The Hacker Manifesto
by
+++ The Mentor+++
Written 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.
Bud did you, in your three-piece psychology and 1950's techobrain, ever take a look
behind the eyes of a 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 one that begins with school... I'm smarter than most 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 that I
want it to. If it makes a mistake, it's because I screwed up. Not because it doesn't like
me... or it 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 though the phone line
like heroin though an addict's veins, an electronic pulse it 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 slip though 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 by 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.
[mentor] your words will stand the test of time, they have become immortal. As we move on... new, young inspiring hackers will find and read these words, adopt, and live by them. We are legion.
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