Hacker, Cracker or Slacker?

David Lightman [Matthew Broderick]: WarGames (1983)

Gus Gorman [Richard Pryor]: Superman III (1983)

MacGyver [Richard Dean Anderson]: MacGyver (1985 - 1992)

Angela Bennett [Sandra Bullock]: The Net (1995)

Ethan Hunt [Tom Cruise]: Mission Impossible (1996)

Neo [Keanu Reeves]: The Matrix (1999)

Kyle Broflovski: South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999)

Stanley [Hugh Jackman]: Swordfish (2001)

Glossary

exploits - preexisting bugs that are leveraged by the hacker to gain access to a computer and used for unintended behavior

reverse engineering - the process of understanding how something works often by taking it apart and analyzing its workings. Sciences such as biology and physics can be thought of as doing reverse-engineering and they work to understand the biological and physical worlds

luddites - The Luddites were a social movement of English textile workers in the early 1800s who protested — often by destroying textile machines — against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt threatened their jobs. In contemporary times a luddite or luddism is associated with anyone who rejects technological progress.

slackers - habitual procrastination, shun technology in resistance of work, zero work
- slacker techniques: breaks, email/im/chat, double-time (doing freelance on the clock)
- slacker software:

• http://www.digitalvolcano.co.uk/fakebar.html
• http://www.lifehacker.com/software/wallpaper/look-busy-with-a-fake-desktop-background-212236.php
• http://roachfiend.com/archives/2006/10/24/panic-a-boss-key-for-firefox/
• http://www.mindgems.com/products/Boss-Key/boss-key.htm
  

nihilism - the world, and especially past and current human existence, is without objective meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or essential value

hacker -

• one who accesses a system by evading or disabling security measures
• someone who messes around with something
• A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in particular.
• In computer programming, a hacker is a software designer and programmer who builds elegant, beautiful programs and systems.
• a person who uses kludges to accomplish programming tasks that are ugly, inelegant, and inefficient.
• a person who makes things work beyond perceived limits through their own technical skill, such as a hardware hacker, or reality hacker
• hackers choose to hack because it is a way for them to learn, and because they are often frustrated and bored in school

cracker - uses their skills with malicious intent

How to become a hacker by Eric Steven Raymond

mainstreamification of hacking:
http://www.lifehacker.com/software/diet%20hacks/
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