What Is Hacker Typer and How Does It Work?
Hacker Typer is a web page that makes it look as if you are writing complicated code at high speed. You press any keys at all and perfectly formatted source code appears on screen. It is a toy, a prank and a prop, and it has no connection to actual hacking.
Where it came from
The original Hacker Typer was published at hackertyper.net in 2011 by developer Simone Masiero. The joke was aimed at film and television, where "hacking" is usually shown as someone typing furiously while green text scrolls past. The site let anyone recreate that scene in seconds, and it spread quickly through forums and social media.
Since then the idea has been rebuilt many times, with different looks and extra features. hackertyper.app is one of those independent versions. It is not connected to the original site.
How the trick works
The page already contains a long piece of source code, stored as plain text. When you press a key, the page does not look at which key it was. It simply shows the next piece of the stored text. Press another key, get the next piece.
That is the entire mechanism:
- Load a block of code as text.
- Listen for key presses.
- On each press, reveal a little more of the text and scroll to the bottom.
- When the text runs out, start again from the top.
The classic typer on our home page reveals one full line per key press. Hacker Typer 2.0 reveals a few characters per press, which looks closer to real typing. If you want to see the code behind it, we wrote a step-by-step JavaScript tutorial.
What code does it show?
Traditionally, Hacker Typer shows code from the Linux kernel, the open-source core of the Linux operating system. It is a good choice because it is real, dense and full of unfamiliar names like group_info and kmalloc, which makes it look impressive to anyone who does not write C for a living. The classic typer on this site uses kernel-style C in the same tradition. Hacker Typer 2.0 adds sample code in Python, JavaScript, SQL, Assembly and Bash.
In every case the code is only displayed. Your browser does not run it.
What people use it for
- Pranks. Convincing a friend, sibling or coworker that you are breaking into something. See our prank ideas.
- Looking busy. A screen full of scrolling code discourages interruptions.
- Videos, streams and theatre. A quick, free "hacker screen" for a scene. The hands-free screen is built for this.
- Teaching. Teachers use it to start conversations about how media portrays computing and what programmers and security professionals really do.
- Fun. It is simply satisfying to hammer a keyboard and watch tidy code appear.
Is it real hacking?
No. Real security work is slow and mostly involves reading, research and careful testing, with very little frantic typing. Hacker Typer cannot reach beyond your own screen. We cover the safety questions in detail in Is Hacker Typer safe?
FAQ
Who made Hacker Typer?
The original Hacker Typer at hackertyper.net was created by Simone Masiero in 2011. Many independent versions exist today, including hackertyper.app.
Do I need to know how to code to use Hacker Typer?
No. You can press any keys in any order. The code that appears is pre-written.
Does Hacker Typer teach programming?
Not directly, since you are not writing the code. It can make people curious about programming, and reading the sample code is a small first look at what different languages look like.