hacking and cracking

[lisati]

I agree. I think the media will use the word hacking because they think most readers//listeners/viewers have never heard of cracking. I think they may be right. Some in the media may not know the difference either.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the mystique and confusion dates from the days when the typical computer filled a decent size room (or building), had lots of suppporting infrastructure (such as artificial floors, air conditioning, halon-based fire extinguishers, and possibly even water cooling), was locked away and inaccessible to the general public, and had less horsepower than the laptops of today.

Neither would I be surprised if some in the media didn't care about some of the finer points of distinction between hacking and cracking that have been discussed in this thread.

[drmrgd]

I've found the writeup in the Jargon File to be the most informative and definitive answer. However, these to me are dictionary definitions, and we all know that in speech words are often stretched well beyond their dictionary definitions. Anyway, check these two sections out for the distinction between hacker and cracker, along with a little more of an explanation about what a hack and hackers are - from hackers!

http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/crackers.html
http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/meaning-of-hack.html
http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/appendixc.html

I recommend reading through the whole Jargon File sometime. Great stuff in there!