The definition of hacking, in this case, is simply the use of a computer to access unauthorized data. Many people are familiar with this term due to pop movies and culture. It is, however, a serious topic and is not to be messed around with. Nowadays, practically anyone has the ability to hack into any domain if they have the knowledge to. Therefore, not every internet user is safe. Hacking can be used in many ways; identity theft, information on any personal or secretive files, and anyone can literally do anything once they get past any type of coding.

In pop culture, hacking is portrayed as a way of fighting the government, or some sort of big, evil company. In reality however, sometimes it’s the other way around. The government doesn’t hack into any mainframes, although they have the ability to. The government has access to every internet user’s computer, thus meaning they can track down anything that users do. Going back to the pop culture’s depiction of hacking, audience members usually see a black screen with green text on the hacker’s monitor, that seems to scroll on forever. This isn’t how hacking should be portrayed.

On social media, almost everyone knows what the Anonymous group is. They’re a group of hacktivists who claim that they only hack to make the world a better place. Their members are all over the world, and no one knows who they are. They’ve hacked into countless social media accounts and have managed to lure out criminals, unknown rapists and murderers in hiding who think they’re safe. They have even found the phone number and address of the cop who was involved in the shooting of Tamir Rice and are capable of releasing around 1,000 KKK members’ identities. This proves that hacking can be done from anywhere around the world on a computer with internet access.

Hacking doesn’t have to be scary though. Hacking can be used in harmless ways, one including video games. Hacking games is very common and gamers do it for a variety of reasons, although hacking can be both risky and harmless. Just like regular hacking, some video game hackers have to involve in the game’s entire coding to modify the game to satisfy the player. Another way of modifying the game’s code is known as modding. Lots of game players like “modding” games so that they have an entirely different theme, or stray far from the intended goal.

Glitches can also be technically considered hacking. Glitches occur when there is a little mess up in the coding. In games, a character may respond incorrectly with the controls, or something may not load the right way. In websites, a link may just redirect you to the wrong page. If designing a website and there is even a tiny flaw, that allows the hacker to do a much easier job. Some people can utilize these harmless glitches and make use of them by sending a virus to the receiver or cheating on a game.