On 16/03/2012 5:04 PM, andrel wrote:
> On 16-3-2012 15:57, Stephen wrote:
>> On 16/03/2012 2:38 PM, Invisible wrote:
>>> And then of course, in everyday culture "hacking" refers only to
>>> technical activities which are in some way /illegal/. :-P
>>
>> I will go with that definition ;-)
>>
> Yes, it is a form of hijacking. Hacking was a used to mean doing
> something skilled. As long as that was among the small in-crowd that was
> not a problem. The outside world started noticing this term when there
> was interaction with the non-computer world. I.e. when they started
> hacking other devices like telephone equipment. When computers became
> more important people also started to notice it in the context of
> breaking in into computers. Mostly still as a way to show it could be
> done, not to cause harm. It is around this time that companies and
> institutions that preferred to attack the hackers in stead of fixing the
> issues hijacked the term and made it into something that people
> associate with illegal.
>
> Nowadays there is still a group of amateur hackers, but the largest
> scale hacking is done by governments. If that is still illegal can be
> disputed. The chinese are constantly trying to break into every western
> company and institution. From e.g. a US POV that is illegal, but they
> are doing it from china and there this activity is legal. The same for
> US intelligence services trying to hack chinese government sites.
>
Yes, but not necessarily skilful, in the early days. Just guessing 
passwords or trying command codes to see what would happen would be 
described as hacking.
One example that I can remember was when I worked offshore and telephone 
calls were regulated. It was possible to dial a speed code to a company 

PABX without any restrictions applying. So you could use an internal 
phone to get international calls. Just someone messing about.

I think that the rest of what you say is true.


-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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