10 Hackers Who Made History

The computing equipment world has a rich history of hackers who head the progress of computer science and give shape to computer , the cyberspace , and networking as we see it today — in some case single - handedly .

And while yes , there are the Black Hat hacker behind cyberspace mayhem , thievery , and pandemonium , there are also White Hat hackers who use their computer savvy for good . There ’s also a dissimilar kind of drudge entirely : the tinkerer . They all played parts , big and small , in make the calculator public as it exists today . Here are 10 of the greatest :

Konrad Zuse

It all begin with Konrad Zuse , arguably the very first estimator hack . He may not have been a hacker in the modernistic gumption of the word , but none of it would have been potential without him . You see , Zuse made the mankind ’s very first fully programmable ( Turing - complete as they say ) computer , live as the Z3 . It began , of course of action , as the Z1 , and while it was n’t build in a cave with a corner of scrap , Zuse did build it himself in his parent ’ apartment , discharge it in 1938 . Zuse eventually gained some funding by the German government , take to the organic evolution from the Z1 to the Z3 , which , ended in 1941 , is think the mother of modern computing .

John “Captain Crunch” Draper

John Draper was hacking calculator long before electronic computer were even common property . Draper ’s hacking heyday was back in the other 1970 ’s , when the largest computer internet to which the ecumenical public had any access was the telephone set system . At the time , telephones were managed by an automated scheme using specific analogue frequence which could be exploit to make free long distance or even outside calls . It was called “ Phreaking , ” and one of the most well - known Phreaking tools was a plaything whistle that come in a boxful of Cap’n Crunch cereal grass . With this whistle , Draper make another pop Phreaking tool screw as the Blue Box , a twist that could develop many other tone used by the phone companies .

Steve Wozniak

A contemporary to John Draper , Wozniak was no alien to Phreaking . In fact , after Draper shared the details of his Blue Box aim during a Homebrew Computer Club group meeting , Wozniak built a variation of his own . Steve Jobs see to it the merchandising potential in the twist , and the two Steves began their first joint speculation together . Wozniak ’s whoop day were n’t all spent on undertaking of questionable legality , though . With the takings from their blue box seat as well as selling Wozniak ’s hold dear HP calculator and Jobs ’ VW van , Wozniak created the Apple I. With the other Steve ’s marketing prowess , their company became the manufacture drawing card it is today .

Robert Tappan Morris

As a graduate student at Cornell University , Robert Morris create his claim to fame : the computer worm . According to Morris , he make the worm as an attempt to guess the sizing of the net at the time . After its release on Nevember 2nd , 1988 , the Morris Worm croak on to infect more or less 6,000 systems ( about 10 percentage of the net attached computers at the prison term ) . The worm was intend to be unnoticeable , but due to a fault in its comeback algorithm , it copied itself excessively , cause panting system loads and ultimately leading back to Morris . In 1989 , Morris became the first person indict and later convicted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 .

Mark “Phiber Optik” Abene

Here ’s a name you may not be familiar with : Mark Abene . He never hacked into the D.O.D. nor did he steal jillion of dollars in some Swordfish - style money box rip-off . What he did do was make water off AT&T. As a phallus of the cyberpunk group Masters of Destruction , Abene was often poking around on AT&T ’s systems . When AT&T ’s telephone system of rules crash , give 60,000 client without headphone armed service for over 9 hour , they quickly blamed Abene . The Secret Service paid him a rather aggressive visit , attach his equipment , and while AT&T eventually admitted that the crash was a error on its part , Abene was charged with estimator tampering and information processing system trespassing in the first stage . after , he would face more charges and ultimately suffice a class in federal prison , making him the first hacker to do so .

Kevin “Dark Dante” Poulsen

Poulsen holds claim to one of the more diverting jade of all time . A radio contest held by KIIS - FM promised a shiny new Porsche 944 S2 to the 102nd mortal to call into the station . Rather than adjudicate his luck among the mass of Los Angeles listeners , Poulsen take over all of the telephony lines to the station to ensure he ’d be the 102nd caller-out . He eventually had to vanish once he became a fugitive from justice of the FBI . This landed him a spot on the popular TV show Unsolved Mysteries . The show ’s hotlines crashed when the instalment aired . concurrence ? In 1991 , Poulsen was arrested and finally pled guilty to various enumeration of computer put-on , money laundering , and impedimenta of justice . Interestingly , since his incarceration , Poulsen made a complete 180 , facilitate in cyber criminal offence cases , and even catch sexual predators on MySpace .

Kevin Mitnick

Kevin Mitnick is perhaps the most famous hacker in computer history , likely due to his being the first hacker to make the FBI ’s Most Wanted list . As a passkey of social technology , Mitnick did n’t just hack information processing system ; he whoop the human mind . In 1979 , at the historic period of 16 , he hacked his way into his first computer system and copied proprietary software package . He would often engage with admin personnel department , such as in phone calls and Es - mail messages , and trick them into pay up passwords and other protection entropy . After a two and a half year following , Mitnick was in the end cop and attend to five age in prison . He now runs his own computing machine security measures consultancy , Mitnick Security Consulting LLC .

Tsutomu Shimomura

Not all hacker diminish under the Black - Hat umbrella . Tsutomu Shimomura is a White - Hat hack credited with capturing Kevin Mitnick . In 1994 , Mitnick steal some of Shimomura ’s personal files and distributed them online . motivate by revenge , Shimomura came up with a tincture - dialing technique to back - hack his way in to locating Mitnick . With Shimomura ’s information , the FBI was able to pinpoint and cop Mitnick .

Richard Stallman

In his early years , Stallman was a graduate student and programmer at MIT ’s Artificial Intelligence Labs where he would incessantly engage with MIT ’s rich hacking culture . As an proponent for just about everything Open Source , Stallman fought back when MIT set up a watchword organization in its Computer Science section . He would decode substance abuser ’ watchword ( not an easy task given the processing tycoon of the 1970 ’s ) and send them a message with their password in plaintext , hint they leave the watchword clean for re - enable anonymous function . fail into the 1980 ’s , Stallman did n’t like the proprietary stance many manufacturers were occupy on their software . This finally led Stallman to create the GNU General Public License and GNU operating system , a completely free Unix - like o that is completely Unix - compatible .