The program has been referred to as a hack, perhaps in the historical sense or in the MIT hack sense. Or the term may have been applied to it in the sense of Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, a book by Steven Levy.
The term "hack" is used to describe the program in various ways, potentially referring to its historical significance, the MIT hacking community's perspective, or Steven Levy's book "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution."