Hacker Emblem

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The Hacker Emblem was first proposed in October 2003 by Eric S. Raymond, claiming a need for a uniting and recognizable symbol for his perception of hacker culture. This does not refer to the mainstream media meaning of the word hacker: "being someone who breaks or otherwise circumvents computer security", but the positive meaning the word has within the hacking community: being a person that makes great things with computers, because hackers refer to a criminal who uses computers as a cracker. Raymond points out that one does not claim to be a hacker by displaying this emblem, but suggests that "by using this emblem, you express sympathy with hacker' goals, hacker' values, and the hacker way of living".

The image itself is a representation of a glider formation in Conway's Game of Life.

[edit] Other representations

Other means to display the image have evolved, mostly relying on ASCII art. Examples include:

.o.    |_|0|_|    [ ][*][ ]    [ ][0][ ]    0 1 0    
..o    |_|_|0|    [ ][ ][*]    [ ][ ][0]    0 0 1    
ooo    |0|0|0|    [*][*][*]    [0][0][0]    1 1 1

[edit] See also

• Hacker ethic

[edit] External links

• The Glider: Proposal for a Hacker Emblem Contains more information on the Hacker Emblem proposal, including SVG and TeX sources and FAQs.
• "How To Become a Hacker" A document explaining the hacker culture.