That was how I viewed it, anyway, until I realized that around that time is when computing became professional. CS and CE became a degree at major colleges and "nerds" were making serious money. It became desirable to refer to yourself as a nerd out of style. Basically, nerds took the word back.
Mine would be this (for both nerd and hacker): Someone with an almost insatiable curiosity, who will tinker around with hard- and software even in their free time, next to work and studying for example. Someone who has side projects... Someone who is so interested in the inner workings of the things and technology around them that even encountering normal everyday technological things will result in ideas popping up in their head on what out of the ordinary but interesting things could be done with those things.
Personally, I identify with it because of that endless curiosity. I think that in a way it may seem a bit weird because... the curiosity is so burning that we just can't stop tinkering and hacking around until we get what we want to do.
Also I believe that a black hat hacker is the same... I'm not talking about the ordinary small criminal but about the guy who hacks something that is thought of being safe and unhackable. Because that is the guy who just couldn't stop and couldn't accept that, his curiosity was so overwhelming that he even did something ethically questionable.
1. the long-standing confusion between "someone who tinkers with programs" and "someone who maliciously breaks into systems"
the tinkering contingent fought diligently against letting the black hat contingent coopt the term, but then
2. the tech-bro/marketer crowd caught hold of it, and it became associated with other cringy terms like "ninja" and "rockstar". (tangentially, "wizard" also got dragged down that way).
so now if you call yourself a hacker, people are more likely to think of both black hats and tech bros than of the (still out there!) people who just want to do interesting stuff with computers.
And it should be that way. If you want any chance of knowing how to build good things, you need to know how to break them. That's as true for a bridge engineer as it is for Woz.
Personally, I find the attempt to distinguish between hacker and cracker to be some sort of no-true-scotsman retcon. I've always viewed the whole concept of hacker culture to be amoral...and the attempt to distinguish between "good" or "bad" hackers has just watered down the term.
Interesting couple of articles from The Register
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/03/debate_hackers_for/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/09/debate_hacker_result/
I clearly remember some of my friends stating "I don't want to be 30 an still be playing videogames"... As if it was a bad thing.
I thought it was weird at the time to make such statement.
I understand that the post is more than its title, but I couldn’t resist and got triggered by it.
For me, it’s about being curious, not taking any technical solution for granted and having the inner need and energy to explore, to experiment, to be skeptical and feeling the drive to improve things …
I agree with this. I like to learn how things work, and to experiment with all kinds of crazy ideas (some of which end up not being so crazy after all).
I grew up in the 90's where I always heard the term "hacker" used to refer to someone breaking in to a computer or network somewhere, like they were the digital equal of a "cat burglar" or something. Not the usual positive meaning that it has today.
I've been coding for as long as the author of the linked post, and would as result of the above, never refer to myself as a "hacker".
Schools started to have "computer rooms" but teachers were not well qualified to use them or to teach students about their use.
My male friends who were into computers would have loved it if girls were interested in that. They just weren't, unless they needed help with their homework or something.
In my Maths degree women did get a lot of encouragement and people are always eager to help. For example a friend of mine received a stipend for her achievements after the first year of study. By her own admission she wasn't the most brilliant student, although at least I think she was very "straight" (always doing her homework, always studying in time for tests, and so on). Only with hindsight did I realise that she probably got the stipend because she was a woman (to generally encourage women in Maths perhaps).
That's certainly typical for fledging hackers in 'larval stage', but many people would disagree that this suffices for calling oneself a hacker as a non-novice professional. Some contact, if perhaps only fleeting, with a community of fellow coders and tinkerers would seem to be required for that.
Subjective, of course. To some, "hacker" means someone with deep knowledge, almost on instinctive level, of computing things, a native for processes, data and signals. Not negative.
The author recounts three or four occasions when they did some programming at school. They're quite right - that isn't being a "hacker". IMO that requires a level of monomania which means that a significant portion of their spare time is spent on computer projects.
I'd agree with them that "hacker" doesn't necessarily imply "good computer employee" though, and this will increasingly be the case as in the industry matures, but it does mean that the person concerned deeply loves the field, and that's someone you probably want to work with, if they're not also a sociopath.
I know a few people from school who weren't remotely interested in computers at the time, but ended up on CS programmes. Typically those are the people who became managers in the end. A lot of the "hackers" are still programming. I don't think this has anything to do with the Dilbert principle. It's more to do with their having developed decent people-skills in their youth, possibly due to their lack of monomania (or reverse causation). But it also speaks to their motivations.
The article suggests that we not focus on the "hacker stereotype", but it's a stereotype because it's a thing. Ignoring it seems silly as well. Deliberately trying to undermine or change it culturally seems like vandalism. The answer is probably to highlight the fact that a team with only "hackers" on it will probably not do quite as well as a more mixed team including a bunch of people from other backgrounds as well.
It's a difficult assessment, because OP seems like they had some spontaneous appreciation for 'hack value', in that they chose to go well beyond the requirements of their LOGO assignment. Ultimately, though, OP was unable to join a supportive community of hackers, and this stunted their intellectual growth and left them with a dislike for the very idea of becoming a hacker. I don't think this has much to do with OP being female; it's quite clear that OP was badly taught, at a time when coding was far less regarded than today.
But equally, having tutored programming in my late teens, the boys were self-starters whose parents recognised that they had no friends who were interested, so perhaps this argument is not quite right. They seemed like they were on the spectrum a bit.
The words mean so many things. It usually starts with being curious and learning how things work and then going one step further and using that technology in ways no one expected.
A programmer was never a hacker. Many hackers program but most programmers do not hack.
Just because you have been working in computers since 8 it doesn't make you a hacker. Taking something and using it in unexpected ways would need to be part of it. None of this matters without the right philosophy of curiousity and discovery.
could be self-imposed like pick a project that you have no experience in and do it in a weekend (get something working even if it’s hacky)
you will feel like a hacker
At once the term "hacker" may have accompanied all programmers to some extent, but I view it as someone who tears code apart.
Reverse engineering, deconstructing, picking apart. Being curious about a system and picking at it so much you find flaws in it.
I'd also consider engineers that hack things together. Being creative with what you have, also helps when stringing vulnerabilities together.
Creativity and curiosity are good traits of a hacker and being a hacker is a good trait of a programmer.
Perhaps that leads them to ask questions, play a little, explore in their own way, unexpectedly so.
But originally back in the 80s and 90s and even the 2000s a hacker was someone who did something different with their devices just for the sake of it. It was a way of interacting with technology. Finding new uses for technology, finding ways to break it. Pure exploration. From the 2000s with massive expansion of personal computing hacker culture died down. No one wants to be associated with ransomware and silk road. Also cryptocurrencies and all the speculations with them made a huge disservice to the hacker community.
It is not 100% dead tho. There is probably some sort of a community hacklab in the place where you live. Give it a visit (after corona dies down a bit).
I am over 40 and it was already not used that way, except few old peple in few small subcultures angrily insisting on everybody else using the term wrong.
But among programmers, "hacking the code" was always negative.
But, actually hacking is a distinct thing apart from all that.
My earliest hack was on locked doors as a little kid. Standing alone in a hall, I grabbed the knob and began to explore playfully.
I remember the thought:
What does locked actually mean?
The knob still moves. A little.
Turns out that door knob could move. So I moved it a little. Back and forth. After a time, back permitted more movement than forth did.
Why?
Also turns out moving forth fast, then back, then forth again yields more movement overall, but only briefly. And only when continued.
...
And then it happened. More and more varied movements, patterns, and the door just opened.
No key.
I remember that so vividly, because it changed how I think, or maybe just expanded scope. Was a big deal. I never expected to actually open the door.
There are expected inputs, actions, moves, information. And there is also the unexpected.
There is what a thing was designed for, and that intent may actually overlap with other use cases, sort of like off label drug use does.
More importantly, there is how we may believe a thing works, what we tell people about how it works and whether there are lies, omissions, and the like.
And there is what it actually does, given unexpected inputs, or even the approved ones.
That all gets at what hacking really is. People seek understanding of tech around them. And they do that directly, themselves. Playfully, often enough.
Their reasons vary good and bad, of course.
Farmers are traditionally great hackers, and their reasons are some of the best! People need food and the world is complex, high cost, high risks, and when that goes bad people do not eat. A good farmer will do what it takes to bring a crop in. And should. I grew up near one. That is very likely where some of my own inclinations came from.
Others can cite examples. Good and bad.
Really, what I wanted to get at was the mindset.
Being curious about systems, tech, basically the machinery we live in, around, or use, own.
Knowing the difference between generally accepted human limits, our own limits, and what the machinery of nature will permit. Turns out the more we hack on that, the more we understand and the more our world permits us to do. Same goes for ourselves.
Neat, isn't it?
Some call this sort of thing science.
Others may call it play. Your cat surely does, as did you and I and maybe we still do when we approach tech with that playful gleam in our eye... just what can I make this do, or can I do with this, if...
As for the doors?
Well, I got good and in the course of a week could enter many locked rooms in less than a minute by hand manipulation of the door knob.
Check this 70's foreshadowing on the world today out!
So I actually disclosed responsibly. Grade schooler. Talked with an uncle who walked me through scenarios. It made sense to do.
When I did know what happened?
They, of course made it all about me. Nobody else was a problem.
I remember saying that sort of thing is true, until it isn't, and yeah. Did not go well.
Eventually, it came down to me saying they just need to fix the locks. A janitor agreed and had found out most were installed wrong. In the wrong position they were subject to hand manipulation due to the mechanism being impacted by gravity. Even worse! That janitor maintained things well always making sure to lube the locks when any were sticky. Why not? Who does not like it when stuff works well, consistently?
The fix was to flip them over.
Any of that seem like familiar ground?
There are some negative connotations around the words, hack and hacker. Me? I tend to ignore them and will identify an activity as a hack and having done it, me, others as hackers.
Turns out that uncle was a bit of a hacker too. For a time, he would bring me locks and I would pick them, or get his help and it was great fun! I remember one days conversation too:
The locks are there to keep most people honest. It is a cost or barrier to remind us, that sort of thing.
Well, all of that remains true whether one can pick locks or not, but with one big difference: saving a life, or escaping real trouble of some kind may actually happen when it might otherwise not.
The point here being curious about how tech works is not a crime. It actually has high value! Snuffing that out of people to make another buck, or cover up for other failings, corruption, exploitation, even ignorance and error makes no sense!
Sure, we may blunt the peak levels of bad in the world, but we rub out the peak good even more, and it is the good which gets us through hard times, advances tech, and all manner of works that increase the potential for the world to be better, brighter, safer, and above all, a whole lot more fun!
