Hacker: Encyclopedia - Hacker

Hacker

Hacker is a term used to describe people who create and modify computer software and computer hardware. Hacker has multiple meanings. In some programming communities, the term refers to people skilled in computer programming, administration and security with legitimate goals. The word is also used in a derogatory way in most communities to refer to someone who is relatively unskilled in programming. Most people in the popular media and some in the general population use the word hacker to mean what is called in most programming communities a cracker (from criminal hacker), that is, someone who partakes in illegal activity or lacks in ethics.

The word hack has several definitions, according to the dictionary. One is "to cut irregularly, without skill or definite purpose." Newspaper journalists are sometimes called "hacks", which could potentially be construed as a reference to an old style method of copy editing involving an encyclopedia, a manual typewriter, a pair of scissors and a roll of scotch tape. Cutting (one synonym for "hack") and pasting blocks of text or software source code in order to factor and reorganize an essay or program are activities familiar to writers and computer programmers alike. When typing on an old fashioned mechanical typewriter, a phalanx of typebars chops against the ribbon, paper, and platten, making a characteristic "hacking" noise. Another speculation is that the word "hacker" is an humorously ironic conflation of elegant and well spoken eloquent prosody, to "a raspy, chopping, cough." When a person doesn't know how to pronounce a word, they will sometimes fill in with a, hcahw, coughing sound. Reporters are known to attempt writing about a subject they do not completely comprehend, don't get the facts or story straight, and thus sometimes "hack the story to pieces". So, perhaps to some, a neophyte programmer is thereby termed a "hacker", and that would explain why one sense of the word "hack" is given as "A quick and inelegant, though functional solution to a programming problem."

In computer programming, 'hacker' means a programmer who hacks or reaches a goal by employing a series of modifications to exploit or extend existing code or resources. In computer security, hacker translates to a person able to exploit a system or gain unauthorized access through skill and tactics. This usually refers to a black hat hacker. In other technical fields, hacker is extended to mean a person who makes things work beyond perceived limits through their own technical skill, such as a hardware hacker, or reality hacker. However, for some the word has a negative connotation and refers to a person who "hacks" or uses kludges to accomplish programming tasks that are ugly, inelegant, and inefficient. The negative form of the noun "hack" is even used among users of the positive sense of "hacker".

The practical joke form of the noun "hack" is considered to have a positive meaning. Meanwhile, the verb "hack" can and often does share the same generally positive connotations as the noun "hacker". In addition, there are types of hackers who are considered to posses an atypical level of skill beyond that of other meanings of the positive form of "hacker", which include the Guru and the Wizard. In some portions of the computer community, a Wizard is one who can do anything a hacker can, but elegantly; while a Guru not only can do so elegantly, but instruct those who do not know how. In other portions, a Guru is one with a very broad degree of expertise, while a Wizard is expert in a very narrow field.

Hacker - Categories of hacker

The hacker community (the set of people who would describe themselves as hackers, or who would be described by others as hackers) falls into at least four partially overlapping categories. Sometimes people in these categories are called a different name, such as "cracker" instead of hacker.

Hacker - Hacker: Computer and network security

The negative usage of hacker is one who exploits systems or gains unauthorized access through clever tactics and detailed knowledge, that is, through the use of a hack. However, because most hacks do not exploit systems or gain unauthorized access, most people who have enough technical skill to produce clever hacks consider the use of the word hacker in this sense to be bigotry. Malicious hackers in this sense are often called black hat hackers, but it is more appropriate to call them crackers as this is a term which distinguishes the exploitation of security weaknesses from hacking in general. The opposite term of black hat hackers, White hat, are those who attempt to break into systems or networks in order to help the owners of the system by making them aware of security flaws, or to perform some other altruistic activity. Other hackers often viewed negatively include phreakers and software crackers.

Classification of hackers depends on the functionality, in other words the classification depends on the way hacker interacts with what is being hacked. These hackers are classified into three different types. One type is the "in-house hacker", an employee who is responsible for maintaining the system, who interacts immediately with the system as programmer and is aware of all the system's security capabilities. He or she should be the guard of the system but for numerous reasons he or she hacks the system to get what is needed, betraying all the trust given to him or her. Another type is the "super hacker", a user who doesn’t interact with the system but at the same time monitors the system on daily basis and has an eye on what is going on and what type of data is entered at what time then depending on the entries he decides the moment he should get these information and retrieve them for personal motivations. The third type is the "professional hacker", a hacker who is very capable of getting any type of data. Professional hackers have the ability to persuade the user or the operator to provide him or her with the needed information by programming tricks or user friendly screens.

Hacker - Hacker: Highly skilled programmer

The positive usage of hacker is one who knows a (sometimes specified) set of programming interfaces well enough to write software rapidly and expertly. This type of hacker is well-respected, although the term still carries some of the meaning of hack, developing programs without adequate planning. This zugzwang gives freedom and the ability to be creative against methodical careful progress. At their best, hackers can be very productive. The technical downside of hacker productivity is often in maintainability, documentation, and completion. Very talented hackers may become bored with a project once they have figured out all of the hard parts, and be unwilling to finish off the "details". This attitude can cause friction in environments where other programmers are expected to pick up the half finished work, decipher the structures and ideas, and bullet-proof the code. In other cases, where a hacker is willing to maintain their own code, a company may be unable to find anyone else who is capable or willing to dig through code to maintain the program if the original programmer moves on to a new job.

Additionally, there is sometimes a social downside associated with hacking. The stereotype of a hacker as having gained technical ability at a cost in social ability may have an uncomfortable amount of factual foundation in many individuals. While not universal, nor even restricted to hackers, the obsessive/compulsive nature, difficulty in relating to other individuals, and often abrasive personalities of some hackers makes some of them difficult to work with or to organize into teams, an example is Richard Stallman (RMS). Some within the hacker community have speculated that some mild form of autism might be involved in the case of some hackers. In one more pronounced example of such, Bram Cohen, developer of BitTorrent, has been diagnosed as having Asperger's syndrome. However, no formal studies of autistic tendencies in hackers have been done.

Hacker - Hacker: Hardware modifier

Another type of hacker is one who creates novel hardware modifications. At the most basic end of this spectrum are those who make frequent changes to the hardware in their computers using standard components, or make semi-cosmetic themed modifications to the appearance of the machine. This type of Hacker modifes his/her computer for performance needs and/or attractiveness. These changes often include adding memory, storage or LED's and cold cathode tubes for light effects. These people often show off their talents in contests, and many enjoy LAN Parties. At the more advanced end of the hardware hackers are those who modify hardware (not limited to computers) to expand capabilities; this group blurs into the culture of hobbyist inventors and professional electronics engineering. An example of such modification includes the addition of TCP/IP Internet capabilities to a number of vending machines and Coffee makers during the late 1980's and early 1990's.

Hackers who have the ability to write circuit-level code, device drivers, firmware, low-level networking, (and even more impressively, using these techniques to make devices do things outside of their spec sheets), are typically in very high regard among hacker communities. This is primarily due to the difficulty and enormous complexity of this type of work, and the electrical engineering knowledge required to do so. Such hackers are rare, and almost always considered to be wizards or gurus of a very high degree.

Hacker - Recognized hackers

Due to the overlapping nature of the hacker concept space, many of these individuals could be included in more than one category. See also Hacker (computer security), which has a list of people in that category, including criminal and unethical hackers.

Hacker - Recognized programmers

• Mel Kaye — Near-legendary figure and the archetypal Real Programmer. He was credited with doing "the bulk of the programming" for the Royal McBee LGP-30 drum-memory computer in the 1950s. In the 1980s, Ed Nather, another hacker, published "The Story of Mel," [1], now regarded as one of the most famous pieces of hacker folklore.
• Dan Bernstein — Author of qmail and djbdns. He is also a mathematician and cryptographer.
• John Carmack — Widely recognized and influential game programmer. Through his work, he has made significant contributions to the field of 3D computer graphics and his games have sold in the millions. In 1999, Carmack appeared as number 10 in TIME's list of the 50 most influential people in technology.
• Bill Gates — Co-Founder of Microsoft and creator of the original Microsoft BASIC in 8 weeks [2]. He is currently most famous for having headed the Forbes list of the world's richest for many years.
• Bill Gosper
• Richard Greenblatt — MIT hacker; Founder of Lisp Machines, Inc.
• Bill Joy — Co-founder of Sun Microsystems and author of many fundamental projects.
• Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie — Creators of Unix in 1969. Ritchie is also notable for having created the C programming language.
• Linus Torvalds — Creator of the Linux kernel.
• John McCarthy — Inventor of the Lisp programming language. Also coined the term "Artificial Intelligence".
• Rob Pike — Member of the Unix team at Bell Labs; co-designer of the Plan 9 and Inferno operating systems.
• Richard Stallman — Founder of the free software movement and the GNU Project, creator of Emacs and GCC.
• Guido Van Rossum — Creator of the Python programming language.
• Rasmus Lerdorf — Creator of the PHP Programming language.
• Wietse Venema — Creator of the Postfix mail system.
• Larry Wall — Creator of the Perl programming language.
• Steve Wozniak — Co-founder of Apple Computer who got his start making devices for phone phreaking.

Hacker - Security Experts

Fyodor — The author of Nmap & STC.

Johan "Julf" Helsingius — Operated the world's most popular anonymous remailer, the Penet remailer (called penet.fi), until he closed up shop in September 1996.

Horatio Huxham — Made public a security hole in a South African banking system.

Tsutomu Shimomura — Shimomura helped catch Kevin Mitnick, the United States' most infamous computer intruder, in early 1994. He is the co-author of a book about the Mitnick case, Takedown: The Pursuit and Capture of Kevin Mitnick, America's Most Wanted Computer Outlaw-By the Man Who Did It (ISBN 0786889136).

Josip "Ewolix" — Founder of the FistNet, Slovenian whitehat community with web university.

Solar Designer — Founder of the Openwall Project.

Michal Zalewski (lcamtuf) — Prominent security researcher.

Zaraza (3APA3A) — Russian security researcher who has located various flaws in Microsoft Windows and Unix

Adrian Lamo - American whitehat hacker who gained notoriety by hacking high-profile organizations using common flaws in their webpages. Hacks include The New York Times, AOL, MCI Worldcom, Cingular, Google, and the NSA.

Hacker - Hardware modifiers

• Don Lancaster — author of the Hardware Hacker column in Radio Electronics magazine.

Hacker - Hacker media personalities

Listed below are individuals who, while fitting in one or more of the above categories, are more widely famous (especially among the general public) for their media presence than their technical accomplishments.

• CULT OF THE DEAD COW — A high profile hacker group that has both made news and been consulted by the media on numerous occasions.
• Eric S. Raymond — One of the founders of the Open Source Initiative. He wrote the famous text The Cathedral and the Bazaar and many other essays. He also maintains the Jargon File for the Hacker culture, which was previously maintained by Guy L. Steele, Jr..
• Bruce Perens — Also one of the founders of the Open Source Initiative. He was the former Debian GNU/Linux Project Leader, and is the primary author of the Open Source Definition.

See also

• General
  • Computer crime
  • Hacker culture
  • Hacker ethic
  • Hacker Emblem
  • Hacker Manifesto
  • Biohacker
  • Reality hacker
  • Information wants to be free
• Related
  • Quick-and-dirty

• Lists
  • List of fictional hackers

Hacker - Related books

• Steven Levy (1984). Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, Doubleday. ISBN 0385191952.
• Bruce Sterling (1992). The Hacker Crackdown, Bantam. ISBN 055308058X.
• Michelle Slatalla & Joshua Quittner (1995). Masters of Deception: The Gang That Ruled Cyberspace, HarperCollins. ISBN 0060170301.
• Suelette Dreyfus (1997). Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier, Mandarin. ISBN 1863305955.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Hacker", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki