Abstract
This chapter considers the history of the verb hack and the related noun hacker. The chapter offers a ‘social etymology’—an account of how the term has changed over time and how such changes re-reorient the word. The chapter considers the various ways in which the term hacker has been used in a range of different historical sources and contemporary films and television shows and how the current use of the term strategically draws together particular historical meanings to position hackers as a threat to both individual wellbeing and possibly capitalism itself.
I know turnip one of your password. Lets get directly to purpose. You do not know me and you are probably wondering why you are getting this mail? No person has paid me to check you.
Let me tell you, I installed a software on the X streaming (sexually graphic) website and there’s more, you visited this site to experience fun (you know what I mean). When you were viewing video clips, your browser started out operating as a RDP that has a key logger which provided me with accessibility to your display and also web cam. Just after that, my software program obtained your entire contacts from your Messenger, FB, as well as email. After that I created a double-screen video. 1st part displays the video you were watching (you’ve got a good taste lol), and next part shows the view of your web camera, & it is u.
There are only 2 options. We are going to look at these types of solutions in details:
Very first option is to disregard this email message. As a result, I most certainly will send your video recording to every one of your personal contacts and also think about regarding the shame that you receive. Do not forget in case you are in a committed relationship, precisely how this will affect?
Number two option would be to give me $2000. We are going to regard it as a donation. Consequently, I most certainly will immediately eliminate your videotape. You can keep going your daily routine like this never occurred and you will never hear back again from me.
You’ll make the payment by Bitcoin (if you don’t know this, search for “how to buy bitcoin” in Google).
BTC Address: 12TzenvP15Gqr4yXccsy6oLYZZxzda5LfH
[CASE-sensitive so copy & paste it]
If you are looking at going to the law enforcement, very well, this email cannot be traced back to me. I have covered my steps. I am not looking to ask you for a whole lot, I wish to be rewarded.
You have one day in order to pay. I’ve a unique pixel within this email, and at this moment I know that you have read through this e mail. If I do not receive the BitCoins, I will certainly send out your video to all of your contacts including family members, co-workers, and many others. Having said that, if I receive the payment, I will erase the video right away. If you want to have evidence, reply Yup! & I will certainly send out your video to your 14 friends. This is a non-negotiable offer therefore don’t waste mine time and yours by replying to this e-mail.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Many of the older texts use the long, archaic ƒ to replace the single s or first s in double s. For ease of reading this has been replaced with the contemporary s. Other spelling variant have been kept as printed in the original texts.
References
Abbate, J. (2000). Inventing the Internet. Boston, MA: MIT Press.
Addison, J. (1746). Miscellaneous Works in Verse and Prose. London: J. and R. Tonson.
Alvarez, E. (2014). Sony Pictures Hack: The Whole Story. Engadget. Retrieved January 31, 2020, from https://www.engadget.com/2014/12/10/sony-pictures-hack-the-whole-story/.
Amiel, J. (2003). The Core. Paramount Pictures.
Badham, J. (1983). War Games. United Artists.
Blith, W. (1652). The English Improver Improved: Or, The Svrvey of Hvsbandry Svrveyed, Discovering the Improueableness of All Lands. London: J. Wright.
Bossler, A., & Burruss, G. (2012). The General Theory of Crime and Computer Hacking: Low Self-Control Hackers? In Cyber Crime: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools and Applications (Information Resources Management, 1499–1527). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
Burton, R. (1621). The Anatomy of Melancholy …: To Which Is Prefixed, a Satyricall Preface. London: B. Blake.
Christensen, B. (2018). Fake Blackmail Sextortion Scam Emails Using Real Passwords. Retrieved August 10, 2018, from https://www.hoax-slayer.net/fake-blackmail-sextortion-scam-emails-using-real-passwords/.
Christian, R. (1997). Masterminds. Columbia Pictures.
Coleman, G. (2016). Hacker. In B. Peters (Ed.), Digital Keywords: A Vocabulary of Information Society and Culture (pp. 158–172). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Cook, J. (2018, August 25). UK Universities Targeted by Iranian Hackers in an Attempt to Steal Secrets. The Telegraph. London.
Coolidge, M. (1985). Real Genius. Sony Pictures.
Corbet, W. (1803). Corbett’s Political Register. London: Cox and Baylis.
Crouch, M. (1998). The “Social Etymology” of ‘Sexual Harassment’. Journal of Social Philosophy, 29(3), 19–40.
Cunningham, T. (2002). Storm Watch. Cinetel Films.
Flemming, A. (1975). Making Public Employment a Model of Equal Opportunity: A Report of the Proceedings of Regional Civil Rights Conference II, Sponsored by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in Boston. Boston, MA: US Commission on Civil Rights.
Foucault, M. (1980). Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Foucault, M. (2013). Archaeology of Knowledge. London: Routledge.
Foucault, M., Bouchard, D. F., et al. (1977). Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Goldberg, E., & Rogen, S. (2014). The Interview. Columbia Pictures.
Griffin, D. (2006). Literary Patronage in England, 1650–1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Halliday, J. (2010, September 24). Stuxnet Worm Is the ‘Work of a National Government Agency’. The Guardian. Retrieved September 9, 2019, from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/sep/24/stuxnet-worm-national-agency.
Hickey, M. (2015, August 24). Windows 95 Was the Most Important Operating System of All Time. Forbes Magazine. Retrieved October 5, 2019, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthickey/2015/08/24/windows-95-was-the-most-important-operating-system-of-all-time.
Hoad, T. F. (2003). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hughes, J. (1985). Weird Science. Universal Pictures.
Hughes, J. (1986). Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Paramount Pictures.
Jordan, T. J. C. (2017). A Genealogy of Hacking. Convergence, 23(5), 528–544.
Jordan, T., & Taylor, P. (1998). A Sociology of Hackers. The Sociological Review, 46(4), 757–780.
Kincade, J. (1987). Terminal Entry. Intercontinental Films.
Koshiw, I. (2018, August 22). How and International Hacker Network Turned Stolen Press Releases into $100 Million. The Verge. Retrieved September 23, 2018, from https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/22/17716622/sec-business-wire-hack-stolen-press-release-fraud-ukraine.
Levy, S. (1984). Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. Garden City, NY: Delta.
Lichstein, H. (1963). Services Curtailed: Telephone Hackers Active. The Tech, 83(24), 1.
London, J. (2015). Happy 60th Birthday to the Word “Hack”. Retrieved September 3, 2018, from https://alum.mit.edu/slice/happy-60th-birthday-word-hack.
Macey, D. (2019). The Lives of Michel Foucault. London: Verso Books.
Madden, T. (2014). Re: Model RR Hackers! Trainorders.com. Retrieved September 9, 2018, from https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?3,3607042.
Mann, M. (2015). Blackhat. Universal Pictures.
Markham, G. (1676). Markham’s Farewel to Husbandry, Or, The Enriching of All Sorts of Barren and Sterile Grounds in Our Nation, to Be as Fruitful in All Manner of Grain, Pulse, and Grass, as the Best Grounds Whatsoever: Together with the Annoyances, and Preservation of All Grain and Seed, from One Year to Many Years. As Also a Husbandly Computation of Men and Cattels Daily Labours, Their Expences, Charges, and Utmost Profits. London: George Sawbridge.
Mendes, S. (2012). Skyfall. Sony Pictures.
Monaghan, A. (2018, August 22). Superdrug Targeted by Hackers Who Claim to Have 20,000 Customer Details. The Guardian. Retrieved September 15, 2018, from https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/aug/22/superdrug-targeted-by-hackers-who-claim-to-have-20000-customer-details.
Morphew, J. (1713). Advice to a Young Gentleman. London: John Morphew.
Onorato, J., & Schupack, M. (2002). Tech Model Railroad Club of M.I.T.: The First Fifty Years. Cambridge, MA: TMRC.
Oyedele, A. (2017). BUFFETT: This Is ‘the Number One Problem with Mankind’. Business Insider. Retrieved May 6, 2017, from https://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffett-cybersecurity-berkshire-hathaway-meeting-2017-5?r=US&IR=T.
Parker, D. B. (1976). Crime by Computer. Ann Arbour, MI: Scribner.
Pettie, G. (1925). The Civile Conversation of M. Steeven Guazzo. London: Constable and Co Ltd.
Pope, A., & Rumbold, V. (1999). The Dunciad: In Four Books. London: Longman.
Rice, J. (1976). Teen Hobbyist. Byte Magazine, McGraw-Hill: 94.
Schrock, A. R. (2016). Civic Hacking as Data Activism and Advocacy: A History from Publicity to Open Government Data. Sociology, Computer Science, 18(4), 581–599.
Schulte, S. (2008). “The WarGames Scenario”: Regulating Teenagers and Teenaged Technology (1980–1984). Television & New Media, 9(6), 487–513.
Schulte, S. R. (2013). Cached: Decoding the Internet in Global Popular Culture. New York, NY: New York University Press.
Sena, D. (2001). Swordfish. Warner Bros. Pictures.
Smith, R. P. (1836). Col. Crockett’s Exploits and Adventures in Texas: Wherein Is Contained a Full Account of His Journey from Tennessee to the Red River and Nathchitoches, and Thence Across Texas to San Antonio; Including Many Hair-Breadth Escapes; Together with a Topographical, Historical, and Political View of Texas… Written by Himself. Boston, MA: T.K. and P.G. Collins.
Söderberg, J. (2010). Misuser Inventions and the Invention of the Misuser: Hackers, Crackers and Filesharers. Science as Culture, 19(2), 151–179.
Softley, I. (1995). Hackers. United Artists.
Solkin, D. H. (1993). Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century England. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Taylor, J. (1630). All the Works of John Taylor, the Water Poet, Being 63 in Number, Collected into One Volume by the Author with Sundry New Additions, Corrected, Revised, and Newly Imprinted. London: Nicholas Borthwick.
Taylor, P. (2012). Hackers: Crime and the Digital Sublime. London: Routledge.
The Mentor. (1986). The Conscience of a Hacker. Phrack, 1(7).
Thomas, D. (2002). Hacker Culture. Minneaplois, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Thomson, W. (1789). Mammuth: Or, Human Nature Displayed on a Grand Scale: In a Tour with the Tinkers, Into the Inland Parts of Africa. By the Man in the Moon. In Two Volumes. London: J. Murray.
Tozzi, C. (2017). For Fun and Profit: A History of the Free and Open Source Software Revolution. Boston, MA: MIT Press.
Turgeman-Goldschmidt, O. (2005). Hackers’ Accounts: Hacking as a Social Entertainment. Social Science Computer Review, 23(1), 8–23.
Wagner, R. (2003). Information Wants to Be Free: Intellectual Property and the Mythologies of Control. Columbia Law Review, 103, 995–1034.
Williams, R. (1976). Keywords. London: Routledge.
Wolff, J. (1981). The Social Production of Art. Manhattan, NY: New York University Press.
Yar, M. (2016). Online Crime. In H. Pontell (Ed.), Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice (pp. 1–27). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Leaning, M. (2021). From Chopping Trees to Destroying Capitalism: A Social Etymology of Hacking. In: Ewen, N., Grattan, A., Leaning, M., Manning, P. (eds) Capitalism, Crime and Media in the 21st Century. Palgrave Studies in Crime, Media and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56444-5_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56444-5_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-56443-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-56444-5
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)