Correcting the Definition of “Hacker”
In the past number of years, the term “hacker” has been spun by the media to mean someone who illegally breaks into computer systems for selfish gain or needless destruction. They are cold and ruthless people who think of no one but themselves. So, it usually shocks people when I tell them that I consider myself to be a hacker.
When I talk about being a hacker, I am referring to the original usage of the term. I recently found an excellent article entitled How To Become A Hacker by Eric Steven Raymond which talks about the true spirit of being a hacker.
How To Become A Hacker addresses some of the fundamental misconceptions about hackers. For example, there is a belief that hackers are misfits who are socially inept. Raymond writes:
Contrary to popular myth, you don’t have to be a nerd to be a hacker. It does help, however, and many hackers are in fact nerds. Being something a social outcast helps you stay concentrated on the really important things, like thinking and hacking.
For this reason, many hackers have adopted the label ‘geek’ as a badge of pride — it’s a way of declaring their independence from normal social expectations (as well as a fondness for other things like science fiction and strategy games that often go with being a hacker). The term ‘nerd’ used to be used this way back in the 1990s, back when ‘nerd’ was a mild pejorative and ‘geek’ a rather harsher one; sometime after 2000 they switched places, at least in U.S. popular culture, and there is now even a significant geek-pride culture among people who aren’t techies.
If you can manage to concentrate enough on hacking to be good at it and still have a life, that’s fine. This is a lot easier today than it was when I was a newbie in the 1970s; mainstream culture is much friendlier to techno-nerds now. There are even growing numbers of people who realize that hackers are often high-quality lover and spouse material.
If you’re attracted to hacking because you don’t have a life, that’s OK too — at least you won’t have trouble concentrating. Maybe you’ll get a life later on.
Another myth is that hackers are all math wizards. Raymond disagrees.
Hacking uses very little formal mathematics or arithmetic. In particular, you won’t usually need trigonometry, calculus or analysis (there are exceptions to this in a handful of specific application areas like 3-D computer graphics). Knowing some formal logic and Boolean algebra is good. Some grounding in finite mathematics (including finite-set theory, combinatorics, and graph theory) can be helpful.
Much more importantly: you need to be able to think logically and follow chains of exact reasoning, the way mathematicians do. While the content of most mathematics won’t help you, you will need the discipline and intelligence to handle mathematics. If you lack the intelligence, there is little hope for you as a hacker; if you lack the discipline, you’d better grow it.
When Raymond is asked by people to help them break into systems, he responds as a true hacker would:
Anyone who can still ask such a question after reading this FAQ is too stupid to be educable even if I had the time for tutoring. Any emailed requests of this kind that I get will be ignored or answered with extreme rudeness.
These people Raymond correctly identifies as crackers:
There is another group of people who loudly call themselves hackers, but aren’t. These are people (mainly adolescent males) who get a kick out of breaking into computers and phreaking the phone system. Real hackers call these people ‘crackers’ and want nothing to do with them. Real hackers mostly think crackers are lazy, irresponsible, and not very bright, and object that being able to break security doesn’t make you a hacker any more than being able to hotwire cars makes you an automotive engineer. Unfortunately, many journalists and writers have been fooled into using the word ‘hacker’ to describe crackers; this irritates real hackers no end.
The basic difference is this: hackers build things, crackers break them.
I urge you to spend some time education yourself in the true culture of hacking. It can be a very rewarding and satisfying lifestyle.
If you found this post useful, why don't you buy me a cup of coffee to show your gratitude?
