Sadly, we are used to associating the word “Hacker” with a “computer pirate,” something that should be called a “cracker.” A Hacker does not carry out their activity to harm anyone, simply because they enjoy playing and learning.
A Hacker is a special kind of thinker of the digital age. It’s not even necessarily that their field is computing. Hackers can exist in any area: cooking, sewing, decoration. What distinguishes a Hacker is their thirst to know more, to learn more, and to enjoy what they do.
The Hacker Manifesto holds a special place within the popular culture of Hackers. It was written by Loyd Blankenship, alias +++The Mentor+++, one of the first Hackers arrested in an FBI raid. Obviously, he was quite angry and some of the phrases are a bit theatrical.
Nevertheless, this text, written on January 8, 1986, remains valid today. The manifesto is not a code, nor a philosophy of life. Simply, if you identify with it, congratulations, it’s very likely that you are a Hacker.
The Hacker Manifesto, translated from the original by The Mentor
Hacker Manifesto (The Mentor, 1986)
Another one was caught today, it’s in all the newspapers. “Teenager Arrested for Computer Crime” “Hacker Arrested for Breaking into a Banking System.”
-Damn kids. They’re all alike.
But can you, with your cheap psychology and your brain from the fifties, even take a look at what’s behind the eyes of a hacker? Have you ever stopped to think what makes him behave like that, what has made him what he is?
I am a Hacker, enter my world. Mine is a world that begins in school… I am smarter than most of the other boys, that garbage they teach us bores me…
- Damned underachievers. They’re all alike.
I’m in high school. I’ve heard the teachers explain for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I understand it.
-No, Ms. Smith, I’m not going to show you my work, I did it in my head…
-Damn kid. Probably copied it. They’re all alike.
Today I made a discovery. I found a computer. Wait a moment, this is the best. It does what I tell it to. If it makes a mistake it’s because I made a mistake. Not because it doesn’t like me, or feels threatened by me. Or thinks I’m a show-off, or doesn’t like teaching and I shouldn’t be here…
- Damn kid. All he does is play. They’re all alike.
And then it happened, a door opened to the world. Running through the telephone lines like heroin through an addict’s veins, an electronic pulse is sent, a refuge from the incompetence of everyday life is sought… a lifeline is found.
“This is it. This is the place where I belong.”
I know them all here, even though I’ve never seen them, or spoken to them, or will ever hear from them again. I know them all…
- Damn kids. Tying up the phone lines again. They’re all alike…
Bet you anything we are all alike. We’ve been spoon-fed baby food at school, when we were hungry for meat. The crumbs you let slip were chewed up and tasteless.
We have been dominated by sadists, or ignored by the apathetic. The few who had something to teach us found attentive students in us, 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 that already exists without paying, because it could be ridiculously cheap if it weren’t in the hands of profit-hungry gluttons, and you call us criminals.
We explore, and you call us criminals.
We seek behind knowledge, and you call us criminals.
We exist without color, without nationality, without religious prejudice, and you call us criminals.
You build atomic bombs, wage wars, murder, cheat and lie to us and try to make us believe it’s for our own good, now we are the criminals.
Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is curiosity.
My crime is judging people by what they say and think, not by how they look. My crime is being smarter than you, something for which you will never be able to forgive me.
I am a Hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you cannot stop us all… after all, we are all alike.
