I was just watching the film hackers and i heard them

mention this. i found it on the net and its quite good. Interesting read.

HACKERS MANIFESTO

 

The Conscience of a Hacker

 

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 techno brain, ever take a look behind the eyes of the

hacker? Did you ever wonder what made him tick, what forces shaped him, that 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 in competencies 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.

 

+++The Mentor+++

[from here]