The Hackers of MIT
Today the title of “hacker” has (rightly so) become a pejorative synonymous with all manner of cybercriminals. While the negative impacts and potential dangers of cybercrime are difficult to overstate, the fact of the matter is that hacking has had a long history dating to 1960s MIT. The first hackers like Peter Samson, Richard Greenblatt, and Alan Kotok were less “modern cybercriminal” than they were zealous electronics hobbyists with an often problematic combination of fascination with computing and little respect for authority. When hacking first emerged in the 1960s, computers were multi-million-dollar amalgamations of tape drives, plugboards, and blinkenlights that were reserved for calculations that would confound roomfuls of mathematicians. Naturally, a strict, institutionalized bureaucracy formed around computers at MIT, enforcing a huge number of rules that restricted scientists and hackers from acc...
