Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Medieval Hackers

Medieval Hackers

Kennedy, Kathleen E.

Paperback

Medieval & Renaissance HistoryGeneral Computers

ISBN10: 0692352465
ISBN13: 9780692352465
Publisher: Punctum Books
Published: Jan 16 2015
Pages: 182
Weight: 0.41
Height: 0.39 Width: 5.00 Depth: 8.00
Language: English
... the word [hacker] itself is quite old. In fact, the earliest record of the noun hacker is medieval: a type of chopping implement was known as a hacker from the 1480s. Evidently, over time the term moved from the implement to the person wielding the implement. Today the grammatical slippage remains, as the hacker hacked the hack is grammatically sound, if stylistically unfortunate. Notably, even in its earliest uses, hacker and hacking referred to necessary disruption. Arboriculture required careful pruning (with a hacker) to remove unwanted branches and cultivation necessitated the regular breaking up of soil and weeds in between rows of a crop (with a hacker). Such practices broke limbs and turf in order to create beneficial new growth. Such physical hacking resembles the actions of computer hackers who claim to identify security exploits (breaking into software) in order to improve computer security, not to weaken it.

Kathleen E. Kenndy, Medieval Hackers

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