Hacker Manifesto
I first read Hacker Manifesto back in 98 or 99 when i was still 12 or
13. I still remember one of the first things i looked up when i first
had access to internet was for the word "Hacker", some of the articles
i came across was "How to be a
Hacker" by Eric S Raymond and Hacker Manifesto by Mentor. One of
the first things i learned about Hackers was they were extremely smart
people who loved technology and most of the innovation in technology
comes from Hackers. They are pretty much the Architects of the future
and they are building the future by experimenting with the technology
(by making things work which were not meant to work that way). Here is
the Hacker Manifesto by Mentor written back in 1986.
The Hacker Manifesto
by
+++The Mentor+++
Written 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
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.
