The Conscience of a Hacker
Another one got caught today, it’s all over the papers. “Teenager Arrested in Computer Crime Scandal”, “Hacker Arrested after Bank Tampering”… Damn kids. They’re all alike. But did you, in your three- piece psychology and 1950’s technobrain, ever take a look behind the eyes of the hacker? Did you ever wonder what made him tick, what forces shaped him, what may have molded him? I am a hacker, enter my world… Mine is a world that begins with school… I’m smarter than most of the other kids, this crap they teach us bores me… Damn underachiever. They’re all alike. I’m in junior high or high school. I’ve listened to teachers explain for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I understand it. “No, Ms. Smith, I didn’t show my work. I did it in my head…” Damn kid. Probably copied it. They’re all alike. I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it’s because I screwed it up. Not because it doesn’t like me… Or feels threatened by me.. Or thinks I’m a smart ass.. Or doesn’t like teaching and shouldn’t be here… Damn kid. All he does is play games. They’re all alike. And then it happened… a door opened to a world… rushing through the phone line like heroin through an addict’s veins, an electronic pulse is sent out, a refuge from the day-to-day incompetencies is sought… a board is found. “This is it… this is where I belong…” I know everyone here… even if I’ve never met them, never talked to them, may never hear from them again… I know you all… Damn kid. Tying up the phone line again. They’re all alike… You bet your ass we’re all alike… we’ve been spoon-fed baby food at school when we hungered for steak… the bits of meat that you did let slip through were pre-chewed and tasteless. We’ve been dominated by sadists, or ignored by the apathetic. The few that had something to teach found us willing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in the desert.
This is our world now… the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn’t run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals. We explore… and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge… and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias… and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it’s for our own good, yet we’re the criminals. Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for. I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you can’t stop us all… after all, we’re all alike.
The “Hacker Manifesto”.
If the #Cadavatar is the hardware, and the soul is the user, then the question “why?” is the machine language and the Hacker Manifesto was Mentor translating it to an assembly or higher level language for those of us that don’t fit the mold.
I think I first ran into this piece while learning about hackers on my dad’s 56K Modem.
I may not remember the exact details, but I’m almost certain the rabbit hole was catalized by having seen “Hackers” on TV, which led to learning how real “hackers” had hacked the “Hackers” website lol. That story made me reallize the difference and I learne both fear and respect for the wizards on the phone lines. Either way, I rain into this version on Phrack Magazine , and I thought I would share a version of it here.
I wanted to post it here as an homage to Mentor and the countless people he has inspired with his words.
I wanted to post it here as an exhibit of the power we have to change reality with our thoughts and ideas.
I wanted to post it here in the hope my soulFriends, or any stranger that happens to find this page, find in it the same message and inspiration I found. Embrace curiosity and question everything.
I wanted to post it here as a beacon, to let others know that although I may not have all (or any really) of the answers, you are not alone.
[gT_I]