Looking at overall trends can help give an idea of the popularity or certain ideas and phrases, but they cannot provide specific information on individual formative events. By looking through legislature on computer security, as well as movies with hacking as a central theme, we can track themes of hacker culture at certain intervals. It has been made clear that the perception of hackers by the public is that of a computer criminal, someone who uses poses a threat to secure information. In this section, I will explore the media created works inspired by this threat to look for specific elements of hacker culture to get a better idea of the perceptions of the public regarding hackers.
Timelines
The Influence of Hacker Culture in Society
Alex Lederer
HIST 390
The arc of the influence hackers have in these movies is a very good indication of how they were viewed by the general public. Early on, movies like WarGames, Hackers, and The Net all give hackers a large amount of power. The plot of WarGames, where a computer intrusion has the ability to start a nuclear war, put fear into the general public about hackers, without really understanding their processes or limitations. Generally, movies have a very exaggerated and (to the hacking community) humorous take on hacking. In Swordfish and Hackers, the hacking scenes basically had the actors point and click while dancing. In The Matrix Trilogy, computer prowess gave god-like powers and influence. Only recently with movies like The Social Network has hacking been accurately depicted. With these newer movies, we can assume that the general public is slowly picking up that hacking can also mean creative programming and problem solving, even though the word "hacking" is currently synonymous with illegal activity.
Timelines made at http://www.timetoast.com/​
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Diotalevi, Robert
1998. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, Volume I, Number IV, State University of West
Georgia, Distance Education
http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/winter14/diotalevi14.html
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Kehoe, Brendan
Computer Crime Laws by State. Widener University, PA Last Modified May 7, 2011
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http://w2.eff.org/Net_culture/Hackers/comp_crime_laws_by_state.list
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http://www.rottentomatoes.com/
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Since computer made the transfer of information so easy, legislature was forced to react to these new technologies by creating law in order to protect private and copyrighted information. In the beginning, the government had a hard time defining these computer crimes because they were so unlike the physical crimes from the past. In order for the la to stay relevant, they had to be updated so the wording would include computer theft. Law against hacking has remained fairly stagnant, each additional law is written to broaden a definition or enforce a policy as new technology is introduced. The large, public breaches on information these days focus on consumer information and copyright. One reason that hacker culture is so abundant nowadays could be their ability to adapt and expliot new technologies, keeping their more criminal aspects in the public realm. ​​