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In the 80s and 90s, the community toying with systems including gaining access to it referred to themselves as hackers. Those who broke ciphers and copyright p
by kokey 14y ago
In the 80s and 90s, the community toying with systems including gaining access to it referred to themselves as hackers. Those who broke ciphers and copyright protection were crackers, and those who hacked voice telecommunications systems were phreakers.
It's only outside of the community, in the media, that I first discovered that the term 'cracker' was used to refer to hackers gaining unauthorized access to computer systems instead of, well, crackers.
- kragen 14y agoI think it was Eric Raymond's idea; he, like most hackers, was outraged at computer security enthusiasts calling themselves "hackers" and suggested calling them "crackers" instead. I think the fact that the computer-security folks already had a (different) meaning for "cracker" was sort of a coincidence.