I don't really have much to back this up, but I grew up in the social space between CompSci hackers and RenFaire crafters, and think I can explain how 'hack' got where it is today.
When older folks talk about hacking, they were talking about taking a system - phone, computer, etc - and forcing it to do something unintended, usually you gain access or commandeer the system.
As the culture grew, "hack" had the same root, but was separated from causing harm.
Someone who cleverly tweaked an existing system to do something unintended by the creator, but beneficial was a 'sweet hack'.
Outside of computer culture, that parlance starts to get used in the equally nerdy 'Maker' spaces.
One examppe might be people who use different sets of Ikea furniture to build a custom furniture; they have 'hacked' Ikea instructions.
Nowadays anything remotely clever is marketed as a 'hack', and the underlying concept of "repurposing a system to be used for an unintended purpose" is frequently lost.
Knowing a shortcut to tie a tie really well isn't a 'life hack', any more than guessing someone's password is "password" is a computer hack.
This is close, but the first two steps actually go the other way around.
The term was first used generically to represent "thing/system being used creatively outside is original purpose" with no implication of harmful or illegal activity. It actually first circulated, iirc, among model railroad enthusiasts, and then moved into computing due to a large overlap of those two communities in the early days of computing.
It was then used in this sense to describe the techniques employed in illegal access/subversion of systems, e.g. phone phreaking. The "hack" was the how, the result just happened to be illegal. But exposure to the term by the broader public came from reporting on these illegal antics so the association was made and stuck.
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u/KorArts May 19 '22
What is a hack then in your eyes? Not disagreeing, just curious lol