Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution

by Steven Levy

The term “hacker” has always been bedeviled by discussion. When I was writing this book, the term was still fairly obscure. In fact, some months before publication, my editor told me that people in Doubleday’s sales force requested a title change—“Who knows what a hacker is?” they asked. Fortunately, we stuck with the original, and by the mid-eighties the term had become rooted in the vernacular. Unfortunately for many true hackers, however, the popularization of the term was a disaster. Why? The word hacker had acquired a specific and negative connotation. The trouble began with some well-publicized arrests of teenagers who electronically ventured into forbidden digital grounds, like government computer systems. It was understandable that the journalists covering these stories would refer to the young perps as hackers—after all, that’s what the kids called themselves. But the word quickly became synonymous with “digital trespasser.”