On Wednesday 16 March 2005 03:02 pm, D. Hageman wrote:
On a side note - we pretty much have to accept the general media distorting the term hacker has modified the definition to the point that it has a new meaning that may not be a good one.
Nonsense. "Hacking" was inclusive of cracking until some self-righteous hackers decided they wanted to set themselves above and apart from those nasty "crackers", so they tried to patch the language by insisting their definition was correct. Never works. Language is what people mean, not what they're supposed to mean.
On another side note - If a person calls themselves a hacker - they aren't a hacker.
Sure they are. The're someone who hacks stuff. Just as a writer can call themselves a hack. It may have a connotation of elite coolness to you, but that's just you.
Like I said before, the term and concept pre-date computers. I'm a hardware hacker, I can hack code if I have to, I have friends who have hacked other kinds of systems. True hacking is in the mind of the hacker.