Hacker vs. cracker

Hacker vs. cracker:


"The word “hacker” gets used in a pejorative sense by journalists an awful lot. Some people think this is perfectly reasonable; others find it offensive, and recommend an alternative term for that meaning. Read on to find out why."


In mainstream press, the word “hacker” is often used to refer to a malicious security cracker. There is a classic definition of the term “hacker”, arising from its first documented uses related to information technologies at MIT, that is at odds with the way the term is usually used by journalists. The inheritors of the technical tradition of the word “hacker” as it was used at MIT sometimes take offense at the sloppy use of the term by journalists and others who are influenced by journalistic inaccuracy.

Some claim that the term has been unrecoverably corrupted, and acquired a new meaning that we should simply accept. This descriptivist approach is predicated upon the assumption that there’s no reasonable way to communicate effectively with the less technically minded without acquiescing to the nontechnical misuse of the term “hacker”. I believe it’s still useful to differentiate between hackers and security crackers, though, and that terms like “malicious security cracker” are sufficiently evocative and clear that their use actually helps make communication more effective than the common journalistic misuse of “hacker”.

I think it’s useful to differentiate especially because there are many situations where “hack”, and its conjugations, is the only effective term to describe something that has nothing to do with malicious violation of security measures or privacy. When you simply accept that “hacker” means “malicious security cracker”, you give up the ability to use the term to refer to anything else without potential confusion.

Both are distinct from people whose interest in technical matters is purely professional, with no desire to learn anything about the subject at hand other than to advance a career and make a living. Many hackers and security crackers turn their talents toward professional ends, of course, and some security crackers got where they are only through professional advancement, but one definitely need not have a professional interest to pursue the path of either a hacker or a security cracker.

A hacker, in the classic sense of the term, is someone with a strong interest in how things work, who likes to tinker and create and modify things for the enjoyment of doing so. For some, it is a compulsion, while for others it is a means to an end that may lead them to greater understanding of something else entirely. The IETF's RFC%201392:%20Internet%20Users’%20Glossary%20defines%20“hacker”%20as:A%20person%20who%20delights%20in%20having%20an%20intimate%20understanding%20of%20theinternal%20workings%20of%20a%20system,%20computers%20and%20computer%20networks%20inparticular.%20The%20term%20is%20often%20misused%20in%20a%20pejorative%20context,where%20“cracker”%20would%20be%20the%20correct%20term.%20See%20also:%20cracker.The%20Jargon%20Wiki’s%20first%20definition%20for%20