Phreaks and Geeks: Before Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak created Apple

This true hacking.

I'm tired of reading sanctimonious comments about the definition of hacking, trumpeting the so called crusade to “reclaim the name.” Hacking is a crafty way of getting a piece of technology to do something it wasn't originally intended to do, or exploiting unexpected side effects. This started with the exploitation of security holes in early telecommunications and computer network environments. Does this include people creating things for the sake of curiosity and creativity? Absolutely. Does this include people who exhibit malicious behavior such as gaining unauthorized access into computer systems? Absolutely. Hacking isn't defined by morals, but more to do with qualities such as skill, talent, cleverness, and creativity. A "mad scientist" doesn't stop being a scientist because he does evil things (not that I condone malicious behavior).

Reading people say things like “Yeah I was busying hacking a website together all night last night in RoR...” Makes me think How does using a well known, well documented framework to do exactly what its meant to do make you a hacker?? This makes you a coder/programmer/web developer. The title “Hacker” used to mean something special, you used to have to be called this by your peers and truly earn it. Now we have blog posts titled “what to learn to be a hacker” which basically provide tutorials on getting Django/RoR/[framework of the month] up and running on Ubuntu, and a python book list to read. Ugh...

Discovering security holes in a system and coming up with clever ways to exploit it is hacking. Figuring out how to use PS3s as a super computer and by extension subverting the entire business of building and selling supercomputers for huge sums of money is hacking. Computer scientists using magnets to create logic functions in their mainframe computers back in the 1950s & 60s because they didn't anticipate this new thing called a “transistor” to eventually take over, is hacking. If this word needs to be reclaimed from anyone, its from bourgeois poseur socialites who just so happen to be interested in technology businesses.