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The idea of hacking may conjure up stylized images of electronic vandalism, espionage, dyed hair, and body piercings. Most people associate hacking with breaking the law, therefore dubbing all those who engage in hacking activities to be criminals. Granted, there are people out there who use hacking techniques to break the law, but hacking isn't really about that. In fact, hacking is more about following the law than breaking it.

The essence of hacking is finding unintended or overlooked uses for the laws and properties of a given situation and then applying them in new and inventive ways to solve a problem. The problem could be the lack of access to a computer system or figuring out a way to make old phone equipment control a model railroad system. Usually, the hacked solutions solve these problems in unique ways, unimaginable by those confined to conventional methodology.

In the late 1950s, the MIT model railroad club was given a donation of parts, most of which were old telephone equipment. The members used this equipment to rig up a complex system that allowed multiple operators to control different parts of the track by dialing into the appropriate section. They called this new and inventive use of equipment "hacking", and many consider this group to be the original hackers. They moved on to programming on punchcards and ticker tape for early computers like the IBM 704 and the TX-0. While others were content with just writing programs that solved problems, the early hackers were obsessed with writing programs that solved problems well. A program that could achieve the same result using fewer punchcards was considered better, even though it did the same thing. The key difference was how the program achieved its results—elegance.

Being able to reduce the number of punchcards needed for a program showed an artistic mastery over the computer, which was admired and appreciated by those who understood it. Analogously, a...