What is a hacker?

When I ask myself that question, I can think of many ways in which you can call someone a hacker.  However, the media have painted a rather negative image on the word “Hacker”.  People seem to think it is someone who breaks into computers with malicious intent, steals secrets, unleashes viruses, and all manners of nasty things which happen on the internet.

It’s my view that people who are not very technically literate see the internet is some unknown universe where anything happens and there is no rules.  The technically literate, like me, see the internet as a source of information and a way to exchange that information with others easily.

But here is an extract from a website I found which explains it even better:

HACKER:

[originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe]

1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary.
2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming.
3. A person capable of appreciating hack value.
4. A person who is good at programming quickly.
5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work using it or on it; as in `a UNIX hacker’. (Definitions 1 through 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.)
6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example.
7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations.
8. [deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information by poking around. Hence “password hacker”, “network hacker”. The correct term is cracker.

Source: http://www.mithral.com/~beberg/hacker.html

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