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Change.org Petition: Tell media not to use 'Hacker' when they mean 'Cracker'

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Re: Change.org Petition: Tell media not to use 'Hacker' when they mean 'Cracker'

#31

Post by keyme »

nl wrote: post #14

I'm pretty sure I read this complaint on Slashdot, circa 1997. Despite what people claim, it wasn't true then and it isn't true now. For example the movie "War Games"(1983)[1] uses the term Hacker to refer to someone who hacked into computer systems. A word can have multiple connotations without causing problems. [1] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGames

I hope people get this already. Hacking is a skill set, and a general approach to doing things. As with everything, you can use it to do all sort of things, some of them less nice.

Re: Change.org Petition: Tell media not to use 'Hacker' when they mean 'Cracker'

#35

Post by ig1 »

Earliest recorded usage of the term "hacker" in a technology context:

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1963 The Tech (MIT student newspaper) 20 Nov. 1 Many telephone services have been curtailed because of so-called hackers, according to Prof. Carlton Tucker, administrator of the Institute phone system. … The hackers have accomplished such things as tying up all the tie-lines between Harvard and MIT, or making long-distance calls by charging them to a local radar installation. One method involved connecting the PDP-1 computer to the phone system to search the lines until a dial tone, indicating an outside line, was found. … Because of the “hacking,” the majority of the MIT phones are “trapped.”

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(I wrote an article on this many years ago http://imranontech.com/2008/04/01/the-origin-of-hacker/)

Re: Change.org Petition: Tell media not to use 'Hacker' when they mean 'Cracker'

#37

Post by [deleted] »

ig1 wrote: post #35

Earliest recorded usage of the term "hacker" in a technology context: ---- 1963 The Tech (MIT student newspaper) 20 Nov. 1 Many telephone services have been curtailed because of so-called hackers, according to Prof. Carlton Tucker, administrator of the Institute phone system. … The hackers have accomplished such things as tying up all the tie-lines between Harvard and MIT, or making long-distance calls by charging th…

[deleted]

Re: Change.org Petition: Tell media not to use 'Hacker' when they mean 'Cracker'

#39

Post by tool »

Rather make a petition to stop people with no real technological skillsets glorifying themselves as "hacker" every chance they get. Be it on HN, their own blogs or facebook.

Making wordpress themes isn't hacking, no matter how hard you want to ride the web 2.0 train.

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