When is one a "Hacker"?

[hellow533]

As far as I am concerned, if you can hack into the pentagon and steal 2 billion dollars to fund your hello kitty collection then you are a hacker.. If you can delete everything in the HLS database, you are a hacker. Finding Google's IP address or getting admin access to a lame ass site nobody uses is not being a true hacker. That is why I'm not a hacker, I'm just good with computers.

So if i do something really hard core and risk prosecution? or is your interpretation based on difficulty?

It's based on being able to do something useful without getting caught.

[Phantom Wolf]

As far as I am concerned, if you can hack into the pentagon and steal 2 billion dollars to fund your hello kitty collection then you are a hacker.. If you can delete everything in the HLS database, you are a hacker. Finding Google's IP address or getting admin access to a lame ass site nobody uses is not being a true hacker. That is why I'm not a hacker, I'm just good with computers.

So if i do something really hard core and risk prosecution? or is your interpretation based on difficulty?

It's based on being able to do something useful without getting caught.

Yes, pretentious, don't you know how useful a Hello Kitty collection is? /joke

What is your definition of useful, hellow533?

[neuromanta]

As far as I am concerned, if you can hack into the pentagon and steal 2 billion dollars to fund your hello kitty collection then you are a hacker.. If you can delete everything in the HLS database, you are a hacker. Finding Google's IP address or getting admin access to a lame ass site nobody uses is not being a true hacker. That is why I'm not a hacker, I'm just good with computers.

So if i do something really hard core and risk prosecution? or is your interpretation based on difficulty?

It's based on being able to do something useful without getting caught.

So... if I do the laundry (which is useful, that's a fact), and no one catches me, then I'm a hacker?
And, do you consider deleting the HLS database useful? Let me be the first to congratulate you...

[tucak]

Oh, and by the way, Google's answer. Guess I really am a hacker.

someone who plays golf poorly

Oh my god, I'm a hacker too!

[winter-owned]

This seems like a silly, semantic question. It's obviously not too silly, because I'm inclined to open my big mouth. I don't understand why it matters other than as a matter of definition. I think the terminology that surrounds hacking is ambiguous to say the least.

I understand the frustrations of a hacker, who, as a programmer, gets confused with kids "hacking" peoples websites to do God knows what.

At the same time, the 99% of the population needs some sort of term to refer to these kiddies. No one says their silly little webpage was "cracked" into. The term English speakers have agreed upon is "hacked into". The hacker community, by latching on to that very name has set itself up for the very issue it now complains of. You can't everyday people who barely use their personal computers and talk about hacking a few times a year to distinguish the difference between hackers and crackers.

I have, one time only, "hacked" a website and caused it to function differently to the way the person who wrote the script intended it to. According to the hacker community that alone would not earn me any kudos necessarily. That is fine, but how would I explain to my Mom what it was up to?