Ask Slashdot: Do We Need a New Word For Hacking?

goombah99 writes: Hacking and Hackers get a bum rap. Headline scream "Every Nitendo switch can be hacked." But that's good right? Just like farmers hacking their tractors or someone re-purposing a talking teddy bear. On the other hand, remote hacking a Intel processor backdoor or looting medical data base, that are also described as hacking, are ill-motivated. It seems like we need words with different connotations for hacking. One for things you should definitely do, like program an Arduino or teddy bear. One for things that are pernicious. And finally one for things that are disputably good/bad such as hacking DRM protected appliances you own. What viral sounds terms and their nuances would you suggest? Editor's note: We suggest reading this New Yorker piece "A Short History of 'Hack'", and watching this Defcon talk by veteran journalist Steven Levy on the creativeness and chutzpah of the early hackers.

Comments

As with most question titles: NO

[argStyopa]

What you're asking for is not a new word, but for the public to understand a nuance of something they don't frankly give a shit about. A new word is just as likely to be misunderstood/misused by I-can't-be-arsed-to-report-precisely journalists and bloggers, and far more likely to actually ADD confusion.

Face it: words like 'hack' 'drone' and 'troll' have vanished into the collective linguistics of the culture; we're no longer able to recover them and insist they still have the specificity of meaning they used to carry when used by insiders in the tech culture.

Cracking?

[Anonymous Coward]

I suggest the absolutely, 100%, brand new, just thought of, totally original word: cracking.

Re:Cracking?

[cyberchondriac]

I suggest the absolutely, 100%, brand new, just thought of, totally original word: cracking.

It's taken. Cracker groups have been successfully cracking software for decades.

That's the biggest whoosh I've seen in a decade.