They did. But that was back in the 2000s, when nobody really understood the nuance. Today, calling someone a “hacker” to mean “computer criminal” almost feels like a boomer move. We’ve got way better language now: white hat, black hat, script kiddie, scammer (and all its lovely subgenres—pig butchering, refund scammers), phisher, etc. Not to mention whatever we’re calling the folks running dark net markets these days.

And while the general public might not know the fine distinctions between these, I think society does get that there’s a whole spectrum of actors now. That wasn’t true in 2000—the landscape of online crime (and white hat work) hadn’t evolved yet.

Honestly, I’m just glad the debate’s over. “Cracker” always sounded goofy, and RMS pushing it felt like peak pedantry… par for course.

That said, this whole “vibe coding” thing feels like we’re at the beginning of a similar arc. It’s a broad, fuzzy label right now, and the LLM landscape hasn’t had time to split and specialize yet. Eventually I predict we’ll get more precise terms for all the ways people build software with LLM’s. Not just describing the process but the people behind the scenes too.

I mean, perhaps the term “script kiddie” will get a second life?