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Believe it or not if you are an expert in almost field you will understand things that other people do not. A lot of people in those fields will feel that way you are describing.

There is nothing special about this because you happen to be able to do it with a computer/electronics/network.

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it's precisely not about having a deep understanding of a field

You become an expert by tinkering and experimenting.

I understand a lot about how bicycles work because I tinkered and built my own. It isn't exactly the same as hacking, but it is very similar. When you work on old bikes, motorbikes, cars you sometimes have to come up to novel solutions to problems.

The fact that you and the author can't see the similarities is exactly the issue I and others have pointed out.

You're arguing a straw man.

No I am not.

It is not the same thing, because back in 1986 the "hacker" concept was new, associated with criminality, and not with 'curiosity', information processing and thinking. It is not really the same as bikes and cars, which are around for quite some time and are made of tangible, mechanical stuff, whereas information are just abstract '0s' and '1s'.

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