So my 4 year old Niece watches this TV show on PBS called "Cyberchase." Couple of kids running around using their math skills to save the world from the evil henchman called Hacker. She's telling me about how Hackers is evil, etc.

WTF?

Not so long ago, the word hacker had a thoroughly positive connotation. Then the media grabbed hold of it as a catchall phrase to describe cyberpunks, script kiddies, and other miscellaneous blackhat *********. Now they've raised the bar to include James Bond-esque supervillains and are force-feeding this stereotype to children?

 

What happened to Rugrats and Rocket Power?

 

 

gay used to mean "happy"

 

*** used to mean gay.

 

I thought a *** was still a square.

 

What happened to scooby doo and fat albert?

 

a *** is a small stick or cigarette

 

Anyone that has seen the latest episode of South Park knows that *** means a biker dude with a loud *** harley.

And yes I watch South Park. Haters can eat my ****.

 

HA! Beat me to it. Great episode. ******* wannabe yuppie bikers on loud Harleys. South Park rules.
"And all you damn hippie freaks that don't like it can get the hell out of town."


Yeah so back to the OP stereotyping the hacker thing as 'evil' is pretty weak. Just the media picking the low-hanging fruit. I mean, after all, it can turn out to be a career path to an honest six-figure IT job in corporate computer security. Many examples of companies hiring the hackers that broke into their computers to consult on their network security and what not.

 

A square is a slang word for cigarette.The box that cigarettes come in resembles a square.Hence the name, "square" for a cigarette

eg. "smoke a square"





I heard this a lot growing up. Just a play on entymology.

EDIT: err.....etymology

 

When I was younger, I used to correct people if they used the word 'hacker' where they should have used 'cracker'. Then I realized I was being somewhat silly.

I think the word 'hacker' to describe a troublemaker really started back in the day of phone phreaking and blue boxing, with the likes of John Draper, Woz, Jobs, et al - since they were also hackers (in the traditional sense), the media and other outsiders used the same word to describe the phreakers, and the "crackers" that came afterwards.

 

I knew someone *ahem* that built one of the boxes that replicated the sound the payphones made when you dropped in a nickel. All it took from what he told me was about $20 and a quick trip to Radio Shack. It worked great. He demonstrated it for me while making long distance phone calls from a payphone (when they were still around).

 

All the red box needed was a sound recorder. Nothing more. Capt Crunch and phreaking days were the coolest. Didn't Capt Crunch get his name from the Capt Crunch ceral toy whistle that made a perfect 2600 hz? Too bad it's all obsolete now.

I made a green box too. I think it was suppose to send a tone that the operator would give if you needed a refund. It didn't work, but I think by the time I got into it, the green box was already obsolete.

 

Yup. The original whistle that John Draper got from Joe Engressia was a plastic toy that came in boxes of cereal of the same name.

When I was in high school (early '90s) there was a payphone outside the gym. Only one on campus, IIRC. Despite the fact that it was a modern DTMF unit, we discovered that the Lightman Hack actually worked on it. This was cool **** in the days before everybody had a cell phone.