[Ads-l] Fw: Antedating of "Hacking" and "Hack"

Mon Feb 3 01:14:32 UTC 2025

Yes, you are correct that the 1963 citation is referring to phone hacking, but
I and the OED regard it as obviously equivalent to computer hacking, obviously a part of the same MIT culture.

Fred Shapiro

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From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of mr_peter_morris at outlook.com <mr_peter_morris at OUTLOOK.COM>
Sent: Sunday, February 2, 2025 8:00 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Antedating of "Hacking" and "Hack"

<< What I want to point out now is that the last sentence of
the citation above is a substantial antedating for the
  unauthorized-access-to-computer OED sense of "hacking" >>

I'm not sure that's correct.  It seems to be about  using the
computer do something to the phone lines, which is the reverse.

------ Original Message ------
>From "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
To ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Date 02/02/2025 23:35:49
Subject Re: Antedating of "Hacking" and "Hack"

>Dave,
>
>Have you looked at the Onorato book?  If so, were there other items of historical-lexicographic interest in it ?
>
>Fred Shapiro
>
>________________________________
>From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of dave at wilton.net <dave at WILTON.NET>
>Sent: Sunday, February 2, 2025 1:55 PM
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Subject: Re: Antedating of "Hacking" and "Hack"
>
>
>I have a use of the verb "to hack" from 5 April 1955 in the minutes of MIT's Tech Model Railroad Club. It's not in the sense of accessing a computer system, but rather means " work on or play with." Given the MIT connection, it is clearly a precursor to that sense.
>
>Onorato, Joseph and Mark Schupack, Tech Model Railroad Club of M.I.T.: The First Fifty Years (Cambridge, MA, 2002), 66.
>
>"Mr. Eccles requests that anyone working or hacking on the electrical system turn the power off to avoid fuse blowing."
>
>I don't know if I still have a copy of the book on the railroad club. If I do, it's packed up in a box in the basement.
>
>I also have the 20 Nov 1963 use, but I may have gotten tipped off to that by Fred. I don't recall.
>
>[ https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wordorigins.org%2Fbig-list-entries%2Fhacker&data=05%7C02%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7C7369ac94992e459b430808dd43ee39b2%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C638741412666195825%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=NteTNRwvLyk1CLFs62gccaWd%2BSS1PCiTHi3mMMBvgdA%3D&reserved=0<https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wordorigins.org%2Fbig-list-entries%2Fhacker&data=05%7C02%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7C7369ac94992e459b430808dd43ee39b2%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C638741412666218832%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=swfLC%2BaznQg54p2uNNaj46SkaTKjgQo%2F81sU8H17YBY%3D&reserved=0><https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/hacker> ]( https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wordorigins.org%2Fbig-list-entries%2Fhacker&data=05%7C02%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7C7369ac94992e459b430808dd43ee39b2%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C638741412666232101%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=%2Fwuu14INF6i8i8M6M3RhyBTBEG26J05MUysE7VQGznc%3D&reserved=0<https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wordorigins.org%2Fbig-list-entries%2Fhacker&data=05%7C02%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7C7369ac94992e459b430808dd43ee39b2%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C638741412666244482%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=8xFaZKrnULP40qoWgJag31S2S5SGwqlYbhJiKVdXBV4%3D&reserved=0><https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/hacker> )
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>-----Original Message-----
>From: "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
>Sent: Sunday, February 2, 2025 10:07am
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject: [ADS-L] Antedating of "Hacking" and "Hack"
>
>
>
>I apologize if I am repeating below antedatings that I contributed in the past, I have too many postings relating to "hacker" for me to wade through them all.
>
>In 2003 I posted a 1963 citation for "hacker_" that, although not precisely in a computing context, is obviously the same term and is treated as such in the OED, where it stands as their earliest example of the computer term:
>
>1963 _The Tech_ (MIT student newspaper) 20 Nov. 1 Many telephone services have been curtailed because of so-called hackers, according to Prof.
>Carlton Tucker, administrator of the Institute phone system. ... The
>hackers have accomplished such things as tying up all the tie-lines
>between Harvard and MIT, or making long-distance calls by charging them to
>a local radar installation. One method involved connecting the PDP-1
>computer to the phone system to search the lines until a dial tone,
>indicating an outside line, was found. ... Because of the "hacking," the
>majority of the MIT phones are "trapped."
>
>What I want to point out now is that the last sentence of the citation above is a substantial antedating for the unauthorized-access-to-computer OED sense of "hacking" ("hacking" 4.b., 1983) and implicitly a substantial antedating for the unauthorized-access-to-computer OED sense of the verb "hack" ("hack" 15.c., 1982 and 15.d., 1983).
>
>Wikipedia cites me as believing that the 1963 citation above invalidates the common theory that "hacker" was originally a benign term, but I have since backed off on that belief because Garson O'Toole found a related benign usage in the 1959 Tech Model Railroad Club dictionary,
>
>Fred Shapiro
>
>
>
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