Hacking and Homebrew

When a new computer-type device becomes available, a contingent of people doesn't really care about what it was designed to do. Instead, those people are interested in what the device can do. They want to find its capabilities as a computer, not as a specific platform for whatever the manufacturer intends.

When the Apple iPod came out, for example, groups of adventurous computer enthusiasts were less concerned with joining iTunes, ripping their CD collections, and carrying around an iPod than they were with getting Linux to run on one (Figure 12.3). People wrote, tested, wrote, tested, edited, and perfected code until they got their little white wonders to run the Unix-based operating system.

Figure 12.3. The iPodLinux page (www.ipodlinux.com) is an example of constructive hacking.

Not surprisingly, when the PSP came out, similar-minded folks decided that they didn't care as much about playing games, listening to music, and watching movies as they cared about extending the functionality of the device far beyond anything Sony ever intended.

Cracking Hackers

People who make cell phones, Xboxes, iPods, and PSPs do things that their manufacturers didn't necessarily intend are often called hackers, as the process of toying with a computing device or program beyond its intended functionality is called hacking.

The word hacking has negative connotations, mainly because evil hackers who break into secure computers and steal people's identities, wipe out valuable data, or otherwise vandalize computing systems get all the publicity. The fact is, hackingmuch like horseradishcan be used for good or evil.

Manufacturers know that hackers are lurking in the dangerous waters of the general public, so they take steps to "lock" their computers, programs, and other stuff to prevent said computers, programs, and stuff from being used in ways they didn't intend. Foiling such locks is called cracking the device or software.

When software pirates defeat the copy protection of a commercial software product to make it available for free on the Internet (and thus deprive hardworking, underpaid developers from seeing royalties), they're said to have cracked the program.

Here is a rule of thumb as to what hackers can and cannot crack: Hackers crack everything. It's not a matter of whether, but of when. Because computers and program code are both complex and open ended, virtually every device more complicated than an abacus can be cracked in one way or another. Every program, from the simplest calculator on up, can be distributed freely over the Internet whether the author intended free distribution or not.

It didn't take long for hackers to crack the PSP. By cracking it, they figured out ways to load homebrew programs onto the PSP to make it do whatever they wantedand to allow all PSP owners to do the same.

Why Hackers Hack

When I get the opportunity to speak directly with admitted hackers (usually about something they've accomplished, like getting an Xbox to run games written for Super Nintendo or something), I make it a point to ask:

"Why do you do things like that?"

Although a few hackers cop out with responses like "I thought it would be cool," and others go into long and exquisite detail about their thought process all the way back to when they were children trying to figure out how to get their Lite-Brites to compute pi, the most common responses I get are some derivative of:

"I wanted to see if I could."

Most hackers don't want to change the world or feed the people or subscribe to some philosophical school about data's being free; they just want to do things that are fun, interesting, and in some ways rewarding. Hackers, really, are not much different from automobile modders, computer modders, or other borderline-insane engineers who create or alter ordinary things just for fun: They're more interested in enjoying themselves and bragging about their accomplishments than they are in anything else.

That doesn't mean there aren't anarchistic lunatics with computer skills who'd love to bring down civilization, or people who mistakenly believe that they're nobly "sticking it to The Man" by making software free for sleazy pirates and freeloaders. It simply means that many hackers aren't malicious or antisocial: They're just having fun.