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\/\The Conscience of a Hacker/\/
by
+++The
Mentor+++
Written on January 8, 1986 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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 underachievers. 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 Mentor+++
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