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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, August 30 2012 @ 05:03 PM EDT |
The word "hacker" in computer context has split into its
dual and contrary meanings from a common meaning, just as
has previously happened to words such as "secretary" and
"plumber".
Try parsing this sentence:
"One day in 2002 in New York, two black secretaries met
and talked about the weather".
The could mean either of the following:
"One day in 2002 in New York, two low level office workers
of afroamerican descent met and talked about nothing in
particular."
Or
"One day in 2002 in New York, the US Secretary of State (a
former general of afroamerican descent) and the UN General
Secretary (a prominent African politician) held a meeting on
the impending climate crises".
The use of "secretary" to refer to a high office evolved
gradually from originally referring to the office worker
assisting the governing person or persons. Similarly the
use of the same word to refer to the lowest rank of office
worker devolved from a time when no other levels of office
worker existed. So now the word may refer to either the
highest or the lowest level of office worker, with all the
middle levels getting new names.
The word "clerk" or "clark" has gone through almost the same
development and origin as "secretary", but is now used
mostly for jobs within a courthouse.
The word "plumber" originally and still refers to a skilled
craftsman specializing in laying, connecting and repairing
pipes etc. made of led or other materials. But through
alleged use as military intelligence slang for a soldier
specially trained in the covert installation of hidden
microphones, it has come to also refer to anyone
specializing in covert/illegal installation of surveillance
equipment.
Now back to the word "hacker".
Originally the word referred to non-conformist playful young
computer geniuses, who would use their skills for both
interesting things (such as making machines exceed their
expected capabilities) and "fun" things (such as typical
college pranks).
As the field of computing grew, and the first people to earn
the hacker name grew older and wiser, the phrase bifurcated
into referring to either the geniuses who achieve computing
miracles by selectively ignoring conventions or to the
miscreants who achieve computing mayhem by ignoring basic
morality.
As popular opinion and authorities naturally sought to crack
down on the miscreants and their mayhem, those who used
their skills for good would try to reserve the "hacker" word
for their exclusive use, assigning a disparaging name
("cracker") to the miscreants. But the miscreants preferred
to keep the name too and wouldn't give it up.
As computing grew further, the two groups of people that the
word referred to were gradually expanded to cover more
people. Thus nowadays someone with a few Linux coding
skills may want to brag about being a "hacker", while police
and other crimefighters might use the word to refer to
someone who commits the computer equivalent of stealing
candy from a child.
Currently there seem to be two groups with serious claim to
the name and an actual desire to use it:
1. High end coding geniuses such as Eric S. Raymond, Linus
Thorvalds and Richard M. Stallman. George Hotz (iPhone and
PS3 jailbreak author) would belong in this group too.
2. Computer penetration geniuses at the same or higher skill
levels as Kevin Mitnick (before he went legit). Most do not
reveal their names, so I cannot give current examples.
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