History & Impact of Hacking: Final PaperFrom HistoryOfComputingContents1 Introduction by everyone2 The Word "Hacker" by Carmelo Kintana2.1 Survey of Common Definitions2.2 Etymology2.3 Evolution2.4 Perceptions2.4.1 Public Perceptions2.4.2 Insider Perceptions2.5 Timeline of the word “Hack”3 Expert Programmer by Vikas Rajvanshy3.1 Hacker as an expert programmer3.2 Impact on society3.3 Famous hackers3.4 Where did all the hardware hackers go?3.5 Why are the top hackers today affiliated with Open Source?3.6 What is the role of hackers in corporations?4 Black Hat by Sandra Lemon & Hansen Liou4.1 History4.2 Early Examples4.3 Modern Examples & Motivations4.4 Impact of Hacking on Businesses and Governments5 White Hat by Michael Frederick5.1 Motivations5.1.1 Kevin Mitnick5.1.2 H.D. Moore5.2 History5.2.1 Rising out of the black hat community5.2.2 Reformation of former black hats5.2.3 Hacker literature5.3 Popular culture5.4 Impact5.4.1 Society5.4.2 Security6 Conclusion by everyone7 ReferencesHistory & Impact of Hacking > Final PaperIntroduction by everyoneThe hacker culture began in the 1960s and 1970s as an intellectual movement: exploring the unknown,documenting the arcane, and doing what others cannot. Many hacker subcultures developed independently and in parallel at various universities throughout the United States: Stanford, MIT, CalTech, Carnegie Mellon, UC Berkeley, and many others. The completion of the ARPANET linked these campuses and they were able to share their collective experiences, their knowledge, humor and skills. Together, they formed the first hacker culture.Many hackers began as expert programmers: programming gurus like Richard M. Stallman, founder of the Free Software Movement, and Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel. These programmers were able to found new loosely-connected organizations that would push the boundaries of accepted software engineering, and also technology. These figures serve to popularize the efforts of hacking to a society increasingly focused on computing.In the realm of computer security, with the advent of ubiquitous networking, a distinction began toform between two groups: the so-called black hat and white hat hackers. Both maintain a connectionto the haker ethic, but focus on different aspects and interpretations. The black hat culture is knownfor flouting authority and embracing anarchy, committing acts of mischief and malice and knowinglybreaking and entering secured systems—these are the hackers most often seen in the news andpopular culture. The white hats, the "ethical hackers", focus on other aspects of the hacker ethic: theyseek to understand, to satiate curiosity, and to inform.A compelling aspect of the history of hackers lies in the history of the word itself. To fully understandhow and why these often mutually disparate groups happened to be called the same name, we have to examine how the computer security definition sprang from its common English definition and how it evolved to identify these different communities. While it is intractable to provide even a definitedefinition of "hacker" due to the constant merging and fracturing of the English language, we will at the very least, attempt to provide a chronicle of the word's new definitions from their birth to their entry into standard American English.The Word "Hacker" by Carmelo KintanaTo use a computer science metaphor, the word “hacker” acts as a pointer to three different groups ofpeople, the expert programmers, the black hats, and the white hats. This section will examine in detailthe pointer itself. Detailed examinations of the “dereferenced” groups will take place later in thepaper.Survey of Common Definitions We must briefly describe and define each of the three hacker groups in order to be able to flesh out thediscussion properly. Many people see “hackers” as primarily referring to the people who are the mosttechnically proficient in a certain subject. We examine a subset of this group, the "expertprogrammers." A separate set of “hackers” are the "black hats". The group primarily uses their skillwith computers to attack computer systems and perform assorted malicious acts on their victims.This is the primary definition of hacker in the modern day. The "white hats" are the last set of"hackers." They are very similar to the black hats except they intend no malice and, indeed, may go farout of their way to prevent harm from coming to their hosts.The groups share a few common traits between them. For example, all three groups are generallythought to possess skill superior to those of their peers. In the case of the expert programmers, thissuperior skill is a defining characteristic. Indeed, if they did not possess superior skill and claimed tobe a hacker, they would simply be a poseur. Additionally, the other two groups are expected to havesuperior skill because if they did not, they would easily be captured. Many of the perceptions of the there groups overlap as well, this will be analyzed later.Outside of those few commonalities, the groups are very different. While the infiltration of foreigncomputer systems is a requirement for the black and white hats, it is irrelevant to the expert programmer. Also, the white and black hats are obviously opposites.Etymology The primary definition of "hacker" according to m-w.com (not counting the fruitless "one that hacks") is “a person who is inexperienced or unskilled at a particular activity.” It is remarkable that a word withthis meaning would eventually pick up definition number three: “an expert at programming and solvingproblems with a computer.” A quick glean of the definitions of the verb "hack" yields “to cut or sever withrepeated irregular or unskillful blows,” “to clear or make by or as if by cutting away vegetation,” and eventually “to manage successfully.” Etymologically, the word is derived from the Old English word for"hack," "haccian". What we get from all of this is that the word originally meant “people who chopbadly” and generalized from there.At first glance, it may seem that our computer forefathers did not choose wisely when developing ourvocabulary. To try to understand the logic behind this, we look to the very first proto-use of the wordin our context. Through an in-depth search online, we find that the original source is, not surprisingly,MIT – specifically, theTech Model Railroad Club. The very first documented semi-modern use of theword "hack" is
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