whitewig

[Jonathan Hutchins]

On Wednesday 16 March 2005 03:02 pm, D. Hageman wrote:

> On a side note - we pretty much have to accept the general media
> distorting the term hacker has modified the definition to the point that
> it has a new meaning that may not be a good one.  

Nonsense.  "Hacking" was inclusive of cracking until some self-righteous 
hackers decided they wanted to set themselves above and apart from those 
nasty "crackers", so they tried to patch the language by insisting their 
definition was correct.  Never works.  Language is what people mean, not what 
they're supposed to mean.

> On another side note - If a person calls themselves a hacker - they aren't
> a hacker.  

Sure they are.  The're someone who hacks stuff.  Just as a writer can call 
themselves a hack.  It may have a connotation of elite coolness to you, but 
that's just you.

Like I said before, the term and concept pre-date computers.  I'm a hardware 
hacker, I can hack code if I have to, I have friends who have hacked other 
kinds of systems.  True hacking is in the mind of the hacker.