Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!athena.mit.edu!jik
From: jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens)
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: Re: i don't wanna be a hacker anymore...
Message-ID: <1990Oct10.170946.26477@athena.mit.edu>
Date: 10 Oct 90 17:09:46 GMT
References: <10035@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> <39489@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> <20413@ttidca.TTI.COM>
Sender: daemon@athena.mit.edu (Mr Background)
Reply-To: jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lines: 28
Approved: Approval?  We don't need no stinkin' approval!

In article <20413@ttidca.TTI.COM>, hollombe@ttidca.TTI.COM (The Polymath) writes:
|> I'm afraid a fellow hacker has done us in.  Cliff Stoll referred to the
|> crackers he tracked down as hackers on his PBS special.  He even made a
|> point of defining hackers as people who break into computer systems.

  I wrote to Stoll about this, and he sent me the following response, which I
don't think he'll mind if I post.  I pretty much agree with what he said.

>Thanks for your note ... several people have written to me about
>the use of the word Hacker on that Nova show.  Amazingly, though,
>almost nobody has complained about my use of it in The Cuckoo's Egg.
> 
>Once, I was proud to call myself a hacker.  Alas, those days are 
>finished:  by 1986, Webster's New International Dictionary (3rd edition)
>listed hacker as one who illegally accesses computers.  The fight
>was lost before I entered the battle...
> 
>Cheers,
>Cliff

-- 
Jonathan Kamens			              USnail:
MIT Project Athena				11 Ashford Terrace
jik@Athena.MIT.EDU				Allston, MA  02134
Office: 617-253-8495			      Home: 617-782-0710

P.S. Obligatory hack?  You must be kidding!  I barely have enough time to
sleep after my school work is done; who has time to hack? :-)