Student vs. Competitor

People who use the word “hacker” when they’re referring to computer
criminals are not wrong. One can argue that they don’t know the whole story,
or that they lack an appreciation for the “real” meaning of the word, but
they aren’t wrong.

We in the geek community know what the word really means, and we can
continue to use it that way. We haven’t lost
the true
definition, and we hopefully never will. But we need to stop pretending that
words have only one meaning.

Just because there exists a romantic, “pure” meaning of the word hacker
doesn’t mean that the other, more accepted definition is any less real.
Language evolves. Many words in today’s dictionary quite simply used to mean
something else, and we shouldn’t get militant about it; it’s just reality.

So the next time you hear someone say a “hacker” broke into this, or a
hacker stole that, just let it go. They are using one
definition of the word correctly. Remember that there’s a big difference
between someone calling a computer criminal a hacker (ok), and them calling
Wietse Venema a computer criminal (not ok).

Our geek blood demands that we stand against the latter, but maturity
demands that we accept the legitimacy of the the former. The trick is
knowing the difference.