling a clever trick "hacking" is less harmful (well, it's even harmless IMHO). Getting back to your comment, I feel that here it is a valid usage of the word. Take something similar for instance: calling Steal This Book [1] a kind of society hacking cookbook (it is mostly outdated though) feels completely right to me.

Defending the meaning of the word may be important, but wanting to restrain its usage all the time is useless and counterproductive.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steal_This_Book

Complaining about the usage of "hacking" is also very tired.

so where do we go from here?

keep sharing and enjoying content

Hacking complaints - blog post coming up.

If we weren't on a webtube BBS called "Hacker News" I'd be much more likely to agree.

"Hacking headlines for more karma"

I agree - articles like this are saying, "I'm hacking the phone system by checking busy payphones for change," or "I'm hacking my favorite bar by not tipping the waiters, so I save 15%!" It really gives hacking a bad name.

Hacking has unfortunately become a buzzword, and now you can apply it to just about anything to make something stupid sound clever: "Honey, let me hack the light bulb for you". I agree with you, it's plain ridiculous.

"Honey what are you doing with your hand down there?" "It is a growth hack, dear"

specially when used as a synonym of "defrauding", as in most "growth hacks"