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86-644: Although drawing on traditions and philosophies among members of the 1970s hacker culture and academia, Richard Stallman formally founded the movement in 1983 by launching the GNU Project . Stallman later established the Free Software Foundation in 1985 to support the movement. The philosophy of the Free Software Movement is based on promoting collaboration between programmers and computer users. This process necessitates

172-475: A flatbed scanner to take ultra-high-resolution photographs or using an optical mouse as barcode reader . A solution or feat has "hack value" if it is done in a way that has finesse, cleverness or brilliance, which makes creativity an essential part of the meaning. For example, picking a difficult lock has hack value; smashing it does not. As another example, proving Fermat's Last Theorem by linking together most of modern mathematics has hack value; solving

258-473: A "hack" refers to a program that (sometimes illegally) modifies another program, often a video game, giving the user access to features otherwise inaccessible to them. As an example of this use, for Palm OS users (until the 4th iteration of this operating system ), a "hack" refers to an extension of the operating system which provides additional functionality. Term also refers to those people who cheat on video games using special software. This can also refer to

344-440: A combinatorial problem by exhaustively trying all possibilities does not. Hacking is not using process of elimination to find a solution; it's the process of finding a clever solution to a problem. While using hacker to refer to someone who enjoys playful cleverness is most often applied to computer programmers, it is sometimes used for people who apply the same attitude to other fields. For example, Richard Stallman describes

430-566: A critically large population and encouraged the spread of a conscious, common, and systematic ethos. Symptomatic of this evolution were an increasing adoption of common slang and a shared view of history, similar to the way in which other occupational groups have professionalized themselves, but without the formal credentialing process characteristic of most professional groups. Over time, the academic hacker subculture has tended to become more conscious, more cohesive, and better organized. The most important consciousness-raising moments have included

516-559: A different end, to get inside cultural systems on the net and make them do things they were never intended to do. A successful software and hardware hacker artist is Mark Lottor (mkl), who has created the 3-D light art projects entitled the Cubatron , and the Big Round Cubatron . This art is made using custom computer technology, with specially designed circuit boards and programming for microprocessor chips to manipulate

602-580: A fake police car atop the dome on MIT's Building 10, that was a hack in this sense, and the students involved were therefore hackers. Other types of hacking are reality hackers , wetware hackers ("hack your brain"), and media hackers ("hack your reputation"). In a similar vein, a "hack" may refer to a math hack, that is, a clever solution to a mathematical problem. All of these uses have spread beyond MIT. CSO Online defined ethical hacking as going into devices and computer systems belonging to an organization, with its explicit permissions, to assess and test

688-492: A free software law in January 2006. Decree No. 3,390 mandated all government agencies to migrate to free software over a two-year period. Publiccode.eu is a campaign launched demanding a legislation requiring that publicly financed software developed for the public sector be made publicly available under a Free and Open Source Software licence. If it is public money, it should be public code as well. The French Gendarmerie and

774-663: A grid of cells, or the pixel values of an image. The same rule is applied to every cell, to determine its next state, based on the previous state of that cell and its neighboring cells. There are many interesting cellular automata rules, and they all look very different, with amazing animated dynamic effects. ' Life ' is a widely known cellular automata rule, but many other lesser known rules are much more interesting. Some hacker artists create art by writing computer code, and others, by developing hardware. Some create with existing software tools such as Adobe Photoshop or GIMP . Edgar David Villanueva Dr Edgar David Villanueva Núñez

860-436: A hacker is a person who follows a spirit of playful cleverness and loves programming. It is found in an originally academic movement unrelated to computer security and most visibly associated with free software , open source and demoscene . It also has a hacker ethic , based on the idea that writing software and sharing the result on a voluntary basis is a good idea, and that information should be free, but that it's not up to

946-454: A notorious example) to expose or add functionality to a device that was unintended for use by end users by the company who created it. A number of techno musicians have modified 1980s-era Casio SK-1 sampling keyboards to create unusual sounds by doing circuit bending : connecting wires to different leads of the integrated circuit chips. The results of these DIY experiments range from opening up previously inaccessible features that were part of

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1032-431: A post-work society. He argues that the combination of a manipulation of intellectual property law and private property to make goods available to the public and a thorough blend between labor and fun make the free software movement a communist economy . Since its inception, there is an ongoing contention between the many FLOSS organizations ( FSF , OSI , Debian , Mozilla Foundation , Apache Foundation , etc.) within

1118-453: A practical question rather than an ethical dilemma – non-free software is not the best solution but nonetheless a solution. The free software movement views free software as a moral imperative: that proprietary software should be rejected, and that only free software should be developed and taught in order to make computing technology beneficial to the general public. Although the movements have differing values and goals, collaborations between

1204-402: A project undertaken on bad self-advice; 3) an entropy booster; 4) to produce, or attempt to produce, a hack(3)", and "hacker" was defined as "one who hacks, or makes them". Much of TMRC's jargon was later imported into early computing culture, because the club started using a DEC PDP-1 and applied its local model railroad slang in this computing context. Initially incomprehensible to outsiders,

1290-418: A stall at software-related conferences to raise awareness of software freedom. This is seen as important since people who receive free software, but who are not aware that it is free software, will later accept a non-free replacement or will add software that is not free software. A lot of lobbying work has been done against software patents and expansions of copyright law . Other lobbying focuses directly on

1376-662: Is a politician and congressman in the Republic of Peru . He is best known for introducing a bill to mandate use of free software in public agencies. The introduction of the Bill 1609 invited the attention of Microsoft, to whose letter Dr Villanueva wrote a famous reply. A bill that mandates consideration of open source software was passed into law in October 2005. Both the Bill and Dr Villanueva's letter have been widely cited by pro-active governments and Free Software activists as

1462-412: Is a subculture of individuals who enjoy—often in collective effort—the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming the limitations of software systems or electronic hardware (mostly digital electronics ), to achieve novel and clever outcomes. The act of engaging in activities (such as programming or other media ) in a spirit of playfulness and exploration is termed hacking . However,

1548-516: Is a serious concern in the FLOSS domain due to increased complexity of license compatibility considerations which limits and complicates source code reuse between FLOSS projects. The OSI and the FSF maintain their own lists of dozens of existing and acceptable FLOSS licenses. There is an agreement among most that the creation of new licenses should be minimized and those created should be made compatible with

1634-441: Is always the understanding that a more skillful or technical logician could have produced successful modifications that would not be considered a "hack-job". The definition is similar to other, non-computer based uses of the term "hack-job". For instance, a professional modification of a production sports car into a racing machine would not be considered a hack-job, but a cobbled together backyard mechanic's result could be. Even though

1720-464: Is not easy to raise money for free software projects. The free software movement champions copyleft licensing schema (often pejoratively called " viral licenses "). In its strongest form, copyleft mandates that any works derived from copyleft-licensed software must also carry a copyleft license, so the license spreads from work to work like a computer virus might spread from machine to machine. Stallman has previously stated his opposition to describing

1806-435: Is reinforced by fact that majority of OSI-approved licenses and self-avowed open-source programs are also compatible with the free software formalisms and vice versa. While free and open source software are often linked together, they offer two separate ideas and values. Richard Stallman has referred to open source as " a non-movement ", as it " does not campaign for anything ". "Open source" addresses software being open as

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1892-525: Is software piracy. Promotion of adoption of FOSS is essential however it comes with problems of proprietary anti competition software practices including indulging in bribing and corruption by government departments. Pakistan works on the introduction  of usage of open type  basis of source Solutions in the curricula  in schools and colleges. This is because of FOSS uniqueness in terms of political, democratic and social varieties of aspect regarding  information communication and technology. In

1978-417: Is the process of software engines running real-world cyber threats to assess the survivability of a company's digital structure. Ethical hackers play the role of cyber attackers by executing assessments, penetration tests, and modeling tactics, techniques, and procedures used by threat-actors. This careful examination provides an organization with the identification of weaknesses in its security systems, enabling

2064-401: Is the willingness of programmers in the free software movement to work, often producing higher-quality than proprietary programmers, without financial compensation . In his 1998 article "The High-Tech Gift Economy", Richard Barbrook suggested that the then-nascent free software movement represented a return to the gift economy building on hobbyism and the absence of economic scarcity on

2150-449: Is where people get the misconception of "free": there is no wrong in programmers' requesting payment for a proposed project, or charging for copies of free software. Restricting and controlling the user's decisions on use is the actual violation of freedom. Stallman defends that in some cases, monetary incentive is not necessary for motivation since the pleasure in expressing creativity is a reward in itself. Conversely, Stallman admits that it

2236-430: Is worth doing or is interesting. This is something that hackers often feel intuitively about a problem or solution. An aspect of hack value is performing feats for the sake of showing that they can be done, even if others think it is difficult. Using things in a unique way outside their intended purpose is often perceived as having hack value. Examples are using a dot matrix impact printer to produce musical notes, using

2322-594: The French National Assembly utilize the open source operating system Linux . Gov.uk keeps a list of "key components, tools and services that have gone into the construction of GOV.UK". Free Software events happening all around the world connects people to increase visibility for Free software projects and foster collaborations. The free software movement has been extensively analyzed using economic methodologies, including perspectives from heterodox economics . Of particular interest to economists

2408-705: The GNU GPL as "viral". These licensing terms can only be enforced through asserting copyrights. Critics of copyleft licensing challenge the idea that restricting modifications is in line with the free software movement's emphasis on various "freedoms", especially when alternatives like MIT , BSD , and Apache licenses are more permissive. Proponents enjoy the assurance that copylefted work cannot usually be incorporated into non-free software projects. They emphasize that copyleft licenses may not attach for all uses and that in any case, developers can simply choose not to use copyleft-licensed software. FLOSS license proliferation

2494-479: The LED lights. Don Hopkins is a software hacker artist well known for his artistic cellular automata. This art, created by a cellular automata computer program, generates objects which randomly bump into each other and in turn create more objects and designs, similar to a lava lamp, except that the parts change color and form through interaction. Hopkins Says: Cellular automata are simple rules that are applied to

2580-565: The University of California, Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon University were particularly well-known hotbeds of early hacker culture. They evolved in parallel, and largely unconsciously, until the Internet , where a legendary PDP-10 machine at MIT, called AI, that was running ITS , provided an early meeting point of the hacker community. This and other developments such as the rise of the free software movement and community drew together

2666-701: The jailbreaking of iPhones . Hacker artists create art by hacking on technology as an artistic medium . This has extended the definition of the term and what it means to be a hacker. Such artists may work with graphics , computer hardware , sculpture , music and other audio , animation , video , software , simulations , mathematics , reactive sensory systems, text, poetry , literature , or any combination thereof. Dartmouth College musician Larry Polansky states: Technology and art are inextricably related. Many musicians, video artists, graphic artists, and even poets who work with technology—whether designing it or using it—consider themselves to be part of

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2752-479: The 'hacker community.' Computer artists, like non-art hackers, often find themselves on society's fringes, developing strange, innovative uses of existing technology. There is an empathetic relationship between those, for example, who design experimental music software and hackers who write communications freeware . Another description is offered by Jenny Marketou: Hacker artists operate as culture hackers who manipulate existing techno- semiotic structures towards

2838-614: The 1960s around the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)'s Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC) and MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory . Hacking originally involved entering restricted areas in a clever way without causing any major damage. Some famous hacks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were placing of a campus police cruiser on the roof of the Great Dome and converting

2924-664: The Bazaar and many other essays, maintainer of the Jargon File (which was previously maintained by Guy L. Steele, Jr. ). Within the computer programmer subculture of hackers, the term hacker is also used for a programmer who reaches a goal by employing a series of modifications to extend existing code or resources. In this sense, it can have a negative connotation of using inelegant kludges to accomplish programming tasks that are quick, but ugly, inelegant, difficult to extend, hard to maintain and inefficient. This derogatory form of

3010-429: The Free Software Movement and Open Source Initiative have taken place when it comes to practical projects. By 2005, Richard Glass considered the differences to be a "serious fracture" but "vitally important to those on both sides of the fracture" and "of little importance to anyone else studying the movement from a software engineering perspective" since they have had "little effect on the field". Eric Raymond criticises

3096-641: The Great Dome into R2-D2 . Richard Stallman explains about hackers who program: What they had in common was mainly love of excellence and programming. They wanted to make their programs that they used be as good as they could. They also wanted to make them do neat things. They wanted to be able to do something in a more exciting way than anyone believed possible and show "Look how wonderful this is. I bet you didn't believe this could be done." Hackers from this subculture tend to emphatically differentiate themselves from whom they pejoratively call " crackers "; those who are generally referred to by media and members of

3182-690: The Homebrew Club's days, but the interests and values of both communities somewhat diverged. Today, the hobbyists focus on commercial computer and video games , software cracking and exceptional computer programming ( demo scene ). Also of interest to some members of this group is the modification of computer hardware and other electronic devices, see modding . Electronics hobbyists working on machines other than computers also fall into this category. This includes people who do simple modifications to graphing calculators , video game consoles , electronic musical keyboards or other device (see CueCat for

3268-467: The Internet. Gabriella Coleman has emphasized the importance of accreditation, respect, and honour within the free software community as a form of compensation for contributions to projects, over and against financial motivations. The Swedish Marxian economist Johan Söderberg has argued that the free software movement represents a complete alternative to capitalism that may be expanded to create

3354-561: The Late Middle English words hackere, hakker, or hakkere - one who cuts wood, woodchopper, or woodcutter. Although the idea of "hacking", in the modern sense, existed long before the modern term "hacker"‍—‌with the most notable example of Lightning Ellsworth , it was not a word that the first programmers used to describe themselves. In fact, many of the first programmers were from engineering or physics backgrounds. "But from about 1945 onward (and especially during

3440-595: The United States, there have been efforts to pass legislation at the state level encouraging the use of free software by state government agencies. On January 11, 2022, two bills were shown on the New Hampshire legislating floor. The first bill called "HB 1273" was introduced by Democratic New Hampshire representative Eric Gallager, the bill prioritized "replacing proprietary software used by state agencies with free software." Gallager stated that to an extent,

3526-422: The attention of Microsoft , Peru, whose general manager wrote a letter to Villanueva. His response received worldwide attention and is seen as a classic piece of argumentation favouring use of free software in governments. Uruguay has a sanctioned law requiring that the state give priority to free software. It also requires that information be exchanged in open formats . The Government of Venezuela implemented

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3612-480: The belief that it is immoral to prohibit or prevent people from exercising these freedoms, and that they are required in creating a community where software users can help each other and have control over their technology. Regarding proprietary software , some believe that it is not strictly immoral, citing increased profitability in the business models available for proprietary software, along with technical features and convenience. The Free Software Foundation espouses

3698-524: The business's very existence. Furthermore, the act of ethical hacking also molds the larger hacker culture. Hacking skills, traditionally associated with breaking the law, have changed dramatically with the emergence of ethical hacking. Ethical hacking helped legitimize hacking skills which can now be talked about publicly. This shift challenges the stereotypical perception of hackers as criminals, allowing for greater emphasis on their positive contributions to cybersecurity. Ethical hacking has drastically changed

3784-550: The chip design to producing the strange, dis-harmonic digital tones that became part of the techno music style. Companies take different attitudes towards such practices, ranging from open acceptance (such as Texas Instruments for its graphing calculators and Lego for its Lego Mindstorms robotics gear) to outright hostility (such as Microsoft 's attempts to lock out Xbox hackers or the DRM routines on Blu-ray Disc players designed to sabotage compromised players. ) In this context,

3870-400: The commoditization of computer and networking technology, and has, in turn, accelerated that process. In 1975, hackerdom was scattered across several different families of operating systems and disparate networks; today it is largely a Unix and TCP/IP phenomenon, and is concentrated around various operating systems based on free software and open-source software development. Many of

3956-588: The composition of the first Jargon File in 1973, the promulgation of the GNU Manifesto in 1985, and the publication of Eric Raymond 's The Cathedral and the Bazaar in 1997. Correlated with this has been the gradual recognition of a set of shared culture heroes, including: Bill Joy , Donald Knuth , Dennis Ritchie , Alan Kay , Ken Thompson , Richard M. Stallman , Linus Torvalds , Larry Wall , and Guido van Rossum . The concentration of academic hacker subculture has paralleled and partly been driven by

4042-608: The consciousness of the programmer subculture of hackers include Richard Stallman , the founder of the free software movement and the GNU project , president of the Free Software Foundation and author of the famous Emacs text editor as well as the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) , and Eric S. Raymond , one of the founders of the Open Source Initiative and writer of the famous text The Cathedral and

4128-438: The creation of the first ENIAC computer) some programmers realized that their expertise in computer software and technology had evolved not just into a profession, but into a passion" (46). There was a growing awareness of a style of programming different from the cut and dried methods employed at first, but it was not until the 1960s that the term "hackers" began to be used to describe proficient computer programmers. Therefore,

4214-422: The creative attitude of software hackers in fields other than computing. This includes even activities that predate computer hacking, for example reality hackers or urban spelunkers (exploring undocumented or unauthorized areas in buildings). One specific example is clever pranks traditionally perpetrated by MIT students, with the perpetrator being called hacker. For example, when MIT students surreptitiously put

4300-408: The culture is less tolerant of unmaintainable solutions, even when intended to be temporary, and describing someone as a "hacker" might imply that they lack professionalism. In this sense, the term has no real positive connotations, except for the idea that the hacker is capable of doing modifications that allow a system to work in the short term, and so has some sort of marketable skills. However, there

4386-452: The defining characteristic of a hacker is not the activities performed themselves (e.g. programming ), but how it is done and whether it is exciting and meaningful. Activities of playful cleverness can be said to have "hack value" and therefore the term "hacks" came about, with early examples including pranks at MIT done by students to demonstrate their technical aptitude and cleverness. The hacker culture originally emerged in academia in

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4472-470: The desired cultural revolution within the realm of the hacking fraternity. Ethical hacking, on its part through focusing on the constructive application of hacking skills, has become an integral activity in the collective effort towards fortification of cybersecurity and redefining hackers' image in the public eye. In yet another context, a hacker is a computer hobbyist who pushes the limits of software or hardware. The home computer hacking subculture relates to

4558-409: The efficacy of the organization's cybersecurity defenses. Generally, organizations engage the services of ethical hackers either through third-party cybersecurity firms or under contract. Their main job is to identify and fix security gaps before threat-actors find them and exploit them. This proactive approach to cybersecurity testing leads to significant cost savings for organizations. Ethical hacking

4644-438: The elaborate college pranks that...students would regularly devise" (Levy, 1984 p. 10). To be considered a 'hack' was an honor among like-minded peers as "to qualify as a hack, the feat must be imbued with innovation, style and technical virtuosity" (Levy, 1984 p. 10) The MIT Tech Model Railroad Club Dictionary defined hack in 1959 (not yet in a computer context) as "1) an article or project without constructive end; 2)

4730-740: The existence of FOSS in China has been important in challenging the presence of Microsoft , which Guangnan Ni, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering stated, "The monopoly of (Microsoft Windows) is even more powerful in China than other places in the world". Yi Zhou, a professor of mathematics at Fudan University , has also alleged that, "Government procurement of FLOSS for a number of years in China has compelled Microsoft to cut its prices of Office software substantially" Government of India had issued Policy on Adoption of Open Source Software for Government of India in 2015 to drive uptake within

4816-497: The free software movement, with the main conflicts centered around the organization's needs for compromise and pragmatism rather than adhering to founding values and philosophies. The Open Source Initiative (OSI) was founded in February 1998 by Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens to promote the term " open-source software " as an alternative term for free software . The OSI aimed to address the perceived shortcomings and ambiguity of

4902-442: The freedoms of free software. According to Stallman, "The only thing in the software field that is worse than an unauthorised copy of a proprietary program, is an authorised copy of the proprietary program because this does the same harm to its whole community of users, and in addition, usually the developer, the perpetrator of this evil, profits from it." Some supporters of the free software movement take up public speaking , or host

4988-1186: The fundamental characteristic that links all who identify themselves as hackers is that each is someone who enjoys "…the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming and circumventing limitations of programming systems and who tries to extend their capabilities" (47). With this definition in mind, it can be clear where the negative implications of the word "hacker" and the subculture of "hackers" came from. Some common nicknames among this culture include "crackers", who are considered to be unskilled thieves who mainly rely on luck, and "phreaks", which refers to skilled crackers and "warez d00dz" (crackers who acquire reproductions of copyrighted software). Hackers who are hired to test security are called "pentesters" or "tiger teams". Before communications between computers and computer users were as networked as they are now, there were multiple independent and parallel hacker subcultures, often unaware or only partially aware of each other's existence. All of these had certain important traits in common: These sorts of subcultures were commonly found at academic settings such as college campuses . The MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory ,

5074-445: The general public using the term "hacker", and whose primary focus‍—‌be it to malign or for malevolent purposes‍—‌lies in exploiting weaknesses in computer security. The Jargon File , an influential but not universally accepted compendium of hacker slang, defines hacker as "A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and stretching their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only

5160-543: The government. With the vision to transform India as a Software Product Nation, National Policy on Software Products-2019 was approved by the Government. Free and Open Source Software (Foss) is crucial for countries such as Pakistan which is set up by Union of Information Technology. For the case of Pakistan, Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) aids in the creation and advocate of FOSS usage in various government departments in addition to curbing illegality of copying that

5246-417: The hacker may be the same person.) This usage is common in both programming, engineering and building. In programming, hacking in this sense appears to be tolerated and seen as a necessary compromise in many situations. Some argue that it should not be, due to this negative meaning; others argue that some kludges can, for all their ugliness and imperfection, still have "hack value". In non-software engineering,

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5332-475: The hacker subculture". According to Eric S. Raymond , the Open Source and Free Software hacker subculture developed in the 1960s among 'academic hackers' working on early minicomputers in computer science environments in the United States. Hackers were influenced by and absorbed many ideas of key technological developments and the people associated with them. Most notable is the technical culture of

5418-537: The hacker to make it free by breaking into private computer systems. This hacker ethic was publicized and perhaps originated in Steven Levy 's Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (1984). It contains a codification of its principles. The programmer subculture of hackers disassociates from the mass media's pejorative use of the word 'hacker' referring to computer security, and usually prefer

5504-475: The hands-on imperative. Linus Torvalds , one of the leaders of the open source movement (known primarily for developing the Linux kernel ), has noted in the book The Hacker Ethic that these principles have evolved from the known Protestant ethics and incorporates the spirits of capitalism, as introduced in the early 20th century by Max Weber . Hack value is the notion used by hackers to express that something

5590-512: The hobbyist home computing of the late 1970s, beginning with the availability of MITS Altair . An influential organization was the Homebrew Computer Club . However, its roots go back further to amateur radio enthusiasts. The amateur radio slang referred to creatively tinkering to improve performance as "hacking" already in the 1950s. A large overlaps between hobbyist hackers and the programmer subculture hackers existed during

5676-653: The major existing FLOSS licenses. Therefore, there was a strong controversy around the update of the GNU GPLv2 to the GNU GPLv3 in 2007, as the updated license is not compatible with the previous version. Several projects (mostly of the open source faction like the Linux kernel ) decided to not adopt the GPLv3 while almost all of the GNU project's packages adopted it. Hacker (programmer subculture) The hacker culture

5762-881: The minimum necessary." The Request for Comments (RFC) 1392, the Internet Users' Glossary, amplifies this meaning as "A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in particular." As documented in the Jargon File, these hackers are disappointed by the mass media and general public's usage of the word hacker to refer to security breakers , calling them "crackers" instead. This includes both "good" crackers (" white hat hackers "), who use their computer security-related skills and knowledge to learn more about how systems and networks work and to help to discover and fix security holes, as well as those more "evil" crackers (" black hat hackers "), who use

5848-474: The noun " hack " derives from the everyday English sense "to cut or shape by or as if by crude or ruthless strokes" [Merriam-Webster] and is even used among users of the positive sense of "hacker" who produces "cool" or "neat" hacks. In other words, to "hack" at an original creation, as if with an axe, is to force-fit it into being usable for a task not intended by the original creator, and a "hacker" would be someone who does this habitually. (The original creator and

5934-424: The organization to employ necessary measures towards fortifying its defense. Cyber-attacks can have significant financial implications for a company. In such cases, the organizations could have been saved from these gigantic financial losses by identifying and fixing the vulnerabilities discovered by an ethical hacker. Moreover, for smaller organizations, the impact can be even more dramatic as it can potentially save

6020-516: The outcome of a race of the two machines could not be assumed, a quick inspection would instantly reveal the difference in the level of professionalism of the designers. The adjective associated with hacker is "hackish" (see the Jargon file ). In a very universal sense, hacker also means someone who makes things work beyond perceived limits in a clever way in general, without necessarily referring to computers, especially at MIT. That is, people who apply

6106-589: The pioneers of the ARPANET , starting in 1969. The PDP-10 AI machine at MIT, running the ITS operating system and connected to the ARPANET, provided an early hacker meeting point. After 1980 the subculture coalesced with the culture of Unix . Since the mid-1990s, it has been largely coincident with what is now called the free software and open source movement . Many programmers have been labeled "great hackers", but

6192-517: The principle that all software needs free documentation, as programmers should have the ability to update manuals to reflect modifications made to the software. Within the movement, the FLOSS Manuals foundation specializes in providing such documentation. The core work of the free software movement is focused on software development. The free software movement also rejects proprietary software, refusing to install software that does not give them

6278-420: The proposed legislation will help distinguish "free software" and "open-source software", this will also put these two into state regulation. The second bill called "HB 1581" was proposed by Grafton Republican representative Lex Berezhny. The bill would've restored a requisite forcing "state agencies to use proprietary software" and as Lex put it, "when it is the most effective solution." He also said that requisite

6364-453: The public perception of hackers. Rather than viewing persons with hacker skills as perpetrators of cybercrime, they can be viewed as part of the solution in fighting against cybercrime. The ethical hacker with knowledge and expertise stands as guardian to the digital assets, working beforehand alongside organizations to build up a more secure online landscape. Ethical hacking is not only a proactive defense for organizations but also brings about

6450-538: The rejection of proprietary software and the promotion of free software . Stallman notes that this action would not hinder the progression of technology, as he states, "Wasteful duplication of system programming effort will be avoided. This effort can go instead into advancing the state of the art." Members of the Free Software Movement believe that all software users should have the freedoms listed in The Free Software Definition . Members hold

6536-445: The same skills to author harmful software (such as viruses or trojans) and illegally infiltrate secure systems with the intention of doing harm to the system. The programmer subculture of hackers, in contrast to the cracker community, generally sees computer security-related activities as contrary to the ideals of the original and true meaning of the hacker term, that instead related to playful cleverness. The word "hacker" derives from

6622-492: The silent composition 4′33″ by John Cage and the 14th-century palindromic three-part piece "Ma Fin Est Mon Commencement" by Guillaume de Machaut as hacks. According to the Jargon File, the word hacker was used in a similar sense among radio amateurs in the 1950s, predating the software hacking community. The Boston Globe in 1984 defined "hackers" as "computer nuts". In their programmer subculture,

6708-601: The slang also became popular in MIT's computing environments beyond the club. Other examples of jargon imported from the club are 'losing' ("when a piece of equipment is not working") and 'munged' ("when a piece of equipment is ruined"). Others did not always view hackers with approval. MIT living groups in 1989 avoided advertising their sophisticated Project Athena workstations to prospective members because they wanted residents who were interested in people, not computers, with one fraternity member stating that "We were worried about

6794-448: The specifics of who that label applies to is a matter of opinion. Certainly major contributors to computer science such as Edsger Dijkstra and Donald Knuth , as well as the inventors of popular software such as Linus Torvalds ( Linux ), and Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie ( Unix and C programming language ) are likely to be included in any such list; see also List of programmers . People primarily known for their contributions to

6880-426: The speed at which the free software movement is progressing, suggesting that temporary compromises should be made for long-term gains. Raymond argues that this could raise awareness of the software and thus increase the free software movement's influence on relevant standards and legislation. Richard Stallman, on the other hand, sees the current level of compromise as a greater cause for worry. Stallman said that this

6966-435: The term "free software", as well as shifting the focus of free software from a social and ethical issue to instead emphasize open source as a superior model for software development. The latter became the view of Eric Raymond and Linus Torvalds , while Bruce Perens argued that open source was meant to popularize free software under a new brand and called for a return to basic ethical principles. Some free software advocates use

7052-481: The term 'cracker' for that meaning. Complaints about supposed mainstream misuse started as early as 1983, when media used "hacker" to refer to the computer criminals involved in The 414s case. In the programmer subculture of hackers, a computer hacker is a person who enjoys designing software and building programs with a sense for aesthetics and playful cleverness. The term hack in this sense can be traced back to "describe

7138-411: The terms " Free and Open-Source Software " (FOSS) or "Free/Libre and Open-Source Software" (FLOSS) as a form of inclusive compromise, which brings free and open-source software advocates together to work on projects cohesively. Some users believe this is an ideal solution in order to promote both the user's freedom with the software and the pragmatic efficiency of an open-source development model. This view

7224-884: The use of free software by government agencies and government-funded projects. In June 1997, the Society for Study, Application, and Development of Free Software was established under the China Software Industry Association in Beijing. Through this organization, the website freesoft.cei.gov.cn was developed, though the website is currently inaccessible on IP addresses located in the United States. The use of open-source software Linux in China has moved beyond government and educational institutions and has extended to other organizations such as financial institutions, telecommunications, and public security. Several Chinese researchers and scholars have claimed that

7310-505: The values and tenets of the free and open source software movement stem from the hacker ethics that originated at MIT and at the Homebrew Computer Club . The hacker ethics were chronicled by Steven Levy in Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution and in other texts in which Levy formulates and summarizes general hacker attitudes: Hacker ethics are concerned primarily with sharing, openness, collaboration, and engaging in

7396-649: Was happening between 2012 and 2018. According to the Concord Monitor, the state of New Hampshire had an already "thriving open source software community" with a view of "live free or die" but they had difficulty getting that notion with the state. Congressmen Edgar David Villanueva and Jacques Rodrich Ackerman have been instrumental in introducing free software in Peru , with bill 1609 on "Free Software in Public Administration". The incident invited

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