Objects in Flux - RMIT Research Repository - RMIT University

4.2 Hacking
Use of the terms ‘hack’ and
‘hacking’ emerged in the
1960s and 70s within the
computer labs of MIT (Massachusetts
Institute of Technology),
Caltech (California
Institute of Technology)
and similar USA universities
(Levy, 1984; Stallman,
2002). From the outset the
term was used to describe
a diverse array of practices
ranging from the production
of quick and crude software
patches, to devising and
executing elaborate practical jokes. Richard Stallman, ex-MIT student
and founder of the Free Software Foundation, describes hacking as
an exploration of ‘the limits of what is possible, in a spirit of playful
cleverness’ (2002), while Eric Steven Raymond, editor of The Jargon
File (2004) and The New Hacker’s Dictionary (1996), defines ‘hackers’
as people with ‘technical adeptness and a delight in solving problems
and overcoming limits’, citing firstly, ‘expert programmers and
network wizards’ that ‘built the Internet’, and secondly, ‘people who
apply the hacker attitude to other things, like electronics or music…
[and] at the highest levels of any science or art’ (2001).
Prominent members of the hacker community, including Raymond
and Stallman, criticise the popular media for using the term ‘hacker’
to describe ‘people (mainly adolescent males) who get a kick out of
breaking into computers and phreaking the phone system’, preferring
instead the term ‘cracker’ to describe such people (Raymond, 2001).
The basic difference, according to Raymond, is that ‘hackers build
things, crackers break them’. Despite their objections, however, many
examples of hacking given by Raymond and Stallman involve the
circumvention or alteration of conventional behaviour through acts
that are often deliberately disruptive and anti-authoritarian. As Levy
documents in Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (2001),
Hacking, Modding and DIY
[Figure 4-3]
Pokia handset, 2005.
Image is author’s own.
impossibilities.com/v4/2004/09/21/
heavy-duty-payphone-style-pokia-
handset/ accessed 12 February 2010.
6/ http://www.frisnit.com/sms/ ac-
cessed 12 February 2010.
7/ iPodLinux is the name adopted by
a community of software developers
working to port the Linux operating
system to the iPod. http://ipodlinux.
org/ accessed 12 February 2010.
8/ RockBox is open source firmware
developed for various MP3 players
including the Apple iPod and iriver,
http://www.rockbox.org/ accessed 12
February 2010.
55