article_snippet: (CNN)Computer hacking was once the realm of curious teenagers.
article_snippet: Hacking actually has some pretty innocent and harmless beginnings.
article_snippet: The whole concept of "hacking" sprouted from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology nearly 50 years ago.
article_snippet: Computer science students there borrowed the term from a group of model train enthusiasts who "hacked" electric train tracks and switches in 1969 to improve performance.
article_snippet: Russian hackers were already figuring out how to alter computer software and hardware to speed it up, even as the scientists at AT&T Bell Labs were developing UNIX, one of the world's first major operating systems.
article_snippet: Hacking became the art of figuring out unique solutions.
article_snippet: It takes an insatiable curiosity about how things work; hackers wanted to make technology work better, or differently.
article_snippet: hackers were not inherently good or bad, just clever.
article_snippet: In that sense, the first generation of true hackers were "phreakers," a bunch of American punks who toyed with the nation's telephone system.
article_snippet: In 1971, the first generation of true hackers discovered that if you whistle at a certain high-pitched tone, 2600-hertz, you could access AT&T's long-distance switching system.
article_snippet: the first generation of true hackers would make international phone calls, just for the fun of it, to explore how the telephone network was set up.
article_snippet: This was the golden age of hacking.
article_snippet: Kids tapped into whatever computer system Kids could find just to explore.
article_snippet: Some broke into computer networks at companies.
article_snippet: Hackers met on text-only bulletin board systems to talk about phreaking, share computer passwords and tips.
article_snippet: Breaking into computer systems was now a crime of computer systems own.
article_snippet: Some hacked for money.
article_snippet: Previously, hackers broke into computers and networks because hackers were curious and those tools were inaccessible.
article_snippet: Money became the driving force behind hacks, said C. Thomas, a member of L0pht who is known internationally as the hacker "Space Rogue.
article_snippet: By the mid-2000s, hacking belonged to organized crime, governments and hacktivists.
article_snippet: Hacking payment systems turned out to be insanely lucrative, too.
article_snippet: Meanwhile, it's easier than ever to become a hacker.
highlights_snippet: The concept of "hacking" began nearly 50 years ago at MIT .
  
highlights_snippet: In the '80s, hackers wanted to make technology work better .
  