Before 1985, there was no word for ‘Crackers’ – both good an bad hackers were know as, well, hackers. Soon the good hackers got tired of being lumped together with the bad guys. So they created a term for the baddies – the Crackers. And they got very upset when the media did not use the new word.

What I don’t get is why people cannot understand that the word ‘hacker’ has two(or more) different but equally valid meanings. I believe that the term ‘hacker’ can be used in the place of ‘cracker’ – as long as the understood that the word has two meanings.

The term hacker comes from the word hack – and the most valid meaning for the term is to circumvent the security of a system. As in “I can hack into your computer within minutes.” So people who ‘hack’ are called hackers.

Conclusion

In short, don’t get upset when others use the term hackers in the ‘wrong way’. If you want you can continue using the term cracker – that will solve the issue of ambiguity of the term ‘hacker’. Just don’t try to enforce your meaning upon others.

I am sure many of you would disagree, but you are all Schizophrenics – why should I care what you have to say?

Related Links

• The Word Hacker
• Hacker (Wikipedia)
• Some definitions
• Hacker definition controversy
• What is a Hacker?