A hacker is most commonly a person who seeks unauthorized access to a computer system or network. The word is also used for a skilled programmer or computer enthusiast. In computer security, it may describe an intruder or an authorized specialist who tests systems and reports vulnerabilities. Programmer and free software communities apply the term to people who explore programmable systems, modify software, or find ways around technical limits. Its meaning depends on context, and communities disagree over who may claim it. The computing use of the term developed in student culture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during the late 1950s and early 1960s. At MIT, hacking ranged from playful technical work and pranks to unauthorized interference. During the 1970s and 1980s, personal computers and modem-connected networks took hacker culture beyond academic laboratories. Publicized intrusions and arrests, the 1983 film WarGames, and computer-crime laws shifted public usage toward unauthorized access. Security consulting, conferences, coordinated vulnerability disclosure, and bug bounty programs later gave some hackers recognized professional roles. Hacker communities include programmer and free-software hackers, hardware hackers, phreakers, members of the computer underground, security hackers, and hacktivists. Their aims and legal status vary. Many value technical skill, experimentation, information sharing, and recognition from peers. Communities form around software projects, online forums, informal groups, hackerspaces, and conferences. Access may depend on skill, trust, and familiarity with group norms; even formally open communities can have cultural barriers. In security work, authorization and agreed limits separate professional testing from access without permission. Copyright law and software licenses set conditions for studying, modifying, and distributing programs; some laws also restrict the circumvention of technical protections. News and popular culture portray hackers variously as criminals, cyberterrorists, socially isolated technical prodigies, activists, defenders, and security professionals. The favorable use of hack for an inventive solution has spread beyond computing in terms such as hackathon, civic hacking, biohacking, growth hacking, and life hack.
Terminology and scope
Within computing, communities disagree over which uses of hacker are legitimate and who may claim the label.
Etymology and early uses The verb hack, from Old English, originally meant to cut or sever with repeated blows, and hacker was used for a person who hacked in that physical sense centuries before electronic computers. The computing use developed from student slang at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The first edition of the Tech Model Railroad Club's dictionary, compiled in 1959, described a hack as an undertaking without a constructive purpose and a hacker as its practitioner. Before its close association with computers, the label involved playful tinkering and pranks involving machinery. A negative usage also appeared early. In 1963, MIT's student newspaper, The Tech, called students who disrupted telephone services and made unauthorized long-distance calls "telephone hackers". Legal scholar Fred R. Shapiro documents both non-malicious tinkering and unauthorized interference in MIT usage before the word entered wider public use.
Competing definitions Current dictionaries give two principal computing senses of hacker, an expert in programming and computer problem-solving and, more commonly, someone who attempts or gains unauthorized access to computer systems. Programmer and free software communities often use the word positively for people who enjoy exploring programmable systems, modifying software, and finding clever ways around technical limits. In computer security, the term includes lawful penetration testers and security experts as well as people who act without permission. Vulnerabilities may be discovered and reported by researchers, developers, system administrators, users, academics, security companies, or government organizations. Not all of them use security researcher or hacker as a self-description. The senses of hacker overlap in skill and method but differ in authorization, purpose, and community identity. Outside computer security, hacker may describe an expert or enthusiast in another field or someone who works around practical limitations.
Related terminology Programmer and free-software communities sometimes reserve hacker for a technical enthusiast and use cracker for someone who breaks into systems for malicious or illegal purposes. The distinction emerged during the 1980s in response to negative media portrayals. It remains disputed because lawful and unlawful hacking may use the same techniques. General dictionaries continue to list unauthorized computer access as a standard meaning of hacker. An ethical hacker or white-hat hacker is a security professional who tests systems lawfully. A black hat acts illicitly or without sanction. A gray hat may act without permission but without the malicious intent usually associated with black hats. A cybercriminal commits crimes through computers or the Internet. A script kiddie is an informal, disparaging term for a low-skill intruder who relies on programs written by others. A phreaker is someone who gains illegal access to or manipulates telephone systems. A hacktivist is someone who uses hacking to pursue political, social, religious, or ideological goals.
Historical development
Early technical culture Members of the Tech Model Railroad Club learned about switching circuits and logical control through the relay systems used to run their model railway, and some later experimented with computers made available to students at MIT. A computer-hacker community formed around MIT's TX-0 from about 1958 and expanded after a PDP-1 was installed in 1962. Unlike most computers of the period, which were operated by specialist staff, these machines could be used directly by members of the MIT community. The community had links to Project MAC and the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and its members created experimental programs including a screen-based text editor and Spacewar!. In 1984, journalist Steven Levy used the phrase "hacker ethic" for values he associated with this community.
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