黑客 : hēikè : hacker

With the Black Hat conference this week, it seemed like a good time for 黑客 (hēikè), "hacker".

This is one of those clever Chinese translations that both sound phonetically like the English and have a related meaning. Literally it means "black guest", 客 (kè) is usually some kind of person (although see 博客, blog). 黑 (hēi, "black") as in Western cultures can also mean illicit, evil (黑道，the underworld; 黑市, black market), like Black Hat of course.

I do need to make the obligatory point that the term "hacker" did not originally imply illegal activity (or not very illegal). When I was at MIT it just meant someone that was very interested in something, or did a lot of it. There were physics hackers, model train hackers, and yes phone and lock hackers. But it did seem to catch on more as "computer hacker". Originally this was a term of respect. A hack was a clever solution, and of course possibly a prank.

Speaking of colors of hats, back when China first started economic reforms in the '80s and '90s, there began to be state-owned companies making private profits for insiders. These were called "red hat" (红帽子) companies, capitalistic enterprises still wearing the red hat of a communist institution. So it's interesting that Red Hat Linux straddles a similar contradiction, a for-profit commercial distribution of an open-source product. I don't know if Marc Ewing intentionally borrowed the Chinese term. Now in China 红帽子 is more likely to refer to Red Hat Linux or Red Hat, Inc.