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 accessing the machines. Of course, the problem with this was that it set many of MIT’s zealous computer nerds and engineering enthusiasts starkly against MITs authority. Once these individuals were finally able to get a hold of these computers through certain extracurricular activities that let them have access, a computer-oriented “hacker culture” focused solely on programming on the computer and expanding its abilities began to take shape. Unfortunately, the fact that the vast majority of their programs were practically useless and that their hardware expansions were unsanctioned (which is to say, illegal), this culture very quickly garnered a terrible reputation amongst the sanctioned computer users of MIT.

• Opeyemi J., 11th Grade