Hacking vs. Cracking

[Midnight]

Nowdays hacking and hacker are such a catchy term that the use of cheater is hardly used and cracker certainly never appears in the text. But it drives me nuts!

 

PLease read this excerpt:

 

"Cracker - This is the common term used to describe a malicious hacker. Crackers get into all kinds of mischief, including breaking or "cracking" copy protection on software programs, breaking into systems and causing harm, changing data, or stealing. Hackers regard crackers as a less educated group of individuals that cannot truly create their own work, and simply steal other people's work to cause mischief, or for personal gain."

 

"Hacker - This is someone that seeks to understand computer, phone or other systems strictly for the satisfaction of having that knowledge. Hackers wonder how things work, and have an incredible curiosity. Hackers will sometimes do questionable legal things, such as breaking into systems, but they generally will not cause harm once they break in. Contrast a hacker to the term cracker."

 

I try to refrain from using hacker, because I was taught that this strictly refers to people who program. Therefore I use the term cheater, although I slip up at times and use hacker because it is so commonplace. I am certainly not an expert on this issue, but feel that it is important to know the difference. My brother cracks psp's to get free internet and other things. These things I don't understand how they work or what is the purpose, but my brother does it like eating a sandwich. I like to program in my spare time, i.e. hack.

 

What are your thoughts?

 

Link: http://www.geek.com/forums/topic/hacking-and-cracking

[RedBaird]

I agree with the distinction between Hacker and Cracker. I think a Cheater is someone who uses the products of Crackers and don't program themselves. By the Law of Unintended Consequences, a Hacker's work can sometimes be used for other purposes by Hackers and Cheaters.

[Midnight]

Yes. Upon doing further reading, this is true. Crackers use programs that hackers have created for their on malintentions or in some way change the script to point elsewhere. Of course where does one draw the line between what is hacking and what is cracking?