Psyche of Hacker

After our class today I decided to look up 'The Hacker Manifesto' that Erika talked about; I was interested to get into the psyche of a hacker. I found out that the Hacker Manifesto was written by a hacker who went by the name of 'THE MENTOR.' The piece was written on January the 8th, 1986, after the authors’ arrest. He was only 21 years old at the time. Inspired by the book ‘The Moon is a Harsh Mistress’ (which he was reading at the time) and the idea of a revolution and with hacking withdrawal, The Mentor constructed the small essay. In 2000 in an interview with Elf Qrin, The Mentor revealed that he still finds the piece very valid today.

I want to know why hackers, more specifically, the hacker’s who cause chaos by hacking into prohibited places, do what they do. What inspires them? Is it a forceful desire to create havoc and grief for others or are they simply bored and too intelligent for their own good? After reading the ‘Hacker Manifesto’ I am overwhelmed with a sense of empathy for the author. To me he seems like a bored young man who hasn’t found his place in the world. The constant interruption in the text with what appears to be an adult’s or an authority’s opinion; “Damn kid. Probably copied it”; “Damn underachiever,” reveals to me that The Mentor feels patronized. He is obviously an intelligent kid and gets bored with the badgering of his teacher to learn something he already knows. He finds the computer. This gives him an escape. With it he can make his own mistakes, does what he wants to do. It doesn’t judge him or belittle him. When he begins his hacking he feels a sense of accomplishment and success. It’s addictive. It escalates from here on.

I know some of you may think that I am excusing hackers for their work and somewhat ‘siding with them’. This is not the case at all. The Hacker Manifesto just opened my eyes to the inner hacker; who they are, how they think and feel. Yes, maybe hackers are stereotyped as geeky male teenagers who are at the peak of puberty and outcasts in the world, but one must ponder; we live in a western world where such things as sport, sex and beauty are celebrated. How often do you hear news about intellects and academia…Very rarely when compared to sport and entertainment, which have whole television channels and newspapers dedicated to them. Where do the social misfits place in this world? Some find satisfaction in their cyber world and feel success through tunneling the phone lines to sacred places. Yes perhaps hacking into government systems and causing corruption aren’t very appropriate things to do, but one does need an outlet and possibly for some people, testing their hacking boundaries by burrowing deeper and deeper may be a their exit.

I’ve got a copy of ‘The Hacker Manifesto’ below so you can all have a read and maybe even respond with your own opinion.

Anywho, until next time :)
Ciao!
Michaela



The Hacker Manifesto
Written January 8, 1986
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.