Hacking: The Good Side

When people hear about hacking, the first thought that comes to mind would most likely be this definition from Webster, "to gain access to a computer illegally." Everywhere, people are wary of hackers due to the fact that the face that a majority of society knows hackers as would be people who shut down websites or steal information for their own advantage, but there is only the bad side to hacking.

Have people ever thought if there was a good side to it? Webster also provided another definition to hacking, "to write computer programs for enjoyment." I believe that people should think about how hackers are a great influence in today's society because even though there are bad hackers out there, good ones are helping technology advance.


Due to competitions for programmers called hackathon, new web and mobile applications are born all the time. This shows that hacking does not only steal or destroy information, but it can give life to something new. A large number of programmers will gather to events all over the world in order to produce a product that fixes an issue or improves a current product all the time. There is a hackathon coming up in November called LAUNCH Hackathon, which may be the largest hackathon in the world.

There are good hackers out there just gathering to create new products for others to use.