Definition Of Descriptive Research

The real meaning of “hack”

, I dedicated a chapter to a hacker who was threatened by terrorists. I outed a guy who made up a whole magazine story about hackers extorting the corporations they penetrated, and fell for a hoax about a self-proclaimed online kiddie porn vigilante. And I’ve also been called a “talentless hack” by enraged readers, usually in invective-filled emails.

So if there are two words I’m familiar with, they’re “hack” and “hacker,” and I’ve done my fair share in graffitiing the web with their overuse. That’s why I say it’s time to re-examine how we use them, because they’re relied on far too often to describe all kinds of activities that don’t qualify as hacks or hacking. They’ve become so common they’ve lost all cachet–like ponytails and earrings on middle-aged dudes.

Think about it: Did Rupert Murdoch’s News of The World , spammers, and phishers have done is hacking, then you’ve probably been guilty of hacking at one time or another, because this type of “social engineering” is all around us–on the train, on the web, in libraries, Congress, and on Madison Avenue. The panhandler on the subway hacked you when his sob story convinced you to fork over a buck. The spammer that got you to click to an online pharmacy hacked you. So do online marketers when they follow you around the web. A friend who borrows a student’s log-in credentials to access a university library database to pull up a few articles is a hacker. If you find yourself influenced by political ads or pontificating pundits on cable TV, you’ve been hacked. Have a craving for McDonald’s french fries? Maybe the millions the fast-food chain spends on advertising has a role in that. If so, you’ve been hacked.

While ridiculous examples, they aren’t that far afield from what NoTW magazine, the Motion Picture Association of America, The Recording Industry Association (RIAA), and Sony , were those really hacks?

The attacks, known as distributed denial of service (DDoS), involve overwhelming sites with more traffic than they can stomach, the equivalent of convincing hundreds of thousands of people to call a single phone number at the same time, which would make it impossible for anyone to get through. None of the sites were breeched, no data was stolen. Many–me included–would argue this doesn’t qualify as a hack. ( Others would).