

Phreaks and Geeks: Before Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak created Apple - Jaigus
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/books/2013/02/steve_jobs_and_phone_hacking_exploding_the_phone_by_phil_lapsley_reviewed.single.html

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catplusplus
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.

