The terms Hacker & Hacking were coined by John Nash. Hacking has been around as long ascomputersas a way to reconfigure a system to give access to someone whos shouldn’t have the access. Check out this very well illustrated short and nice history of Hacking.
In the media any electronic manipulation is referred to as Hacking! Thanks to all the media hype, computer geeks who can hack are considered to be cool & dangerous.