h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There seems to be a large misconception about the terms hackers and crackers.
A hacker is someone who will gain access to a remote system by discovering a hole in that systems security, for the simple reason to find out how that system works. Pure knowledge.
A cracker is someone who will remove the protection from commercial software pacages for the sole reason to understand how that protection scheme works and helping the programmer to implement a better one. Also for backup purposes.
From then on is just a matter of malicious hackers and curious hackers...

"A hacker is someone who will gain access to a remote system by discovering a hole in that systems security, for the simple reason to find out how that system works. Pure knowledge.
A cracker is someone who will remove the protection from commercial software pacages for the sole reason to understand how that protection scheme works and helping the programmer to implement a better one. Also for backup purposes."

Written by a 1337 H4X0R, no doubt. Your definition of 'cracker' is a particular sub-breed of cracker -- the copyright cracker, or warez d00d who has programming skill.

Hacker -- a particularly skilled computer user. That's it. (Warning: Occam's Razor has been applied liberally to your original definition. Watch for sharp edges.)
Cracker -- Insolent little beggar who likes breaking into your computers and screwing your stuff up for fun.
Sub-breeds of Cracker:
-- warez d00d -- a person who collects copious amounts of pirated software. "He who dies with the most warez wins" is an unspoken motto
-- script kiddie -- the most annoying of crackers. Having no real programming skill, script kiddies use scripts and programs written by proper crackers (or hackers who needed to get around a particular vulnerability) to, in the words of Quinten Tarantino, "f**k your s**t up". Regarded by hackers has having less value as a living creature than marketroids, suits and lawyers.

For more details, go to http://info.astrian.net/jargon/terms/h/hacker.html and http://info.astrian.net/jargon/terms/c/cracker.html -- they're from the top-PageRank(tm)ed JARGON file mirror.

No, Prophet was right.

And I don't see why people have a problem with Hacker having the definition it has now. Words mean what people think they mean, and hacker hasn't meant l33t computer enthusiasts since Wargames or even earlier. I mean, I once heard that Pencil was latin for "Small Pen1s"... but who remembers that?! Well, I mean, besides me.

Here are what I think the most generally accepted definitions of some of these words are:

Hackers are people who break into computers for sport.

Crackers are people who crack software

warezers are people who trade cracked software

phreakers are people who invent/utilize computer dodges (eg. the now mostly extinct phone phreakers)

This article is not only missing quite a bit but is quite inaccurate in many respects....

http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/H/hacker.html
and
http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/C/cracker.html

Tend to be fairly well recognised as the 'official' definitions

Small pen1s? You can write /penis/ on this site, y'know.

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