%/%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 underachiever.  They're all alike.

        I'm in junior high or high school.  I've listened to teachers
explain forthe 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 callus 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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