Word | Description |
| Hacking |
To take something apart, and put it back together in a way it works more optimal, or in a way that it was not intended to work.
is the brief version.
The longer version depends on whom you speak to. Both popular and lessor media term anything computer related, that the every day user doesn't understand, as "hacking" - which is extremely misleading.
Hacking is not just in relation to computers - i'm sure you've all seen "life hack" videos.
I often use the term "hacking" meaning I am taking computer routines apart, and making them work better (optimisation hack) or to be used in another routine (code hack).
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| Cracking |
Breaking security methods. There exists a phrase "They cracked the code!" which encapsulates the meaning well.
The word itself is an umbrella term that covers anything where a code is broken (cracked) and once again, does not mean only computer related.
For example, the famous case of The Enigma code from World War II, which was cracked by Alan Turing (I think ? Citation needed!)
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| Phreaking |
Phone hacking. This does not always mean touching the handset itself, as with the well known Captain Crunch whose name he took from the cereal box that contained a toy whistle.
He found that the pitch of the whistle was the exact frequency that, when played down a US public payphone, would give him "free calls" (more details can be found on search). |
| VXing |
Anything related to virus/worm/trojans and most malicious software (malware). |
| Virus |
A self replicating routine. Often this can come with a payload (other routines designed for anything not to do with replication). Often these payloads carry malicious codes, but some have been of benefit - just not often.
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| White Hat |
A computer hacker/cracker who uses their knowledge to benefit others.
These are often found finding and fixing bugs in software.
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| Red Hat |
A distribution of a Linux varient.
Linux is a free (mostly) operating system, and an alternate to Windows or OSX (whatever apple call their junk).
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| Black Hat |
A computer hacker/cracker who uses their knowledge to benefit themselves.
These are not often found, unless they achieve "elite" or "uber elite" status level of noteriety such as Kevin Mitnick, Gary McKinnen or Dr Chaos.
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| Script Kid-> Skiddy |
A computer hacker/cracker who uses their prewritten routines, and often have little to no knowledge of programming. The author suspects a lot of online media fit this descriptor and has held this view for many years.
Sometimes, these are people who have a minor disagreement, and utilise online available "attack" tools. This also can result with infecting themselves with malware (sometimes knowingly, this is how it is often originally spread).
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| N00b-> Newbie |
A computer hacker/cracker who is new to learning how it all works, especially notable by the way they pretend to know more than they do - often young kids.
Calling them out on their "hacks" or how they "have your IP" by replying "Well do something interesting then, or are you just a n00b ?".
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| SQL |
Structured query language (SQL) is a "programming language" for storing and processing database information.
This is the most common backend database for computers, both on and offline and is fairly easy to understand.
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