[syn: cracker, snapper, cracker bonbon]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Cracker \Crack"er\ (kr[a^]k"[~e]r), n.
1. One who, or that which, cracks.
[1913 Webster]
2. A noisy boaster; a swaggering fellow. [Obs.]
[1913 Webster]
What cracker is this same that deafs our ears?
--Shak.
[1913 Webster]
3. A small firework, consisting of a little powder inclosed
in a thick paper cylinder with a fuse, and exploding with
a sharp noise; -- usually called firecracker.
[1913 Webster]
4. A thin, dry biscuit, often hard or crisp; as, a Boston
cracker; a Graham cracker; a soda cracker; an oyster
cracker.
[1913 Webster]
5. A nickname to designate a poor white in some parts of the
Southern United States. --Bartlett.
[1913 Webster]
6. (Zool.) The pintail duck.
[1913 Webster]
7. pl. (Mach.) A pair of fluted rolls for grinding
caoutchouc. --Knight.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
cracker
n 1: a thin crisp wafer made of flour and water with or without
leavening and shortening; unsweetened or semisweet
2: a poor White person in the southern United States [syn:
redneck, cracker]
3: a programmer who cracks (gains unauthorized access to)
computers, typically to do malicious things; "crackers are
often mistakenly called hackers"
4: firework consisting of a small explosive charge and fuse in a
heavy paper casing [syn: firecracker, cracker, banger]
5: a party favor consisting of a paper roll (usually containing
candy or a small favor) that pops when pulled at both ends
[syn: cracker, snapper, cracker bonbon]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
60 Moby Thesaurus words for "cracker":
Brussels biscuit, Klaxon, Melba toast, backwoodsman, biscuit,
boiler factory, boiler room, bone, briar-hopper, brush ape,
bull-roarer, bushman, catcall, cherry bomb, clack, clacker,
clam digger, clapper, cricket, desert rat, dust, firecracker,
forester, frontiersman, graham cracker, hardtack, hillbilly,
hinterlander, horn, mountain man, mountaineer, mummy, noisemaker,
parchment, pilot biscuit, piny, pretzel, rattle, rattlebox,
redneck, ridge runner, rusk, saltine, sea biscuit, ship biscuit,
sinker, siren, snapper, soda cracker, steam whistle, stick,
ticktack, wafer, whistle, whizgig, whizzer, woodlander, woodman,
woodsman, zwieback
The Jargon File (version 4.4.7, 29 Dec 2003):
cracker
n.
One who breaks security on a system. Coined ca. 1985 by hackers in defense
against journalistic misuse of hacker (q.v., sense 8). An earlier attempt
to establish worm in this sense around 1981--82 on Usenet was largely a
failure.
Use of both these neologisms reflects a strong revulsion against the theft
and vandalism perpetrated by cracking rings. The neologism ?cracker? in
this sense may have been influenced not so much by the term ?safe-cracker?
as by the non-jargon term ?cracker?, which in Middle English meant an
obnoxious person (e.g., ?What cracker is this same that deafs our ears /
With this abundance of superfluous breath?? ? Shakespeare's King John, Act
II, Scene I) and in modern colloquial American English survives as a barely
gentler synonym for ?white trash?.
While it is expected that any real hacker will have done some playful
cracking and knows many of the basic techniques, anyone past larval stage
is expected to have outgrown the desire to do so except for immediate,
benign, practical reasons (for example, if it's necessary to get around
some security in order to get some work done).
Thus, there is far less overlap between hackerdom and crackerdom than the
mundane reader misled by sensationalistic journalism might expect.
Crackers tend to gather in small, tight-knit, very secretive groups that
have little overlap with the huge, open poly-culture this lexicon
describes; though crackers often like to describe themselves as hackers,
most true hackers consider them a separate and lower form of life. An easy
way for outsiders to spot the difference is that crackers use grandiose
screen names that conceal their identities. Hackers never do this; they
only rarely use noms de guerre at all, and when they do it is for display
rather than concealment.
Ethical considerations aside, hackers figure that anyone who can't imagine
a more interesting way to play with their computers than breaking into
someone else's has to be pretty losing. Some other reasons crackers are
looked down on are discussed in the entries on cracking and phreaking.
See also samurai, dark-side hacker, and hacker ethic. For a portrait
of the typical teenage cracker, see warez d00dz.
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):
cracker
cracking
An individual who attempts to gain unauthorised
access to a computer system. These individuals are often
malicious and have many means at their disposal for breaking
into a system. The term was coined ca. 1985 by hackers in
defence against journalistic misuse of "hacker". An earlier
attempt to establish "worm" in this sense around 1981--82 on
Usenet was largely a failure.
Use of both these neologisms reflects a strong revulsion
against the theft and vandalism perpetrated by cracking rings.
The neologism "cracker" in this sense may have been influenced
not so much by the term "safe-cracker" as by the non-jargon
term "cracker", which in Middle English meant an obnoxious
person (e.g., "What cracker is this same that deafs our ears /
With this abundance of superfluous breath?" -- Shakespeare's
King John, Act II, Scene I) and in modern colloquial American
English survives as a barely gentler synonym for "white
trash".
While it is expected that any real hacker will have done some
playful cracking and knows many of the basic techniques,
anyone past larval stage is expected to have outgrown the
desire to do so except for immediate practical reasons (for
example, if it's necessary to get around some security in
order to get some work done).
Contrary to widespread myth, cracking does not usually involve
some mysterious leap of hackerly brilliance, but rather
persistence and the dogged repetition of a handful of fairly
well-known tricks that exploit common weaknesses in the
security of target systems. Accordingly, most crackers are
only mediocre hackers.
Thus, there is far less overlap between hackerdom and
crackerdom than the mundane reader misled by
sensationalistic journalism might expect. Crackers tend to
gather in small, tight-knit, very secretive groups that have
little overlap with the huge, open hacker poly-culture; though
crackers often like to describe *themselves* as hackers, most
true hackers consider them a separate and lower form of life,
little better than virus writers. Ethical considerations
aside, hackers figure that anyone who can't imagine a more
interesting way to play with their computers than breaking
into someone else's has to be pretty losing.
See also Computer Emergency Response Team, dark-side
hacker, hacker ethic, phreaking, samurai, Trojan
horse.
[Jargon File]
(1998-06-29)