"Hacker" Term misused again
On the O'Reilly editors' list, Mark Brokering sent around a link to a Wall Street Journal article entitled FBI Says Companies Need to Report Hackers.
Jonathan Gennick wrote:
I wish for more quotes in the article. It sounds like, though, that the FBI wants businesses to report "cyber attacks" and that the Journal translated "cyber attacks" into "hackers". And thus the reading public is once again subtly led down the path of equating "hacker" with "criminal".Mark replied:
I think the hack writer who wrote the Wall Street Journal headline came up with the word "hacker." The AP story got it right. So did the Washington Post.(As with the recent discussions about Web 2.0, this is an interesting example of something we might call a "meme war", where a meme is on the loose, and different groups are fighting over its meaning. In the end, a word means whatever the white rabbit of popular usage says it means. But it's also true that words have different meanings in subcultures, and that sometimes, a subculture meaning transforms the mainstream meaning, as the mainstream culture tries to absorb the "hipness" of the subculture that originated the term. We like to think that it's still possible to recapture the positive association for the term "hack." We know that geeks are now chic, so let's hope those headline writers get the message: If you want to be cool, use the word "hack" like we do!)
tags:
| comments: 7
| Sphere It
submit: 
0 TrackBacks
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://blogs.oreilly.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-t.cgi/4234
Comments: 7
As someone who writes on computer security for a non-technical publication, I'm faced with two related problems: a lack of a better (and still concise) term and a lack of space. Years ago there was a push to use "cracker," but that never took off. Each time I need to refer to the unsavory characters who do the bad stuff online, I have only a limited amount of space to do it in, particularly if it's in a headline. If I have to say (as I do each time I review an O’Reilly Hacks book), "I don’t mean the bad 'hack' but rather the good one, which means…" I'm quickly out of space. So when it comes time to describe the malicious folks, our readers are comfortable with "hacker" and I can only take small steps to introduce them to the "positive association" that should exist in their minds. We need a new meme for the bad guys. One that fits in a headline. Until we get one, Randal is right: the collision is inevitable.
Then quit using the word "hacker" to describe yourself. Words fall into dispute rather often, and the fact they fall into dispute meant quite a few people felt the word described disreputable people or actions in the first place. Note: it was "felt" - not necessarily true.
O'Reilly may be fighting this trend with ".... Hacks" series of books but I doubt the battle will be one because the word is now symbolic.
A mature way to encourage the investigation of software/ hardware for purposes other than its expressed intent or to push the envelope of a tool's use (Hacking?) is an excellent starting point for a series of how-to books. I know that anything with the words "O'Reilly" and "Hack" on the same cover will give me some incredible useful tips.
But I also many people who look at that and think the book is about maliciously hacking into Google to retrieve data in an unlawful manner for ill intent.
The dispute may not matter in the end but geeks have lost control of the word "hack" and won't likely win it back. Time to move on?
I do think that the term "meme war" captures the subtleties of the problems related to the term "hacker". It will be very difficult to revert the negative connotation associated with the term "hacker". I prefer "maker" now ... my feeling says that this has a more positive sounding ...
It's more likely the copy editor of the story who wrote the headline, not the reporter. Just to get the "facts" straight.
Don't look now, but I just heared the term "Open Source" mentioned about 10 times in one interview by some guy on the national news, to describe information about 9/11 that was not classified at the time. Hopefully there won't be a hoard of copy cats using a term they don't really understand (remember when they all started using the word "Gravitas"?)
The "gravitas" meme was definitely annoying, but in this case, if they're talking about Open Source Intelligence, there's not really a term that describes it as succinctly as using its actual name.
Post A Comment:
STAY CONNECTED
RECENT COMMENTS
- n00b on "Hacker" Term misused again: The "gravitas" meme was...
- Steve on "Hacker" Term misused again: Don't look now, but I j...
- Donnie Berkholz on "Hacker" Term misused again: It's more likely the co...
- Johan Van den Brande on "Hacker" Term misused again: I do think that the ter...
- Joel Sanda on "Hacker" Term misused again: Then quit using the wor...
- Peter Piazza on "Hacker" Term misused again: As someone who writes o...
- Randal L. Schwartz on "Hacker" Term misused again: The negative "popular m...
RADAR TOPICS
Randal L. Schwartz [08.11.05 08:45 AM]
The negative "popular media" connotation for both "hacker" (as in "Just another Perl hacker") and "Crack" (the white-hat password cracking program that brute-forces the crypt(3) Unix routine) worked against me in my criminal case. It's too bad for these collisions, but probably inevitable.