Ask HN: Who is the best hacker of all time?

Linus Torvalds. He appears to be good at almost everything; C programming, project management, architecture, writing emails, etc.

Aaron Schwartz, the best freedom fighter

Are you aware that hacking is in most parts social engineering? Are you looking for the best hacker or social engineer? Are you aware of the differences between a hacker, a cracker and a script kiddie? What about participants in a hackathon - do you consider them hackers as well? I mean, the event has "hacking" in its name, right?

I think Fabrice Bellard is one of the top computer programmers of our times.

https://bellard.org/

Richard Stallman, the last true MIT Hacker.

Assuming you mean breaking into systems, while I'm not immersed in that culture, I did enjoy Kevin Mitnik's Ghost in the Wires. It may be a bit dated, but some of the stories of early phone phreaking and social engineering was a fun ride -- and helps add a decent level of paranoia to answering phone calls today! Kevin Mitnik is a legend. He might not be the best of all time or today, but he is up there.

If you're using the media's definition of hacker to mean someone breaking/exploiting computer stuff, then I would say we can't answer that. The best people conceal their identity and don't get caught, so we wouldn't know them.

My favorite is Jayson Street only because he does a great black hat with little to no programming. Which, of course, goes against the "well rounded" part of your question.

The mysterious hacker called 4chan.

Kevin Mitnick