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The Hacker's Manifesto

The Hacker's Manifesto
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.

This was the last published file written by The Mentor. Shortly after 
releasing it, he was busted by the FBI. The Mentor, sadly missed.