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 techno-brain, 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.
Anonymous
UFO-Blogger regular reader
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2 comments:
Very well done. I'm 57 years old and one of the original hackers. I too, was deemed a "bad kid" in school because the teachers had nothing to teach. If I raised my hand to answer a question they would purposely look away and call on someone else. So I began to shout out the answers and therefore labeled a problem child. I got D and F's in conduct and A and B's in everything else. I have a 140 IQ and very few teachers knew what to do with that.
When I was an older kid I got the original home computers and learned how to program and make them do stuff. Commodore 64, Apple IIe, TRS-80. They were all just machines that spoke the same language - binary and octal code. I started connecting them to other things and did little process control experiments....fun!
I never finished college but currently am a business programmer with my own business. I've settled for helping businesses make money for a $100 an hour. I'm not wealthy but make a fair living. I mention this because this is what I encourage you young folks to do.
Find a niche in the world of computers. Let the man pay you for your expertise. Live peacefully in this world. Coexist and resolve to help others in whatever way you can. Even hackers can find a place here.
UFO Hacker :
http://freegary.org.uk
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