Popular media has created a certain hacker stereotype that has been reinforced in television and movies for decades. In the 1980s and 1990s, the stereotype was a smart and carefree teenager who used their knowledge and access to create disruptions, either intentionally or unintentionally.
They’re often shown wearing hoodies (with the hood up, while alone inside the house) and sometimes wearing sunglasses to cover their eyes. You might even see them wearing gloves to keep their fingerprints off their keyboards (to minimize evidence, of course) as they commit esoteric acts of cybercrime.
During the 2016 election, candidate Donald Trump even referenced a well-known trope of the “400-pound guy on his bed” as the likely culprit for a hack of the Democratic National Committee, which is thought to have had an impact on that election. Popular depictions also tend to show hackers as white men, which isn’t an all-around accurate depiction either.
The global community of hackers has been as diverse and vibrant as the general population. What has changed from decade to decade within the hacker community has been the treatment of this group by outside influence. This outside influence has had a major impact on the development of new generations of hackers coming up within the community. One major influence has been world governments trying to figure out the best way to govern this population.
Despite the ever-changing public understanding of exactly what a hacker is, there are some true commonalities that tend to define this notoriously mercurial group.
What Characteristics Do Hackers Share?
- A curious mind.
- A streak for mischief.
- A desire to achieve the impossible.
- A determination to problem-solve.
Common Hacking Virtues
One place we can look for broad definitions and commonalities about hackers is in a common system of values. It’s important to remember that not all hackers will maintain the same value system in the same way as any other member of the same community. Many hackers choose to associate themselves with some common qualities that they may feel improve their work. The following is a discussion of values that many hackers feel applies to them.
Curiosity
Despite being a cliché, curiosity is a common trait of the hacker personality. When presented with a locked box, the average hacker will want to use every tool in their arsenal to open it just to find out what’s inside.
Unsurprisingly, puzzles are popular with hackers. It’s common to find puzzle-based games at hacker conferences throughout the world hosted in rooms full of people all tinkering and finagling data and exploits to break into computers specially designed to be breached by these hackers.
It’s common for hackers to be unsatisfied by being told they can’t do something. Regardless of how big a technical challenge may be, hackers are often willing to spend hundreds of hours of their personal time focused on solving a niche problem. Even when no financial gain is offered, the reward is simply the feeling of accomplishment.
What happens if I push this button in just this way? What if I offer this prompt too much information? What if I offer it not enough? What if I give it something that it doesn’t expect entirely?
Hackers are excited by the prospect of discovering something that nobody even knew was there, possibly even discovering something that wasn’t intended to exist at all. This is the power of curiosity that hackers feel, and when they finally find it, the feeling of discovery can be intoxicating.
Mischief
Just as strong as the drive of satisfied curiosity among hackers is the motivation to do pranks. Most hackers have a wonderful sense of humor that they reflect in the outcomes of their hacks, and often in the code they write. After all, who needs money when you can have a good laugh?
Sometimes, it’s difficult for the average person to know why some hackers do the things that they do. Sometimes mischief is the point. In the hacker community, pranks come in many forms — sometimes appearing as pranks “just for the lulz” and sometimes appearing as meanspirited “flame wars” that end with personal attacks and private information being published. Whatever form mischief takes, these pranks are forms of self-expression that can be worth more than just money.
After all, the only thing more satisfying than defeating the unbreakable security of a friend’s web server is defacing his web page with a message declaring your own superiority. Gaining unauthorized access to a system thought to be secure is a recipe for mischief and chaos, and it is often done in good humor … but not always.
Defiance
Hackers don’t like to be told something can’t be done. Whether something can’t be done for legal or technical reasons, hackers thrive on the chase of proving their naysayers wrong.
There’s a famous hacker trope about “voiding warranties.” Because product warranties typically require that users don’t modify the product’s hardware or software for a warranty to remain effective, defying the terms of a warranty and purposefully voiding the terms of service is a hacker’s rite of passage.
In the same way that the Titanic was considered unsinkable, some products are marketed as “unhackable.” The fastest way to prove that a product is indeed “hackable” is to declare it is perfectly secure, yet even marketers continue to tempt fate by inviting hackers to prove their claims wrong. We see this level of hubris in modern marketing, as we can clearly see as far back as the Maskelyne Affair.
Perseverance
One of the most recognizable keys to success for modern tech startups is the concept of “fail fast.” Fail fast dictates that solutions should be developed quickly and prove their value or “fail fast” so that a new attempt can be made.
This approach to discovery relies on an attitude of perseverance to be successful. Hackers have also come to adopt the same attitude whether they’re building something that has never been built before, coding something new and complex or finding a way to get into a secure system.
Most hackers are willing to spend days (or even weeks) on a single problem, single-mindedly focused on finding a solution before they can move onto a new challenge. It’s common to hear this focus attributed by hackers themselves to a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactive disorder. Whatever may be the cause of this uncanny focus and dedication, the effect on problem-solving is undeniable.
This is an edited extract from Hack to The Future: How World Governments Relentlessly Pursue and Domesticate Hackers by Emily Crose (published by Wiley).
