5 ms·

First Recorded Usage of "Hacker"

42 points by aaco 18y ago

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
henning 18y ago
Wardialing is over 40 years old? Learn something new every day.
- iuguy 18y ago
  Wierd, I thought war dialing (at least by hand) came about around the time of the Strowger Switch? I read somewhere (sorry, no link) that as telephones became popular people would ring numbers sequentially to see who was at the other end.
- gustavo_duarte 18y ago
  It's unclear to me exactly what's going on, but "'brute force techniques' - mass dialing until something 'interesting' is found" Sounds an awful lot like war dialing. Not sure what was on the other side though and what got done.
IsaacSchlueter 18y ago
"Hacker" is a bit like the term "witch" in the Wizard of Oz. "Are you a good hacker, or a bad hacker?" The techniques and thinking styles are the same, either way.
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
- brlewis 18y ago
  Decades ago to crack into a computer you needed to be a hacker, since computers were all different. Today we have "script kiddies" who most definitely aren't hackers, but are crackers. I don't think there's a script-kiddie equivalent for phone systems.
  - byrneseyeview 18y ago
    I thought the original hackers were almost exclusively using AT&T's system.
    - blogimus 18y ago
      Considering that Ma Bell was a monopoly until 1984, I'd agree. To paraphrase John Draper (aka Captain Crunch), "A system is a system, whether a phone network or a computer."
Herring 18y ago
It's like a disease endemic to us nerds. Honestly who looks at the word "hack" and thinks hey i'm gonna make a white hat form of this? An OS called GNU?? Linus was lucky he had a buddy in marketing to help him name the kernel otherwise we'd have something like the clusterfuck in gnome & kde packages.
- gustavo_duarte 18y ago
  hahahah. Exactly. Specifically, Linus' name for Linux was "Freax"
  - bootload 18y ago
    "... Linus' name for Linux was "Freax" ..." By himself he referred to it as "Linux" but thought it was lame. Only after the name being suggested by others did he agree. I got this "first-hand" from Revolution OS ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_OS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_OS You can watch it here ~ http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7707585592627775409 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7707585592627775409
    - gustavo_duarte 18y ago
      thanks!
boredguy8 18y ago
Also: First usage of a masculine pronoun when discussing hacking! Gotta protect 'the boys'.

42 points by aaco 18y ago

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

henning 18y ago

Wardialing is over 40 years old? Learn something new every day.

iuguy 18y ago
Wierd, I thought war dialing (at least by hand) came about around the time of the Strowger Switch? I read somewhere (sorry, no link) that as telephones became popular people would ring numbers sequentially to see who was at the other end.
gustavo_duarte 18y ago
It's unclear to me exactly what's going on, but "'brute force techniques' - mass dialing until something 'interesting' is found" Sounds an awful lot like war dialing. Not sure what was on the other side though and what got done.

IsaacSchlueter 18y ago

"Hacker" is a bit like the term "witch" in the Wizard of Oz. "Are you a good hacker, or a bad hacker?" The techniques and thinking styles are the same, either way.

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
brlewis 18y ago
Decades ago to crack into a computer you needed to be a hacker, since computers were all different. Today we have "script kiddies" who most definitely aren't hackers, but are crackers. I don't think there's a script-kiddie equivalent for phone systems.
- byrneseyeview 18y ago
  I thought the original hackers were almost exclusively using AT&T's system.
  - blogimus 18y ago
    Considering that Ma Bell was a monopoly until 1984, I'd agree. To paraphrase John Draper (aka Captain Crunch), "A system is a system, whether a phone network or a computer."

Herring 18y ago

It's like a disease endemic to us nerds. Honestly who looks at the word "hack" and thinks hey i'm gonna make a white hat form of this? An OS called GNU?? Linus was lucky he had a buddy in marketing to help him name the kernel otherwise we'd have something like the clusterfuck in gnome & kde packages.

gustavo_duarte 18y ago
hahahah. Exactly. Specifically, Linus' name for Linux was "Freax"
- bootload 18y ago
  "... Linus' name for Linux was "Freax" ..." By himself he referred to it as "Linux" but thought it was lame. Only after the name being suggested by others did he agree. I got this "first-hand" from Revolution OS ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_OS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_OS You can watch it here ~ http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7707585592627775409 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7707585592627775409
  - gustavo_duarte 18y ago
    thanks!

boredguy8 18y ago

Also: First usage of a masculine pronoun when discussing hacking! Gotta protect 'the boys'.