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The History of my site
Definitions of the Word Hacker
There are probably as many definitions of the word hacker as there are people
who are called hackers, either by themselves or by someone else. There are
also a number of variants, such as cracker, script kiddie, and more. We’ll go
over each of the better-known words in this area.
Hacker
The word hacker is the most contested of the bunch. Most of the other terms
came later, and are attempts to be more explicit about what type of person is
being discussed.
Where does the word hacker come from? One of the earlier books on the
subject is Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy. You can
find his summary of the book here:
www.stevenlevy.com/hackers.html
In this book, Mr. Levy traces the origin of the word hacker to the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the 1950s; specifically, its use
in the MIT Model Railroad Club. A sample of the book can be read here:
www.usastores.com/gdl/text/hckrs10.txt
This sample includes the portions relevant to this discussion. MIT is generally
acknowledged as the origin of the modern use of the word hacker. There
are a few folks who claim that the word hacker was also used earlier among
folks who experimented with old tube radio sets and amplifiers. The original
definition of the word hacker had to do with someone who hacked at wood,
especially in reference to making furniture.
For a wide range of definitions, check here:
www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=hacker
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Others
Phreak
A phreak is a hacker variant, or rather, a specific species of hacker. Phreak is
short for phone phreak (freak spelled with a ph, like phone is). Phreaks are
hackers with an interest in telephones and telephone systems. Naturally, there
has been at times a tremendous amount of overlap between traditional hacker
roles and phreaks. If there is any difference between the two, it’s that hackers
are primarily interested in computer systems, while phreaks are primarily
interested in phone systems. The overlap comes into play because, for the last
30 years at least, phone systems are computer systems. Also, back when
hackers exchanged information primarily via the telephone and modem, phone
toll was a big issue. As a result, some hackers would resort to methods to
avoid paying for their phone calls, a technique usually considered to be in the
realm of the phreak.
If there’s a modern definition of phreak, it’s someone who knows a lot
about how phone systems work. A great deal of the incentive to bypass toll has
disappeared as the Internet has gained popularity.
White Hat/Black Hat
I first became aware of the term white hat being used in reference to hackers
about 1996, when the Black Hat Briefings conference was announced (see
www.blackhat.com). The Black Hat Briefings conference is an annual security
conference held in Las Vegas, Nevada. Topics range from introductory to
heavily technical. This probably means that the term was used among a
smaller group of people for a few years prior to that. The idea behind the conference
was to allow some of the hackers, the “black hats,” to present to the
security professionals, in a well-organized conference setting. The conference
was organized by Jeff Moss (aka Dark Tangent), who also runs the Defcon conference
(see www.defcon.org). Defcon is a longer-running conference that now
takes place adjacent to Black Hat on the calendar, also in Las Vegas. In addition
to the security talks, there are events such as Hacker jeopardy, and the
L0pht TCP/IP Drinking game. You can hear many of the same speakers on the
same topics at Defcon, but it’s not nearly as well organized. Many of the people
who attend Black Hat would not attend Defcon because of Defcon’s reputation.
Plus, Black Hat costs quite a bit more to attend than Defcon, which tends to
keep away folks who don’t work in the security field (i.e., who can’t afford it).
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