barmar@mit-eddie.UUCP (Barry Margolin) (09/18/83)
Gary Fostel was kind enough to quote the MIT/Stanford Jargon file, but I think he is wrong in giving in to the media because the definition they use made it in there. Note that the definition they use is number 6, and definitions are ordered in dictionaries by the commonness of use. Thus, this was a very uncommon use of the term, but it has now moved to the top of the list because of its misuse by the media. Please, no flames from the "but this is how languages grow" people. I understand that, but it is not good for a term to suddenly switch major meanings this way. We "true hackers" would still like to be able to use the term without sounding like crooks. I also don't think that the media was intending to use definition 6, anyway, but they just lucked out. I believe that this happened because the "crackers" (the best of the suggested terms for them that I have seen on the net) like to call themselves hackers (in the definition 1 sense), and the media has picked up on this and is using it for them, too, but with the negative connotation. -- Barry Margolin ARPA: barmar@MIT-Multics UUCP: ..!genrad!mit-eddie!barmar
ian@utcsstat.UUCP (Ian F. Darwin, Toronto, Canada <ian@utcsstat.uucp>) (09/19/83)
Gary Fostel has brought out his copy of `jargon.txt' to support the media in their use of `hacker' to mean `system breaker.' I would not undertake to argue with `jargon.txt;1', but the media are trying hard to make hacker have only meaning 6. (This was one who breaks systems, eg. `password hacker', `network hacker'). When they pick up on a buzz word, its meaning can be irrevocably changed in the minds of the public. Some hackers are malicious. So are some doctors, accountants, lawyers and, yes, furniture makers. But if the media were trying to equate the word `accountant' with the word `absconder', you would hear an outcry of possibly unrivalled proportions. We owe ourselves no less.
scotth@tekmdp.UUCP (Scott Herzinger) (09/20/83)
The mass media can't be blamed for their use of the term "hacker".
Computing's own trade magazines use the term in the same ways.
For a case in point, see the front cover of last week's Computer-
World (I think last week's, at least one of the last two issues).
For the record, I'm not a hacker.
--
Scott Herzinger
Tektronix, Inc.
PO Box 4600, MS 92/525
Beaverton, OR 97075
Usenet: ...{ucbvax,decvax,pur-ee,ihnss,chico}!teklabs!tekmdp!scotth
ARPA: tekmdp!scotth.tektronix @ rand-relay
CSnet: tekmdp!scotth @ tektronix
--jsq@ut-sally.UUCP (09/21/83)
Why doesn't somebody who's seen all these derogatory uses of hacker
on the television news and in the printed press (I haven't, but
then watching Dan Rather isn't my idea of fun) collect together
all the annoyed responses that have appeared on USENET, request
permission from the articles of the individual articles, and
mail off copies of the lot to the perpetrators? Might turn out
to be a newsworthy story in itself:
Hackers Riot on E-Net! :->
Griping among ourselves won't make any difference, but that might.
--
John Quarterman, CS Dept., University of Texas, Austin, Texas
{ihnp4,kpno,ut-ngp}!ut-sally!jsq, jsq@ut-sally.{ARPA,UUCP}