Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!umich!yale!cmcl2!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: Rastan GS
Message-ID: <14052@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 8 Oct 90 12:47:08 GMT
References: <1990Oct7.050620.19014@isis.cs.du.edu> <9096@ucrmath.ucr.edu> <7586@darkstar.ucsc.edu>
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD.
Lines: 16

In article <7586@darkstar.ucsc.edu> unknown@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (The Unknown User) writes:
>Hacker has been used for a long time, and was originally a COMPLIMENT.

No, while "hacking" wasn't synonymous with "cracking" (a more recent term
introduced in an attempt to prevent "hacking" from being given a bad name),
it wasn't necessarily a compliment, but rather just descriptive of a certain
type of activity.  In my decades of computing I've been involved both in
hacking and in software engineering.  The connotations of the term "hacking"
included exploration of computing systems to see what they are capable of,
as well as a subfield consisting of finding ways to access other systems on
the ARPAnet in order to explore them, too.  The latter subfield is now in
general disrepute, due to abuse by a small number of "crackers" who had a
distinct lack of ethics, not to mention lack of common sense.  "Hacking"
has always implied a rather undisciplined approach to computing, which may
partly explain the origin of the name.  There have always been those who
would not have considered being called a "hacker" a compliment.