When news broke this week revealing an “unprecedented” security breach by rogue state actors breaking into multiple government computer networks — a story that continues to evolve — the word used when describing the criminal act was “hacked.”
Hack, and its iterations (hacked, hacker, hacking), likely conjures up images of nefarious cybercriminals and their deeds. However, the word has been around far longer than the advent of interconnected computer networks.
Etymologists date the origin of hack to the time known as Middle English, (between 1150 and 1500) and its evolution is labyrinthian, as you will learn. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, hack’s entrée in modern language began several hundred years ago in its original meanings: “[to] cut with heavy blows in an irregular or random fashion.”
Fast forward several centuries and the Silicon Valley cyber-parlance version was germinated almost as an aside, attached to the minutes of an M.I.T. Tech Model Railroad Club meeting in 1955.
According to a 2015 blog post on Wired, a note attached to the club’s minutes read, “Mr. Eccles requests that anyone working or hacking on the electrical system turn the power off to avoid fuse blowing.”
Wired’s reporting goes on to describe how the word’s use at M.I.T. began to evolve, with a mention of hack in the student newspaper, The Tech, from a 1959 edition quoting a fraternity member who promised, “to hack around in a gorilla suit,” when promoting an upcoming Sigma Phi Epsilon circus party.
A November 1963 headline in The Tech baked its current usage into the word. An article in the newspaper reported how criminals intruded into the university’s campus telephone system by connecting a PDP-1 computer to the network and then launched what is called a brute-force attack. That headline: “Telephone Hackers Active.”
Of course, a word coined centuries before our federal government got hacked has several various meanings. Hack is also quite utilitarian: it can be employed as a noun, a verb, and an adjective. One interesting tie that binds is not its modern tech infusion, but rather its inferred (and sometimes explicit) negative connotation.
Hack — The Noun
Merriam-Webster devotes a lot of ink to hack as a noun, including seven entries of usage. The first entry, which relates to its original meaning is, “a tool for rough cutting or chopping: an implement for hacking.” That is followed by “[to] nick, notch.” Entry 3 describes hack as, “a short dry cough,” before reversing course at No. 4, describing, “a rough or irregular cutting stroke: a hacking blow.”
Sitting at fifth place, hack describes a “…restriction to quarters as punishment,” referring specifically to naval officers. It’s No. 6 that first introduces us to hack as something innovative or positive: “a usually [creative] improvised solution to a computer hardware or programming problem or limitation.”
We note that definition No. 6 no longer enjoys sole provenance in the tech realm. Hack is now commonly used in that meaning — as a positive — when describing various ways to engineer workarounds to otherwise intransigent dilemmas. (The variant gets short shrift as No. 6 “c.”)
No. 6 also includes its most recent and recognized definition, perched above the aforementioned variant, at No.6b: “an act or instance of gaining or attempting to gain illegal access to a computer or computer system.”
The feel-good doesn’t last long though; No. 7 defines the word as a person who “works solely for mercenary reasons (e.g. party hacks) and offers up (clearing throat sound) writers for hire, too.
Hack — The Verb
At pole position here, hack’s top billing also describes cutting or chopping: “to cut or sever with repeated irregular or unskillful blows; to cut or shape by or as if by crude or ruthless strokes.”
No. 2 speaks of being “annoyed or vexed,” as in “he gets really hacked off when people cheat.” (I can’t say I’ve ever heard or used hack in that sense, but I have no reason to doubt its accuracy.) The third spot circles back atop: “to clear or make by or as if by cutting away vegetation”; a variant of No. 3 references the word as akin to tolerate, e.g., “he couldn’t hack it.”
It is down at No. 4 where hack and its transitive variants appear in its most currently used form: “to gain illegal access to (a computer network, system, etc.).”
Hack — The Adjective
Lastly, nothing is redeeming about hack as an adjective. The first reference defines it as: “working for hire especially with mediocre professional standards,” with Merriam-Webster providing “a hack journalist” as an example. The second reference makes similar use of the word: “…performed by or suited to a person who works or writes purely to earn money.”