Hacking vs. Cracking

A hacker is someone who is good at logic and math not necisarilly a programmer, but since you need math and logic in writing a program....

Sorry, but I think you have the sensationalized version of the terms as well. Cracking originally referred to the act of programmers disecting, or "cracking", protection schemes of software programs.

Hacking originally referred to programmers hog-pogging software, patching things to make it go. In a sense, you are "hacking" away at the original code to get it to work the way you want.

All this about virii writing, gaining access to networks and such are all recent connotations slapped on those terms. It would appear that crackers are more software related nowadays, where as hackers is just plain generalized for everything.

And "hacking", as it is called now, goes beyond programming. Social engineering, phreaking, etc. do not have anything to do with programming. As such, hackers do not have to be logic/math oriented.

The simplest way I have found to explain the difference is by the definition of each term. Cracking is about breaking something open. Like a disection, you are opening it up and trying to understand it. Reverse-engineering comes to mind. Usually, cracking involve deciphering something (encryption, protection routines) and work around it. The main goal is to understand the source.

Hacking is like as if you are whacking at something. Your intent is to get whatever it is you are hacking to work the way you want. So, the goal here is not to understand, but "bend" it to work your way.


Or at least that's my view.

punk_pressing_on said:

This topic seems to casue lots of confussion, so lets get it right. There is nothing at all wrong with hacking. Lets start out by defining what cracking is. Cracking is the act of gaining access to a computer system, or network that you don't have permission. Cracking can also refer to the writing of virii or other malware. Cracking offten had legal implactions, and should be avoid (unless of course you are testign your own network)

Hacking is simply the act of writing a program. The media has destroyed the origianl meaning, most people use hackign and cracking interchangably. Someone who hacks is just someone that is (usally) a good programmer.

This post was inspired by an older thread that I didn't want to bring back up again.

Comments? Corrections?

Click to expand...

Thats essentially it, but not quite, Hacking the original meaning, is a person who does the reverse engineering of a program, so they can get the "how this program works". Cracking on the other hand it known as those who break into computers.

But because of some dumb@zz who got it all wrong, the media just so happen to adopted the wrong meaning. It's getting me confused, and not only that, non-computing people like my friends, think they're more intelligent and thus the name for people breaking into accounts are Hackers.

Unfortunately, the dictionary changes depending on the language and the majority of the people. Because of some dumb@zz that miss understood it...the whole IT industry has to suffer because of the confusion.

Unfortunately, the idiots win over this definition, because thats the common phrase nowdays...