Spank Ministry

mirrorshades has an interesting article (more like a rant) titled “I Am Not a Hacker” in the current issue of 2600 (22:3, Autumn 2005) about how “hackers” don’t exist anymore.  The media has been misusing the term for as long as it has existed, but the group of people it once referred to doesn’t exist anymore.  “The title conveys and eclectic sense of rugged nobility from a bygone era – to call someone a hacker is to call them a true old-school master… it simply doesn’t make sense to refer to anyone as a hacker if they can’t remember a time before desktop computers.”  He makes it clear that people with the same motivations exist in the Internet era, and span a wide range of backgrounds, but just that the term is becoming archaic and no longer applies.