When police and businesses began
tracing computer-related crimes back to a few renegade
programmers who cited convenient portions of the
hacking ethic in defense of their activities, the word
"hacker" began appearing in newspapers and magazine
stories in a negative light. Although books like
Hackers did much to document the original spirit of
exploration that gave rise to the hacking culture, for
most news reporters, "computer hacker" became a synonym
for "electronic burglar."
Although hackers have railed against this perceived
misusage for nearly two decades, the term's rebellious
connotations dating back to the 1950s make it hard to
discern the 15-year-old writing software programs that
circumvent modern encryption programs from the 1960s
college student, picking locks and battering down doors
to gain access to the lone, office computer terminal.
One person's creative subversion of authority is
another person's security headache, after all. Even so,
the central taboo against malicious or deliberately
harmful behavior remains strong enough that most
hackers prefer to use the term " cracker"-i.
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