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this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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You probably already know but hacking originally meant to modify a machine for instance (or furniture as in ikea hacks) but it really is a word one should avoid when speaking with people who aren't part of the communities that use it in its original meaning.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/hack#etymonline_v_41496
I don't see anything about hacking in this sense that predates the 1970s. Pretty sure systems hacking predates "IKEA hack" as well.
Earliest I've heard was from MIT and the pranks they do. I think that was from the fifties.
Yes, Ikea hacks are much later. Me and my wife were doing it/calling it that around 2005 when we modded a desk. It was intended to be an example of the dual usage of the word hack.
Hacker vs. cracker. Hack isn't a nefarious term, or at least it shouldn't be. Hacking is just using something in an unintended way. The problem is with how DMCA made that am illegal thing to do if there was a digital lock. While intended to mean you can't bypass CSS to rip movies from DVDs, it's been used to block the right to repair and other things completely anti-consumer. But you probably know this.
To hack means to chop something to pieces violently. It doesn't matter what it used to be in the past - people now are using it differently. Language evolves over time and the most used interpretations survive.
To "hack it" also means to be able to handle something. That there were multiple meanings for the word was never in question and I really do agree with you that language evolve over time and you simply need to learn to live with that.
But also, if you go back and look at my response to op I also wrote that I found it unsuitable to use it in this case exactly due to the risk of being misunderstood.
The positive connotation of "hack" is still seen today - for example in "lifehack".
Wrong