Hacking Begins…
by EyeScream


You wanna know what a *hacker* is?

Switch off your TV. I know its hard. Its been nurturing you since childhood, taught you right from wrong and all the rest, huh?

Now I know the TV told you that a *hacker* is the cyber bogeyman, an evil genius that sleeps with his eyes open in front of his computer just waiting for YOU to turn on your computer and then WHAM! steal all that is precious to YOU and destroy the rest. He may even sell some of the things he got from you – the TV hadn’t decided yet. You’ve also heard the stories about those little boys and girls that went playing in the Dark Codewoods without their friend McAfee…

What if I told you that the TV is WRONG?

Are you alright? You look kinda pale and sweaty, do you want me to bring you your inhaler?

No, then I’ll continue.

There have been hackers since the dawn of civilization. Yes, I know there weren’t any computers at that time, but who said that hacking is to do with computers exclusively… I told you to switch off that TV didn’t I!

The term *hacker* was first coined at MIT in the 50s. As we nowadays use the term *cool* to describe something or someone, the term hacker was at that time designed to describe a person who enjoyed playing with things (computers being one of them), by taking them apart, learning as much as possible about their inner workings, making original modifications and thus improving their performance or even coming up with different purposes for use altogether. The mentality behind all of this was good ol’ fashioned … *fun*. The hackers *enjoyed* thinking about new applications for existing tools. For them it was a *game* that never stopped and could be applied to anything be it an object or a hole field of art such as Physics, Computers, Mechanics or Literature. Thus this universally applicable activity became known as *hacking*.

So how come the TV says…?

Back in the 80s young teenagers who were fascinated by computers discovered that there is another world out there, one you couldn’t really see or touch but which was populating fast with like-minded people. In this world you could meet others through Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) even if they lived thousands of miles away. It was all very exciting...