The Conscience of a Hacker

[The_Dunadan]

Most hackers have this memorized but not many ppl outside the hacker community have read it. I think you should. I know its a little lengthy but please read it anyway. It was written by The Mentor after he was busted.

The Hackers Manifesto

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 Mentor++

[GameMaster]

This is a great speech. It makes me feel better when I download free software and music.

What's with these hacking threads? Are you becoming a hacker? You little entrepeneur you. :D

[Xantar]

Um, right. Sort of poetic, but I can't say it makes me sympathize with hackers. They still come off as immature loners. Only with this speech, they sound like delusional immature loners.

If I were to hear this spoken to my face, I would respond something like this:

"So you want more out of life, huh? You think you aren't being treated by everyone the way you want to be treated. And just what is it that makes you think you're unique? I've got news for you. Everybody wants more out of life. Everybody wants to be treated a little better. Everybody wishes they could be realized to their full potential or what they believe is their full potential.

So you think you're being spoon-fed baby food instead of the steak you want? Why don't you try being glad that you're spoon-fed anything in the first place? Here you are with access to a computer, something that more than 80% of the world's people can't claim. You are literate which is something that most people of the world can't claim. You can be relatively sure that you will still be alive tomorrow. And here you are demanding that more be given to you? Why don't you go out and get it yourself? Read books if you want to learn more than what they teach you in school. Get a job if you want to earn more money than your allowance. Learn to cook if you want to eat something different.

You pretend to be concerned with the world by lambasting the wars that go on and the corporations that provide services to us, but you aren't fooling me. This isn't about the world. It's about you and your dissatisfied ego. Because you believe that you aren't being recognized for your intelligence, you go and hack a banking system. Never mind that you may have destroyed the life savings of a World War II veteran. Never mind that you may have royally screwed over a single mom working two jobs and raising a kid in inner city New York. 'I am here to denounce the government,' you cry, and yet the problems of the government are the last thing on your mind. It's all about you and what you perceive as the injustices against you.

You want to talk wars and injustice? Get into the mind of the Palestinian suicide bomber who feels that he has lost so much of his identity that he will willingly give up his life for the cause of his people. Then look at the world through the eyes of the Israeli who lost his 12 year old daughter, the hope of his future and joy of his life. Can you understand the pain that these people live with? Can you see how pitiful your personal problems are in comparison?

You think I will accuse you of being a criminal, but you are wrong. I won't dignify you with the term 'criminal.' Criminals are adults. You are a child."

[Happydude]

Xantar...your seems a little cut off:unsure:...anyway

I agree with both you and him, he just wants to be treated fairly, while you point out the facts about the non-fair things that he said.

I still think that a hacker shouldn't be treated like a criminal, but then again they shouldn't complain about being treated like criminals because they do steal, and mess around with banks, the government and the such. and as you said, they are in a state where they can afford a computer, and where there is no threat to them or their life.

[marionette]

Originally posted by GameMaster
This is a great speech. It makes me feel better when I download free software and music.

What's with these hacking threads? Are you becoming a hacker? You little entrepeneur you. :D

ya i was thinking the same thing

[Xantar]

Originally posted by happydude666

I agree with both you and him, he just wants to be treated fairly, while you point out the facts about the non-fair things that he said.


How exactly was he being treated unfairly? Give me a quote that indicates a solid example of him being treated unfairly other than being jailed for causing damage to systems or whatever it was he did.

The only thing I see him complaining about is the fact that he gets taught stuff he already knows. His curriculum is dumbed down. This is somewhat true, but that's not a case of him being treated unfairly. Some kids, for whatever reason, need to have these things explained to them multiple times. Our "mentor" here is only receiving the same treatment as slower kids. He isn't demanding that he be treated fairly. He claimed to be smarter than everyone else which might have been true. So therefore, he was bored in class and wanted to be challenged. He wanted, in other words, to be taught faster than the other slower kids in the class. He didn't want to be treated fairly. He wanted special treatment.

Except that a truly mature person would have gone looking for these extra challenges instead of sitting around whining and lashing out at society.

And if by "cut off" you mean that I was lacing my post with contempt, you are absolutely right. I don't have any respect for people like him, especially if they start spouting world peace and justice platitudes in order to justify their actions. The least he could have done was acknowledge his own egocentrism.

[sdtPikachu]

Sigh. Yet another terminal misunderstanding of the differences between hackers and crackers.

And even within these, there's still the distinction between hackers/crackers who do/don't use software (script kiddies).

Hackers are just people who take software to bits to figure out how it works to see if they can get it to work better. They improve computer software, as well as being lawfully employed to check security holes. Unfortunately, under the piece of poo that is the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act for those of youwho've been sitting in a cave for the past five years) they want to make it illegal to reverse engineer software to find out what's wrong with it - such as the Russian Hacker (forget his name) who broke the adobe ebooks encryption in order to make it legal in Russia (as they have more reasonable rights than you do in the US). Then he was arrested for breaking American laws in Russia. Hmm.

A cracker (comes from "cracking" the code) however is someone who uses knowledge of computers to do malicious stuff, like DoS attacks, viruses and the rest of it. 90% of them don't even know how to code, they just use programs other people make (hence "script kiddies") to do their dirty work.

A bit more understanding please! I have several friends who are hackers (one is an ex-PS2 coder), and they get very very pissed off woth the bad rep that the title gets simply cos people can't tell the difference.

[Blackmane]

Originally posted by Xantar
Give me a quote that indicates a solid example of him being treated unfairly other than being jailed for causing damage to systems or whatever it was he did.

Here, go to this site (http://plaguesplace.dyndns.org/worm3rd/hvmf.html). It is a good editorial from a hacker. Read the part about Kevin Mitnick and "Bernie S." Basically it talks about hackers being treated unfairly and being major targets by the FBI and CIA while they have nothing to blaim on them. You might find it a bit unfair. Xantar, I can kinda understand why you don't like hackers, but like Pikachu said, there are distinctions between people that are just curious and hack for information WITHOUT doing damage to other computers and data and those that do it just to hurt others. Those that just do it to impress others and show other people that "they are l33t hackers" are extremely dumb people asking to get arrested.