Wikipedia

Hacker

A hacker is most commonly a person who seeks unauthorized access to a computer system or network.[1] The term also has a positive sense for a skilled programmer or computer enthusiast. In computer security, it can refer both to intruders and to authorized specialists who test systems and report vulnerabilities. Programmer and free software communities use it for people who explore programmable systems, modify software, and devise clever solutions to technical problems. Because these uses arose in different settings, the word carries positive, neutral, and negative meanings, and communities disagree over who may claim it.

Several people working at laptop computers around tables during a cybersecurity competition
A team competing in a capture-the-flag security contest at DEF CON 17 in 2009

The computing sense of the term developed in student culture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during the late 1950s and early 1960s, where hacks involved playful technical work, pranks, and unauthorized interference. Personal computers and modem-connected networks spread hacker culture beyond academic laboratories during the 1970s and 1980s. Publicized intrusions, arrests, the 1983 film WarGames, and computer-crime laws made unauthorized access central to the public meaning of hacker. From the 1990s onward, security consulting, conferences, coordinated vulnerability disclosure, and bug bounty programs created recognized professional roles for people who find and test weaknesses in computer systems.

Hacker communities include programmer and free-software hackers, hardware hackers, phreakers, members of the computer underground, security hackers, and hacktivists. Their aims and legal status differ, but many place value on technical skill, experimentation, information sharing, and recognition from peers. They organize through software projects, online forums, informal groups, hackerspaces, and conferences. Participation may depend on skill, trust, and familiarity with group norms, and formally open communities can still have cultural barriers. In security work, authorization and agreed limits distinguish professional testing from access without permission. Copyright and software licenses also affect how programs may be studied, modified, and distributed, and some laws restrict the circumvention of technical protections.

News and popular culture often present hackers as anonymous criminals, cyber-terrorists, or socially isolated technical prodigies, but also as activists, defenders, and security professionals. The positive sense of hack as an inventive solution has spread beyond computing in terms such as hackathon, civic hacking, biohacking, growth hacking, and life hack.

Terminology and scope

Within computing, communities disagree over which uses of hacker are legitimate and who may claim the label.[2]

Etymology and early uses

The verb hack, from Old English, originally meant to cut or sever with repeated blows, and hacker was used for a person who hacked in that physical sense centuries before electronic computers.[3] The computing use developed from student slang at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).[4] The first edition of the Tech Model Railroad Club's dictionary, compiled in 1959, described a hack as an undertaking without a constructive purpose and a hacker as its practitioner.[5] Before its close association with computers, the label covered playful tinkering and pranks involving machinery.[4]

The word also had a negative sense early in its use. In 1963, MIT's student newspaper, The Tech, called students who disrupted telephone services and made unauthorized long-distance calls "telephone hackers".[6] Legal scholar Fred R. Shapiro traces both non-malicious tinkering and unauthorized interference in MIT usage before the word entered wider public use.[4]

Competing definitions

In current usage, hacker denotes either an expert in programming and computer problem-solving or, more commonly, someone who attempts or gains unauthorized access to computer systems.[7][1] Programmer and free software communities often use the word positively for people who enjoy exploring programmable systems, modifying software, and finding clever ways around technical limits.[8][2] In computer security, the term can cover lawful penetration testers and security experts as well as people who act without permission.[9][2]

People who discover and report vulnerabilities include researchers, developers, system administrators, users, academics, security companies, and government organizations; some use neither security researcher nor hacker as a self-description.[10] These senses share some skills and methods but differ in authorization, purpose, and community identity.[2] Beyond computer security, hacker may also describe an expert or enthusiast in a particular field or a person who creatively works around practical limitations.[8][3]

Some programmer and free-software communities use cracker for a person who breaks into systems for malicious or illegal purposes, reserving hacker for a technical enthusiast.[2][8] The distinction was promoted during the 1980s in response to negative media portrayals, but some hackers reject it because lawful and unlawful hacking may involve the same techniques.[2] General dictionaries continue to list unauthorized computer access as a standard meaning of hacker.[7][1]

Ethical hacker and white-hat hacker generally refer to a security professional who tests systems lawfully, while black hat refers to illicit or unsanctioned hacking and gray hat to conduct that may violate rules or laws without the malicious intent usually associated with black hats.[9]

Cybercriminal identifies a person who commits crimes through computers or the Internet,[11] whereas script kiddie is an informal, disparaging term for a low-skill intruder who relies on programs written by others.[12] A phreaker is someone who gains illegal access to or manipulates telephone systems.[13] A hacktivist is someone who uses hacking to pursue political, social, religious, or ideological goals.[9][14]

Historical development

Early technical culture

Members of the Tech Model Railroad Club learned about switching circuits and logical control through the relay systems used to run their model railway, and some later experimented with computers made available to students at MIT.[15] A computer-hacker community formed around MIT's TX-0 from about 1958 and expanded after a PDP-1 was installed in 1962.[16] Unlike most computers of the period, which were operated by specialist staff, these machines could be used directly by members of the MIT community.[16] The community had links to Project MAC and the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and its members created experimental programs including a screen-based text editor and Spacewar!.[16] In 1984, journalist Steven Levy used the phrase "hacker ethic" for values he associated with this community.[16]

Expansion beyond academic computing

During the 1970s, less expensive microprocessors and personal-computer kits brought computing within reach of hobbyists outside universities, government laboratories, and large businesses.[17] In Berkeley, Community Memory opened in 1973 as the first public computer-based bulletin board, giving people without previous computer access a place to exchange messages and information.[18] The Homebrew Computer Club, founded in 1975, served as a forum where hobbyists and experimenters shared ideas and demonstrated new hardware and software.[19] The circulation of unauthorized copies of Altair BASIC led Microsoft founder Bill Gates to criticize hobbyists in a 1976 open letter, in which he argued that software copying deprived programmers of payment and discouraged the production of commercial software.[20]

The personal-computer movement carried hacker culture into commercial software and the home video-game industry during the late 1970s and early 1980s.[16] The GNU Project, begun in 1984, organized the development of a Unix-compatible operating system whose software could be run, copied, modified, and redistributed; GNU components were later combined with the Linux kernel to form a complete free operating system.[21]

Computer intrusion and the security meaning

The computer underground that emerged in the 1980s drew on telephone phreaking and on users who explored computer systems outside institutional settings.[22] As home computers and modems spread during the 1980s, bulletin board systems allowed participants in different cities to exchange technical information, login credentials, software, and news.[22] Underground hackers used group affiliations, bulletin boards, and electronic publications to form a distinct scene; the Legion of Doom and the electronic magazine Phrack became well-known examples.[22]

Participants explored systems, learned technical methods, competed with one another, and sought recognition from their peers.[22] Some members distinguished those activities from payment-card fraud, other fraud, and destructive attacks, but they did not agree on the boundary.[22] During the 1980s, reports of arrests and computer intrusions made hacker increasingly synonymous with a digital trespasser, while programmers continued to use the term positively within technical culture.[23]

The 1983 film WarGames brought computer intrusion to a mass audience and helped present hackers as a threat to national security.[24] In the United States, Congress enacted the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in 1986, creating federal offenses for specified forms of unauthorized access to protected computers.[22] The Morris worm of 1988 disrupted a substantial part of the early Internet and led to the conviction of its creator Robert Tappan Morris in 1990, the first obtained under the act.[22]

Operation Sundevil and related Secret Service investigations in 1990 targeted bulletin-board operators and people suspected of telecommunications and computer offenses.[22] The raids and seizures raised questions about speech, privacy, and the legal treatment of electronic communications.[25] The Electronic Frontier Foundation was founded in July that year after an investigation involving the publication of a telephone-system document, and it provided legal assistance in cases involving computer users and electronic communication.[25]

Professionalization and institutionalization

Black Hat, a computer security conference that brings a variety of people interested in information security, including hackers.

During the 1990s, some people from hacker and computer-underground communities entered security consulting, software companies, and corporate research groups, where their knowledge of vulnerabilities became useful commercially.[22] Conferences such as DEF CON, first held in 1993, and Black Hat, established in 1997, brought independent hackers into contact with security firms, technology vendors, government personnel, and law-enforcement officers.[22] The Bugtraq mailing list, created in 1993, gave vulnerability finders a public forum for technical disclosures, allowed them to build professional reputations, and pressured vendors to correct reported flaws.[22] The 1998 testimony of members of L0pht Heavy Industries before the United States Senate placed a hacker collective before lawmakers as computer-security experts rather than criminal defendants.[22]

Coordinated-disclosure policies and bug bounty programs later created formal routes through which researchers could report vulnerabilities and work with affected organizations.[22] Penetration testing and other forms of security testing that imitate attacks are performed by specialists often called penetration testers or white-hat hackers.[26] In 2016, the United States Department of Defense ran Hack the Pentagon, the first bug-bounty program in the federal government, allowing eligible participants to test selected public websites under defined rules.[27] Professionalization did not settle the meaning of hacker, which still referred to trusted security specialists and to people regarded as computer-security threats.[22]

Major traditions and communities

Programmer and free-software hackers

In the programmer tradition, hacking centers on understanding software, modifying code, and finding technically inventive ways to make a computer behave as intended or do something unexpected.[16] Programmer hacking began in academic laboratories and spread to personal computing and commercial software.[16] Open-source hacker communities have differed over proprietary software and the role of commercial businesses.[28]

Free software hackers form a programmer-centered tradition.[2] Their projects use licenses that permit users to study, modify, and redistribute programs.[29] Internet-based projects draw contributors from many locations, release early versions for testing, and incorporate corrections from users and programmers.[30] Open licenses allow anyone to alter the code, but established projects usually have maintainers who decide which changes enter the official version.[28] Free-software hackers emphasize continuing software freedom, whereas open-source hackers place more weight on development methods and freedom of choice in using software.[31]

Hardware hackers

A DIY musician probes the circuit board of a synthesizer for "bends" using a jeweler's screwdriver and alligator clips.

Hardware-oriented work in hackerspaces includes programming, building devices, and creative experimentation with digital technology.[32] In these spaces, hacking usually refers to constructive technical work, not illegal access.[32]

Open-source hardware makes design files available for others to study, modify, manufacture, and redistribute.[33] Unlike software, an open hardware design still requires physical components, materials, and manufacturing processes before it can become a working object.[33] Hardware can also contain weaknesses that are exploitable through physical or remote access.[9]

Phreakers and the computer underground

Phreakers explore and manipulate telephone networks and the technologies used to control calls.[34] During the 1970s, phreaking included technical experimentation, pranks, avoidance of telephone charges, and campaigns that treated the Bell System as a target of political protest.[34] Phreaking publications and practices later influenced parts of the computer underground.[34]

The computer underground included exploratory intruders and people involved in fraud, theft, or deliberate damage; members disputed where hacking ended and criminal abuse began.[22]

Security hackers

In computer security, hacker refers to a person with the expertise to find or exploit weaknesses in computer systems, but the label alone does not show whether the activity is authorized or malicious.[9] Authorized penetration testers and other specialists who test security by imitating attacks work within an agreed scope, demonstrate vulnerabilities, and report their findings to the organization responsible for the system.[26] These practitioners are often called white-hat hackers or ethical hackers, while black hats act illicitly or without sanction and gray hats may act without permission but lack the malicious intent normally associated with black hats.[9]

Unauthorized security hackers may act for personal gain or other malicious purposes.[9] Some attackers, including state-sponsored groups, conduct long-running campaigns against selected organizations or governments for political, strategic, or commercial objectives.[35] The hat terminology classifies hackers mainly by authorization and intent, though its boundaries remained disputed as security work moved from underground groups into professional settings.[22]

Hacktivists and politically oriented hackers

Anarchist hacktivist protest in the US

Hacktivists use computer skills and digital action to advance political or social causes rather than for personal financial gain.[36] Hacktivist acts include distributing information, developing tools for political campaigns, defacing websites, disclosing information without authorization, and interrupting online services.[36] Ordinary online advocacy is not usually classed as hacktivism unless it involves direct technical intervention or a contentious action against a chosen target.[36]

Some participants and commentators describe hacktivism as the digital counterpart of civil disobedience; others regard unauthorized disruption or access as crime regardless of political purpose.[36] Political motivation alone does not make an attack cyberterrorism; that term is generally reserved for operations intended to cause grave harm, widespread fear, loss of life, or severe damage to essential systems.[36] News and government discourse have nevertheless sometimes grouped hacktivism with cyberterrorism or treated politically motivated hackers primarily as security threats.[37]

Culture and social organization

Hacker ethics and values

Accounts of early MIT hacker culture emphasize computer access, information sharing, decentralization, and status based on technical work rather than formal rank.[16] Across later hacker traditions, technical craft and inventive circumvention recur as valued features of hacking.[31] Hackers have valued successful work for its quality, elegance, humor, playfulness, or ingenious handling of a constraint.[31]

Hacker communities take different positions on software freedom, privacy, commercial work, and political action.[31] Many Western hackers have supported civil liberties and anti-authoritarian ideas. Libertarianism has been more closely associated with particular regions and projects.[31] Among 684 free and open-source developers surveyed in 2003, enjoyment and a sense of creativity were the strongest reported motives, while user need, intellectual stimulation, and skill development were also important, and about two-fifths received payment for their work.[38] A 2021 survey of open-source contributors found that learning and intellectual stimulation remained important, while motives involving social connection, reputation, career advancement, enjoyment, and helping others varied with experience.[39]

Learning, collaboration and reputation

Hackers acquire skills through direct work with systems and exchanges with peers.[31][22] Mailing lists, chat channels, code repositories, forums, electronic publications, and shared workshops allow participants to ask questions, inspect code, publish methods, and test ideas.[31][22] Large free-software projects may use maintainers, membership procedures, contributor review, and voting.[31] Elite security-hacker groups have sometimes restricted sensitive information to trusted members who demonstrated technical ability.[22] Much hacker activity is social, despite the stereotype of the isolated individual.[31]

Within the security-hacker scene, visible technical contributions and peer recognition establish standing.[22] Pseudonymous handles conceal a person's legal identity while preserving authorship and group affiliation for tools, exploits, or publications.[22] As security work became professionalized, some hackers began using their legal names so that vulnerability disclosures and technical tools could support résumés, employment, and public credibility.[22] The growing value of public credit also sharpened disputes over private knowledge, reused code, and work claimed by another person.[22]

Organizations, spaces and events

Hacker communities take the form of online projects, informal crews, publications, advocacy groups, shared workspaces, and conferences.[31][22] Hackerspaces are community-run physical places where people work on projects and learn from one another.[40] Their local rules and values govern how members use shared space and technology.[32] Local groups also use chat services, mailing lists, and repositories to remain connected outside their physical workspaces.[31]

Security-hacker meetups and conferences connect participants who otherwise interact at a distance, introduce newcomers to a wider scene, and provide places for exchanging technical knowledge.[22] Hacker conferences combine lectures and technical demonstrations with informal discussion, collaborative work, recreation, and social activity.[41] Security events include volunteer community gatherings and conferences tied to companies, government agencies, and professional security work.[22] Free-software projects also hold meetings centered on development, governance, and community ties.[31] Face-to-face gatherings strengthen relationships otherwise maintained mainly online.[41]

Participation and internal boundaries

Free-culture and open-source communities can be formally open yet retain informal cultural barriers.[42] Within security-hacker groups, skill, trust, contribution history, and familiarity with group norms can determine membership and access to private knowledge.[22] In free-culture settings, meritocratic ideals can coexist with narrow ideas of the "real hacker", adversarial discussion, and informal personal networks that create barriers to participation.[42]

Gender imbalance is particularly well documented in free and open-source software. A review of 51 publications estimated that women made up about 9.8% of contributors and identified low peer parity and noninclusive communication among the main social barriers.[43] Sexist remarks, harassment, and exclusion have also been documented at conferences and in online free-culture communities.[42] Women in the security-hacker scene have described lasting support from peers, but also encounters in which others ignored or doubted their technical interest.[22] Free-culture communities have responded with women-focused initiatives and clearer conduct or governance measures.[42] Feminist hackerspaces have also been created as settings for technical learning, skill sharing, and community-building.[44] Feminist hackerspaces may address barriers involving race, sexuality, gender identity, and class as well as the underrepresentation of women.[44]

Ethics and legality

Before a professional security test, rules of engagement usually specify the authorized activities and their limits.[45] A public vulnerability-disclosure policy authorizes independent research only on the systems and methods covered by its terms.[46] The United States Department of Justice policy, for example, permits only the testing needed to confirm a vulnerability. It excludes removing data, maintaining access after testing, gaining higher privileges, moving into connected systems, installing malware, and disrupting services.[46] A researcher who is uncertain whether a target or method is covered is expected to seek clarification before continuing.[46]

Permission from one organization does not extend to systems, information, or services controlled by third parties, and compliance with a disclosure policy does not excuse unrelated violations of law.[46] In the United States, Department of Justice charging policy directs federal prosecutors to decline prosecution under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act when the available evidence shows that the conduct was intended as good-faith security research.[47] The policy defines such research as testing, investigating, or correcting a security flaw in a manner designed to avoid harm, with the resulting information used mainly to improve security or safety.[47] This is internal guidance for federal prosecutors and does not create a legal right enforceable by a researcher.[47]

Vulnerability disclosure

In coordinated vulnerability disclosure, a finder reports a security flaw and works with vendors, coordinators, or other affected parties before publication.[48] The process can include discovery, reporting, confirmation, deciding priority, repair, public disclosure, and release of a fix or other protective measures.[49] A useful report identifies the affected product or configuration, explains the possible impact, gives steps for reproducing the flaw, and provides evidence or a demonstration that the flaw works.[50][46] The recipient then checks whether the vulnerability can be confirmed and decides how urgently it should be addressed.[49]

Remediation removes a vulnerability; mitigation reduces its effect without removing the underlying flaw.[51] Developing and testing a reliable patch may require time, particularly when vulnerable code is reused across products or supplied by another vendor.[51] The United States Department of Labor's disclosure policy, for example, directs researchers to stop testing after confirming a flaw or encountering sensitive data and to allow time for remediation before publishing technical details.[52] The CERT/CC model includes public awareness, publication of the vulnerability and remediation plan, and deployment of a fix or mitigation as later stages of the process.[49]

Information freedom and intellectual property

Copyright generally protects the expression of a computer program, not its ideas, procedures, methods of operation, or mathematical concepts.[53] In the European Union, copyright holders control the reproduction, alteration, and public distribution of computer programs, subject to stated exceptions.[54] Free-software licenses grant users the freedom to run, study, modify, copy, and redistribute programs.[29] Copyleft licenses add the condition that redistributed versions must preserve those freedoms, although free software may also use licenses without that requirement.[29]

European Union law permits users to observe and test software in some circumstances.[54] It also permits a lawful user to translate necessary portions of compiled code into another form when this is essential to make an independently created program work with other software and the information is otherwise unavailable.[54] Information obtained through that exception cannot be used for unrelated purposes, shared except as needed for compatibility, or used to produce a substantially similar infringing program.[54] The directive also requires remedies against commercial dealings in tools intended solely to bypass technical protections on software.[54]

Public image and representation

News media and public discourse

A hooded laptop user against a background of green code, a common media stereotype of a hacker.

News coverage frequently uses hacker for an unauthorized intruder and associates the term with computer crime, security threats, and disruption.[55] In an analysis of five United States newspapers covering the year before and after the September 11 attacks, reports increasingly framed hackers as possible cyber-terrorists rather than ordinary computer criminals.[55] Motives received little attention unless an article specifically profiled a hacker, and reports sometimes used hacktivism and cyberterrorism for conduct that did not involve the same aims or level of harm.[55]

National politics also affect portrayals of hackers.[56] A comparison of China Daily and The New York Times from 2001 to 2020 found that states were prominent actors in both newspapers, but that each publication framed accusations and foreign governments through its own national and political setting.[56] The same comparison found more positive references over time, including coverage of ethical hackers and defensive security work, alongside the continuing association with hostile activity.[56]

Visual reports frequently show hackers in dark rooms, with obscured faces, hooded clothing, masks, or screens filled with code.[57] This "cyber-noir" imagery presents computer security as a hidden and morally uncertain world populated by anonymous threats and specialists who may use similar methods for different ends.[57]

Film, television, and computer games repeatedly draw on several hacker character types, with their prominence changing over time.[58] In the 1980s, WarGames (1983) and early hacking games presented the hacker as a gifted but socially isolated young person who enters powerful systems from a home computer and becomes involved in events far beyond ordinary life.[58] During the 1990s, Hackers (1995) and The Matrix (1999) recast the figure as a stylish subcultural rebel and, in the latter film, a hero capable of resisting an oppressive digital system.[58]

Later films such as Swordfish (2001) and Blackhat (2015) placed hackers within terrorism, surveillance, cybercrime, and international conflict, portraying them as dangerous offenders, necessary allies, or both at once.[58] The television series Mr. Robot (2015–19) returned to the socially alienated hacker but gave the character greater psychological depth and connected hacking with mental illness, surveillance, corporate power, political anger, and the personal consequences of technical action.[58] The series also used recognizable tools and plausible attack methods instead of treating every intrusion as a purely visual spectacle.[58]

Many screen portrayals differ sharply from real hacking practices.[59] In a sample of 50 film and television scenes released between 2010 and 2022, attacks were usually completed in very little time, succeeded at unusually high rates, and concealed their technical process behind a simplified "black box".[59] Computer games add another form of representation by allowing players to perform simplified intrusions, choose targets, acquire tools, and take the role of a criminal, mercenary, activist, or defender.[58]

Extensions of the term

The favorable computing sense of hack, meaning an inventive way to solve a problem, has spread beyond programming and computer security.[23] A hackathon is a short event in which programmers, often joined by people from other specialties, work intensively to create code or a prototype.[60] The format is also used to build scientific collaborations and communities or to develop prototypes for urgent problems.[61]

Civic hacking applies technical and design skills to public problems, often by using government data or redesigning the way people interact with public services.[62] Civic hackers may include programmers, designers, data specialists, organizers, entrepreneurs, and government employees, and the label does not imply unauthorized access.[62] In do-it-yourself biology, biohackers conduct biological experiments outside conventional academic or industrial laboratories.[63] Other uses of biohacking cover health and wellness practices, technological augmentation, and self-directed experiments involving the body or mind.[64]

In business, growth hacking means iterative, data-driven experimentation intended to help an organization scale and adapt; it is not limited to startups or marketing.[65] A life hack is a simple, clever tip or technique for completing an ordinary task more easily or efficiently.[66]

See also

References

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  39. ↑ Gerosa, Marco A.; Wiese, Igor; Trinkenreich, Bianca; Link, Georg; Robles, Gregorio; Treude, Christoph; Steinmacher, Igor; Sarma, Anita (2021). "The Shifting Sands of Motivation: Revisiting What Drives Contributors in Open Source". Proceedings of the 43rd International Conference on Software Engineering. pp. 1046–1059. doi:10.1109/ICSE43902.2021.00098. Retrieved June 19, 2026.
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  44. 1 2 Toupin, Sophie (2013). "Feminist Hackerspaces as Safer Spaces?". .dpi (27). Retrieved June 27, 2026.
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  46. 1 2 3 4 5 United States Department of Justice (April 3, 2024). "Vulnerability Disclosure Policy". Retrieved June 24, 2026.
  47. 1 2 3 United States Department of Justice (May 2022). "9-48.000 - Computer Fraud and Abuse Act". Justice Manual. Retrieved June 25, 2026.
  48. ↑ CERT Coordination Center. "The CERT Guide to Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure". Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. Retrieved June 11, 2026.
  49. 1 2 3 CERT Coordination Center. "Phases of Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure". Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. Retrieved June 21, 2026.
  50. ↑ CERT Coordination Center. "Validation". Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. Retrieved July 10, 2026.
  51. 1 2 CERT Coordination Center. "Analysis and Remediation". Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. Retrieved July 6, 2026.
  52. ↑ United States Department of Labor. "Vulnerability Disclosure Policy". Retrieved June 20, 2026.
  53. ↑ World Intellectual Property Organization. "Copyright Protection of Computer Software". Retrieved June 1, 2026.
  54. 1 2 3 4 5 European Parliament and Council of the European Union (April 23, 2009). "Directive 2009/24/EC on the Legal Protection of Computer Programs". Official Journal of the European Union. Retrieved June 15, 2026.
  55. 1 2 3 Vegh, Sandor (February 7, 2005). "The Media's Portrayal of Hacking, Hackers, and Hacktivism Before and After September 11". First Monday. 10 (2). doi:10.5210/fm.v10i2.1206. Retrieved June 10, 2026.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  56. 1 2 3 Pei, Jiamin; Li, Dandi; Cheng, Le (2022). "Media Portrayal of Hackers in China Daily and The New York Times: A Corpus-Based Critical Discourse Analysis". Discourse & Communication. 16 (5): 598–618. doi:10.1177/17504813221099190. Retrieved July 15, 2026.
  57. 1 2 Shires, James (2020). "Cyber-noir: Cybersecurity and Popular Culture". Contemporary Security Policy. 41 (1): 82–107. doi:10.1080/13523260.2019.1670006. Retrieved June 2, 2026.
  58. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Dillon, Roberto (March 26, 2026). "From Outcast to Hero and Back: The Shifting Portrayals of the Hacker Archetype". New Media & Society. doi:10.1177/14614448261430712. Retrieved June 7, 2026.
  59. 1 2 Leibniz University Hannover (February 3, 2026). "'I'm In' - Portrayal of Hacking in Movies and TV Shows". Institute of Information Security. Retrieved July 1, 2026.
  60. ↑ "Hackathon". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Merriam-Webster. Retrieved June 23, 2026.
  61. ↑ Falk, Jeanette; Nolte; et al. (2022). "The Future of Hackathon Research and Practice". Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction. 6 (CSCW2). Article 330.
  62. 1 2 Tauberer, Joshua (August 2014). "Civic Hacking". Open Government Data: The Book (2nd ed.). Retrieved July 9, 2026.
  63. ↑ Gruber, Karl (2019). "Biohackers: A Growing Number of Amateurs Join the Do-it-yourself Molecular Biology Movement Outside Academic Laboratories". EMBO Reports. 20 (6). e48397. doi:10.15252/embr.201948397. PMC 6549016.
  64. ↑ Lorrimar, Victoria (2025). "What Are 'Biohackers' Hacking? Identifying Motivations and Meaning-making Frameworks". Medical Humanities. doi:10.1136/medhum-2025-013261. PMC 13018727.
  65. ↑ Bargoni, Augusto; Santoro, Gabriele; Messeni Petruzzelli, Antonio; Ferraris, Alberto (March 2024). "Growth Hacking: A Critical Review to Clarify Its Meaning and Guide Its Practical Application". Technological Forecasting and Social Change. 200. 123111. doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2023.123111. Retrieved July 11, 2026.
  66. ↑ "Life Hack". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Merriam-Webster. Retrieved June 3, 2026.
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