Subject: hacker

From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 17:20:35 +0200

I looked at the definition of "hacker" in m-w.com, and found the following:

Main Entry: hack·er
Pronunciation: 'ha-k&r
Function: noun
Date: 14th century
1 : one that hacks
2 : a person who is inexperienced or unskilled at a particular activity <a
    tennis hacker>
3 : an expert at programming and solving problems with a computer
4 : a person who illegally gains access to and sometimes tampers with
    information in a computer system 

Definition #1 is obvious. The relationship of definitions #2 and #3 is rather
suprising: usually, hacker is someone inexperienced and unskilled, except
in computers, where it is the experts that are called hackers!
Perhaps it has to do with the two conflicting definitions of "to hack": on
one hand "to cut or sever with repeated irregular or unskillful blows", and
on the other hand "to manage successfully"..

Unfortunately, definition #4 crept in there too... m-w.com doesn't even have
such a definition for "cracker", so let's face it - we lost: nobody anymore
is using "hackers" at the sense we want them to use, and nobody is using the
word "cracker" we want them to use... So we should choose a new name for
ourselves. I nominate "kackers" :)

By the way, the verb "to hack" has other weird definitions in m-w.com:
"to ride (a horse) at an ordinary pace" and "to operate a taxicab". This
gives us a whole new spectrum of clientele for the hackers-il list :)

P.S. I noticed that the last few messages from hackers-il didn't carry ads.
How did that happen?

P.S#2 Read the signature below. This time it's relevant to the message!

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |      Wednesday, Jan 3 2001, 8 Tevet 5761
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |I used to be a lumberjack, but I just
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |couldn't hack it, so they gave me the axe.