constructing hacking

As we saw in the approaches, even agreeing on what is meant by such terms as "hacker" and "hacking" has proven difficult. The word – hacker – has stayed the same, and the subject giving it meaning has shifted and changed over time. Even within a contemporary milieu which often seems to demand such protean terminology, the word hacker has proved particularly slippery in use.

Rather than defining the hacker at this (or any) point, one might instead write about "hackers" and "hacking" to in part determine what others might believe they are dealing with. The starting point is that "hacker" is a construct, and the process of construction is the thread from which various papers and books and text files dangle. We aren’t sure where it is constructed, or by whom.

Even within a contemporary milieu which often seems to demand such protean terminology, the word hacker has proved particularly slippery in use. The objective of this review is to identify and describe literature which is important to my thesis, relating this material to the thesis topic. Or, in broader terms: If we are studying hacking, what is it about which I will be writing?