+
+
+ ==Phrack Inc.==
+
+ Volume One, Issue 7, Phile 3 of 10
+
+=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
+The following was written shortly after my arrest...
+
+ \/\The Conscience of a Hacker/\/
+
+ by
+
+ +++The Mentor+++
+
+ Written on 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.
+
+ 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 will-
+ing 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.
+
+ +++The Mentor+++
+_______________________________________________________________________________
+
+
+