Let’s Not Insult Hackers

by Devanshu Mehta

Let’s get one thing clear: The kid who broke in to vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s Yahoo email account was not a hacker.

I’m not even talking about the debate over the use of the word hacker as a pejorative. At a fundamental level, all this guy did was click on “Forgot Password”, answered “password questions” about Palin and reset her password. I’ll be charitable and call it clever, but let’s not call it hacking.

Unfortunately, any time someone does something remotely reproachable with a computer, the traditional media calls it hacking.

P.S. Make sure the answers to your own “Forgot Password” questions are sufficiently absurd.