Hacking

Hacking is the activity of exploring a computer system beyond the use it was designed for, to understand how it works, find its limits and push past them.

In the original sense, that of the hacker, it is a form of ingenuity: solving a problem elegantly, often with fewer resources than expected.

In everyday use the word has taken two paths, and the distinction matters because one is a profession and the other a crime.

• Ethical hacking: the simulated attack, authorised in writing by the system owner, used to find weaknesses and fix them. It includes penetration tests and bug bounty programmes (the rewards a company pays to whoever reports a vulnerability).
• Cracking: the unauthorised intrusion of a cracker, to steal data, cause damage or extort. The press calls it hacking, and "hacked" has become the word for every compromised account.

The line is permission, so the law draws it: in the European Union, attacks against information systems are governed by Directive 2013/40/EU, which every member state has transposed into criminal law.

Source: Steven Levy, «Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution», 1984; direttiva 2013/40/UE.

Enrico Giubertoni. Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0: you may quote, translate and adapt this entry with the author’s name and a link, stating any changes. For commercial use, write to info@enricogiubertoni.com

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