In the Cuckoo’s Egg the author asks “what word describes someone who breaks into computers?”1 This is an interesting question that still hasn’t been answered even 15 years after the author asked it. The media would call them hackers, but now a days people will use the word hacker to describe someone who is cheating or just exceptionally good at something.This is probably because being called a hacker is preferable to being called a cheater due to the better connotation of the word hacker. The word hacker is also used to describe script kiddies who are people with little computer knowledge that use the work of actual software programmers to break into computers. I would describe them as crackers since they crack into systems, or as malicious hackers. Regrettably, in the end I guess that the oft misused term hacker is the best term for this activity; since most people will understand what the intended meaning is, one who breaks into computers for unethical purposes.
1 Stoll, C. (1989). The Cuckoo’s Egg: Tracking a Spy through the Maze of Computer Espionage (p. 14). New York: Doubleday.