| ==Phrack Inc.== |
|
|
| Issue XIV, File 3 of 9 |
|
|
| =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= |
| The following file is being reprinted in honor and sympathy for the many |
| phreaks and hackers that have been busted recently by the Secret Service. -KL |
| - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
|
|
| \/\The Conscience of a Hacker/\/ |
|
|
| by |
|
|
| +++The Mentor+++ |
|
|
| Written on 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 underachievers. 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 will- |
| ing 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+++ |
|
|
| [May the members of the phreak community never forget his words -KL] |
| ______________________________________________________________________________ |
|
|
