Cracker
                                   -=-=-=-=-

          :cracker: /n./ One who breaks  security on a system.  Coined ca.
      1985 by  hackers  in defense  against  journalistic misuse of hacker
      (q.v.,  sense  8). An earlier  attempt to  establish  'worm' in this
      sense around 1981--82 on Usenet was largely a failure.

          Use of both these neologisms reflects a strong revulsion against
      the theft and vandalism  perpetrated by cracking  rings. While it is
      expected that any real hacker  will have done some playful  cracking
      and knows many of the basic techniques,  anyone past larval stage is
      expected to have  outgrown the desire to do so except for immediate,
      benign,  practical  reasons  (for  example, if it's necessary to get
      around some security in order to get some work done).

          Thus, there is far less overlap between hackerdom and crackerdom
      than the mundane reader misled by sensationalistic  journalism might
      expect. Crackers tend to gather in small, tight-knit, very secretive
      groups  that have little  overlap  with the huge, open  poly-culture
      this  lexicon  describes;  though  crackers  often  like to describe
      *themselves* as hackers, most true hackers  consider them a separate
      and lower form of life.

          Ethical  considerations  aside,  hackers  figure that anyone who
      can't  imagine a more  interesting way to play with their  computers
      than  breaking  into  someone  else's  has to  be  pretty  {losing}.
      Some  other  reasons  crackers  are  looked  down  on are  discussed
      in the entries on {cracking}  and {phreaking}.  See also  {samurai},
      {dark-side  hacker},  and  {hacker  ethic}.  For a portrait  of  the
      typical teenage cracker, see {warez d00dz}.

                          -- New Hacker's Dictionary


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