What is “hacking”?

We live in an era where computers are widely accepted as a part of life, and where some knowledge about the Internet and using computers is increasingly common. Hackers represent a subculture that has developed along with the integration of computers into society, starting with the original MIT members who coined the term hack to mean “an appropriate application of ingenuity” (Phil Agre quoted in “The Meaning of ‘Hack’” 2003) and evolving to today when hacking has become synonymous with the fight for freedom of information and open-source software projects.

To define one hacker subculture is too simplistic, especially given the long history of hacking dating from its origins in the ‘60s and ‘70s, however as an outsider I will admit to generalizing about hackers in this article because I lack an insider understanding that is necessary to make those distinctions. To come to a basic understanding what defines a hacker it is important to make a distinction between the media’s construction of hackers and the way they hackers define themselves. The media depicts hackers as destructive, malicious people whose goals are to disrupt and demolish. Individuals whose sole purpose is to cause damage and cause trouble are referred to by hackers as “crackers” and hackers experience deep frustration that crackers are confused by the media to be the same as “hackers” (“How To Become A Hacker” 2001). ‘True’ hackers make a very deep distinction between themselves and crackers, and show no patience for crackers they encounter. Hackers much prefer to use their skills to solve problems and create new programs than to cause damage to others or to steal information and property. One hacker put it this way: “[m]any hackers — myself included — have stepped over the arbitrary line that the government has drawn separating legal from illegal. But that’s not a requirement of hacking. It just happens to be a common side effect. For most hackers, the intent is not to vandalize, break laws, or terrorize. It’s to learn and explore” (Ibid quoted in “the hacker criminal” 2001).

Comparing traditional hacker ethics to the ethics found in the current hacker culture reveals that changes have clearly been necessary in order to distinguish themselves from the media perception of what “a hacker” is (“Hacker culture(s): New hacker ethics” 2000, “Hacker culture(s): Traditional hacker ethics” 2000). In the Jargon File, the open-source, public dictionary of hacker terminology, a hack is described both as as “an appropriate application of ingenuity” and a practical joke; a true hack always involves a level of cleverness, as well as admiration for the way in which the hack was executed. One example of this would be how the staff at Motorola hacked a Xerox program to point out to Xerox the seriousness of a security vulnerability. It is important to note here that the Motorola staff notified Xerox on several occasions about the issue, but it received no attention. Eventually the Motorola staff took action and created two virus-like programs called “Friar Tuck” and “Robin Hood.” The programs exploited flaws in the system by by instructing the system to behave in strange ways that got the immediate attention of the Xerox staff. When the Xerox staff attempted to destroy the program called “Robin Hood,” the following words flashed across the screen:
!X id1
id1: Friar Tuck… I am under attack! Pray save me!
id1: Off (aborted)
id2: Fear not, friend Robin! I shall rout the Sheriff
of Nottingham’s men!
id1: Thank you, my good fellow! (“The Meaning of ‘Hack’” 2003).
This example illustrates perfectly the difference between a hack and a crack. Hacker ethics defined the boundaries within which the Motorola team worked (“Hacker Culture(s): New hacker ethics” 2000). They were curiously exploring when they encountered the security hole, but even when they were exploiting the problem, they upheld the hacker imperative of “above all else, do no harm” and inflicted no damage to the system itself. This is one of the main arguments used by hackers to support the idea of open-source software. Because the Motorola team executed the hack, the Xerox team was able to build a safer system to protect their information (“Hacker Culture(s): Dimensions” 2000).

The slang or jargon used by hackers, although based mostly on English, is influenced by computer languages and includes many adaptations made to accommodate text based communication. Language is a central element to hacker culture, both because communication is essential for sharing information and because it serves as a way of marking themselves as hackers (ie not crackers). The way in which hackers have taken English and adapted it, appending new rules and words gathered from the sources around them, is a logical extension of their drive for problem solving an ingenuity. Interestingly, although these changes to language originally occurred while in text based mediums, they are often reclaimed by hackers when talking to each other in real life. For example, instead of exhaling loudly or groaning to express frustration, the word “sigh” or “groan” might be spoken aloud instead (“Spoken inarticulations” 2003). While their use of programming languages may influence new words and uses of language, it also restricts the way in which they use contemporary english grammar rules. For example, hackers rarely use double negatives or ambiguous sentence structure (“Hacker speech style” 2003). Other adaptations to english include “doubling” verbs, such as “boy, what a bagbiter! Chomp chomp!” (“Verb Doubling” 2003) and using sound-alike slang, often in a way that reveals a “hidden” truth, for example “Internet Explorer” becomes “Internet Exploiter” (“Soundalike Slang” 2003).
An important element of hacker language is the deliberate use of puns and other wordplay. These appear to be both an acting out of the hacker ethos of cleverness for cleverness sake, but also as a way to mark oneself as a hacker to other hackers (“Hacker speech style” 2003). An example of this is described by one of the contributors to the Jargon File when describing the tendency to adopt the programming language convention of adding “P” to a sentence to denote a question. While at lunch, one hacker turned to other hackers at the table and asked “split -p soup?” meaning “would you like to split this large bowl of soup with me?” (“The -P Convention” 2003).

Although there is no conventional political orientation typically found amongst hackers (“Politics” 2003) there is certainly an understanding of politics as central to what it means to be a hacker. Hacking has occasionally been used in conventionally political ways to hack institutions that are acting in ways that run contrary to the values of the hacker (“Hacker Culture(s): Dimensions” 2003), but the ethics of hacking are inherently infused with politics. Central to the hacker identity is the fight for freedom of access to information and public creation of knowledge bases. Much of the politics involved in being a hacker revolves around this central theme. The hacker community in present day is virtually synonymous with the community that strives toward developing open-source software, non-profit software that is developed through the process of posting the code publicly where anyone can adapt it in order to create more efficient programs (“The Open Source Definitions Version 1.9” 2005). It is important to note that this is a recent shift, and that historically most hackers were writing closed-source software (“How To Become A Hacker” 2001). This evolution is logical when you consider that even in its origins, hacking involved seeking out ways to solve problems. Solving problems multiple times by multiple people is a waste of time and energy for individuals, and from this basis the open-source software concept was born. (“How To Become A Hacker” 2001).

Another traditional hacker ethic, the mistrust of authority because authority substitutes power for information, has also evolved along with the integration of the Internet and computers into everyday life (“Hacker culture(s): Traditional hacker ethics” 2000). Current hacker culture strives to fight against what it dubs “cyber-tyranny,” or the attempt of governments and those in authority to control access to information (“Hacker culture(s): New hacker ethics” 2000). One such hacker project that illustrates the politics behind this is “Operation Clambake,” in which hackers distributed the book of Scientology, a piece of writing traditionally kept closely guarded by the church that was moved into the public domain after a US court trial. The purpose of this was declared by the initiator of the project as a way to reveal that the church was hiding behind copyright laws in order to deceive the public about “the true nature of Scientology” (Andreas Heldal-Lund quoted in “Hacker culture(s): Traditional hacker ethics” 2000).
Hacker culture also moves into the political by redefining the values that individuals within the community should be valued by. In his online article about “How To Become A Hacker,” Eric S. Raymond (2001), a well known activist in the open-source community as well as the individual currently in charge of the Jargon File, discusses how acceptance into the culture of hacking is very unlike traditional Western culture in that your status within the community is based upon what knowledge and information you contribute. Ideas of equality are also inherent in the culture of hacking (“Hacker Culture(s): Traditional hacker ethics” 2000), and as the Jargon File notes, while this may be a function of communication largely through a text-based medium, it also points out that many hackers are connected to communities of science fiction and artificial intelligence which have more inclusive narratives of personhood than is found in Western society (“Gender and Ethnicity” 2003).

Compared to many subcultures of the present day, hacker subculture is much more overtly political than most. Present day hacker culture has a rigid and explicit definition of what behaviours are acceptable and what behaviours are not, and although they may move outside of what governments defines as legal, hackers cohere strongly to the internal set of morals and values laid out by their culture. The depth and strength of hacker subculture is exemplified in the sheer amount of unique language and language use they lay claim to and by their ability to evolve along with computers and societal understanding of computers while still retaining a core set of political aims and cultural imperatives.

Works cited
“Chapter 7. Hacker speech style.” 2003. The on-line hacker Jargon File, version 4.4.7. Retrieved October 23, 2005. (http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/speech-style.html).
“Gender and Ethnicity.” The on-line hacker Jargon File, version 4.4.7. Retrieved October 23, 2005. (http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/demographics.html).
“Hacker Culture(s): Dimensions.” 2000. Jonas Löwgren. Retrieved October 23, 2005. (http://webzone.k3.mah.se/k3jolo/HackerCultures/dimensions.htm).
“Hacker culture(s): New hacker ethics.” 2000. Jonas Löwgren. Retrieved October 23, 2005. (http://webzone.k3.mah.se/k3jolo/HackerCultures/newethics.htm).
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“Politics.” 2003. The on-line hacker Jargon File, version 4.4.7. Retrieved October 23, 2005. (http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/politics.htm).
“Soundalike Slang.” 2003. The on-line hacker Jargon File, version 4.4.7. Retrieved October 23, 2005. (http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/soundalike-slang.html).
“Spoken inarticulations.” 2003. The on-line hacker Jargon File, version 4.4.7. Retrieved October 23, 2005. (http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/inarticulations.html).
“the hacker criminal.” 2001. John Harris Stevenson. Retrieved October 23, 2005. (http://www.tranquileye.com/hackerculture/approaches/approaches03.html).
“The Meaning of ‘Hack’.” 2003. The on-line hacker Jargon File, version 4.4.7. Retrieved October 23, 2005. (http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/meaning-of-hack.html).
“The Open Source Definition Version 1.9.” 2005. The Open Source Initiative. Retrieved October 23, 2005. (http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php).
“The -P Convention.” 2003. The on-line hacker Jargon File, version 4.4.7. Retrieved October 23, 2005. (http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/p-convention.html).
“Verb Doubling.” 2003. The on-line hacker Jargon File, version 4.4.7. Retrieved October 23, 2005. (http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/verb-doubling.html).

Plagarism is BAD and WRONG. Anyone found using any part of this essay without permission will be promptly keel hauled.