While browsing through the news from the last couple weeks from CNN.com, The Los Angeles Times, CNET News and other places, I found an overwhelming number of hits on articles that were tagged with the word "hack." When did hacking hit the big time? When did this phenomenon of hackers being big news start? Probably when computer hacking started having a wide impact on everyone from the average person to the biggest businesses out there.
Here are the results from a cursory LEXIS-NEXIS search from different time periods I did with the keyword "hacker" and "computer" within major papers:
2005: 740
2004: 689
2003: 790
2002: 646
2001: more than 1,000
As I am doing this, I am kinda surprised that the number of hits for my search is not trending downward as I expected it would. Interesting. Continuing on...
2000: more than 1,000
1999: 968
1998: 677
1997: 449
1996: 447
I know this is a very and amateur way to go about doing this, but I think a trend is starting to show. I guess the Internet boom from 2000-2001 really peaked people's interest in computers and computer culture, which of course would have led to more news stories.
Anyways, the point of this is to show that hacking and computer culture has hit the mainstream. All a person has to do is pick up the paper, and on any given day there is probably going to be a story somewhere about hacking.
1 comment:
What's even worst is that we will reach a period when hacking and crimes of the sort will be so common (as theft or vandalism is today) that unless its a huge scam in billions $$$ it will not get the attention it is getting today.
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