5 ms·

Hacking is the exploitation of the unexpected side-effects. Hacking absolutely and positively started with exploiting security "holes" in telecommunications and

Hacking is the exploitation of the unexpected side-effects. Hacking absolutely and positively started with exploiting security "holes" in telecommunications and shared computing environments. That's exactly what Steve Wozniak was doing when Steve Jobs met him. Hacking then and hacking now has an air of subversion to it. Coming up with an exploit like Firesheep is hacking. Figuring out how to use PS3s as a supercomputer--and simultaneously subverting the entire business of building and selling supercomputers for ginormous amounts of money AND the business of selling gaming consoles--is hacking. Super-logging out of Facebook is hacking. Renting a botnet and using it to extort money from a business is not hacking, fine, that's just criminal. But yeah, calling yourself a "hacker" ought to mean frowns from establishment types. "Hacker" is almost the antonym of "professional." If you want to be a super-genius who works within the system, the word you're looking for is "nerd." I categorically reject the idea that the word needs to be "reclaimed" from script kiddies. If anything, I want the word reclaimed from money-grubbing bourgeois poseurs who happen to be interested in technology businesses. I respect and admire people who want to start businesses. I respect and admire people who love to create great software. But if someone is ashamed of being associated with Steve Wozniak or John Draper, maybe they need to ask if they are really a hacker rather than asking if the word "hacker" is being improperly used. p.s. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1914498 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1914498

user24 16y ago
I suggest that figuring out how to use PS3s as a supercomputer would be a great hack whether it subverted sony's business or not. There's nothing shameful in being associated with Wozniak or Draper or any of the great technological innovators. There is something shameful in being associated with the "l33t h4x0r kr3w" (or Iranian Cyber Army) and those who participate in mass defacements etc. edit: Also, I really don't like the idea that you're pushing, that you have to work 'outside the system' in order to be a hacker. I completely agree that important attributes of being a hacker are the ability to see problems from non-traditional viewpoints, to come up with unusual solutions, to challenge the de rigeur way of doing things, to disrupt. And those attributes are shared by many subversives. But the important difference to me is that a hacker is constructively subversive.
- raganwald 16y ago
  Compare to Sales. There are slimy people who sell products that don't work. There are great salespeople who transform businesses and people's lives for the better. I'm sure lots of salespeople cringe at the thought of being associated with the slimeballs. But yet... It's all Sales and they are all salespeople. EDIT: By all means call yourself "constructive." But it is not a requirement of hacking. How was stealing telecommunications services constructive for the telecommunications companies?
  - user24 16y ago
    maybe they need to reclaim the word Salesperson from the slimeballs then ;)
    - raganwald 16y ago
      Yes please! I suggest that the net harm to society from slimeball salespeople outweighs the net harm to society from black hat hackers by so many orders of magnitude that a comparison involves astronomical entities like red giants being compared to planetoids. I would ask you to think about the computer business if we could remove the enterprise salespeople, but my mouth is watering so much that I can't finish typing my comment...
  - user24 16y ago
    This is worrying then. That's a good argument, that phreaking wasn't constructive. I once started making a Lego robot that could play my gameboy. That's not constructive at all either. But I'd like both of those to be great examples of hacking. Is the important distinction motivation then? That phreaks weren't motivated by an urge to crash the system but by an undying curiosity about how things work?
    - raganwald 16y ago
      In the 1970s there were these hackers and they did certain things we admire today. I only fear that we will put them on a pedestal and say that that was hacking but what kids do today is not hacking. That's a little like saying that Jazz died with Miles Davis and that we should call it "African-American Classical Music" and when kids do something offensive today like slapping a saxophone reed or a tuba mouthpiece with their tongues (James Carter and John Sass, respectively), it's not Jazz, it's noise. I just don't trust myself to know how to say that subverting the telephone system by emulating tones is hacking but routing 15% of the world's IP traffic through your computers for military purposes is not hacking. I can only say that I admire the first and deplore the second. p.s. And yeah, Go Go Lego! I suggest there's an "air" of subversion involved with hacking, but just a whiff. If it makes you happy, Hack On!
michaelfeathers 16y ago
I remember reading at one point that "hacker" came from the Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT and it was pulled over into software as many of them made the leap to computing (an alternative obsessive hobby).
zingo 16y ago
"I categorically reject the idea that the word needs to be "reclaimed" from script kiddies. If anything, I want the word reclaimed from money-grubbing bourgeois poseurs who happen to be interested in technology businesses." I agree, I don't think it's so much reclaiming the word as making it to something new. Doing something out of curiosity, or just because it is fun, has always been a big part of hacking. Looking at actions alone Goldman Sachs would probably have some of the best hackers around. I also think there are differences between the US and Europe, when it comes to programming as a business versus as a subculture. If someone has some thoughts on that from a North American perspective I'd love to hear them.
timtadh 16y ago
"Hacking absolutely and positively started with exploiting security "holes" in telecommunications and shared computing environments. That's exactly what Steve Wozniak was doing when Steve Jobs met him." Hacking absolutely did not start with exploiting security vulnerabilities in telecommunications equipment. It is true that phone phreaking and the like have a long distinguished history in the technology community. See for instance almost any issue of the 2600 magazine [The Hacker Quarterly]. However, indicating that "hacking" as an activity is about exploiting security vulnerabilities misappropriates the term. There has been much debate on the correct definition of the work "hacker." For instance a quick google of "define: hacker" gives both positive an negative definitions. In contrast RFC 1392 explicitly defines it in the postive: hacker A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in particular. The term is often misused in a pejorative context, where "cracker" would be the correct term. See also: cracker. The wikipedia page gives a nice overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_(computing) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_(computing) Thus, today discussion of the word hacker needs to be sensitive to both definitions. Your post is not. You reject a long history of positive definitions for a negative one.

user24 16y ago

I suggest that figuring out how to use PS3s as a supercomputer would be a great hack whether it subverted sony's business or not. There's nothing shameful in being associated with Wozniak or Draper or any of the great technological innovators. There is something shameful in being associated with the "l33t h4x0r kr3w" (or Iranian Cyber Army) and those who participate in mass defacements etc. edit: Also, I really don't like the idea that you're pushing, that you have to work 'outside the system' in order to be a hacker. I completely agree that important attributes of being a hacker are the ability to see problems from non-traditional viewpoints, to come up with unusual solutions, to challenge the de rigeur way of doing things, to disrupt. And those attributes are shared by many subversives. But the important difference to me is that a hacker is constructively subversive.

raganwald 16y ago
Compare to Sales. There are slimy people who sell products that don't work. There are great salespeople who transform businesses and people's lives for the better. I'm sure lots of salespeople cringe at the thought of being associated with the slimeballs. But yet... It's all Sales and they are all salespeople. EDIT: By all means call yourself "constructive." But it is not a requirement of hacking. How was stealing telecommunications services constructive for the telecommunications companies?
- user24 16y ago
  maybe they need to reclaim the word Salesperson from the slimeballs then ;)
  - raganwald 16y ago
    Yes please! I suggest that the net harm to society from slimeball salespeople outweighs the net harm to society from black hat hackers by so many orders of magnitude that a comparison involves astronomical entities like red giants being compared to planetoids. I would ask you to think about the computer business if we could remove the enterprise salespeople, but my mouth is watering so much that I can't finish typing my comment...
- user24 16y ago
  This is worrying then. That's a good argument, that phreaking wasn't constructive. I once started making a Lego robot that could play my gameboy. That's not constructive at all either. But I'd like both of those to be great examples of hacking. Is the important distinction motivation then? That phreaks weren't motivated by an urge to crash the system but by an undying curiosity about how things work?
  - raganwald 16y ago
    In the 1970s there were these hackers and they did certain things we admire today. I only fear that we will put them on a pedestal and say that that was hacking but what kids do today is not hacking. That's a little like saying that Jazz died with Miles Davis and that we should call it "African-American Classical Music" and when kids do something offensive today like slapping a saxophone reed or a tuba mouthpiece with their tongues (James Carter and John Sass, respectively), it's not Jazz, it's noise. I just don't trust myself to know how to say that subverting the telephone system by emulating tones is hacking but routing 15% of the world's IP traffic through your computers for military purposes is not hacking. I can only say that I admire the first and deplore the second. p.s. And yeah, Go Go Lego! I suggest there's an "air" of subversion involved with hacking, but just a whiff. If it makes you happy, Hack On!

michaelfeathers 16y ago

I remember reading at one point that "hacker" came from the Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT and it was pulled over into software as many of them made the leap to computing (an alternative obsessive hobby).

zingo 16y ago

"I categorically reject the idea that the word needs to be "reclaimed" from script kiddies. If anything, I want the word reclaimed from money-grubbing bourgeois poseurs who happen to be interested in technology businesses." I agree, I don't think it's so much reclaiming the word as making it to something new. Doing something out of curiosity, or just because it is fun, has always been a big part of hacking. Looking at actions alone Goldman Sachs would probably have some of the best hackers around. I also think there are differences between the US and Europe, when it comes to programming as a business versus as a subculture. If someone has some thoughts on that from a North American perspective I'd love to hear them.

timtadh 16y ago

"Hacking absolutely and positively started with exploiting security "holes" in telecommunications and shared computing environments. That's exactly what Steve Wozniak was doing when Steve Jobs met him." Hacking absolutely did not start with exploiting security vulnerabilities in telecommunications equipment. It is true that phone phreaking and the like have a long distinguished history in the technology community. See for instance almost any issue of the 2600 magazine [The Hacker Quarterly]. However, indicating that "hacking" as an activity is about exploiting security vulnerabilities misappropriates the term. There has been much debate on the correct definition of the work "hacker." For instance a quick google of "define: hacker" gives both positive an negative definitions. In contrast RFC 1392 explicitly defines it in the postive: hacker A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in particular. The term is often misused in a pejorative context, where "cracker" would be the correct term. See also: cracker. The wikipedia page gives a nice overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_(computing) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_(computing) Thus, today discussion of the word hacker needs to be sensitive to both definitions. Your post is not. You reject a long history of positive definitions for a negative one.