

The Orignal Hackers were Black Hats. - ig1
http://tickletux.wordpress.com/2008/04/01/the-origin-of-hacker/

======
pius
This is a completely incorrect conclusion. As I wrote on the blog:

Actually, you’re the one who’s mistaken — history _does_ support the benign
view. As you note, the term hacker dates back even to the Tech Model Railroad
Club. The term was generalized to include all sorts of neat but benign
tomfoolery (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_hack>) including white hat phone
phreaking. At MIT, there’s definitely always been a sense that hacking has a
code of ethics and that people who do bad things under the guise of hacking
aren’t hacking at all.

The Tech’s 1963 reference to malicious phreakers as hackers is the same as
modern day references to crackers as hackers: a mistake.

~~~
ig1
The secondary source of wikipedia doesn’t count as evidence, relying upon
third-hand anecdotes like the wikipedia article does is incredibly poor
academic form on wikipedia's part (notice the lack of citations to primary
evidence).

While you’re right term “hack” was used in a “positive” sense with regards to
model railways, “hack” in the context of computers wasn’t. In the earliest
days at TMRC it was used with regards to gain unauthorized access on MIT’s
computer systems (although with less negative connotations then it has now).
The modern geek “hacker” sense which is in common use now of an elite
programmer didn’t come around until much later.

Saying that, if you read the descriptions of "hacks" given in the wikipedia
article most of them would now be considered "black hat" under modern
definitions anyway.

~~~
pius
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to present that in a way that would make you feel
like you need to get defensive.

I was trying to use Wikipedia for your benefit. My opinion is actually based
on primary sources from my time at MIT (e.g. alums who were actually students
back then).

Pontificating about my "poor academic form" is harsh, unnecessary, and,
frankly, it doesn't suit you; not when your argument -- that you _know_ the
first hackers were black hats because you found some article in The Tech where
someone said something negative about one -- lacks any semblance of validity
to begin with.

Given that you're the one with a contrarian opinion, you should present strong
evidence if you don't want people to be skeptical. The burden of proof is with
you on this one.

~~~
ig1
Actually I didn't find it, my post is based upon research by Fred Shapiro
(editor of the The Yale Book of Quotations, and a highly respected language
researcher), but that's beside the point.

It's pretty standard practice in etymology to research the history of a word
by finding all the earliest usages of it, and that's what Fred did in this
case. And the early usages pointed towards a "black hat" usage.

Etymologists don't normally use evidence based upon individual memory due to
people being very bad at remember exact word usages from decades ago. A few
years ago I did some work for the Oxford English Dictionary and while they
would use people's memory to guide them to potential recorded sources of
evidence, they wouldn't use someones memory alone due to the problems inherent
with it.

Especially in a emotionally charged issues like this one where people are
likely to "want" to remember things being a certain way.

btw, the poor academic form thing was about wikipedia (from whom which we
would expect a reasonale academic form), not you personally, sorry if it came
across that way.

~~~
pius
That's cool -- my bad if I came off rude to you in anyway. I just don't agree
with your conclusion.

~~~
ig1
I know I might be wrong, and that's one of the reasons I made the post. Maybe
some who was in the TMRC in the 60s might read it and realize they have a
diary or minutes from a meeting from that time which provides evidence for a
non-"black hat" meaning.

But as probably one of the few people in the world who has credentials in both
etymology and geekiness (I was president of a student computer society :P), I
feel like it's my duty to let the world know what the current evidence points
to :-)

