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Why do these people always try to convince the world, that their chosen word has another meaning then everybody knows. Seriously, is that just too hard or asks
by erikb 16y ago
Why do these people always try to convince the world, that their chosen word has another meaning then everybody knows. Seriously, is that just too hard or asks for too much playfulness?
Btw to describe a person in German, who is breaking computer based security systems, you call him a "Hacker".
- vog 16y ago> Why do these people always try to convince the world, that their chosen word has another meaning then everybody knows. Historically, the hackers at MIT chose the term "hacker" to simply describe themselves and other people with a similar attitude. Later, the mass media misused this term to describe solely criminal actors, which then became the mainstream understanding of the term. So the mass media, not the hackers, were using the term with another meaning than everybody else (at that time). > Seriously, is that just too hard or asks for too much playfulness? I'd put it the other way around: Is is just too hard for the mass media or asks for too much playfulness to respect a (minority) group's self-chosen name? > Btw to describe a person in German, who is breaking computer based security systems, you call him a "Hacker". Small correction: This is true for the greater part of the German population. However, within groups like the CCC or FSFE, the term "Hacker" has a much broader meaning, quite similar to what RMS describes. In other words: Even in Germany, the people who are usually called "Hacker" use themselves the term in a broader sense. I think this is simply an international phenomena.
- erikb 16y agoedit: decided to delete all that tl;dr stuff My point is this: Hackers are still great hackers, if they call themself differently. And then they would spend considerably more time solving "hard" problems "playful" instead of discussing about words who actually don't matter at all. Mass media calls people whatever makes the most money for them. They are happy with that. And they have won the masses in this case. So hey, let's go on to the next fight.
- Luyt 16y agoAnd this is how that happened: "Around 1980, when the news media took notice of hackers, they fixated on one narrow aspect of real hacking: the security breaking which some hackers occasionally did. They ignored all the rest of hacking, and took the term to mean breaking security, no more and no less. The media have since spread that definition, disregarding our attempts to correct them. As a result, most people have a mistaken idea of what we hackers actually do and what we think."
- blaenk 16y agoI agree with this sentiment. I've been hearing the 'hacker vs cracker' argument for years and it gets old. Move on. It certainly wouldn't be the first time that the media has defined or changed the meaning of words in our language. Languages change over time. Stop trying to fight the current. If you prefer one definition over another, cool, but your time and energy is better spent fulfilling its definition rather than proselytizing to strangers on the Internet over the semantics of a word.
- vog 16y agoWhat exactly do you mean with "move on"? The article dates back to 2002. It's more an historical artifact than the current state of discussion.