What exactly is hacking?

[elk]

That kid most likely did not hack into there entire central database. He most likely got into a small unprotected subsection that holds nothing more then phone numbers. Anyways, hacking is when you purposfully infiltrate a secured database (Facebook account, NASA, Website) and have the potential to alter thing within it. Hacking can be done simply by guessing a password, or by altering MANY types of codes to access a small database that may house the password to the larger one.