[jff]

It's highly desirable to be called a genius, but in general people calling themselves geniuses are looked down upon.

I think among people who do use the word "hacker" to mean someone skilled with computers, it's considered poor form to call yourself a hacker but high praise to be named a hacker. Eric Raymond wrote long screeds about this way back in the 90s when people still gave a damn about him.

Personally, I call somebody who is skilled at breaking systems a hacker. The guy who discovers how to Man-in-the-middle attack an SSL connection is a hacker. The morons in black trenchcoats and leather fedoras who then download a .EXE to automatically do just that and harvest passwords at Starbucks... are fucking scum of the earth script kiddies.

[Legion]

But is "hacker" really analogous to "genius"? I mean, we have a bunch of annual hacker conferences. If "hacker" isn't something you can call yourself, who is going to all of these things?

[jff]

Joke answer: Have you ever been to Def Con? People who wear utilikilts and dyed mohawks unironically probably have no qualms about calling themselves hackers, deservedly or un-.

Real answer: I did actually attend Def Con this year, with the intent of learning about hacking, possibly from hackers. I wouldn't call myself a hacker, I just went because I wanted to learn about the subject. Really the whole topic is not something I worry much about... in my line of work we don't compliment people by saying "he's a good hacker", we just say "he's brilliant" or "she does really great work", which to my mind is a better and less ambiguous compliment.