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HACKER BEING
on the meaning of being a hacker
by Valerio "Elf Qrin" Capello (http://www.ElfQrin.com)
Copyright (C) 1999 Valerio Capello
First written: 23JAN2000
v1.1eng 26MAR2000
This is a translation from the original Italian version v1.5 r23JAN2000
(first written: 31AUG1999-09SEP1999)
Supervisor for the English language: SirD.
Latest version available from:
http://www.ElfQrin.com/docs/BeingHacker.html
Other language versions: Italian
"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..."
("The Conscience of a Hacker", The Mentor)
"Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that
shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known"
(Matthew 10:26)
THE HACKER
Another idiot has been locked up because of committing a senseless act with
little or no thought to the consequences. Law enforcement needs to look good,
the news becomes public domain and the press is unleashed, using attention
grabbing headlines like: "Computer terrorist busted", or better, a "hacker".
Not only is the term misused, but it is usually only understood to be a mere
synonym for "computer pirate", which is not only limitive, but completely wrong.
Few people, even those who would define themselves as such, really know
what "being a hacker" means.
The WWWebster Online Dictionary (http://www.m-w.com/), at the "hacker" entry
says:
Main Entry: hacker
Pronunciation: 'ha-k&r
Function: noun
Date: 14th century
1 : one that hacks
2 : a person who is inexperienced or unskilled at a particular
activity "a tennis hacker"
3 : an expert at programming and solving problems with a
computer
4 : a person who illegally gains access to and sometimes tampers
with information in a computer system
Among the various meanings quoted above, (besides definition 1, which is
obvious...), definition 4 is the one which generally corresponds to the idea of
"the hacker" that the majority of people have, while definition 3, is the one
which is actually closer to the real meaning of "hacker", even if it is still rather
limiting.
A dictionary rarely gives a definative answer, but it is always a good start.
For a more precise definition we can consult a specific dictionary such as the
Jargon File, the most prestigious dictionary of hacker terminology, "a
comprehensive compendium of hacker slang illuminating many aspects of
hackish tradition, folklore, and humor", begun by Raphael Finkel of the
university of Stanford in 1975, and then passed in management to Don Woods
of the MIT, up to see the light of the printed paper in 1983, with the title of "The
Hacker's Dictionary" (Harper & Row CN 1082, ISBN 0-06-091082-8, also
known in the scene as "Steele-1983").
The on-line hacker Jargon File, version 2.9.10, 01 JUL 1992 (part of the
Project Gutenberg), at the "hacker" entry says:
:hacker: [originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe] n. 1.
A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable
systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most
users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary.
2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who
enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming.
3. A person capable of appreciating {hack value}.
4. A person who is good at programming quickly.
5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does
work using it or on it; as in `a UNIX hacker'. (Definitions 1 through 5
are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.)
6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy
hacker, for example.
7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively
overcoming or circumventing limitations.
8. [deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive
information by poking around. Hence `password hacker', `network
hacker'. See {cracker}.
Since this is a specific dictionary, the definition of hacker here is closer to its
original meaning, even if it is necessary to extrapolate it from the varied
proposed meanings in order to obtain the closest and most faithfull
interpretation.
A hacker is a person that loves to study all things in depth (definition 1),
especially the more apparently meaningless details, to discover hidden
peculiarities, new features and weakness in them. For example, it is possible
to hack a book, by using it to equalize the legs of a table, or to use the sharp
edge of one of its pages to cut something. The main point being that it is used
for more than it's conventional function of being read. But more than this, a
hacker soon learns that the same techniques used for exploiting computer
systems can be used to manipulate people. This is the so-called social
hacking. With a little skilled psychology, the masters of "social hacking" can
convince other people to do what they want (within limits of course, and
depending on the abilities of the "social hacker"), in order to obtain the
information they require. This may sound like an unusual and unatural practise,
but once you take into account that this is performed quite regularly, in
everyday life, by girlfriends, friends and teachers etc. to obtain what they want
from others, it's not that strange, even if hackers do use a little more skill and
technique.
Another way of bringing hacking out from the computer's world, is the so-called
vadding (the term is actually rarely used, but the activity is largely practiced)
this consists of exploring places where the average person doesn't normally
have access, such as basements, roofs of public buildings, maintenance
tunnels, elevator wells and similar places. Sometimes, some of these activities
born inside the hacker scene, grow and eventually separate, becoming new
entities, like phreaking, the term applied to the world of "hacking" telephones
and telephone systems, or the term carding, which is basically "techno-credit
card fraud",.. very illegal and risky.
In short, a hacker has the tendency to use his skills also beyond of the
computer context, and anywhere tends to use the hacking techniques and to
discover what is normally hidden to the common man.
For a hacker, the ability to reason, harness his full brain capacity and maintain
his mind at maximum efficiency levels, is most important.
With a few exceptions, it is unusual that a hacker would smoke, use drugs, or
drink excessively (however beer appears to be the preferred choice, when
alcohol is drunk). Speaking of John Draper, (a.k.a "Captain Crunch", one of the
most legendary phreaker/hackers, famous for discovering that by sending a
tone of 2600Hz over the telephone lines of AT&T, it was possible to effect free
calls), Steven Levy says: "Cigarettes made him violent": smoking next to him
was extremely hazardous to your health...
A hacker is certainly a programming maniac, (definition 2): once a technique
has been discovered, it is necessary to write a program that exploits it.
Hackers often spend many day's and night's in front of a computer,
programming or experimenting with new techniques. After spending so many
hours in front of a computer, a hacker gains a remarkable ability to analyze
large amounts of data very quickly.
The ability to program quickly, (definition 4) can be a characteristic of a hacker,
but is not always necessarily so. As far as a hacker is concerned, it is faster to
type on a keyboard, than it is to write things down, many hackers spend quite a
lot of time reflecting over, or analyzing previously written code, while they are
programming.
Definition 5 is, in effect, a restrictive meaning of the word "hacker" since it
limits it to a single field (as in UNIX), it can however be considered as a
specialization.
Actually in these cases, especially when it concerns true experts in a field, the
terms wizard or guru are preferred. For example, the definition "UNIX wizard"
in the United States is also recognized outside of the hacker environment and
it can be included in a resume.
Definition 3 may be considered apart: a person that qualifies for this definition
is not neccasarily a real hacker, but a very experienced person with a good
knowledge, who is not neccasarily able to develop hacker techniques. To
make it clearer, think about the differences between a good author and
someone that appreciates a good book.
Definition 7, together with definition 1, are the ones that get closer to the real
essence of the hacker. To study a system, to discover weaknesses, the
peculiarities and hidden features of it, and then use them to go beyond its
limits, with creativeness and imagination. This, in a certain way, brings us
directly to definition 8. The person with these skills can use his knowledge to try
to access information to which he doesn't have the right to access, and here
the discourse gets complicated, because for a hacker there is no information
which he does not have the right to access. We will get back to this point later,
when we will speak about the "hacker ethic".
Finally, although it has nothing to do with the character of the hacker, I would
like to attract attention to definition 6; for a hacker, the term hacker is always
positive: if he speaks of a "hacker of astronomy", he speaks of a true expert of
that subject. Contrary to this, in everyday language, according to definition 2 of
the WWWebster dictionary, a "hacker" in a certain field is a person that is not
skilled in that specific field.
After giving the definitions, the Jargon File provides more information on the
meaning of the word "hacker":
The term `hacker' also tends to connote membership in the global
community [...]. It also implies that the person described is seen to
subscribe to some version of the hacker ethic [...].
It is better to be described as a hacker by others than to describe
oneself that way. Hackers consider themselves something of an
elite (a meritocracy based on ability), though one to which new
members are gladly welcome. There is thus a certain ego
satisfaction to be had in identifying yourself as a hacker (but if you
claim to be one and are not, you'll quickly be labeled {bogus}). [...]
[or most commonly, the most used term in these circumstances is
"lamer", even if next versions of the Jargon File use this term in a
slightly different context]
But, perhaps more than anything else, curiosity and above average intelligence
are the signatures of a true hacker. The hacker has an almost physical need of
knowledge of any kind.
The hacker is most certainly a voracious reader, even if his preference is only
for scientific matters or science fiction, and generally one would find many
shelves full of books in his room. But a hacker is not satisfied by the "ready
made" knowledge, of the information that he finds in the books written for the
average person, a hacker wants it all, and collects all possible information.
Schools are institutions that are not able to furnish all the information that a
hacker needs. The governments and all the public or private institutions have
the tendency to furnish the least necessary information.
About this point, Steven Levy in "Hackers, Heroes of the Computer Revolution"
(written in 1984), affirms that the hackers "are possessed not merely by
curiosity, but by a positive *lust to know.*"
This idea is even clearer in these excerpts took from what is a considered "the
hacker's manifesto": "The Conscience of to Hacker" (sometimes erroneously
reported, in a nearly prophetic sense, as "Mentor's Last Words"), written by
The Mentor on January 8th 1986, and published for the first time on the e-zine
Phrack, Volume One, Issue 7, Phile 3.
This text collects in a few paragraphs, a large part of the hacker philosophy,
with touching results for most true hackers (even if it may be difficult to think of
a hacker as a person that has a heart as well as a brain).
[...]
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.
[...]
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.
[...]
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.
[...]
In these words, you will see the frustration of living in a defective world, that
deprives the individuals that wish to rise above the mediocre, of the very
information and resources they desire, to know what is kept hidden, and it
condemns them hypocritically as criminals.
But the desperate search of knowledge is only one of the characteristics of the
hacker. Another sure one is the pursute of extreme perfection. An interesting
article, is the one that narrates the history of the first hackers, and of how they
developed "Spacewar!" (the first videogame in history, born as a demo for the
TX-0, meant as a "killer application" for this computer, with all its features
exploitable), is "The origin of Spacewar", written by J. M. Graetz, and published
in the August, 1981 issue of Creative Computing magazine.
One of the forces driving the dedicated hacker is the quest for
elegance. It is not sufficient to write programs that work. They must
also be "elegant," either in code or in function -- both, if possible.
An elegant program does its job as fast as possible, or is as
compact as possible, or is as clever as possible in taking
advantage of the particular features of the machine in which it runs,
and (finally) produces its results in an aesthetically pleasing form
without compromising either the results or operation of other
programs associated with it.
But the elegance and the perfection of hackers is not always comprehensible
to the average individual. A hacker can often be in ecstasy reading some code
written by another hacker, admiring his ability and "tasting" his style, as if he
was reading poetry.
For example, normally to exchange the content of two variables (a and b, in this
case), the statement most commonly used is this, which uses a third temporary
variable:
dummy = a : a = b : b = dummy
The following method, instead, doesn't need the third variable, because it
exploits a mathematical peculiarity of the boolean operator XOR:
a = a XOR b : b = a XOR b : a = a XOR b
Even if this system is at least three times slower than the first one because it
requires the execution of three mathematical operations, (however it allows the
saving of memory that the third variable would normally occupy), a hacker will
surely admire the ingeniousness and the elegance of this method, to him it
assumes the taste of a Japanese haiku.
Talking about the perfectionism of the hackers, in "Hackers: Heroes of the
Computer Revolution" written by Steven Levy in 1984, in the chapter 2 ("The
Hacker Ethic"), we read:
Hackers believe that essential lessons can be learned about the
systems--about the world--from taking things apart, seeing how
they work, and using this knowledge to create new and even more
interesting things. They resent any person, physical barrier, or law
that tries to keep them from doing this.
This is especially true when a hacker wants to fix something that
(from his point of view) is broken or needs improvement. Imperfect
systems infuriate hackers, whose primal instinct is to debug them.
This is one reason why hackers generally hate driving cars--the
system of randomly programmed red lights and oddly laid out
one-way streets causes delays which are so goddamned
UNNECESSARY that the impulse is to rearrange signs, open up
traffic-light control boxes . . .redesign the entire system.
In a perfect hacker world, anyone pissed off enough to open up a
control box near a traffic light and take it apart to make it work
better should be perfectly welcome to make the attempt.
It's just in the name of such principle that the Linux operating system and the
Gnu C compiler have been developed, their code is open and available to be
changed and modified by anyone.
Lately, many important commercial software producers also started moving in
this direction, as Netscape: Netscape Communicator 5, will, in fact be the first
software, originally born as a "closed" commercial product, to be developed
with this type of philosophy.
A hacker is never satisfied with the default settings of a program or of the
custom installations, he always has to open the configuration menu and set the
options to get the maximum performance, and to make the product work as
close as possible to his "way". A hacker must be able to use, to modify and to
check all the possible features of a program.
But after all, what motivates hackers? Why do they create programs that exploit
advanced techniques and then distribute them free? And why do they freely
distribute knowledge that was incredibly difficult to obtain?
A good answer could be found in the site of the KIN (Klever Internet Nothings,
http://www.klever.net), they are not exactly a hacker crew, but a group of people
that write programs and release them freely on the Internet:
What makes people write software and distribute it for free? Vanity,
you said? Well, maybe.. But after all, what is this business all
about? Is it all about money? Ask anyone - it's not. Most people I
know in the industry will tell you that.
Their idea is "just leave me alone and let me do what I love to do".
In short, it's not about money. It's about feeling free to do what you want, and,
just possibly, to find someone that appreciates your work.
THE HACKER ETHIC
The true hacker doesn't have morals, and he would never censor information or
ideas of any kind. An initiative of the Italian priest Don Fortunato di Noto,
(fortunad@sistemia.it,) who in January of 1998 formed the "Committee of
resistance against the Pedophiles", and who asked for the help of the hacker
community to unmask, capture and close the sites of the pedophiles on the
Internet, failed miserably as it was only supported by self-acclaimed hackers
without any skill.
Besides, hackers are tolerant by nature, and rarely get angry, but they are
irritated by people and tasks perceived to be wasting their time.
There are however, some things that hackers can be intolerant of. One of these
is when lies are told, to, or about them, you can say that hackers are imbeciles
(it's an opinion, after all), but you can not say that they steal chickens. And yet, it
would still be unusual that hackers would hack a site to remove the lies
propogated about them. It would be more typical that they would create another
site, refuting the lies against them.
Hacking can be used like as a form of protest, breaking into and modifying the
websites of very well known societies and government or military corporate
entities, can be a way to make public certain injustices (especially attacks to
the liberty of information or expression) or violations of human rights. The
hacks, of the websites of the CIA (that became Central Stupidity Agency) and
of the Department of Justice, are famous for being hacked with this intention in
mind.
In the article "Hacking for Human Rights?" by Arik Hesseldahl
(ahess@reporters.net) published on the online magazine Wired
(http://www.wired.com) dated 14.Jul.98 9:15am, the hacker Bondie Wong, (a
dissident Chinese astrophysicist who lives in Canada, that temporarily
disabled a Chinese satellite in 1997), a member of the famous hacker crew,
Cult of the Dead Cow (which in the beginning of 1999 released the Back
Orifice trojan) threatened to attack the computer networks of foreign
companies that did business with China, causing them serious damages and
huge financial losses.
In an interview conducted by Oxblood Ruffin, a former United Nations
consultant, and published on Wired, Blondie Wong says: "Human rights is an
international issue, so I don't have a problem with businesses that profit from
our suffering paying part of the bill".
Contrary to the complete lack of moral judgement (but, above all, of moralism)
of hackers, lies a deep ethical sense, that is something allmost "religious" in
most hackers.
About this point, we can go back to the Jargon File:
:hacker ethic, the: n.
1. The belief that information-sharing is a powerful positive good,
and that it is an ethical duty of hackers to share their expertise by
writing free software and facilitating access to information and to
computing resources wherever possible.
2. The belief that system-cracking for fun and exploration is ethically
OK as long as the cracker commits no theft, vandalism, or breach
of confidentiality.
Both of these normative ethical principles are widely, but by no
means universally) accepted among hackers. Most hackers
subscribe to the hacker ethic in sense 1, and many act on it by
writing and giving away free software. A few go further and assert
that *all* information should be free and *any* proprietary control of
it is bad [...]
Sense 2 is more controversial: some people consider the act of
cracking itself to be unethical [...]
But this principle at least moderates the behavior of people who
see themselves as `benign' crackers (see also {samurai}). On this
view, it is one of the highest forms of hackerly courtesy to (a) break
into a system, and then (b) explain to the sysop, preferably by email
from a {superuser} account, exactly how it was done and how the
hole can be plugged --- acting as an unpaid (and unsolicited) {tiger
team} [The "tiger team" derives from the U.S. military jargon. These
people are paid professionals who do hacker-type tricks, e.g.,
leave cardboard signs saying "bomb" in critical defense
installations, hand-lettered notes saying "Your codebooks have
been stolen" (they usually haven't been) inside safes, etc. Serious
successes of tiger teams sometimes lead to early retirement for
base commanders and security officers].
[...]
Breaking into a system is not seen by the hacker as a criminal action, but like a
challenge. The idea is not to damage the "victim", but to find a way to penetrate
its defenses. It's the intellectual challenge, the curiosity, the will to experiment
and to explore, this is what moves the hacker, not the will to damage someone
or something, and not even to obtain personal profit.
In another writing of The Mentor, "A Novice's Guide to Hacking- 1989 edition",
dated December 1988, the author opens the essay with a call to the ethics of
the category, to which follows a list of "suggestions for guidelines to follow to
ensure that not only you stay out of trouble, but you pursue your craft without
damaging the computers you hack into or the companies who own them":
As long as there have been computers, there have been hackers. In
the 50's at the Massachusets Institute of Technology (MIT), students
devoted much time and energy to ingenious exploration of the
computers. Rules and the law were disregarded in their pursuit for
the 'hack'. Just as they were enthralled with their pursuit of
information, so are we. The thrill of the hack is not in breaking the
law, it's in the pursuit and capture of knowledge.
In a file titled "The Hotmail Hack" written by Digital Assassin of the "United
Underground" (or "U2", for short), in which a weakness of the HotMail system is
illustrated, through which it is possible to enter into the mailbox of another
person, the author, at a certain point interrupts the explanation with these
words:
....but before I tell you how to use that line, I'm going to side track for
a little theory behind this hack. Because there's NO point in a hack,
if you don't know how it works. That is the whole idea of hacking, to
find out how systems work.
These are clear examples of what the real intent of a hacker is when he breaks
a system. It's very close to the idea of a child that opens a toy to see how it
works. The difference is that the hacker tries not to destroy the toy (aside from
the fact that the toy is not his own...).
Anyway, let's see the specific definition of the "cracker", according to the
Jargon File:
:cracker: n. One who breaks security on a system. Coined ca. 1985
by hackers in defense against journalistic misuse of {hacker} (q.v.,
sense 8). An earlier attempt to establish `worm' in this sense
around 1981--82 on USENET was largely a failure.
Both these neologisms reflected a strong revulsion against the theft
and vandalism perpetrated by cracking rings. While it is expected
that any real hacker will have done some playful cracking and
knows many of the basic techniques, anyone past {larval stage} is
expected to have outgrown the desire to do so.
Thus, there is far less overlap between hackerdom and
crackerdom than the {mundane} [the term "mundane" is taken from
the Sci-Fi fandom and identifies everything outside the world of the
computer science, or the hacking] reader misled by
sensationalistic journalism might expect. Crackers tend to gather in
small, tight-knit, very secretive groups that have little overlap with
the huge, open poly-culture this lexicon describes; though crackers
often like to describe *themselves* as hackers, most true hackers
consider them a separate and lower form of life.
Ethical considerations aside, hackers figure that anyone who can't
imagine a more interesting way to play with their computers than
breaking into someone else's has to be pretty {losing} [on the other
hand, they have the same consideration for the people who use the
computer in an absolute conventional way, such as only to write
documents or to play] [...]
Furthermore, about the "cracking" itself, the Jargon File says:
:cracking: n. The act of breaking into a computer system; what a
{cracker} does. Contrary to widespread myth, this does not usually
involve some mysterious leap of hackerly brilliance, but rather
persistence and the dogged repetition of a handful of fairly
well-known tricks that exploit common weaknesses in the security
of target systems. Accordingly, most crackers are only mediocre
hackers.
However, This is a superficial and reductive vision. In fact, as it is easily
imaginable, there exist people, that are as experienced with computers and as
thirsty of knowledge, that however don't have any respect of the hacker ethic
and don't hesitate to perform actions meant to damage computer systems or
other people.
They are the so-called Dark-side hackers. This term derives from George
Lucas' "Star Wars". A Dark-side hacker, just like Darth Vader, is "seduced by
the dark side of the Force". It has nothing to do with the common idea of
"good" and "bad", but it's closer to the idea of "legal" and "chaotic" in
Dungeons&Dragons: In substance, the dark-side hackers are accorded the
same dignity and recognized as having the ability of a hacker, but their
orientation makes them a dangerous element for the community.
A more common definition, reserved for those that damage someone else's
computer systems without drawing any benefit from it, (therefore for pure
stupidity or evilness), it is that of Malicious hackers.
More recent versions of the Jargon File (in which some most obsolete terms
have been removed), as the version 4.0.0, 24 JUL 1996, makes clear, not only
the distinction between hacker and cracker, but also between the entire hack
scenes and other parallel realities, like piracy, and the "warez d00dz", who
collect an impressive amount of software (games and applications, or better
said "gamez" and "appz"), that they are never likely to use, and whose greatest
pride is to get software, break its protections, and distribute it on their website
before their rival crew, where possible, within the same day it was released
("0-day warez").
One could think that the Jargon File speaks only in theory, and that it describes
the hacker ethic in a fantastic and utopian way. This is not so, hackers really
are attached to their principles. The following is a practical example concerning
one of the most famous hacker crews, the LOD (Legions Of Doom, that takes
its name from the group of baddies in the series of cartoons of Superman and
his Superfriends), of which The Mentor was also a member during the years
1988-89 (the already cited author of "The conscience of a Hacker").
In "The History of LOD/H", Revision #3 May 1990, written by Lex Luthor
(founder of the crew, from the name of the baddie in the movie Superman I),
and published on their e-zine "The LOD/H Technical Journal", Issue #4,
released on May 20, 1990 (File 06 of 10), we can read:
Of all 38 members, only one was forcefully ejected. It was found out
that Terminal Man [member dof the LOD/H in 1985] destroyed data
that was not related to covering his tracks. This has always been
unacceptable to us, regardless of what the media and law
enforcement tries to get you to think.
Yet, not all agree upon the same principles, and there are some "grey areas":
for example, taking possession of objects that allow you to access information,
or pursuing a personal purpose, can be considered "ethical" by some. A
specific example could be "grabbing": the theft of things like keys, magnetic
cards, manuals or technical schemes, anyway this is a debatable activity, since
a hacker prefers to copy rather to subtract, not only to not damage the "victim",
but also to avoid leaving traces of his intrusion. A more acceptable and legal
variant is "trashing", that consists in looking inside the garbage of the subject,
searching for objects and/or useful information.
But breaking into computer systems is only a small activity amongst the many
things that hackers are involved in, and the aversion against the virtual vandal
actions are a small part of the hacker ethic.
The hacker ethic is something greater, almost mystic, and draws its origins
from the first hackers, those that programmed the TX-0, using the first available
computers in the big American universities like MIT or Stanford.
From the already cited "Hackers, Heroes of the Computer Revolution" by
Steven Levy:
Something new was coalescing around the TX-0: a new way of life,
with a philosophy, an ethic, and a dream.
There was no one moment when it started to dawn on the TX-0
hackers that by devoting their technical abilities to computing with a
devotion rarely seen outside of monasteries they were the
vanguard of a daring symbiosis between man and machine. With a
fervor like that of young hot-rodders fixated on souping up engines,
they came to take their almost unique surroundings for granted,
Even as the elements of a culture were forming, as legends began
to accrue, as their mastery of programming started to surpass any
previous recorded levels of skill, the dozen or so hackers were
reluctant to acknowledge that their tiny society, on intimate terms
with the TX-0, had been slowly and implicitly piecing together a
body of concepts, beliefs, and mores.
The precepts of this revolutionary Hacker Ethic were not so much
debated and discussed as silently agreed upon. No manifestos
were issued ["The Mentor"'s one, very polemic, was written only
about twenty years later]. No missionaries tried to gather converts.
The computer did the converting [...]
Shortly, Steven Levy sums up the "hacker ethic" this way:
Access to computers -- and anything which might teach you
something about the way the world works -- should be unlimited
and total. Always yield to the Hands-On imperative.
All information should be free.
Mistrust Authority. Promote Decentralization.
Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such
as degrees, age, race, or position.
You can create art and beauty on a computer.
Computers can change your life for the better.
LIKE ALADDIN'S LAMP, YOU COULD GET IT [THE COMPUTER]
TO DO YOUR BIDDING.
THE LAMER
From "The Hacker Crackdown - Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier"
by Bruce Sterling, Bantam Books, 1992. (ISBN 0-553-08058-X, paperback:
ISBN 0-553-56370-X, released as free electronic text for non-commercial
purposes)
There are hackers today who fiercely and publicly resist any
besmirching of the noble title of hacker. Naturally and
understandably, they deeply resent the attack on their values
implicit in using the word "hacker" as a synonym for
computer-criminal.
[...]
The term "hacking" is used routinely today by almost all law
enforcement officials with any professional interest in computer
fraud and abuse. American police describe almost any crime
committed with, by, through, or against a computer as hacking.
If the differentiation between hacker, cracker and dark-side hacker can result a
very tiny distinction for the ones who live outside of the computer scene,
nobody, especially a journalist, should confuse a hacker with the poor idiot that
was locked up for using, with no thought to the consequences, programs that
he found somewhere. (even if using the term "hacker" does sell more
newspapers... The difference between hackers and journalists is that the
aforementioned have ethics, the latter, not even a sense of modesty... but this
is often simply mere ignorance).
Let's take as an example the following article published on the Italian
newspaper "L'Unione Sarda" (http://www.unionesarda.it/), by Luigi Almiento
(almiento@unionesarda.it).
POLICE.
The arrested hacker is a surveyor, aged 25
Files were stolen from the computers of internet
"navigators", with the aid of a virus
spread on the Internet
Many people from different national service providers, recently
learned to their own detriment, that it is better not to stay and chat
to strangers on the chat-lines of the Internet. This occured when a
hacker aged 25, obtained the user names and passwords of their
dial up accounts, while they were on-line.
[...]
"Harris", explains the lieutenant Saverio Spoto, commander of the
Police Station [actually they are "Carabinieri", not the normal
Police, because in Italy there are two different polices, don't ask
why], ? contacted his victims through Icq, a "talking place", offered
by many Internet providers?. During these "written talks", using an
access key he acquired that gives false information, G. F. sent the
Netbus virus to the computers of his victims. This allowed him to
"navigate" the hard drives of the computers of these people while
they were connected to the internet. Harris also had a site, which
offered pornographic pictures, pirate-programs and files of every
kind, and whenever someone connected to his address, they were
immediately infected by the computer virus.
[...]
In a few words, lieutenant Spoto succeeds in showing his complete ignorance
of the subject: he gives an abominable definition of ICQ, defines Netbus as a
virus rather than a trojan (which means he doesn't have any idea of how it
works), and still not being satisfied with this, attributes it with a contagiousness
similar to the Ebola virus: to be infected simply by connecting to an Internet
address sounds like something supernatural. Then, he shamelessy concludes
with the invitation "If anyone has had contact with Harris, and thinks that their
files may have been forced, they can come to us at the Police Station". If
everyone at the Police Station are as experienced as he is, it would be
preferable to keep the Harris' "virus" rather than allowing them to put their
hands anywhere near your computer.
Besides, these self-acclaimed hackers are almost never bust because of a
police operation, (unless they caused a lot of trouble), but because they have
the stupid habit of boasting of their actions in chatrooms or even in real life.
Often in front of total strangers, that are often police officers or people close to
the law enforcement environment, (such as the child or the girlfriend of a police
officer).
In fact, the conclusive part of the article regarding "Harris" says: "The
investigators did not explain how, but only that they had succeeded in
identifying the surveyor": obviously the law officers would like people to think
that they identified the guilty person by means of some complicated technique,
pursuing the information packets or something in this line, rather than admitting
that they only had to make a few enquiries on IRC channels.
The hacker is the one that develops the exploit, and eventually creates a
program based on this expoit. People that blindly use these programs because
they found them on the Internet, or even worse, because a friend passed them
on to them, are merely lamers, that only have a vague idea of how to use the
tool they have in their hands and they know nothing about computer systems,
programming, or how to cover their tracks. Often these self-acclaimed hackers,
self infect themselves with a virus or a trojan they just downloaded, due to their
incapabilities.
Putting these programs in the hands of the average person is like giving a
loaded gun to a five year-old.
The fact is, that up to the early '80s, computers were only intended for hackers,
specialized personnel or students. Only later did they appear on the desks of
offices and in houses. The first home computers replaced the primitive
consoles of videogames like the Atari 2600, the Intellivision and the
Colecovision (the revolution was lead by the Commodore 64 and the Sinclair
ZX Spectrum), but still across the whole world there was a "computer culture"
throughout the '80s, there were published magazines that taught programming
(mainly BASIC, as well as Machine Code) and very advanced techniques
worthy of the best hackers. Then during the '90s, Apple and Microsoft's dream
started to come true, "a computer on every desk and in every home". The
computer became a common appliance available to almost everybody, the
general level of the magazines started to drop, and almost all were confined to
publishing articles about the latest hardware and software, or advice on how to
use commercial applications.
This change in the computer world that made computers not only the sole
domain of the hackers, but for everyone, has certainly had some positive
general effects, but it proved to be a double edged sword, especially with the
advent of the Internet. These days anyone can have powerful tools that inflict
damage on other people, real "digital weapons", without having a clue about
how they work or how they should be "handled". The average guy can get
locked up just for perpetrating what he thought was a "cool" joke, even if it was
in bad taste.
All those lamers-wannabe-hackers should better satisfy their needs with APEX
v1.00 r10/8/91, a nice program written by Ed T. Toton III (however the original
idea is older) that simulates the connection to different US government and
military computers (like those of NORAD, or of NASA), among other things it is
also possible to pretend that you are the President of the United States of
America, and enter the system that controls the nuclear weapons.
With a bit of ability and practice, it is possible to convince some friends that
you are really trying to force the US computer systems, and pass the time
having good clean fun, without hurting anybody, risking a jail sentence and/or
offending the hackers by trying to pretend to be what you are not.
But besides this, outside of the "criminal" context, something that bothers
hackers is the ever increasing mass of self-claimed computer "experts", that
actually don't know much more than how to turn on a computer and launch a
program, and they fill their mouthes with loads of technical words about which
they know nothing.
At this point, it is very interesting to read this text from the already quoted home
page of the KIN:
I remember [...] When writing software was closer to art and magic
than to business and/or just coding. I miss that now. What
happened after that? Well, tons of fast graduates appeared who
could only do Basic or Clipper/DBase programming, who
pretended to be the best. They could wear suites and had money
and relatives... I called them nephews. How many times were you in
the situation when you gave the best offer, and you simply feel you
HAD to write this software - but in the end your client says
something like: "I'm really sorry, but I just got a call from my wife and
her nephew works for this company in Nebraska who are certified
Basic engineers so we'll have to give the contract to them?" The
nephews produced terrible software which led to terrible
disappointments in the industry ('I've invested so much money in
computers and it's not really working for me').
[...] The Net gives you a chance to be first creative and then think
about business. Let's use it now - before nephews will get their
certified degrees....
Sadly, a crowd of nephews are already working, with or without certified
degrees, and armed with programs like Front Page or Publisher creating
websites, filling their big mouths with words like FTP and client-server
application, even if they don't know what they mean or what they are talking
about.
Luckily, the Net is large and, - at least for the moment, - it generates its own
rules by itself. There is room for everyone.