If you thought hacking was a recent phenomenon think again. As this infographic reveals, a form of phone hacking was in used 40 years ago.

You may be surprised to see Rusell Crowe featured on an inforgraphic about hacking but the link is the film, The Beautiful Mind in which he played John Nash, the mathematician who coined the term "hacker". While today we think of hackers as malicious, Nash meant the term as an insult to describe those who were too lazy to solve a problem but instead avoided it.

The phone hacking referred to in the second item on the graphic was also referred to as "phone phreaking" and was brought to public attention in an 1971 article entitled "Secrets of the Little Blue Box" by Ron Rosenbaum that appeared in the magazine Esquire. One the facts that isn't included in this infographic is that this article inspired Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak to build their own blue box, something that is explored in Woz and Jobs - the blue box days.

(Click to open larger version in new window)

Source: OnlineMBA.com

When it comes to computer hacking the infographic concentrates on the cost to the industry and the widespread nature of the problem. There is one reference to "white hat hacking" in that the US Department of Defense hires 250 hackers per year to combat cyber threats.

There are other legitimate rewards from hacking activities. Last month we reported the outcome of Pwn2Own and Google's Pwnium competition when hackers who exposed flaws in the Chrome, IE and Firefox browsers were awarded cash prizes.

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