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What Does it Mean to be a Hacker?

posted by janrinok on Sunday March 02 2014, @09:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the hey-we're-famous dept.

Anonymous Coward writes:

"Every geek worth his hash and salt has heard about the hacker/cracker distinction but have you ever wondered what does the designation entail when you go beyond scratching the surface? Gabriella Coleman has. According to Wikipedia she is an anthropologist, academic and author whose work focuses on hacker culture and online activism. The link below is her class on computer hackers at New York University. I found it an interesting read. The Anthropology of Hackers - Gabriella Coleman - The Atlantic"

 
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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by mcgrew on Sunday March 02 2014, @02:41PM

    by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Sunday March 02 2014, @02:41PM (#9613) Homepage Journal

    She got it half wrong in the very first sentence. "A 'hacker' is a technologist with a love for computing and a 'hack' is a clever technical solution arrived through a non-obvious means."

    A hack is indeed a clever technical solution arrived through a non-obvious means, but people have been hacking longer than computers existed, and a love for computing and technology does not make one a hacker. I was hacking hardware long before PCs existed; when I was a teenager I'd take $10 transistor radios and turn them into guitar fuzzboxes, which were a couple hundred bucks in music stores back then. Guitar-playing friends loved me!

    I've done hardware hacks (like the above, and like putting a real keyboard on a TS-1000) and software hacks (like giving an MC-10 100x the graphics capability using only software). But I've never broken into a computer (well, I have reset forgotten XP admin passwords for friends but that's not hacking, I used a Linux-based tool someone else wrote).

    --
    mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
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  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday March 02 2014, @03:04PM

    by FatPhil (863) <{pc-soylent} {at} {asdf.fi}> on Sunday March 02 2014, @03:04PM (#9622) Homepage
    Yup, I turned off very quickly. She's just another person pretending to have a clue.

    She's no worse than ESR though. When he invented the "hacker logo" a decade or so back, I decided to adopt it with a twist, and a rant: http://fatphil.org/me/hacker.html
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 02 2014, @03:54PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 02 2014, @03:54PM (#9631)

      Yup, I turned off very quickly. She's just another person pretending to have a clue.

      Can you explain why you feel this way? It would make a better contribution than your emotions.

  • (Score: 1) by pjbgravely on Sunday March 02 2014, @05:12PM

    by pjbgravely (1681) <pjbgravelyNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Sunday March 02 2014, @05:12PM (#9662) Homepage
    I am a Hacker but I have never done any computer hacks. I used to hack Gravely garden tractors to fix problems and make them work better. Now I hack my car for better MPG.

    I am a computer operator, I use existing programs to do things other people see as miracles.