Time You Enjoy Wasting Is Not Wasted Time

A group on campus posts one-page helpful hints in the bathrooms. The latest one is about staying safe on the internet. One of the tips is to safeguard against “crackers.” It made me think: how many people would recognize the term “cracker” as opposed to the term “hacker”?

I applaud the “correct” use of cracker, meaning one who breaks into computer systems and commits other criminal acts using a computer, as opposed to using the more commonly known but misused term hacker, which was originally used to describe someone who pushed a system beyond its standard performance level or intended design through clever modifications. Back in the day I would go out of my way to make sure the correct term was used and hated to see hacker become a negative term. I suppose that since I am writing about it today it still bothers me enough to mention it.

I was actually surprised to see cracker instead of hacker, but then had the audacity to think that maybe they should have used hacker since that has become the common term for a computer criminal. When does a word’s definition change through common usage? For example, would anyone use the term gay to mean happy? Would that confuse the issue if someone mentioned that something made them feel gay (as in happy)? I think it would. Some people would probably even get offended if they thought it was used in a derogatory way. I would like to think that the definition of hacker will sway back to its original meaning and leave the malicious stuff to the crackers. You could even say it would make me feel gay if that happened.