Hacker culture can be esoteric, but this entertaining reference is here to help. Written by longtime cybersecurity researcher and writer Kim Crawley, this fun reference introduces you to key people and companies, fundamental ideas, and milestone films, games, and magazines in the annals of hacking. From airgapping to phreaking to zombie malware, grasping the terminology is crucial to understanding hacker culture and history.

If you're just getting started on your hacker journey, you'll find plenty here to guide your learning and help you understand the references and cultural allusions you come across. More experienced hackers will find historical depth, wry humor, and surprising facts about familiar cultural touchstones.

• Understand the relationship between hacker culture and cybersecurity
• Get to know the ideas behind the hacker ethos, like "knowledge should be free"
• Explore topics and publications central to hacker culture, including 2600 Magazine
• Appreciate the history of cybersecurity
• Learn about key figures in the history of hacker culture
• Understand the difference between hackers and cybercriminals

Hello! I’m Kim Crawley. I’ve worked in the cybersecurity field as a writer for over a decade, and I’ve met many brilliant hackers over the years. Ordinary people think hackers are cybercriminals, as I wrote in an article for 2600 Magazine. But hackers are people who find new and inventive uses of technology. And we owe most of the cool stuff about computer technology to hackers. Hackers have also created the culture of computing—hacker culture.

These days, computers are for everyone, and computer technology is integrated into nearly every facet of our everyday lives. Laypeople sometimes call a PC a computer and call their iPhone their phone, but their iPhone is also a computer. Most of us are on the internet several hours per day, and that’s just a huge collection of networked computers.

In my apartment building, you can’t use the elevators without interacting with a touchscreen. Guess what? That’s a computer too. There are embedded computers in so many places in our retail stores, hospitals, factories, office buildings, and government institutions. If you drive a car, there’s probably an embedded computer in that too.

So, inevitably, a lot of everyday computer usage is done by people who don’t think they’re very technologically skilled. But we wouldn’t have a computer-technology-driven world without hackers. Hackers aren’t cybercriminals; they’re clever people who explore innovative new uses of computer technology. We wouldn’t have what we have today without their curiosity. Yet mainstream news reporters have the nerve to call people who attack medical clinics with ransomware “hackers.” That seems rather disrespectful to me. Instead, we should honor their legacy and their culture. My book is one of the ways that I’m doing that.

This is a multipurpose book. You can use it as a desk reference and, when a computer or hacker-related topic comes up in your work or studies, look up the terms in this book. It’s all conveniently presented in alphabetical order! You can also read the book from cover to cover. It’s up to you! If you’re reading the ebook version, you will find hyperlinks in the text to web content and to related terminology and entries in this book. You can explore how concepts are connected to each other, like in James Burke’s Connections. (Google it!)

I hope you have as much fun reading this as I have had writing it.

About the Author

Kim Crawley has been a cybersecurity researcher and writer for well over a decade. She authored 8 Steps to Better Security, and co-authored The Pentester Blueprint, both with strongly positive reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. She was also featured in the first volume of Marcus J. Carey and Jennifer Jin's Tribe of Hackers.

Her magazine articles and blogs have appeared in 2600 Magazine, CIO Magazine, Sophos Naked Security, AT&T Cybersecurity's blog, Infosecurity Magazine, Hack The Box, and too many other places to name here.

Recently, she has given talks about penetration testing and hacker culture at SANS PenTest HackFest and Wild West Hackin' Fest.

In her spare time, Kim enjoys playing JRPG video games, listening to goth, progressive, jazz, and funk music, cuddling her teddy bears, watching anime, astrology, being a pedantic know-it-all, looking at Lake Ontario from her condo in Toronto, and spending time with her metalhead partner, Jay.