Hacking
Created | Updated Apr 30, 2002
Hacking - Evil or just misunderstood?
Hacking is an art.
There, i've said it. And i've probably shocked and disgusted alot of people. Everybody knows that hackers are evil people who break into your computer and mess things up and destroy data, right? They write nasty little virii (the correct plural for virus) that worm their way into your computer and reek havok on it's contents, right? And you do realise that i'm about to contradict everthing I just said, right?
Right.
First let us get a few things straightened out. REAL hackers are not evil little malcontents that like to break into other peoples' computers. A real hacker is an explorer, a tinkerer and an artist all rolled into one. A real hacker is someone who enjoy's messing around with computers. You know all those people you spent hours under their cars, souping them up, trying to make them do things they shouldn't? They're hackers too! The term hacker can be used to describe anyone who knows alot or does a paticular thing well, Someone who's interest in something goes above and beyond normal userdom, but for simplicity, and because most of these people all ready have words to describe themselves, I will use both the word hacker and hacking to describe activtites to do with computers only.
Okay, so why are people so confused about the term hacker? If the little b*****d that broke into you university account and deleted all you files isn't a hacker than what is he? All will be revealed, but first...
Time for a little history lesson. We're going to go back, back to a time when Bill wasn't even a twinkel in Mrs Gates eye and an Apple was a type of fruit that grew on trees. IBM ruled the roost and it was doing well. It's truely massive, ugly, space consuming, power hungry Computation machines were making them a tidy profit - not only because they cost so much to buy, but because they also cost so much to run as well! You needed Whole teams of people just the keep one computer operational! And man, we're they differcult to use. If you wanted to run a program (This was back before Operating systems had been invented) you couldn't just sit down at a terminal and start writing, you had to write the program out by hand and then have it punched up onto little pieces of card. Not only that but you had to write your programs in Binary (what computers run on at the most basic level - one's and zero's) so the computer could understand what it was being told to do.
Hacking is an art.
There, i've said it. And i've probably shocked and disgusted alot of people. Everybody knows that hackers are evil people who break into your computer and mess things up and destroy data, right? They write nasty little virii (the correct plural for virus) that worm their way into your computer and reek havok on it's contents, right? And you do realise that i'm about to contradict everthing I just said, right?
Right.
First let us get a few things straightened out. REAL hackers are not evil little malcontents that like to break into other peoples' computers. A real hacker is an explorer, a tinkerer and an artist all rolled into one. A real hacker is someone who enjoy's messing around with computers. You know all those people you spent hours under their cars, souping them up, trying to make them do things they shouldn't? They're hackers too! The term hacker can be used to describe anyone who knows alot or does a paticular thing well, Someone who's interest in something goes above and beyond normal userdom, but for simplicity, and because most of these people all ready have words to describe themselves, I will use both the word hacker and hacking to describe activtites to do with computers only.
Okay, so why are people so confused about the term hacker? If the little b*****d that broke into you university account and deleted all you files isn't a hacker than what is he? All will be revealed, but first...
Time for a little history lesson. We're going to go back, back to a time when Bill wasn't even a twinkel in Mrs Gates eye and an Apple was a type of fruit that grew on trees. IBM ruled the roost and it was doing well. It's truely massive, ugly, space consuming, power hungry Computation machines were making them a tidy profit - not only because they cost so much to buy, but because they also cost so much to run as well! You needed Whole teams of people just the keep one computer operational! And man, we're they differcult to use. If you wanted to run a program (This was back before Operating systems had been invented) you couldn't just sit down at a terminal and start writing, you had to write the program out by hand and then have it punched up onto little pieces of card. Not only that but you had to write your programs in Binary (what computers run on at the most basic level - one's and zero's) so the computer could understand what it was being told to do.
