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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)
by norswap 9y ago
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.
- tomc1985 9y agoThat'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".