| 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. |