This is confusing. "Hacker" is a person who uses computers to gain unauthorized access to data. "Software Engineer" is the right approach.
"Hacker Spirit" lol
The term "hacker" predates electronic computers. It is originally used to refer to someone that creatively uses systems in unexpected, unconventional, and generally creative ways. Media portrayal in the mid 90s grabbed on to this term without understanding its actual context. One potential source of the term is the MIT model train club, but that is up for dispute as some claim it existed before that.
There are more self-described hackers that do good and creative things, and not just related to computer security than the malicious types. Fun fact, the "maker" movement was a branded version of the "hackerspace" movement for people. Any time you hear about a Maker they're also a Hacker just kind of a subset of them.
Source: I'm senior staff of DEFCON, the largest hacker conference on the planet.
The term hacker is indeed pretty old. As far as I know the MIT model train club divided themselves into the artists who worked on the scenery on top of the board and the hackers who worked on the underside of the board on the fancy electrical switching they had adapted (hacked) from telephone exchanges. When computers first arrived at MIT this latter group moved their focus to them and the term "hacker" moved with them into computing.
Other comments have mentioned "cracker" in relation to invading systems. Before computers we had "safe-crackers".
I was super into reverse engineering and loved the challenge. It seemed at some point "cracker" moved away from someone who can break software protections through reversing to someone who uses tooling to break into systems, without understanding how computers work. I still prefer "cracker" as someone who can reverse and break software protections.
Also, Thanks for helping out with Defcon! Been there a couple times and plan to go again. At the next live con i'm down to meet and talk about hacker lore!
Thanks! FWIW I think the virtual con this year is going to be pretty cool. There are a lot of challenges, and forms of interaction that aren't possible in person we're going to try out. There sadly are a bunch of things we can't do virtually that I'll definitely miss from the in person event as well. It'll be different but still hopefully awesome.
I think the term cracker had the same media portrayal problem probably starting with the movie Sneakers (of the top of my head, no fact checking there) but it is a much more niche term in general and if you were to generally use it around people, probably even in computer adjacent jobs, they'd be more confused by what you're talking about then recognize it.
That being said yeah I'm 100% down with considering crackers being the DRM busters. I personally kind of consider demo scene wizards to be part of the "cracker" group even though it is completely unrelated. There just seems to be a heavy amount of overlap.
There was a movement around 2000 to define hackers as the good guys and crackers the bad guys who break into computer systems and cause damage. I believe that movement failed.
A cracker, to me, is someone who breaks software protection. A hacker can be good or bad, and that makes the word more fun.
There are more self-described hackers that do good and creative things, and not just related to computer security than the malicious types. Fun fact, the "maker" movement was a branded version of the "hackerspace" movement for people. Any time you hear about a Maker they're also a Hacker just kind of a subset of them.
Source: I'm senior staff of DEFCON, the largest hacker conference on the planet.