Hacker is a term used to describe different types of computer experts. The media and the general population typically use the term to mean "computer criminal"; however, in many computer subcultures it simply means "clever programmer", with no connotation of computer security skill. It is also sometimes extended to mean any kind of expert, especially one who has particularly detailed knowledge or cleverly circumvents limits. An expert is someone widely recognized as a reliable source of knowledge, technique, or skill whose judgement is accorded authority and status by the public or their peers. ...

For other uses of the word, see Hackers

The term Hackers can refer to several things: Hacker - a type of person interested in exploration, usually of a computer or electrical engineering background Hacker (folklore) - a race of Hobbits in Scandinavian folklore. ...

Definition

The meaning of the term, when used in a computer context, has changed somewhat over the decades since it first came into use (when it was simply used as a verb for 'messing about' with, 'I hack around with computers'), as it has been given additional and clashing meanings by new users of the word.

Currently, "hacker" is used in two main ways, one pejorative and one complimentary: in popular usage and in the media, it generally describes computer intruders or criminals; in the computing community, it describes a particularly brilliant programmer or technical expert (for example: "Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, is a genius hacker."). The latter is said by some to be the "correct" usage of the word (see the Jargon File definition below). Linus Torvalds Linus Benedict Torvalds (born December 28, 1969) is best known for initiating the development of the Linux Operating System. ... The Linux mascot Tux created by Larry Ewing Linux kernel is a free unix-like operating system kernel created by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and subsequently improved with the assistance of developers around the world. ... The Jargon File is a glossary of hacker slang. ...

The mainstream media's usage of the term may be traced back to the early 1980's (see History below). At the time in 1983 of the first national media use of the term to refer to computer intruders, even those in the computer community refered to such activity as "hacking", although this was not the exclusive use of the word. Due to the increasing media use of the term exclusively in the criminal connotation, the computer community began to differentiate the terminology they used at about that time, coining several alternative terms for such criminal activities, while retaining the legitimate and more common performed activities under the core meaning of "hack". As network news use of the term pertained primarily to the criminal activities, the mainstream media and general public have not followed suit. Through the present the mass media routinely describe computer criminals at all levels of technical sophistication as "hackers", and does not generally make use of the word "hacker" in any of its non-criminal connotations. Mass media is the term used to denote, as a class, that section of the media specifically conceived and designed to reach a very large audience (typically at least as large as the whole population of a nation state). ... Hacker is a term used to describe different types of computer experts. ... 1983 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... In computer programming, operator overloading (less commonly known as ad-hoc polymorphism) is a specific case of polymorphism in which some or all of operators like +, = or == are treated as polymorphic functions and as such have different behaviours depending on the types of its arguments. ... A hack in progress in Lobby 7 at MIT. Hack is a term in the slang of the technology culture which has come into existence over the past few decades. ...

As a result of this difference, the term is the subject of some controversy. The pejorative connotation is disliked by many who identify themselves as hackers, and who do not like their label used negatively. Many users of the positive form say the "intruder" meaning should be deprecated, and advocate terms such as "cracker" or "black hat" to replace it. Others prefer to follow common popular usage, arguing that the positive form is confusing and never likely to become widespread. It should be noted however, that the positive definition of hacker was widely used as the predominant form for many years before the negative definition was popularized. In the context of computer networking, cracking (also called black-hat hacking) is the act of compromising the security of a system without permission from an authorized party, usually with the intent of accessing computers connected to the network (the somewhat similar activity of defeating copy prevention devices in software... In the computer security community, a black hat is a skilled hacker who uses his or her ability to pursue their interest illegally. ...

"Hacker" can therefore be seen as a shibboleth, identifying those who use it in its technically-oriented sense (as opposed to the intrusion-oriented sense) as members of the computing community. Look up Shibboleth in Wiktionary, the free dictionary For the Internet2 research project, see Shibboleth (Internet2). ...

A possible middle ground position observes that "hacking" describes a collection of skills, and that these skills are utilized by hackers of both descriptions, though for differing reasons. The companion situation which illustrates this is the skills involved in locksmithing, specifically picking locks, which — aside from its being a skill with a fairly high tropism to 'classic' hacking — is a skill which can be used for good or evil. The primary weakness of this position is the inclusion of script kiddies in the popular usage of "hacker", despite their absence of any degree of skill, and their ignorant and unskilled reliance on code tools that they neither create nor understand. In Biology, a tropism is movement in an organism in response to some environmental stimulus. ... In computing, a script kiddie (occasionally script kitty) is a derogatory term for people who use scripts and programs developed by others for the purpose of compromising computer accounts and files, and for launching attacks on whole computer systems (see DoS). ...

History

A timeline of the noun "hack" and etymologically related terms as they evolved in historical English:

• In French, haquenée means an ambling horse.
• In Old English, tohaccian meant hack to pieces.
• At some point in the 14th century, the word haquenée became hackney, meaning a horse of medium size or fair quality.
• Shortly after, hackney was shortened to hack, and in riding culture the act of "hacking" (as opposed to fox-hunting) meant riding about informally, to no particular purpose.
• 1393 (at the latest): the word had also acquired the meaning of a horse for hire and also "prostitute."
• 1596: hackney was being used as an adjective meaning tired or worn out. William Shakespeare also used the word to mean "to make common and overly familiar" in Henry IV, Part I.
• 1700: a hack is a "person hired to do routine work".
• 1704: hack now also means a "carriage for hire".
• 1749: hack means "one who writes anything for hire" (still in use today among writers); see hack writer
• 1802: hack is used to mean a "short, dry cough" (still in use)
• 1826: the expression hack writer is first recorded though hackney writer appeared at least 50 years earlier
• 1898: hack is given the figurative sense of "a try, an attempt".
• 1950s: ham radio fans borrowed the term hacking from riding and defined it as creatively tinkering to improve performance.
• 1955: American English gives it the slang sense of "cope with" (as in "can't hack it"). On the U.S. East Coast, cars were substituted for horses, and hacking was a precursor to cruising.
• 1972: Stewart Brand publishes "S P A C E W A R: Fanatic Life and Symbolic Death Among the Computer Bums" in Rolling Stone
• 1983: First Usenet post on the use of hacker to mean computer criminal in the media (in Newsweek and on CBS News).
• 1984: Steven Levy publishes Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. The book publicizes, and perhaps originates the phrase "Hacker Ethic" and gives a codification of its principles.
• 1988: Stalking the Wily Hacker, an article by Clifford Stoll appears in the May 1988 issue of the Communications of the ACM and uses the term hacker in the sense of a computer criminal. Later that year, the release by Robert Tappan Morris, Jr. of the so-called Morris worm provoked the popular media to spread this usage.
• 1989: The Cuckoo's Egg by Clifford Stoll is published, and its popularity further entrenches the term in the public's consciousness.

The modern, computer-related form of the term is likely rooted in the goings on at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the 1960s, long before computers became common; the word "hack" was local slang which had a large number of related meanings. One was a simple, but often inelegant, solution to a problem. It also meant any clever prank perpetrated by MIT students; logically the perpetrator was a hacker. To this day the terms hack and hacker are used in several ways at MIT, without necessarily referring to computers. When MIT students surreptitiously put a police car atop the dome on MIT's Building 10, that was a hack, and the students involved were therefore hackers. Another type of hacker - one who explores undocumented or unauthorized areas in buildings - is now called a reality hacker or urban spelunker. (13th century - 14th century - 15th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 14th century was that century which lasted from 1301 to 1400. ... A fox hunt Fox hunting is a form of hunting for foxes using a pack of scent hounds. ... Events Ottoman Turks occupy Veliko Turnovo in north-central Bulgaria. ... Events February 5 - 26 catholics crucified in Nagasaki, Japan. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... Although at its first publication in 1598 it was titled The History of Henrie the Fourth, this play by William Shakespeare is the tale of the coming-of-age of the future Henry V—young Prince Hal, the compatriot of Falstaff and other disreputable rascals. ... Events January 1 - Russia accepts Julian calendar. ... Events Building of the Students Monument in Aiud, Romania. ... Events While in debtors prison, John Cleland writes Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure). ... A hack writer is a writer for hire, paid to express others thoughts or opinions in felicitous verbiage, often in the form of political pamphlets. ... 1802 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... 1826 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... A hack writer is a writer for hire, paid to express others thoughts or opinions in felicitous verbiage, often in the form of political pamphlets. ... 1898 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... Millennia: 1st millennium - 2nd millennium - 3rd millennium // Events and trends The 1950s in Western society was marked with a sharp rise in the economy for the first time in almost 30 years and return to the 1920s-type consumer society built on credit and boom-times, as well as the... Amateur radio, commonly called ham radio, is a hobby enjoyed by many people throughout the world (as of 2004 about 3 million worldwide, 70,000 in Germany, 5,000 in Norway, 57,000 in Canada, and 700,000 in the USA). ... 1955 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Slang is the non-standard use of words in a language of a particular social group, and sometimes the creation of new words or importation of words from another language. ... 1972 was a leap year that started on a Saturday. ... Stewart Brand speaking September 5, 2004 Stewart Brand (born December 14, 1938 in Rockford, Illinois) is an author, editor, and creator of The Whole Earth Catalog, CoEvolution Quarterly, and the pioneering online community The WELL. He has also been an appointee to California state government and is one of the... Spacewar was an early video game, a multiplayer space-combat simulation inspired by Doc Smiths Lensman series of science fiction novels. ... Bum can refer to several different things: // In U.S. slang A homeless person, or more generally, a person of little moral worth, they need to get a job In modern usage, the term bum is considered highly derogatory In hobo culture, the term bum referred specifically to a homeless... Rolling Stone is a music and music industry magazine. ... 1983 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Usenet is a distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP network of the same name. ... Newsweek Logo Newsweek is a weekly news magazine published in New York City and distributed throughout the United States,Canada, Hong Kong and probably other places too. ... A CBS News Special Report ident card CBS News is the news division of CBS. Its current president is Andrew Heyward. ... 1984 is a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Steven Levy is an American journalist who has written several books on computers, technology, cryptography, the Internet, cyber security and privacy. ... Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (ISBN 0385191952) is a book by Steven Levy about the hacker culture. ... Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (ISBN 0385191952) is a book by Steven Levy about the hacker culture. ... 1988 is a leap year starting on a Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Clifford Stoll (or Cliff Stoll) is an astronomer and computer systems administrator, and author. ... Communications of the ACM (CACM) is the flagship monthly magazine of the Association for Computing Machinery. ... Robert Tappan Morris (b. ... The Morris worm or Internet worm was one of the first computer worms distributed via the Internet; it is considered the first worm virus and was certainly the first to gain significant mainstream media attention. ... 1989 is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Cuckoos Egg is a book written by Clifford Stoll. ... Clifford Stoll (or Cliff Stoll) is an astronomer and computer systems administrator, and author. ... The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, is a leading research and educational institution located in the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. MIT is a world leader in science and technology, as well as in many other fields, including management, economics, linguistics, political science, and philosophy. ... The 1960s, or The Sixties, in its most obvious sense refers to the decade between 1960 and 1969, but the expression has taken on a wider meaning over the past twenty years. ... A hack in progress in Lobby 7 at MIT. Hack is a term in the slang of the technology culture which has come into existence over the past few decades. ... Slang is the non-standard use of words in a language of a particular social group, and sometimes the creation of new words or importation of words from another language. ... A reality hacker is an urban spelunker. ... An urban explorer stands near the outfall of a muffin shaped brick and concrete storm drain, under Saint Paul, Minnesota. ...

The term was fused with computers when members of the Tech Model Railroad Club started working with a Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-1 computer and applied local model railroad slang to computers. The Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC), also known as The Midnight Requistioning Committee a student organization at MIT, is one of the most famous model railroad clubs in the world. ... Digital Equipment Corporation - Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... The PDP-1 (Programmed Data Processor-1) was the first computer in Digital Equipments PDP series and was first produced in 1960. ...

The earliest known use of the term in this manner is from the 20 November 1963 issue of The Tech, the student paper of MIT: November 20 is the 324th day of the year (325th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1963 was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ...

"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.""

In the nascent computer culture of the 1960s, the unavoidable analogy to "hacking" programs was the already-established counter-culture practice of chopping Harley-Davidsons in Southern California: taking them apart and "chopping" their frames, improvising to make them lower, sleeker, faster, hotter than their uncustomized "stock" originals. The word Chopper, when used aloneEnglish language: Chopper (motorcycle) - a motorcycle where many parts were removed (chopped) or replaced, esp. ...

Originally, the term applied almost exclusively to programming or electrical engineering, but it has come to be used in some circles for almost any type of clever circumvention, in phrases such as "hack the media", "hack your brain" and "hack your reputation". Computer programming (often simply programming) is the craft of implementing one or more interrelated abstract algorithms using a particular programming language to produce a concrete computer program. ... Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline that deals with the study and application of electricity and electromagnetism. ...

Categories of hacker

The hacker community (the set of people who would describe themselves as hackers, or who would be described by others as hackers) falls into at least three partially overlapping categories.

Hacker: Intruder and criminal

The most common usage of "hacker" in the popular press is to describe those who subvert computer security without authorization or indeed, anyone who has been accused of using technology (usually a computer or the Internet) for terrorism, vandalism, credit card fraud, identity theft, intellectual property theft, and many other forms of crime. This can mean taking control of a remote computer through a network, or software cracking. This is the pejorative sense of hacker, also called cracker or black-hat hacker or simply "criminal" in order to preserve unambiguity. Software cracking is the modification of software to remove encoded copy prevention. ...

A hacktivist is a hacker who utilizes technology to announce a political message. It should be noted that web vandalism is not necessarily hacktivism. Hacktivism is the writing of code, or otherwise manipulating bits, to promote political ideology. ...

There are several recurring tools of the trade used by computer criminals:

• Trojan horse — These are programs designed so that they seem to do or be one thing, such as a legitimate software, but actually are or do another. They are not necessarily malicious programs. A trojan horse can be used to set up a back door in a computer system so that the intruder can return later and gain access. Viruses that fool a user into downloading and/or executing them by pretending to be useful applications are also sometimes called trojan horses. See also: Dialer.
• Virus — A virus is a self-replicating program that spreads by inserting copies of itself into other executable code or documents (for a complete definition: see this article about computer viruses). Thus, a computer virus behaves in a way similar to a biological virus, which spreads by inserting itself into living cells.
• Worm — Like a virus, a worm is also a self-replicating program. The difference between a virus and a worm is that a worm does not create multiple copies of itself on one system and that it propogates itself through computer networks. After the comparison between computer viruses and biological viruses, the obvious comparison here is to a bacterium. Many people conflate the terms "virus" and "worm", using them both to describe any self-propagating program. It is possible for a program to have the blunt characteristics of both a worm and a virus.
• Vulnerability scanner — A tool used to quickly check computers on a network for known weaknesses. Hackers also use port scanners. These check to see which ports on a specified computer are "open" or available to access the computer. (Note that firewalls defend computers from intruders by limiting access to ports/machines both inbound and outbound.)
• Sniffer — An application that captures password and other data while it is in transit either within the computer or over the network.
• Exploit — A prepared application that takes advantage of a known weakness.
• Social engineering — Using manipulation skills in order to obtain some form of information. An example would be asking someone for their password or account possibly over a beer or by posing as someone else.
• Root kit — A toolkit for hiding the fact that a computer's security has been compromised. Root kits may include replacements for system binaries so that it becomes impossible for the legitimate user to detect the presence of the intruder on the system by looking at process tables.

Those who consider themselves hackers in this sense but who don't write their own programs, and who generally don't really understand the inner workings of the computers they gain access to, are known as script kiddies or "amateur hobbyists" in the UK. The term originates from the idea that no one is born with knowledge of these things, and everyone must at some point use "scripts" to learn. The term is also a reference to Linux/Unix scripts, which are small applications that can accomplish a specific task with little more input than the target of the attack. To some however the term expresses considerable contempt, being meant to indicate that they are immature (or unable to realize the equality lesson contained in the somewhat loaded term), and only use "scripts" and programs created by other people, in what is merely simple vandalism (if not outright theft). In the context of computer software, a Trojan horse is a malicious program that is disguised as legitimate software. ... A backdoor in a computer system (or a cryptosystem, or even in an algorithm) is a method of bypassing normal authentication or obtaining remote access to a computer, while intended to remain hidden to casual inspection. ... REDIRECT Dialer ... In computer security technology, a virus is a self-replicating program that spreads by inserting copies of itself into other executable code or documents (for a complete definition: see below). ... In computer security technology, a virus is a self-replicating program that spreads by inserting copies of itself into other executable code or documents (for a complete definition: see below). ... Three types of viruses: a bacterial virus, otherwise called a bacteriophage (left center); an animal virus (top right); and a retrovirus (bottom right). ... A computer worm is a self-replicating computer program, similar to a ... Phyla/Divisions Actinobacteria Aquificae Bacteroidetes/Chlorobi Chlamydiae/Verrucomicrobia Chloroflexi Chrysiogenetes Cyanobacteria Deferribacteres Deinococcus-Thermus Dictyoglomi Fibrobacteres/Acidobacteria Firmicutes Fusobacteria Gemmatimonadetes Nitrospirae Omnibacteria Planctomycetes Proteobacteria Spirochaetes Thermodesulfobacteria Thermomicrobia Thermotogae Bacteria (singular, bacterium) are a major group of living organisms. ... A vulnerability scanner is a type of computer program specifically designed to search a given target (piece of software, computer, network, etc. ... A port scanner is software designed to search a network host for open ports. ... In computing, a firewall is a piece of hardware and/or software which functions in a networked environment to prevent some communications forbidden by the security policy, analogous to the function of firewalls in building construction. ... Packet sniffers (also known as Network Analyzers or Ethernet Sniffers) are software programs that can see the traffic passing over a network or part of a network. ... An exploit is a common term in the computer security community to refer to a piece of software that takes advantage of a bug, glitch or vulnerability, leading to privilege escalation or denial of service on a computer system. ... In the field of computer security, social engineering is the practice of obtaining confidential information by manipulation of legitimate users. ... A root kit is a set of tools used by an intruder after cracking a computer system. ... In computing, a script kiddie (occasionally script bunny, script kitty or skiddie) is a derogatory term for inexperienced crackers who use scripts and programs developed by others for the purpose of compromising computer accounts and files, and for launching attacks on whole computer systems (see DoS). ... This article or section should be merged with script programming language In computer applications, a script, roughly speaking, is a computer program that automates the sort of task that a user might otherwise do interactively at the keyboard. ...

Hacker: Brilliant programmer

The positive usage of hacker (the "proper" usage). One who knows a (sometimes specified) set of programming interfaces well enough to write software rapidly and expertly. This type of hacker is well-respected, although the term still carries some of the meaning of hack, developing programs without adequate planning. This zugzwang gives freedom and the ability to be creative against methodical careful progress. In chess, zugzwang (German for compulsion to move, IPA: [tsuːk. ...

At their best, hackers can be very productive. The downside of hacker productivity is often in maintainability, documentation, and completion. Very talented hackers may become bored with a project once they have figured out all of the hard parts, and be unwilling to finish off the "details". This attitude can cause friction in environments where other programmers are expected to pick up the half finished work, decipher the structures and ideas, and bullet-proof the code. In other cases, where a hacker is willing to maintain their own code, a company may be unable to find anyone else who is capable or willing to dig through code to maintain the program if the original programmer moves on to a new job.

Types of hackers in this sense are gurus and wizards. "Guru" implies age and experience, and "wizard" often implies particular expertise in a specific topic, and an almost magical ability to perform hacks no one else understands.

Hacker: Security expert

There is a third meaning which is a kind of fusion of the positive and pejorative senses of hacker. The term white hat hacker is often used to describe those who attempt to break into systems or networks in order to help the owners of the system by making them aware of security flaws, or to perform some other altruistic activity. Many such people are employed by computer security companies (such professionals are sometimes called sneakers). Collections of these people are often called tiger teams. A Whitehat, also rendered as White hat or White-hat, is, in the realm of Information technology, a name that describes a person who is ethically opposed to the abuse of Computer systems. ... Many current computer systems have a very poor level of computer security. ... A sneaker is an individual hired to break into places in order to test their security; analogous to tiger team. ... The term tiger team was originally a military term for a team whose purpose is to penetrate security of friendly installations, and thus test their security measures. ...

White hat hackers often overlap with black hat depending on your perspective. The primary difference is that a white hat hacker claims to observe the hacker ethic. Like black hats, white hats are often intimately familiar with the internal details of security systems, and can delve into obscure machine code when needed to find a solution to a tricky problem without requiring support from a system manufacturer. In modern parlance, the hacker ethic is either: The belief that information-sharing is a powerful positive good, and that it is an ethical duty of hackers to share their expertise by writing free software and facilitating access to information and computing resources wherever possible. ...

An example of a hack: Microsoft Windows ships with the ability to use cryptographic libraries built into the operating system. When shipped overseas this feature becomes nearly useless as the operating system will refuse to load cryptographic libraries that haven't been signed by Microsoft, and Microsoft will not sign a library unless the U.S. Government authorizes it for export. This allows the U.S. Government to maintain some perceived level of control over the use of strong cryptography beyond its borders. Microsoft Windows is a range of operating environments for personal computers and servers. ... See also: Topics in cryptography The security of all practical encryption schemes remains unproven, both for symmetric and asymmetric schemes. ... Microsoft Corporation, (NASDAQ: MSFT) headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA, was founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. ...

While hunting through the symbol table of a beta release of Windows, a couple of overseas hackers managed to find a second signing key in the Microsoft binaries. That is, without disabling the libraries that are included with Windows (even overseas), these individuals learned of a way to trick the operating system into loading a library that hadn't been signed by Microsoft, thus enabling the functionality which had been lost to non-U.S. users. In computing, an operating system (OS) is the system software responsible for the direct control and management of hardware and basic system operations. ...

Whether this is good or bad may depend on whether you respect the letter of the law, but is considered by some in the computing community to be a white hat type of activity. Some use the term grey hat to describe someone on the borderline between black and white.

Hacker: Hardware modifier

Another type of a Hacker is one who creates novel hardware modifications.

At the most basic end of this spectrum are those who make frequent changes the hardware in their computers using standard components, or make semi-cosmetic themed modifications to the appearance of the machine. This type of Hacker basically modifes his/her computer for either performance needs and/or attractiveness. These changes often include adding memory, storage or LED's and cathode ray tubes for light effects. These people often show off their talents in contests, and many enjoy LAN Parties. A medium-sized (approximately 300 people) LAN party in a sports hall in northern Germany A LAN party is a temporary, sometimes spontaneous gathering of people together with their computers, which they connect together in a local area network (LAN) primarily for the purpose of playing multiplayer computer games. ...

At the more advanced end of the hardware hackers are those who modify hardware (not limited to computers) to expand capabilities; this group blurs into the culture of hobbyist inventors and professional electronics engineering. An example of such modification includes the addition of TCP/IP Internet capabilities to a number of vending machines and Coffee makers during the late 1980's and early 1990's. An inventor is a person who creates new inventions, typically technical devices such as mechanical, electrical or software devices or methods. ... The Internet protocol suite is the set of communications protocols that implement the protocol stack on which the Internet runs. ... Beverage and snack machines A vending machine is a machine that dispenses merchandise when a customer deposits money, validated by a currency detector, sufficient to purchase the desired item (as opposed to a shop, where the presence of personnel is required for every purchase). ... Coffee beans and a cup of coffee Coffee as a drink, usually served hot, is prepared from the roasted seeds (beans) of the coffee plant. ...

Jargon File definition

The following is the definition given by the most recent edition of the Jargon File (a dictionary of hacker jargon), which emphasizes the positive sense of "hacker". The definitions in this dictionary were not made through research into common usage, but reflect to some extent the opinions of its editors. Hence, the following is accepted by some but not all of the hacker community. The Jargon File is a glossary of hacker slang. ...

hacker n. [originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe]

1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary.
2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming.
3. A person capable of appreciating hack value.
4. A person who is good at programming quickly.
5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work using it or on it; as in "a Unix hacker". (Definitions 1 through 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.)
6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example.
7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations.
8. [deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information by poking around. Hence "password hacker", "network hacker". The correct term for this sense is cracker.

The term "hacker" also tends to connote membership in the global community defined by the net (see the network and Internet address). For discussion of some of the basics of this culture, see the How To Become A Hacker FAQ. It also implies that the person described is seen to subscribe to some version of the hacker ethic. It is better to be described as a hacker by others than to describe oneself that way. Hackers consider themselves something of an elite (a meritocracy based on ability), though one to which new members are gladly welcome. There is thus a certain ego satisfaction to be had in identifying yourself as a hacker (but if you claim to be one and are not, you'll quickly be labelled bogus). See also geek, wannabe. This term seems to have been first adopted as a badge in the 1960s by the hacker culture surrounding TMRC and the MIT AI Lab. We have a report that it was used in a sense close to this entry's by teenage radio hams and electronics tinkerers in the mid-1950s.

The earliest Stanford revisions of the Jargon file (1975) did not describe the term so positively, including only definitions 4, 5 and 8. The current definition was written in more or less its current form around 1980 at MIT. Definition 8 was "deprecated" in the 1990s by Jargon File editor Eric S. Raymond, a known advocate of the positive usage of "hacker". This deprecation is considered somewhat controversial by some, although use of the term "hacker" (in the computer-related sense) predates the first computer system with security (CTSS), and thus necessarily pre-dates any security-related meaning. This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Unix or UNIX is a computer operating system originally developed in the 1960s and 1970s by a group of AT&T Bell Labs employees including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and Douglas McIlroy. ... In the context of computer networking, cracking (also called black-hat hacking) is the act of compromising the security of a system without permission from an authorized party, usually with the intent of accessing computers connected to the network (the somewhat similar activity of defeating copy prevention devices in software... In modern parlance, the hacker ethic is either: The belief that information-sharing is a powerful positive good, and that it is an ethical duty of hackers to share their expertise by writing free software and facilitating access to information and computing resources wherever possible. ... Concept drawing of a geek A geek is a person who is fascinated, perhaps obsessively, by obscure or very specific areas of knowledge and imagination. ... The Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC), a student organization at MIT, is one of the most famous model railroad clubs in the world. ... The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, is a leading research and educational institution located in the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. MIT is a world leader in science and technology, as well as in many other fields, including management, economics, linguistics, political science, and philosophy. ... The MIT Artificial intelligence Laboratory was an interdisciplinary research entity at MIT founded in 1959, and one of the most influential and accomplished in the field. ... Amateur radio, commonly called ham radio, is a hobby enjoyed by many people throughout the world (as of 2004 about 3 million worldwide, 70,000 in Germany, 5,000 in Norway, 57,000 in Canada, and 700,000 in the USA). ... (The wind of freedom blows. ... 1975 was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ... 1980 is a leap year starting on Tuesday. ... The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, is a leading research and educational institution located in the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. MIT is a world leader in science and technology, as well as in many other fields, including management, economics, linguistics, political science, and philosophy. ... // Events and trends The 1990s are generally classified as having moved slightly away from the more conservative 1980s, but keeping the same mind-set. ... Eric S. Raymond Eric Steven Raymond (born December 4, 1957) (often referred to by his initials, ESR) is the author of The Cathedral and the Bazaar and the present maintainer of the Jargon File (also known as The New Hackers Dictionary). Though the Jargon File established his original reputation... This article is about the MIT Project MAC operating system. ...

Summary of terms

Guru, Wizard: Types of hacker in the positive sense.

Cracker: A hacker in the negative sense.

Blackhat: A person that maintains his or her vulnerabilities and exploits as confidential. A blackhat promotes freedom rather than security. Blackhats poke holes in systems and do not increase control of information; there are no attempts made to disclose or patch software. A blackhat hacker has 0-day exploits (private software that exploits security vulnerabilities; 0day exploits have not been distributed to the public).

Script kiddie: a person with little or no skill. Or a person who simply follows directions or uses a cook-book approach without fully understanding the meaning of the steps they are performing. Usually pejorative. In computing, a script kiddie (occasionally script bunny, script kitty or skiddie) is a derogatory term for inexperienced crackers who use scripts and programs developed by others for the purpose of compromising computer accounts and files, and for launching attacks on whole computer systems (see DoS). ...

Whitehat, Sneaker, Grey hat: A hacker who breaks security but who does so for altruistic or at least non-malicious reasons. To whitehats, the darker the hat, the more the ethics of the activity can be considered dubious. Conversely, blackhats may claim the lighter the hat, the more the ethics of the activity are lost. A Whitehat, also rendered as White hat or White-hat, is, in the realm of Information technology, a name that describes a person who is ethically opposed to the abuse of Computer systems. ... A sneaker is an individual hired to break into places in order to test their security; analogous to tiger team. ... In the computer security community, a Grey hat is a skilled hacker who sometimes acts legally and in good will and sometimes not. ...

Note also that even among users of the positive sense of "hacker", the noun "hack" often means kludge, and in those cases has a negative connotation of being ugly, inelegant, and inefficient. The practical joke form of the noun "hack" is considered to have a positive meaning. Meanwhile, the verb "hack" can and often does share the same positive connotations as the noun "hacker". A hack in progress in Lobby 7 at MIT. Hack is a term in the slang of the technology culture which has come into existence over the past few decades. ... For the German American billionaire see John Werner Kluge For the German Field Marshal see Günther von Kluge A kludge (or kluge) is a solution for accomplishing a task, originally a mechanical one and usually an engineering one, which consists of various otherwise unrelated parts and mechanisms, cobbled together in...

Notable hackers

(Due to the overlapping nature of the hacker concept space, many of these individuals could be included in more than one category.)

Intruders and criminals

Note that many of these have since turned to fully legal hacking.

• Mark Abene (a.k.a. Phiber Optik) — Inspired thousands of teenagers around the country to "study" the internal workings of the United States phone system. One of the founders of the Masters of Deception group.
• Dark Avenger — Bulgarian virus writer that invented polymorphic code in 1992 as a mean to circumvent the type of pattern recognition used by Anti-virus software, and nowadays also intrusion detection systems.
• Robert Tappan Morris, Jr. — This Cornell University graduate student unleashed the first major Internet worm in 1988.
• Kevin Mitnick — Held in jail without bail for a long period of time. Inspired the Free Kevin movement.
• Kevin Poulsen — In 1990 Poulsen took over all telephone lines going into Los Angeles area radio station KIIS-FM to win an automobile in a call-in contest.
• Adrian Lamo — Lamo surrendered to federal authorities in 2003 after a brief manhunt, and was charged with nontechnical but surprisingly successful intrusions into computer systems at Microsoft, The New York Times, Lexis-Nexis, MCI WorldCom, SBC, Yahoo!, and others. His methods were controversial, and his full-disclosure-by-media practices led some to assert that he was publicity-motivated.
• Vladimir Levin — This mathematician allegedly masterminded the Russian hacker gang that tricked Citibank's computers into spitting out $10 million. To this day, the method used is unknown.
• Brian Salcedo — Salcedo and accomplices gained access to Lowe's wireless LAN connection and installed a program designed to steal credit card account information.
• Markus Hess — A West German, he hacked into United States Military sites and collected information for the KGB; he was eventually tracked down by Clifford Stoll.
• David L. Smith — In 1999 Smith launched the Melissa Worm, causing $80 million dollars worth of damage to businesses. Originally sentenced to 40 years, he eventually served only 20 months when he agreed to work undercover for the FBI.
• Phoenix — Leading member of Australian hacking group The Realm. Targeted US defence and nuclear research computer systems in late 1980s until his capture by Australian Federal Police in 1990. His was the world's first computer intruder prosecution based on evidence gathered from remote computer intercept.

Missing image Abene in a radio show, from Freedom Downtime. ... Abene in a radio show, from Freedom Downtime. ... Masters of Deception (MOD) were a New York-based hacker group. ... Dark Avenger (also known as Eddie) was the pseudonym for a famous computer virus writer from Sofia, Bulgaria. ... In computer terminology, polymorphic code is code that mutates while keeping the original algorithm intact. ... 1992 is a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Anti-virus software consists of computer programs that attempt to identify, thwart and eliminate computer viruses and other malicious software (malware). ... An Intrusion Detection System or IDS is a software tool used to detect unauthorised access to a computer system or network. ... Robert Tappan Morris (b. ... For other uses of the name Cornell, see Cornell (disambiguation). ... A computer worm is a self-replicating computer program, similar to a ... Kevin Mitnick Kevin David Mitnick (born August 6, 1963) is one of the most famous criminal hackers to be jailed and convicted. ... Kevin Mitnick Kevin Mitnick (born August 6, 1963) is one of the most famous criminal hackers to be jailed and convicted. ... Kevin Poulsens hacker handle was Dark Dante. He worked for SRI International by day, and hacked at night. ... Adrian Lamo Adrian Lamo, born of the colder northern reaches of the USA in 1981, is largely considered one of the more misunderstood figures in the computer hacking community. ... 2003 is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Microsoft Corporation, (NASDAQ: MSFT) headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA, was founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. ... The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ... LexisNexis is a popular searchable archive of content from newspapers, magazines, legal documents and other printed sources. ... For a time, WorldCom (WCOM) was the United States second largest long distance phone company (AT&T was the largest). ... SBC may refer to— SBC Communications Single-board computer Session Border Controller Southern Baptist Convention This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... ... Vladimir Levin is a character in Tolstoys novel Anna Karenina. ... Citibank was founded in 1812 as City Bank of New York. ... Brian Salcedo and fellow conspirators Adam Botbyl and Paul Timmins, gained unauthorized access to the nationwide computer system used by Lowes. ... Lowes (NYSE: LOW) is a United States-based chain of home improvement and major appliance retail stores. ... The notebook is connected to the wireless access point using a PCMCIA wireless card. ... Credit cards A credit card system is a type of retail transaction settlement and credit system, named after the small plastic card issued to users of the system. ... Markus Hess, a West German citizen, was a computer prodigy and particularly effective hacker. ... West Germany was the informal but almost universally used name for the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 until 1990, during which years the Federal Republic did not yet include East Germany. ... The armed forces of the United States of America consist of the United States Army United States Navy United States Air Force United States Marine Corps United States Coast Guard Note: The United States Coast Guard has both military and law enforcement functions. ... The Committee for State Security, or KGB, (Russian: Комите́т Госуда́рственной Безопа́сности; Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti  listen?), was the name of the main Soviet Security Agency and intelligence agency, as well as the main secret police agency from March 13, 1954 to November 6, 1991. ... Clifford Stoll (or Cliff Stoll) is an astronomer and computer systems administrator, and author. ... In March of 1999, David L. Smith, a 31-year old New Jersey programmer, released the Melissa virus in Aberdeen Township, New Jersey. ... The Melissa Worm, also known as Mailissa, Simpsons, Kwyjibo, or Kwejeebo, is a computer worm that also functions as a macro virus. ... The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a Federal police force which is the principal investigative arm of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). ... Phoenix may refer to: The Phoenix, which also has several meanings In astronomy and space exploration, Phoenix, a minor southern constellation. ...

Brilliant programmers

• Dan Bernstein — the author of Qmail and Djbdns, also a mathematician and cryptographer.
• Bill Gosper
• Richard Greenblatt
• Bill Joy — Co-founder of Sun Microsystems and author of many fundamental UNIX utilities.
• Robert Tappan Morris — Writer of the first worm, Morris Worm, which used buffer overflows to propagate.
• Rob Pike — a software engineer and author. He is best known for his work at Bell Labs, where he was a member of the Unix team and was involved in the creation of the Plan 9 and Inferno operating systems.
• Richard Stallman — Founder of the free software movement and the GNU project, and wrote the early versions of Emacs and gcc.
• Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie — Ritchie and Thompson created Unix in 1969. Ritchie is also notable for having created the C programming language.
• Linus Torvalds — Torvalds was a computer science student at the University of Helsinki when he wrote the Linux kernel in 1991.
• Guido Van Rossum — Creator of the Python programming language.
• Larry Wall — The creator of the Perl programming language.
• Steve Wozniak — The co-founder of Apple Computer got his start making devices for phone phreaking.

Daniel Julius Bernstein (sometimes known simply as djb) is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, a mathematician, a cryptologist, and a programmer. ... The title given to this article is incorrect due to technical limitations. ... The title given to this article is incorrect due to technical limitations. ... R. William Gosper, Jr. ... Richard D. Greenblatt is a programmer. ... William N. Joy (born 1954), commonly known as Bill Joy, co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Vinod Khosla, Scott McNealy and Andy Bechtolsheim, and served as chief scientist at the company until 2003. ... Sun Microsystems is a computer, semiconductor and software manufacturer headquartered in Santa Clara, California, in Silicon Valley. ... Unix or UNIX is a computer operating system originally developed in the 1960s and 1970s by a group of AT&T Bell Labs employees including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and Douglas McIlroy. ... Robert Tappan Morris may refer to: Robert Tappan Morris, Sr. ... The Morris worm or Internet worm was one of the first computer worms distributed via the Internet; it is considered the first worm virus and was certainly the first to gain significant mainstream media attention. ... Rob Pike (born 1956) is a software engineer and author. ... Richard Matthew Stallman, a. ... The Free Software Movement began in 1983 when Richard Stallman announced the GNU project. ... The GNU logo, drawn by Etienne Suvasa GNU is a recursive acronym for GNUs Not Unix. The GNU project was announced in 1983 by Richard Stallman with the goal of creating a complete UNIX-compatibleoperating system -- called the GNU system or simply GNU -- that is free software, meaning that... The GNU Emacs interface, running in a graphical environment. ... GCC may stand for: Gulf Cooperation Council GNU Compiler Collection (formerly, the GNU C Compiler) Garde côtière canadienne (Canadian Coast Guard) Germanna Community College Glendale Community College global carbon cycle Global Climate Coalition Grand Council of the Crees (gcc. ... Ken Thompson (left) with Dennis Ritchie (right) Kenneth Thompson (born 1943) is a computer scientist, notable for his work on the UNIX operating system. ... Ken Thompson (left) with Dennis Ritchie (right) Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie (September 9, 1941- ) is a computer scientist notable for his influence on ALTRAN, B, BCPL, C, Multics, and UNIX. Born in Bronxville, New York, Ritchie graduated from Harvard with degrees in physics and applied mathematics. ... Unix or UNIX is a computer operating system originally developed in the 1960s and 1970s by a group of AT&T Bell Labs employees including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and Douglas McIlroy. ... The C Programming Language, Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie, the original edition that served for many years as an informal specification of the language The C programming language is a standardized programming language developed in the early 1970s by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie for use on the UNIX operating... Linus Torvalds Linus Benedict Torvalds (born December 28, 1969) is best known for initiating the development of the Linux Operating System. ... The University of Helsinki is a university located in Helsinki, Finland. ... The Linux mascot Tux created by Larry Ewing Linux kernel is a free unix-like operating system kernel created by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and subsequently improved with the assistance of developers around the world. ... 1991 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Guido van Rossum Guido van Rossum is a computer programmer who is best-known as the author of the Python programming language. ... Python is an interpreted, interactive programming language created by Guido van Rossum in 1990. ... Larry Wall Larry Wall (b. ... Programming Republic of Perl logo Perl, also Practical Extraction and Report Language (a backronym, see below), is a programming language released by Larry Wall on December 18, 1987 that borrows features from C, sed, awk, shell scripting (sh), and (to a lesser extent) from many other programming languages. ... Steve Wozniak—or The Woz—invented the Apple II, the computer that launched the home computer era and popularized the use of computers by the masses. ... Apple Computer, Inc. ... Phreaking is a slang term for the action of making a telephone system do something that it normally should not allow—in the words of one former practitioner, making the phone company bend over and grab its ankles. Sometimes, phreaking will be considered illegal, like in the act of toll...

Security experts

• Solar Designer — Founder of the OpenWall Project.
• Fyodor — The author of Nmap & STC.
• Johan "Julf" Helsingius — Operated the world's most popular anonymous remailer, the Penet remailer (called penet.fi), until he closed up shop in September 1996.
• Tsutomu Shimomura — Shimomura helped catch Kevin Mitnick, the United States' most infamous computer intruder, in early 1994. He is the co-author of a book about the Mitnick case, Takedown: The Pursuit and Capture of Kevin Mitnick, America's Most Wanted Computer Outlaw-By the Man Who Did It (ISBN 0786889136).
• Michal Zalewski (lcamtuf) — Prominent security researcher.
• Ralph Echemendia — Hacking Instructor and prominent security researcher.
• Horatio Huxham — Made public a security hole in a South African banking system.
• Zaraza (3APA3A) — Russian security researcher who has located various flaws in Microsoft Windows and Unix
• Zeljko Vidas a.k.a. STONEY is a known security intruder known for his ˝white hat˝ intrusions and fast operating. He is one of two people who wrote the viral decomposer TITANIC which brought down over 70 companies, and can still be found on the net. Infiltrated into the files of croatias police dept. and deleted some records. It is still not known how he did it.

Solar Designer is security specialist from Russia known by his publications on exploitations techniques (Return into (g)libc buffer overflow exploitation), computer security protection techniques (privilege separation for daemon process), security audit tools (John-the-Ripper) and Linux programming (OpenWall Project) . Categories: Computer stubs ... Openwall is a source for different software, including OpenWall GNU/*/Linux (Owl), a security-enhanced GNU/*/Linux-based server platform. ... Fyodor is a hacker, the author of nmap and other computer security tools. ... Nmap is free port scanning software distributed by Insecure. ... Johan Julf Helsingius, born in Finland, started and ran the Anon. ... An anonymous remailer is a server computer which receives messages with embedded instructions on where to send them next, and which forwards them without revealing where they originally came from. ... The Penet remailer (anon. ... 1996 is a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... Categories: People stubs | Hackers ... Kevin Mitnick Kevin David Mitnick (born August 6, 1963) is one of the most famous criminal hackers to be jailed and convicted. ... 1994 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International year of the Family. ... Michal Zalewski is a hacker in the Jargon File meaning of the word and a young yet well-known computer security expert from Poland. ... Ralph Echemendia is a world-renowned Instructor, Ethical Hacker and Security Expert, who has appeared on CNN and Animal Planet, as well as in the pages of USA Today and Forbes magazine to name a few. ... Horatio Nelson Huxham (a. ... Zaraza (3APA3A) is security specialist from Niznhy Novgorod, Russia. ... Microsoft Windows is a range of operating environments for personal computers and servers. ... Unix or UNIX is a computer operating system originally developed in the 1960s and 1970s by a group of AT&T Bell Labs employees including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and Douglas McIlroy. ...

Hardware modifiers

• Don Lancaster — author of the Hardware Hacker column in Radio Electronics magazine.

Don Lancaster is an author, inventor, and microcomputer pioneer, best known for his magazine columns. ... Radio electronics is the sub-field of electrical engineering concerning itself with the class of electronic circuits which receive or transmit radio signals. ...

Hacker media personalities

Listed below are individuals who, while fitting in one or more of the above categories, are more widely famous for their media presence than their technical accomplishments, especially among the general population.

• Eric Corley (a.k.a Emmanuel Goldstein) — Long standing publisher of 2600: The Hacker Quarterly and founder of the H.O.P.E. conferences. He has been part of the hacker community since the late '70s.
• CULT OF THE DEAD COW — a high profile hacker group that has both made news and been consulted by the media on numerous occasions.
• Bill Gates — Co-Founder of Microsoft, and one of the programmers of Microsoft_BASIC. He is currently most famous for having headed the Forbes list of the world's richest for many years.
• Eric S. Raymond — He is one of the founders of the Open Source Initiative. He wrote the famous text The Cathedral and the Bazaar and many other essays. He also maintains the Jargon File for the Hacker culture, which was previously maintained by Guy L. Steele, Jr..
• Bruce Perens — He is also one of the Open Source Initiative. He was the former Debian GNU/Linux Project Leader, and is the primary author of the Open Source Definition.

Left to right: Deth Vegetable, Eric Emmanuel Golstein Corley and Joe630 in Freedom Downtime Eric Corley is viewed by some as a leader of the computer hacker community and goes by the name Emmanuel Goldstein, after the leader of the underground in George Orwells classic, Nineteen Eighty-Four. ... Emmanuel Goldstein is a key character in George Orwells novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. ... (Redirected from 2600 The Hacker Quarterly) Fall 2004 (21:3) 2600 Issue 2600: The Hacker Quarterly is a traditional (printed) magazine named for the fact that phreakers in the 1960s found that the transmission of a 2600 Hertz tone (which could be produced perfectly with a plastic toy whistle given... Hackers on Planet Earth or HOPE is a conference series sponsored by the hacker magazine 2600 The Hacker Quarterly. ... CULT OF THE DEAD COW is a high-profile computer hacker organization founded in 1984 in Lubbock, Texas. ... Bill Gates William Henry Gates III, KBE (born October 28, 1955), commonly known as Bill Gates, is an American businessman and a microcomputer pioneer. ... Microsoft Corporation, (NASDAQ: MSFT) headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA, was founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. ... Microsoft BASIC is the foundation product of the Microsoft company. ... Forbes magazine is an American business and financial magazine founded in 1917 by B.C. Forbes. ... Eric S. Raymond Eric Steven Raymond (born December 4, 1957) (often referred to by his initials, ESR) is the author of The Cathedral and the Bazaar and the present maintainer of the Jargon File (also known as The New Hackers Dictionary). Though the Jargon File established his original reputation... The Open Source Initiative is an organization dedicated to promoting open source software. ... The Cathedral and the Bazaar is an essay by Eric S. Raymond on software engineering methods, based on his observations of the Linux kernel development process and his experiences managing an open source project, fetchmail. ... The Jargon File is a glossary of hacker slang. ... There are two subcultures which may conceivably be termed hacker culture, depending on which definition of hacker is taken. ... Guy Lewis Steele, Jr. ... Bruce Perens Bruce Perens is a prominent figure in the open source movement and to some extent in the free software movement. ... The Open Source Initiative is an organization dedicated to promoting open source software. ... Debian, created by the Debian Project, is a widely used distribution of free software developed through the collaboration of volunteers from around the world. ... The Open Source Definition is used by the Open Source Initiative to determine whether or not a software license can be considered open source. ...

See also

• Hacker culture
• Hacker Emblem
• Hacker Manifesto
• Hackers (short stories)
• Hacker (game)
• Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
• A Hacker History a timeline of events relating to hacking
• List of fictional hackers
• Quick-and-dirty
• Jargon File
• Biohacker
• Astalavista Security Group

There are two subcultures which may conceivably be termed hacker culture, depending on which definition of hacker is taken. ... The Hacker Emblem was first proposed in October 2003 by Eric S. Raymond, claiming a need for a uniting and recognizable symbol for his perception of hacker culture. The image represents a glider formation in Conways Game of Life. ... The Conscience of a Hacker (a. ... Hackers (ISBN 0441003753) is a collection of short stories edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois. ... Illuminati is a complicated card game (not a CCG) made by Steve Jackson Games. ... Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (ISBN 0385191952) is a book by Steven Levy about the hacker culture. ... This is a timeline of hacker history. ... List of hackers (of all definitions) that feature in works of fiction. ... Quick-and-dirty is a term used in reference to anything that is a kluge. ... The Jargon File is a glossary of hacker slang. ... Biohacker is a term used to describe an individual who experiments with DNA and other aspects of genetics, usually outside of an academic, governmental or corporate laboratory. ... Astalavista Security Group is a website located on the internet address http://www. ...

External links

• The Hacker Dictionary
• The Broken video series on hacking
• The MIT Gallery of Hacks
• The Jargon File
• The Hacker Emblem
• Hiring Hackers As Security Consultants
• How To Become A Hacker
• Free Software Foundation
• Open Source Initiative
• Digital Information Society
• SecureRoot Directory
• Hacker News
• Hackers.com
• Hacker Games
• Hacker Interviews
• Paul Graham's Hackers & Painters Essay
• Paul Graham's Great Hackers Essay
• WPI Hackers of the '70s
• A Brief History of Hackerdom (2000)}
• HackThisSite.org-Learn to web hack
• Learn To Hack - Hacking Challenges
• SPACEWAR: Fanatic Life and Symbolic Death Among the Computer Bums Stewart Brand's 1972 article
• Use of the Word "Hacker" post on newsgroup net.flame

Stewart Brand speaking September 5, 2004 Stewart Brand (born December 14, 1938 in Rockford, Illinois) is an author, editor, and creator of The Whole Earth Catalog, CoEvolution Quarterly, and the pioneering online community The WELL. He has also been an appointee to California state government and is one of the...

Related books

• "The Cuckoo’s Egg" by Clifford Stoll. Pan, 1990

• "Cyberpunk" by Katie Hafner & John Markoff Simon & Schuster,1991.

• "The Hacker Crackdown" by Bruce Sterling. Bantam, 1992.

• "Masters of Deception: The Gang That Ruled Cyberspace" by Michelle Slatalla & Joshua Quittner. HarperCollins, 1995.

• "@ Large: The Strange Case of the World’s Biggest Internet Invasion" by David H. Freeman & Charles C. Mann. Simon & Schuster, 1997.

• "Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier" by Suelette Dreyfus. Mandarin,1997.

• "Hackers: The Hunt for Australia’s Most Infamous Computer Cracker" by Bill Apro & Graeme Hammond. Five Mile Press, 2005.

tapeworm (2005). 1337 h4x0r h4ndb00k. Sams. ISBN 0672327279.

Network Security:

• "Hacking Exposed" by Stuart McClure, Joel Scambray & George Kurtz

Magazines:

• "2600: The Hacker Quarterly"
• "Hakin9"
• "Binary Revolution Magazine"

Commercials

• Hacking Challenges
• Hacker Shirts & Stickers