Just tried to read the forums at cheef.com and found that the site has been hacked again.

what do you mean by hacked?

hacking: to hack (see hacked)
hacked: to be hacked by a hacker (see hacker)
hacker: one who hacks

Does that clear it up?


When a person gets a hold of someones computer from another location, (remember IP addresses we talked about?) and spoil his site. It could happen to anyone.

If my user name and password gets out, then someone could "hack" it by logging in and destroying or simply changing things. It is highly possible that someone can send spyware that seeks out information and it send back to the offender. What could really be a bear if someone changed my password after they get in and I can't get in because my password is no good.

Hacking is not good.

Boyd "I may need to change my password just for the principal of it" Allen

Basically, hacking is what Boyd described.

Depending on the maliciousness of teh hacker, it could just be a page of jibberish or it could be something very, very derogatory or vile. When I went to cheef.com earlier today, the content was changed significantly. Instead of articles on naturism, there were photos of militant arabs and the test was in arabic. The message was repeated over and over numerous times.

Hacking is done for many reasons. Some just want to prove they can do it. Others want to harm, through alteration, the message of the web site. For instance, if someone hacked into Boyd's site and changing everything so the articles denounce nudity and naturism, possibly by putting in an automatic link to a porn site. That would really discredit the effort of those who frequent this board to share the Gospel.

Hacking has been around almost since the start of the internet. It was prevalent when the internet was a way for the government, academia and industry exchanged information on government projects. It was electronic terrorism! It then took on life as a way to change grades on school computers. And now it is just a sneaky way to mess with teh free exchange of information.

Spunky, I hope this helps.

Hacking is also widely used in a constructive sense.
I hack my own PC's registry to optimize performance.
There are legitimate "Hack" Web sites that are simply helpful places where people can put their heads together and make bad software work better, and help make two "incompatible" programs work together or resolve various hardware/firmware "no-build" situations.

The distinction being that good hacking is done by willing participants (without violating licensing agreements) for a greater good.