Hacker
In the computer security context, a hacker is someone who seeks and exploits weaknesses in a computer system or computer network. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, such as profit, protest, or challenge.[1] The subculture that has evolved around hackers is often referred to as the computer underground and is now a known community.[2] While other uses of the word hacker exist that are not related to computer security, such as referring to someone with an advanced understanding of computers and computer networks,[3] they are rarely used in mainstream context. They are subject to the long standing hacker definition controversy about the true meaning of the term hacker. In this controversy, the term hacker is reclaimed bycomputer programmers who argue that someone breaking into computers is better called a cracker,[4] not making a difference between computer criminals (black hats) and computer security experts (white hats).[5] Some white hat hackers claim that they also deserve the title hacker, and that only black hats should be called crackers.Several subgroups of the computer underground with different attitudes use different terms to demarcate themselves from each other, or try to exclude some specific group with which they do not agree.
Eric S. Raymond (author of The New Hacker's Dictionary) advocates that members of the computer underground should be called crackers. Yet, those people see themselves as hackers and even try to include the views of Raymond in what they see as one wider hacker culture, a view harshly rejected by Raymond himself. Instead of a hacker/cracker dichotomy, they give more emphasis to a spectrum of different categories, such as white hat, grey hat, black hat and script kiddie. In contrast to Raymond, they usually reserve the term cracker for more malicious activity.
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