Hacker (programmer subculture)

A hacker is an adherent of the computer programmer subculture that originally emerged in academia in the 1960s, in particular around the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)'s Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC) and MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.^{[citation needed]} Hackers from this subculture tend to emphatically differentiate themselves from what they pejoratively call "crackers", that is, those who are generally meant when media and the general public people use the term "hacker", and whose primary focus, be it for malicious or beneficial reasons, are weaknesses in computer security .

Definition

The Jargon File, an influential but not universally accepted compendium of hacker slang, defines hacker as "A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and stretching their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary." The Request for Comments (RFC) 1392, the Internet Users' Glossary, amplifies this meaning as "A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in particular." As documented in the Jargon File, these hackers are disappointed by the mass media and general public's usage of the word hacker to refer to security breakers, calling them “crackers” instead. This includes both “good” crackers (“white hat hackers”) who use their computer security related skills and knowledge to learn more about how systems and networks work and to help to discover and fix security holes, as well as those more "evil" crackers (“black hat hackers”) who use the same skills to author harmful software (like viruses, trojans, etc.) and illegally infiltrate secure systems with the intention of doing harm to the system. The programmer subculture of hackers, in contrast to the cracker community, generally sees computer security related activities as contrary to the ideals of the original and true meaning of the hacker term that instead related to playful cleverness.

History

Before communications between computers and computer users were as networked as they are now, there were multiple independent and parallel hacker subcultures, often unaware or only partially aware of each others' existence.^{[citation needed]} All of these had certain important traits in common:^{[citation needed]}

• Creating software and sharing it with each other
• Placing a high value on freedom of inquiry; hostility to secrecy
• Information-sharing as both an ideal and a practical strategy
• Upholding the right to fork
• Emphasis on rationality
• Distaste for authority
• Playful cleverness, taking the serious humorously and their humor seriously

These sorts of subcultures were commonly found at academic settings such as college campuses.^{[citation needed]} The MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the University of California, Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon University were particularly well-known hotbeds of early hacker culture.^{[citation needed]} They evolved in parallel, and largely unconsciously, until the Internet, where a legendary PDP-10 machine at MIT, called AI, that was running ITS, provided an early meeting point of the hacker community.^{[citation needed]} This and other developments such as the rise of the free software movement drew together a critically large population and encouraged the spread of a conscious, common, and systematic ethos.^{[citation needed]} Symptomatic of this evolution were an increasing adoption of common slang and a shared view of history, similar to the way in which other occupational groups have professionalized themselves but without the formal credentialing process characteristic of most professional groups.^{[citation needed]}

Over time, the academic hacker subculture has tended to become more conscious, more cohesive, and better organized.^{[citation needed]} The most important consciousness-raising moments have included the composition of the first Jargon File in 1973, the promulgation of the GNU Manifesto in 1985, and the publication of The Cathedral and the Bazaar in 1997.^{[citation needed]} Correlated with this has been the gradual recognition of a set of shared culture heroes, including: Bill Joy, Donald Knuth, Dennis Ritchie, Alan Kay, Ken Thompson, Richard M. Stallman, Linus Torvalds, Larry Wall, and Guido Van Rossum.^{[citation needed]}

The concentration of academic hacker subculture has paralleled and partly been driven by the commoditization of computer and networking technology, and has in turn accelerated that process.^{[citation needed]} In 1975, hackerdom was scattered across several different families of operating systems and disparate networks;^{[citation needed]} today it is largely a Unix and TCP/IP phenomenon, and is concentrated around various operating systems based on free software and open-source software development.^{[citation needed]}

Ethics and principles

Main article: Hacker ethic

Many of the values and tenets of the free and open source software movement stem from the hacker ethics that originated at MIT and at the Homebrew Computer Club.^{[citation needed]} The Hacker Ethics were chronicled by Steven Levy in Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution and in other texts.^{[citation needed]}

Hacker ethics are concerned primarily with sharing, openness, collaboration,^{[citation needed]} and engaging in the Hands-On Imperative.

Linus Torvalds, one of the leaders of the Open Source movement (Known primarily for developing Linux's core), has noted in the book "The Hacker Ethic" that these principles have evolved from the known Protestant Ethics and incorporates the spirits of capitalism, as introduced in the early 20th century by Max Weber.

Artifacts and customs

The Glider, proposed as an emblem of the "hacker community" by Eric S. Raymond.

The academic hacker subculture is defined by shared work and play focused around central artifacts.^{[citation needed]} Some of these artifacts are very large; the Internet, the World Wide Web, the GNU Project, and the Linux kernel are all hacker creations,^{[citation needed]} works of which the subculture considers itself primary custodian.^{[citation needed]}

The academic hacker subculture has developed a rich^{[citation needed]} range of symbols that serve as recognition symbols and reinforce its group identity.^{[citation needed]} GNU's Gnu; the BSD Daemon; Tux, the Linux penguin; and the Perl Camel stand out as examples. The use of the glider structure from Conway's Game of Life as a general Hacker Emblem has been proposed by Eric S. Raymond.^{[citation needed]}

The academic hacker subculture has an annual ceremonial day—April Fool's.^{[citation needed]} There is a long tradition of perpetrating elaborate jokes, hoaxes, pranks and fake websites on this date,^{[citation needed]} which includes the publication of the annual joke RFC.

Use outside of computing

While the word hacker to refer to someone who enjoys playful cleverness is most often applied to computer programmers, it is sometimes used for people who apply the same attitude to other fields. For example, Richard Stallman describes the silent composition 4′33″ by John Cage and the 14th century palindromic three-part piece "Ma Fin Est Mon Commencement" by Guillaume de Machaut as hacks. According to the Jargon File, the word hacker was used in a similar sense among radio amateurs in the 1950s, predating the software hacking community.

Hack value

Hack value is the notion used by hackers to express that something is worth doing or is interesting. This is something that hackers often feel intuitively about a problem or solution.

An aspect of hack value is performing feats for the sake of showing that they can be done, even if others think it is difficult. Using things in a unique way outside their intended purpose is often perceived as having hack value. Examples are using a dot matrix impact printer to produce musical notes, using a flatbed scanner to take ultra-high-resolution photographs or using an optical mouse as barcode reader.

A solution or feat has hack value if it is done in a way that has finesse, cleverness or brilliance. So creativity is an important part of the meaning. For example, picking a difficult lock has hack value; smashing a lock does not. As another example, proving Fermat's last theorem by linking together most of modern mathematics has hack value; solving a combinatorial problem by exhaustively trying all possibilities does not.

See also

• History of free software
• Hacker (term)
• Unix philosophy

Further reading

The Jargon File has had a special role in acculturating hackers since its origins in the early 1970s.^{[citation needed]} These academic and literary works help shaped the academic hacker subculture:^{[citation needed]} influential^{[citation needed]} are:

• Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, by Steven Levy (ISBN 9780385191951, Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday)
• Gödel, Escher, Bach, by Douglas Hofstadter (ISBN 9780465026852, New York, NY: Basic Books)
• The Art of Computer Programming (TAOCP), by Donald Knuth (ISBN 9780201038019, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley)
• The Mythical Man-Month, by Brooks (ISBN 9780201006506, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley)
• Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools ("the Dragon Book"), by Aho, Sethi, and Ullman (ISBN 9780201100884, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley)
• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP), by Abelson and Sussman (ISBN 9780070004849, London: MIT Press)
• The C Programming Language (K&R), by Kernighan and Ritchie (ISBN 9780131103702, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall)
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams (ISBN 9780517542095, New York, NY: Harmony Books)
• The Tao of Programming, by Geoffrey James (ISBN 9780931137075, Santa Monica, CA: InfoBooks)
• The Illuminatus! Trilogy, by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson (ISBN 9780440539810, New York, NY: Dell Publishing)
• Principia Discordia, by Greg Hill and Kerry Thornley (ISBN 9780962653421, Avondale Estates, GA: IllumiNet Press)
• The Soul of a New Machine, by Tracy Kidder (ISBN 9780316491709, Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company)
• The Cuckoo's Egg, by Cliff Stoll (ISBN 9780385249461, New York, NY: Doubleday)
• The Unix System, by Stephen R. Bourne (ISBN 9780201137910, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley)
• Hackers & Painters, by Paul Graham (ISBN 9780596006624, Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly Media)
• The Cathedral and the Bazaar, by Eric S. Raymond (ISBN 9781565927247, Cambridge, MA: O'Reilly Media)
• The essays^{[citation needed]} of Richard M. Stallman (many published in Free Software, Free Society: Select Essays of Richard M. Stallman) ^{[ISBN, Publisher Name and Location Needed]}

External links

• A Brief History of Hackerdom
• Hacking collected news and commentary at The Guardian
• Gabriella Coleman: The Anthropology of Hackers. The Atlantic, 2010.