Photo taken in Hamburg during the Chaos Communication Congress hacking conference, 28/12/2014

Hacking is the art and skill of reverse engineering, re-engineering, creating, patching, modding and upgrading things into a more useful state. The term is supposed to be used along with woodworking, electronics, handcrafts, and sometimes computers. A hacker is originally defined by "someone who makes furniture with an axe."

Hacking nowadays is stuck to computers and cyber security but it shouldn't be limited to those terms, many hackers are not computer geeks while many computer hackers have nothing to do with hacking. Don't be fooled by "Certified Ethical Hacking" titles since they might be the silliest Cyber Security titles ever created.

Except for Arabic, most languages fail to redefine the real sense behind hacking:

Language	Term	Sounds like
English	Ethical Hacking	Redundant, because hacking is meant to be ethical by origin
French	Piratage Éthique	Oxymoron, since pirates are meant to be bad
Dutch	Ethisch Hacken	Transliteration for the English version, redundant
Arabic	Herta'ji (حرتقجي)	The art of playing around with stuff (sometimes people)

Another photo from CCC, Hamburg, 28/12/2014

Hackerspaces, sometimes also referred to as makerspaces are creative, DIY spaces where people can gather to create, invent, and learn. If you want to learn hacking, do yourself a favor and join those communities around you, those people are always ready to help and your contribution is welcome.