Hacker culture (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

The hacker culture is the voluntary subculture which first developed in the 1960s among hackers working on early minicomputers in academic computer science environments. Since the mid-1990s the hacker culture has been almost coincident with what is now called the free software movement.

There is another subculture that refers to itself as the hacker culture. It is often referred to as ‘the computer underground’. There are many overlaps in ideas and members. The underground hacker culture tends not to distinguish between the two cultures as harshly, instead acknowledging that they have much in common including many members, political and social ideologies, and a love of learning about technology.

History and Culture

Before the computing world was as networked as it is now, there were multiple independent and parallel hacker cultures, often unaware or only partially aware of each others' existence. All of these had certain important traits in common:

• placing a high value on freedom of inquiry; hostility to secrecy

• information-sharing as both an ideal and a practical strategy

• upholding the right to fork

• playfulness, taking the serious humorously and their humor seriously.

These sorts of cultures were commonly found at academic settings such as college campuses. The MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the University of California, Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon University were particularly well-known hotbeds of early hacker culture. They evolved in parallel, and largely unconsciously, until the Internet and other developments such as the rise of the free software movement drew together a critically large population.

Over time, the hacker culture has tended to become more conscious, more cohesive, and better organized.

The concentration of hacker culture has paralleled and partly been driven by the commoditization of computer and networking technology, and has in turn accelerated that process. In 1975, hackerdom was scattered across several different families of operating systems and disparate networks; today it is almost entirely a Unix and TCP/IP phenomenon, and is increasingly concentrated around Linux.

Notably, the hacker culture appears to have exactly one annual ceremonial day—April Fool's. There is a long tradition of perpetrating elaborate jokes, hoaxes, pranks and fake websites on this date.

Graffiti

Graffiti is a type of deliberately inscribed marking made by humans on surfaces, both private and public. Graffiti can also refer to website defacements; however, it usually takes the form of publicly painted art, drawings or words. When done without a property owner's consent it often constitutes vandalism. Graffiti has existed at least since the days of ancient civilizations such as classical Greece and the Roman Empire. The word "graffiti" expresses the plural of "graffito", although the singular form has become relatively obscure and is largely used in art history to refer to works of art made by scratching the design on a surface. These words derive in their turn from the Greek γραφειν (graphein), meaning "to write". Historians continue to speculate over the vexing question as to where the term "graffiti" first referred to this form of marking.