Manifesto
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+++
