Sam Williams

“ One person's creative subversion of authority is another person's security headache, after all. Even so, the central taboo against malicious or deliberately harmful behavior remains strong enough that most hackers prefer to use the term "cracker"—i.e., a person who deliberately cracks a computer security system to steal or vandalize data—to describe the subset of hackers who apply their computing skills maliciously.
This central taboo against maliciousness remains the primary cultural link between the notion of hacking in the early 21st century and hacking in the 1950s. ”

“ Hence the growing distinction between "black hat" and "white hat"—i.e., hackers who turn new ideas toward destructive, malicious ends versus hackers who turn new ideas toward positive or, at the very least, informative ends. ”

“ This notion of collective innovation and communal software ownership distanced the act of computer hacking in the 1960s from the tunnel hacking and phone hacking of the 1950s. The latter pursuits tended to be solo or small-group activities. Tunnel and phone hackers relied heavily on campus lore, but the off-limits nature of their activity discouraged the open circulation of new discoveries. Computer hackers, on the other hand, did their work amid a scientific field biased toward collaboration and the rewarding of innovation. ”

“ It is important to note that, as the idea of computer hacking has evolved over the last four decades, the original notion of hacking—i.e., performing pranks or exploring underground tunnels—remains intact. ”