Talk:Hacking

Misc.

This definitely needs a lot of work. "Hacking" has not only come to mean unauthorized system intrusion "recently" -- the term has in fact been in use in that sense for decades (dating back at least to the 1970s, and very famously to the 1980s). As it currently reads now this isn't an encyclopedia article, but rather a POV rant on "why you shouldn't call people who break into computers 'hackers', despite the fact that that's the commonly accepted definition of the term". --Delirium 07:36, Aug 31, 2003 (UTC)

POV

Very POV in its current form. To take a few examples:

"Since Hacking is the process of making a computer program work better..." this is strictly POV. It depends totally on ones definition of "better". If I'm a software vendor that includes some copy protection in my code, and a hacker circumvents this, then from my POV the software isn't working better at all. In fact I'd say that most hacks rarely meet this definition from the POV of the software's original author.

"NO hacker ever engages in unauthorized access".vfdtftudllyuf Can you prove this? Given Delirium's comment above, and the public's perception of what "hacking" means, this is completely untrue.

In addition, the question and answer design of the article is very non-standard within Wikipedia. The section about crackers should be moved to that article.

This needs some serious rework, sorry. GRAHAMUK 22:44, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I should also mention that "hacking" has some other meanings not mentioned here, for example in connection to horseriding.... GRAHAMUK 22:46, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

A lot of words have subjective meanings. POV does not mean that the word is applied differently by different people. It means that the article is written in a one-sided manner. If there was an argument about what hacker meant and the article only showed the meaning used by one side, that would be POV. Also, if you were to say that a specific person is hacking, THAT might be POV, because you are then making a subjective judgment. Most people agree that one definition of hacking is "hacking is the process of making a computer program work better".

So, I disagree with your idea to remove the word better. I agree with your other objections, though. For further information, refer to Wikipedia's NPOV article. The part I emphasize is: "Articles without bias describe debates fairly rather than advocating any side of the debate." and subjective definitions do not advocate anything. – Olathe December 2023

Understood. However, I don't think the phrase as included was NPOV, simply because it wasn't presented as part of a debate, it was presented as a fact - "hacking is making software work better". That is debatable, hence can't be stated as a fact. I for one disagree with the definition. I'm not even sure I could agree with the statment "most people agree that ~" or "most people agree that one definition is ~". This sort of statement requires hard data, and I doubt that any such poll has ever been conducted. I think this is a bit beside the point. The article as written was clearly a rant as Delirium above pointed out, and the Q and A format is unlike anything else on WP. I've rewritten it, but already that's drawing fire for being too much like a dictionary. Fair point too, but some consensus is needed on how to present the article, if it is worth retaining at all. I want to make sure that the origin of the term in its computing sense is shown - derived from the common meaning - and that it can also mean other things that have nothing to do with computers. There is often too much blinkered article writing on WP that does not acknowledge the wider world, and often focuses on obscure corners of knowledge when a much richer article could be in there somewhere waiting to be brought out. GRAHAMUK 00:04, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

You assume that "hack" only means quick, shoddy changes. Some hacks are well-thought out. Some hacks are designed well. Those that aren't shouldn't be classified as "hacks" in the clever sense. They are hacks in the derogatory sense. I'm going to put it as two definitions in the article. – Olathe December 3, 2003

OK, sounds reasonable. Actually I do tend to think of hacks only in the derogatory sense, though I admit I have seen many very clever, elegant and well thought-out ones. I tend to think that the term "hack" shouldn't really be applied to these, even though it usually is. One concrete example: the original Mac QuickDraw defined the grafport data structure which occupied exactly 108 bytes, but strictly defined a 1-bit black and white graphics environment. When colour quickdraw came along, the data structure had to remain exactly 108 bytes long for compatibility (since it was incorporated into further data structures), but required many more fields for colour data. By subtly redefining certain fields and combining others and turning them into pointers, full compatibility was maintained. The OS could tell whether it was dealing with a colour or original grafport by examining certain bits. It became a union in other words. This is a hack in the good sense, since it was a change unanticipated by the original designers, but was clearly very carefully thought out. Once a hack reaches this level of elegance and is documented, I'm not sure the term hack is appropriate. To my mind this calls for a new term - software re-engineering perhaps? GRAHAMUK 00:22, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I've rewritten it into a more neutral and expanded form. One thing makes me laugh a bit - hackers get pissed off that they are branded as crackers. Hacking (good), Cracking (bad) seems to be the thinking. As a professional software engineer, while accepting that the occasional hack is necessary, to my mind they're both pretty bad. It's like saying "How dare you call me a murderer! I'm a goddam theif and don't you forget it!". If you've ever had to maintain code that contains what were considered clever hacks at the time, you'll know where I'm coming from. GRAHAMUK 23:07, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Disambiguation

This article should be changed into a disambiguation page. There's already an article for hacker. The computer-related information is already there and is needlessly duplicated here. – Olathe December 3, 2003

I've gone ahead and done this. Any changes that you wanted to make to the old version of this document can be made to the pointed-to pages, to stop the redundancy that was happening (information about what a computer hack is was included here, in hack, AND in hacker). This should solve the complaint about this being dictionary-like. – Olathe December 3, 2003

Now that I think of it, hack is effectively a disambiguation page. Plus, hacking is just a different grammatical form of hack. This page could be a redirect to it, assuming the horse and car information is moved to it. – Olathe December 3, 2003

Merging

See Talk:Hack#Merging. In short, I think it's a spectacularly bad idea. Noel (talk) 23:45, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

I say merge it --Navarro 02:00, 6 October 2005 (UTC) 01:58, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Clarification

Both hack, hacking, and hacker have poorly authored disambiguation pages. I'm going to attempt to clarifiy all three. Pandemic 05:55, 11 January 2006 (UTC) good work

what is hacking??

Permission to Include External Link

I'd like permission to include an external link to Computerworld's Cybercrime and Hacking Knowledge Center.

• Cybercrime & Hacking Knowledge Center Computerworld Magazine - The Cybercrime & Hacking research center includes the latest news, features, analyses, forums, best practices, research links and more.

Absolutely not. This is a disambiguation page; not an article. Kuru ^talk 00:43, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Is http://securecomputerscience.blogspot.com a good resource? and https://www.facebook.com/pages/Latest-hacking-news/278815618960712?ref=br_tf is also a good resource,, so try it for security with hacking .It looks like the owner is just starting out and might produce some good material, does it look worth me keeping an eye on? — Preceding unsigned comment added by BlackHatMentor (talk • contribs) 14:22, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Semi-protected

I've just semi-protected this page, as it has been attracting a steady flow of vandalism for as long as I've been watching it, from IPs and newly-registered users. I can see precious little in the way of positive contributions from such editors, so I think the risk of preventing genuine updates is very low - and anyone who can't wait until their account is autoconfirmed can always request their changes here -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:16, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Edit request on 6 January 2012

Hacking means finding out the weaknesses in an established system and exploiting it

Codenamezuck (talk) 10:37, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

That's not something we would add to a disambiguation page, which exists only to provide links to other pages -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:57, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Phone hacking

Shouldn't this article have a section clarifying what telephone hacking is - after all, it was this that led to the demise of the newspaper News of the World?ACEOREVIVED (talk) 19:11, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 February 2017

I would like to add the line which explains that there are three main types of hackers (White Hat, Grey Hat and Black Hat). I think it is important to distinguish that not all hackers are malicious. e.g. "Phone Hacking - gaining unauthorized access to mobile device" is not accurate considering that there are also authorized hacking exercises meant to test the security of the device or network (Penetration Test or Pentest).

Another thing worth adding is a history of the word "Hacking" and it's original meaning. Jacob O'Brien (talk) 13:21, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Not done: requests for decreases to the page protection level should be directed to the protecting admin or to Wikipedia:Requests for page protection if the protecting admin is not active or has declined the request. JTP ^{(talk • contribs)} 14:02, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 December 2023

149.19.43.16 (talk) 04:05, 8 December 2023 (UTC) –°

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. JTP ^{(talk • contribs)} 04:45, 8 December 2023 (UTC)