the.com/hacker
part magician, part janitor, all curiosity — breaking things just to learn how they break
means A person skilled at manipulating computer systems, who probes how they work — sometimes to fix or build, sometimes to break in.
from From "hack," an old verb meaning to cut roughly or chop away at something. In mid-20th-century tech culture — famously around MIT's Tech Model Railroad Club and early computing labs — a "hack" came to mean a clever, often improvised solution, and "hacking" the joyful act of tinkering until a machine bent to your will. The darker "breaks into systems" sense came later, in the 1980s, as computers went mainstream; purists still grumble that those people are properly "crackers."
- origin
- MIT's 1950s model railroad club coined the term
- hat colors
- white, black, and gray sort the good from bad
- first virus
- 1971's Creeper just printed catch me if you can
- bounty pay
- top hackers earn millions reporting bugs legally
- weakest link
- most breaches start with someone clicking a link
kevin mitnick — convicted of hacking into over 100 companies in the 1990s, served 5 years in prison
anonymous — decentralized hacktivist collective that targeted hbgary federal in 2011 and multiple government sites
jonathan james — first minor convicted of cybercrimes, hacked nasa and department of defense in 1999 at age 15