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The Hacker's Manifesto
The Hacker's Manifesto
by: The Mentor
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.
This was the last published file written by The Mentor. Shortly after
releasing it, he was busted by the FBI. The Mentor, sadly missed.
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