"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..." ("The Conscience of a Hacker",
The Mentor)
"Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall
not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known" (Matthew 10:26)
THE HACKER
Another idiot has been locked up because of committing a senseless act
with little or no thought to the consequences. Law enforcement needs to
look good, the news becomes public domain and the press is unleashed,
using attention grabbing headlines like: "Computer terrorist busted",
or better, a "hacker".
Not only is the term misused, but it is usually only understood to be
a mere synonym for "computer pirate", which is not only limitive,
but completely wrong. Few people, even those who would define themselves
as such, really know what "being a hacker" means.
The WWWebster Online Dictionary (http://www.m-w.com/), at the "hacker"
entry says:
Main Entry: hacker
Pronunciation: 'ha-k&r
Function: noun
Date: 14th century
1 : one that hacks
2 : a person who is inexperienced or unskilled at a particular activity
"a tennis hacker"
3 : an expert at programming and solving problems with a computer
4 : a person who illegally gains access to and sometimes tampers with
information in a computer system
Among the various meanings quoted above, (besides definition 1, which
is obvious...), definition 4 is the one which generally corresponds to
the idea of "the hacker" that the majority of people have, while
definition 3, is the one which is actually closer to the real meaning
of "hacker", even if it is still rather limiting.
A dictionary rarely gives a definative answer, but it is always a good
start.
For a more precise definition we can consult a specific dictionary such
as the Jargon File, the most prestigious dictionary of hacker terminology,
"a comprehensive compendium of hacker slang illuminating many aspects
of hackish tradition, folklore, and humor", begun by Raphael Finkel
of the university of Stanford in 1975, and then passed in management to
Don Woods of the MIT, up to see the light of the printed paper in 1983,
with the title of "The Hacker's Dictionary" (Harper & Row
CN 1082, ISBN 0-06-091082-8, also known in the scene as "Steele-1983").
The on-line hacker Jargon File, version 2.9.10, 01 JUL 1992 (part of
the Project Gutenberg), at the "hacker" entry says:
:hacker: [originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe] n. 1.
A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and
how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer
to learn only the minimum necessary.
2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys
programming rather than just theorizing about programming.
3. A person capable of appreciating {hack value}.
4. A person who is good at programming quickly.
5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work
using it or on it; as in `a UNIX hacker'. (Definitions 1 through 5 are
correlated, and people who fit them congregate.)
6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker,
for example.
7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming
or circumventing limitations.
8. [deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information
by poking around. Hence `password hacker', `network hacker'. See {cracker}.
Since this is a specific dictionary, the definition of hacker here is
closer to its original meaning, even if it is necessary to extrapolate
it from the varied proposed meanings in order to obtain the closest and
most faithfull interpretation.
A hacker is a person that loves to study all things in depth (definition
1), especially the more apparently meaningless details, to discover hidden
peculiarities, new features and weakness in them. For example, it is possible
to hack a book, by using it to equalize the legs of a table, or to use
the sharp edge of one of its pages to cut something. The main point being
that it is used for more than it's conventional function of being read.
But more than this, a hacker soon learns that the same techniques used
for exploiting computer systems can be used to manipulate people. This
is the so-called social hacking. With a little skilled psychology, the
masters of "social hacking" can convince other people to do
what they want (within limits of course, and depending on the abilities
of the "social hacker"), in order to obtain the information
they require. This may sound like an unusual and unatural practise, but
once you take into account that this is performed quite regularly, in
everyday life, by girlfriends, friends and teachers etc. to obtain what
they want from others, it's not that strange, even if hackers do use a
little more skill and technique.
Another way of bringing hacking out from the computer's world, is the
so-called vadding (the term is actually rarely used, but the activity
is largely practiced) this consists of exploring places where the average
person doesn't normally have access, such as basements, roofs of public
buildings, maintenance tunnels, elevator wells and similar places. Sometimes,
some of these activities born inside the hacker scene, grow and eventually
separate, becoming new entities, like phreaking, the term applied to the
world of "hacking" telephones and telephone systems, or the
term carding, which is basically "techno-credit card fraud",..
very illegal and risky.
In short, a hacker has the tendency to use his skills also beyond of the
computer context, and anywhere tends to use the hacking techniques and
to discover what is normally hidden to the common man.
For a hacker, the ability to reason, harness his full brain capacity and
maintain his mind at maximum efficiency levels, is most important.
With a few exceptions, it is unusual that a hacker would smoke, use drugs,
or drink excessively (however beer appears to be the preferred choice,
when alcohol is drunk). Speaking of John Draper, (a.k.a "Captain
Crunch", one of the most legendary phreaker/hackers, famous for discovering
that by sending a tone of 2600Hz over the telephone lines of AT&T,
it was possible to effect free calls), Steven Levy says: "Cigarettes
made him violent": smoking next to him was extremely hazardous to
your health...
A hacker is certainly a programming maniac, (definition 2): once a technique
has been discovered, it is necessary to write a program that exploits
it.
Hackers often spend many day's and night's in front of a computer, programming
or experimenting with new techniques. After spending so many hours in
front of a computer, a hacker gains a remarkable ability to analyze large
amounts of data very quickly.
The ability to program quickly, (definition 4) can be a characteristic
of a hacker, but is not always necessarily so. As far as a hacker is concerned,
it is faster to type on a keyboard, than it is to write things down, many
hackers spend quite a lot of time reflecting over, or analyzing previously
written code, while they are programming.
Definition 5 is, in effect, a restrictive meaning of the word "hacker"
since it limits it to a single field (as in UNIX), it can however be considered
as a specialization.
Actually in these cases, especially when it concerns true experts in a
field, the terms wizard or guru are preferred. For example, the definition
"UNIX wizard" in the United States is also recognized outside
of the hacker environment and it can be included in a resume.
Definition 3 may be considered apart: a person that qualifies for this
definition is not neccasarily a real hacker, but a very experienced person
with a good knowledge, who is not neccasarily able to develop hacker techniques.
To make it clearer, think about the differences between a good author
and someone that appreciates a good book.
Definition 7, together with definition 1, are the ones that get closer
to the real essence of the hacker. To study a system, to discover weaknesses,
the peculiarities and hidden features of it, and then use them to go beyond
its limits, with creativeness and imagination. This, in a certain way,
brings us directly to definition 8. The person with these skills can use
his knowledge to try to access information to which he doesn't have the
right to access, and here the discourse gets complicated, because for
a hacker there is no information which he does not have the right to access.
We will get back to this point later, when we will speak about the "hacker
ethic".
Finally, although it has nothing to do with the character of the hacker,
I would like to attract attention to definition 6; for a hacker, the term
hacker is always positive: if he speaks of a "hacker of astronomy",
he speaks of a true expert of that subject. Contrary to this, in everyday
language, according to definition 2 of the WWWebster dictionary, a "hacker"
in a certain field is a person that is not skilled in that specific field.
After giving the definitions, the Jargon File provides more information
on the meaning of the word "hacker":
The term `hacker' also tends to connote membership in the global community
[...]. It also implies that the person described is seen to subscribe
to some version of the hacker ethic [...].
It is better to be described as a hacker by others than to describe oneself
that way. Hackers consider themselves something of an elite (a meritocracy
based on ability), though one to which new members are gladly welcome.
There is thus a certain ego satisfaction to be had in identifying yourself
as a hacker (but if you claim to be one and are not, you'll quickly be
labeled {bogus}). [...] [or most commonly, the most used term in these
circumstances is "lamer", even if next versions of the Jargon
File use this term in a slightly different context]
But, perhaps more than anything else, curiosity and above average intelligence
are the signatures of a true hacker. The hacker has an almost physical
need of knowledge of any kind.
The hacker is most certainly a voracious reader, even if his preference
is only for scientific matters or science fiction, and generally one would
find many shelves full of books in his room. But a hacker is not satisfied
by the "ready made" knowledge, of the information that he finds
in the books written for the average person, a hacker wants it all, and
collects all possible information.
Schools are institutions that are not able to furnish all the information
that a hacker needs. The governments and all the public or private institutions
have the tendency to furnish the least necessary information.
About this point, Steven Levy in "Hackers, Heroes of the Computer
Revolution" (written in 1984), affirms that the hackers "are
possessed not merely by curiosity, but by a positive *lust to know.*"
This idea is even clearer in these excerpts took from what is a considered
"the hacker's manifesto": "The Conscience of to Hacker"
(sometimes erroneously reported, in a nearly prophetic sense, as "Mentor's
Last Words"), written by The Mentor on January 8th 1986, and published
for the first time on the e-zine Phrack, Volume One, Issue 7, Phile 3.
This text collects in a few paragraphs, a large part of the hacker philosophy,
with touching results for most true hackers (even if it may be difficult
to think of a hacker as a person that has a heart as well as a brain).
[...]
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.
[...]
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.
[...]
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.
[...]
In these words, you will see the frustration of living in a defective
world, that deprives the individuals that wish to rise above the mediocre,
of the very information and resources they desire, to know what is kept
hidden, and it condemns them hypocritically as criminals.
But the desperate search of knowledge is only one of the characteristics
of the hacker. Another sure one is the pursute of extreme perfection.
An interesting article, is the one that narrates the history of the first
hackers, and of how they developed "Spacewar!" (the first videogame
in history, born as a demo for the TX-0, meant as a "killer application"
for this computer, with all its features exploitable), is "The origin
of Spacewar", written by J. M. Graetz, and published in the August,
1981 issue of Creative Computing magazine.
One of the forces driving the dedicated hacker is the quest for elegance.
It is not sufficient to write programs that work. They must also be "elegant,"
either in code or in function -- both, if possible. An elegant program
does its job as fast as possible, or is as compact as possible, or is
as clever as possible in taking advantage of the particular features of
the machine in which it runs, and (finally) produces its results in an
aesthetically pleasing form without compromising either the results or
operation of other programs associated with it.
But the elegance and the perfection of hackers is not always comprehensible
to the average individual. A hacker can often be in ecstasy reading some
code written by another hacker, admiring his ability and "tasting"
his style, as if he was reading poetry.
For example, normally to exchange the content of two variables (a and
b, in this case), the statement most commonly used is this, which uses
a third temporary variable:
dummy = a : a = b : b = dummy
The following method, instead, doesn't need the third variable, because
it exploits a mathematical peculiarity of the boolean operator XOR:
a = a XOR b : b = a XOR b : a = a XOR b
Even if this system is at least three times slower than the first one
because it requires the execution of three mathematical operations, (however
it allows the saving of memory that the third variable would normally
occupy), a hacker will surely admire the ingeniousness and the elegance
of this method, to him it assumes the taste of a Japanese haiku.
Talking about the perfectionism of the hackers, in "Hackers: Heroes
of the Computer Revolution" written by Steven Levy in 1984, in the
chapter 2 ("The Hacker Ethic"), we read:
Hackers believe that essential lessons can be learned about the systems--about
the world--from taking things apart, seeing how they work, and using this
knowledge to create new and even more interesting things. They resent
any person, physical barrier, or law that tries to keep them from doing
this.
This is especially true when a hacker wants to fix something that (from
his point of view) is broken or needs improvement. Imperfect systems infuriate
hackers, whose primal instinct is to debug them. This is one reason why
hackers generally hate driving cars--the system of randomly programmed
red lights and oddly laid out one-way streets causes delays which are
so goddamned UNNECESSARY that the impulse is to rearrange signs, open
up traffic-light control boxes . . .redesign the entire system.
In a perfect hacker world, anyone pissed off enough to open up a control
box near a traffic light and take it apart to make it work better should
be perfectly welcome to make the attempt.
It's just in the name of such principle that the Linux operating system
and the Gnu C compiler have been developed, their code is open and available
to be changed and modified by anyone.
Lately, many important commercial software producers also started moving
in this direction, as Netscape: Netscape Communicator 5, will, in fact
be the first software, originally born as a "closed" commercial
product, to be developed with this type of philosophy.
A hacker is never satisfied with the default settings of a program or
of the custom installations, he always has to open the configuration menu
and set the options to get the maximum performance, and to make the product
work as close as possible to his "way". A hacker must be able
to use, to modify and to check all the possible features of a program.
But after all, what motivates hackers? Why do they create programs that
exploit advanced techniques and then distribute them free? And why do
they freely distribute knowledge that was incredibly difficult to obtain?
A good answer could be found in the site of the KIN (Klever Internet Nothings,
http://www.klever.net), they are not exactly a hacker crew, but a group
of people that write programs and release them freely on the Internet:
What makes people write software and distribute it for free? Vanity,
you said? Well, maybe.. But after all, what is this business all about?
Is it all about money? Ask anyone - it's not. Most people I know in the
industry will tell you that.
Their idea is "just leave me alone and let me do what I love to do".
In short, it's not about money. It's about feeling free to do what you
want, and, just possibly, to find someone that appreciates your work.
THE HACKER ETHIC
The true hacker doesn't have morals, and he would never censor information
or ideas of any kind. An initiative of the Italian priest Don Fortunato
di Noto, (fortunad@sistemia.it,) who in January of 1998 formed the "Committee
of resistance against the Pedophiles", and who asked for the help
of the hacker community to unmask, capture and close the sites of the
pedophiles on the Internet, failed miserably as it was only supported
by self-acclaimed hackers without any skill.
Besides, hackers are tolerant by nature, and rarely get angry, but they
are irritated by people and tasks perceived to be wasting their time.
There are however, some things that hackers can be intolerant of. One
of these is when lies are told, to, or about them, you can say that hackers
are imbeciles (it's an opinion, after all), but you can not say that they
steal chickens. And yet, it would still be unusual that hackers would
hack a site to remove the lies propogated about them. It would be more
typical that they would create another site, refuting the lies against
them.
Hacking can be used like as a form of protest, breaking into and modifying
the websites of very well known societies and government or military corporate
entities, can be a way to make public certain injustices (especially attacks
to the liberty of information or expression) or violations of human rights.
The hacks, of the websites of the CIA (that became Central Stupidity Agency)
and of the Department of Justice, are famous for being hacked with this
intention in mind.
In the article "Hacking for Human Rights?" by Arik Hesseldahl
(ahess@reporters.net) published on the online magazine Wired (http://www.wired.com)
dated 14.Jul.98 9:15am, the hacker Bondie Wong, (a dissident Chinese astrophysicist
who lives in Canada, that temporarily disabled a Chinese satellite in
1997), a member of the famous hacker crew, Cult of the Dead Cow (which
in the beginning of 1999 released the Back Orifice trojan) threatened
to attack the computer networks of foreign companies that did business
with China, causing them serious damages and huge financial losses.
In an interview conducted by Oxblood Ruffin, a former United Nations consultant,
and published on Wired, Blondie Wong says: "Human rights is an international
issue, so I don't have a problem with businesses that profit from our
suffering paying part of the bill".
Contrary to the complete lack of moral judgement (but, above all, of
moralism) of hackers, lies a deep ethical sense, that is something allmost
"religious" in most hackers.
About this point, we can go back to the Jargon File:
:hacker ethic, the: n.
1. The belief that information-sharing is a powerful positive good, and
that it is an ethical duty of hackers to share their expertise by writing
free software and facilitating access to information and to computing
resources wherever possible.
2. The belief that system-cracking for fun and exploration is ethically
OK as long as the cracker commits no theft, vandalism, or breach of confidentiality.
Both of these normative ethical principles are widely, but by no means
universally) accepted among hackers. Most hackers subscribe to the hacker
ethic in sense 1, and many act on it by writing and giving away free software.
A few go further and assert that *all* information should be free and
*any* proprietary control of it is bad [...]
Sense 2 is more controversial: some people consider the act of cracking
itself to be unethical [...]
But this principle at least moderates the behavior of people who see themselves
as `benign' crackers (see also {samurai}). On this view, it is one of
the highest forms of hackerly courtesy to (a) break into a system, and
then (b) explain to the sysop, preferably by email from a {superuser}
account, exactly how it was done and how the hole can be plugged --- acting
as an unpaid (and unsolicited) {tiger team} [The "tiger team"
derives from the U.S. military jargon. These people are paid professionals
who do hacker-type tricks, e.g., leave cardboard signs saying "bomb"
in critical defense installations, hand-lettered notes saying "Your
codebooks have been stolen" (they usually haven't been) inside safes,
etc. Serious successes of tiger teams sometimes lead to early retirement
for base commanders and security officers].
[...]
Breaking into a system is not seen by the hacker as a criminal action,
but like a challenge. The idea is not to damage the "victim",
but to find a way to penetrate its defenses. It's the intellectual challenge,
the curiosity, the will to experiment and to explore, this is what moves
the hacker, not the will to damage someone or something, and not even
to obtain personal profit.
In another writing of The Mentor, "A Novice's Guide to Hacking- 1989
edition", dated December 1988, the author opens the essay with a
call to the ethics of the category, to which follows a list of "suggestions
for guidelines to follow to ensure that not only you stay out of trouble,
but you pursue your craft without damaging the computers you hack into
or the companies who own them":
As long as there have been computers, there have been hackers. In the
50's at the Massachusets Institute of Technology (MIT), students devoted
much time and energy to ingenious exploration of the computers. Rules
and the law were disregarded in their pursuit for the 'hack'. Just as
they were enthralled with their pursuit of information, so are we. The
thrill of the hack is not in breaking the law, it's in the pursuit and
capture of knowledge.
In a file titled "The Hotmail Hack" written by Digital Assassin
of the "United Underground" (or "U2", for short),
in which a weakness of the HotMail system is illustrated, through which
it is possible to enter into the mailbox of another person, the author,
at a certain point interrupts the explanation with these words:
....but before I tell you how to use that line, I'm going to side track
for a little theory behind this hack. Because there's NO point in a hack,
if you don't know how it works. That is the whole idea of hacking, to
find out how systems work.
These are clear examples of what the real intent of a hacker is when he
breaks a system. It's very close to the idea of a child that opens a toy
to see how it works. The difference is that the hacker tries not to destroy
the toy (aside from the fact that the toy is not his own...).
Anyway, let's see the specific definition of the "cracker",
according to the Jargon File:
:cracker: n. One who breaks security on a system. Coined ca. 1985 by
hackers in defense against journalistic misuse of {hacker} (q.v., sense
8). An earlier attempt to establish `worm' in this sense around 1981--82
on USENET was largely a failure.
Both these neologisms reflected a strong revulsion against the theft and
vandalism perpetrated by cracking rings. While it is expected that any
real hacker will have done some playful cracking and knows many of the
basic techniques, anyone past {larval stage} is expected to have outgrown
the desire to do so.
Thus, there is far less overlap between hackerdom and crackerdom than
the {mundane} [the term "mundane" is taken from the Sci-Fi fandom
and identifies everything outside the world of the computer science, or
the hacking] reader misled by sensationalistic journalism might expect.
Crackers tend to gather in small, tight-knit, very secretive groups that
have little overlap with the huge, open poly-culture this lexicon describes;
though crackers often like to describe *themselves* as hackers, most true
hackers consider them a separate and lower form of life.
Ethical considerations aside, hackers figure that anyone who can't imagine
a more interesting way to play with their computers than breaking into
someone else's has to be pretty {losing} [on the other hand, they have
the same consideration for the people who use the computer in an absolute
conventional way, such as only to write documents or to play] [...]
Furthermore, about the "cracking" itself, the Jargon File says:
:cracking: n. The act of breaking into a computer system; what a {cracker}
does. Contrary to widespread myth, this does not usually involve some
mysterious leap of hackerly brilliance, but rather persistence and the
dogged repetition of a handful of fairly well-known tricks that exploit
common weaknesses in the security of target systems. Accordingly, most
crackers are only mediocre hackers.
However, This is a superficial and reductive vision. In fact, as it is
easily imaginable, there exist people, that are as experienced with computers
and as thirsty of knowledge, that however don't have any respect of the
hacker ethic and don't hesitate to perform actions meant to damage computer
systems or other people.
They are the so-called Dark-side hackers. This term derives from George
Lucas' "Star Wars". A Dark-side hacker, just like Darth Vader,
is "seduced by the dark side of the Force". It has nothing to
do with the common idea of "good" and "bad", but it's
closer to the idea of "legal" and "chaotic" in Dungeons&Dragons:
In substance, the dark-side hackers are accorded the same dignity and
recognized as having the ability of a hacker, but their orientation makes
them a dangerous element for the community.
A more common definition, reserved for those that damage someone else's
computer systems without drawing any benefit from it, (therefore for pure
stupidity or evilness), it is that of Malicious hackers.
More recent versions of the Jargon File (in which some most obsolete terms
have been removed), as the version 4.0.0, 24 JUL 1996, makes clear, not
only the distinction between hacker and cracker, but also between the
entire hack scenes and other parallel realities, like piracy, and the
"warez d00dz", who collect an impressive amount of software
(games and applications, or better said "gamez" and "appz"),
that they are never likely to use, and whose greatest pride is to get
software, break its protections, and distribute it on their website before
their rival crew, where possible, within the same day it was released
("0-day warez").
One could think that the Jargon File speaks only in theory, and that
it describes the hacker ethic in a fantastic and utopian way. This is
not so, hackers really are attached to their principles. The following
is a practical example concerning one of the most famous hacker crews,
the LOD (Legions Of Doom, that takes its name from the group of baddies
in the series of cartoons of Superman and his Superfriends), of which
The Mentor was also a member during the years 1988-89 (the already cited
author of "The conscience of a Hacker").
In "The History of LOD/H", Revision #3 May 1990, written by
Lex Luthor (founder of the crew, from the name of the baddie in the movie
Superman I), and published on their e-zine "The LOD/H Technical Journal",
Issue #4, released on May 20, 1990 (File 06 of 10), we can read:
Of all 38 members, only one was forcefully ejected. It was found out
that Terminal Man [member dof the LOD/H in 1985] destroyed data that was
not related to covering his tracks. This has always been unacceptable
to us, regardless of what the media and law enforcement tries to get you
to think.
Yet, not all agree upon the same principles, and there are some "grey
areas": for example, taking possession of objects that allow you
to access information, or pursuing a personal purpose, can be considered
"ethical" by some. A specific example could be "grabbing":
the theft of things like keys, magnetic cards, manuals or technical schemes,
anyway this is a debatable activity, since a hacker prefers to copy rather
to subtract, not only to not damage the "victim", but also to
avoid leaving traces of his intrusion. A more acceptable and legal variant
is "trashing", that consists in looking inside the garbage of
the subject, searching for objects and/or useful information.
But breaking into computer systems is only a small activity amongst the
many things that hackers are involved in, and the aversion against the
virtual vandal actions are a small part of the hacker ethic.
The hacker ethic is something greater, almost mystic, and draws its origins
from the first hackers, those that programmed the TX-0, using the first
available computers in the big American universities like MIT or Stanford.
From the already cited "Hackers, Heroes of the Computer Revolution"
by Steven Levy:
Something new was coalescing around the TX-0: a new way of life, with
a philosophy, an ethic, and a dream.
There was no one moment when it started to dawn on the TX-0 hackers that
by devoting their technical abilities to computing with a devotion rarely
seen outside of monasteries they were the vanguard of a daring symbiosis
between man and machine. With a fervor like that of young hot-rodders
fixated on souping up engines, they came to take their almost unique surroundings
for granted, Even as the elements of a culture were forming, as legends
began to accrue, as their mastery of programming started to surpass any
previous recorded levels of skill, the dozen or so hackers were reluctant
to acknowledge that their tiny society, on intimate terms with the TX-0,
had been slowly and implicitly piecing together a body of concepts, beliefs,
and mores.
The precepts of this revolutionary Hacker Ethic were not so much debated
and discussed as silently agreed upon. No manifestos were issued ["The
Mentor"'s one, very polemic, was written only about twenty years
later]. No missionaries tried to gather converts. The computer did the
converting [...]
Shortly, Steven Levy sums up the "hacker ethic" this way:
Access to computers -- and anything which might teach you something about
the way the world works -- should be unlimited and total. Always yield
to the Hands-On imperative.
All information should be free.
Mistrust Authority. Promote Decentralization.
Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as
degrees, age, race, or position.
You can create art and beauty on a computer.
Computers can change your life for the better.
LIKE ALADDIN'S LAMP, YOU COULD GET IT [THE COMPUTER] TO DO YOUR BIDDING.
THE LAMER
From "The Hacker Crackdown - Law and Disorder on the Electronic
Frontier" by Bruce Sterling, Bantam Books, 1992. (ISBN 0-553-08058-X,
paperback: ISBN 0-553-56370-X, released as free electronic text for non-commercial
purposes)
There are hackers today who fiercely and publicly resist any besmirching
of the noble title of hacker. Naturally and understandably, they deeply
resent the attack on their values implicit in using the word "hacker"
as a synonym for computer-criminal.
[...]
The term "hacking" is used routinely today by almost all law
enforcement officials with any professional interest in computer fraud
and abuse. American police describe almost any crime committed with, by,
through, or against a computer as hacking.
If the differentiation between hacker, cracker and dark-side hacker can
result a very tiny distinction for the ones who live outside of the computer
scene, nobody, especially a journalist, should confuse a hacker with the
poor idiot that was locked up for using, with no thought to the consequences,
programs that he found somewhere. (even if using the term "hacker"
does sell more newspapers... The difference between hackers and journalists
is that the aforementioned have ethics, the latter, not even a sense of
modesty... but this is often simply mere ignorance).
Let's take as an example the following article published on the Italian
newspaper "L'Unione Sarda" (http://www.unionesarda.it/), by
Luigi Almiento (almiento@unionesarda.it).
POLICE.
The arrested hacker is a surveyor, aged 25
Files were stolen from the computers of internet "navigators",
with the aid of a virus
spread on the Internet
Many people from different national service providers, recently learned
to their own detriment, that it is better not to stay and chat to strangers
on the chat-lines of the Internet. This occured when a hacker aged 25,
obtained the user names and passwords of their dial up accounts, while
they were on-line.
[...]
"Harris", explains the lieutenant Saverio Spoto, commander
of the Police Station [actually they are "Carabinieri", not
the normal Police, because in Italy there are two different polices, don't
ask why], « contacted his victims through Icq, a "talking place",
offered by many Internet providers». During these "written
talks", using an access key he acquired that gives false information,
G. F. sent the Netbus virus to the computers of his victims. This allowed
him to "navigate" the hard drives of the computers of these
people while they were connected to the internet. Harris also had a site,
which offered pornographic pictures, pirate-programs and files of every
kind, and whenever someone connected to his address, they were immediately
infected by the computer virus.
[...]
In a few words, lieutenant Spoto succeeds in showing his complete ignorance
of the subject: he gives an abominable definition of ICQ, defines Netbus
as a virus rather than a trojan (which means he doesn't have any idea
of how it works), and still not being satisfied with this, attributes
it with a contagiousness similar to the Ebola virus: to be infected simply
by connecting to an Internet address sounds like something supernatural.
Then, he shamelessy concludes with the invitation "If anyone has
had contact with Harris, and thinks that their files may have been forced,
they can come to us at the Police Station". If everyone at the Police
Station are as experienced as he is, it would be preferable to keep the
Harris' "virus" rather than allowing them to put their hands
anywhere near your computer.
Besides, these self-acclaimed hackers are almost never bust because of
a police operation, (unless they caused a lot of trouble), but because
they have the stupid habit of boasting of their actions in chatrooms or
even in real life. Often in front of total strangers, that are often police
officers or people close to the law enforcement environment, (such as
the child or the girlfriend of a police officer).
In fact, the conclusive part of the article regarding "Harris"
says: "The investigators did not explain how, but only that they
had succeeded in identifying the surveyor": obviously the law officers
would like people to think that they identified the guilty person by means
of some complicated technique, pursuing the information packets or something
in this line, rather than admitting that they only had to make a few enquiries
on IRC channels.
The hacker is the one that develops the exploit, and eventually creates
a program based on this expoit. People that blindly use these programs
because they found them on the Internet, or even worse, because a friend
passed them on to them, are merely lamers, that only have a vague idea
of how to use the tool they have in their hands and they know nothing
about computer systems, programming, or how to cover their tracks. Often
these self-acclaimed hackers, self infect themselves with a virus or a
trojan they just downloaded, due to their incapabilities.
Putting these programs in the hands of the average person is like giving
a loaded gun to a five year-old.
The fact is, that up to the early '80s, computers were only intended
for hackers, specialized personnel or students. Only later did they appear
on the desks of offices and in houses. The first home computers replaced
the primitive consoles of videogames like the Atari 2600, the Intellivision
and the Colecovision (the revolution was lead by the Commodore 64 and
the Sinclair ZX Spectrum), but still across the whole world there was
a "computer culture" throughout the '80s, there were published
magazines that taught programming (mainly BASIC, as well as Machine Code)
and very advanced techniques worthy of the best hackers. Then during the
'90s, Apple and Microsoft's dream started to come true, "a computer
on every desk and in every home". The computer became a common appliance
available to almost everybody, the general level of the magazines started
to drop, and almost all were confined to publishing articles about the
latest hardware and software, or advice on how to use commercial applications.
This change in the computer world that made computers not only the sole
domain of the hackers, but for everyone, has certainly had some positive
general effects, but it proved to be a double edged sword, especially
with the advent of the Internet. These days anyone can have powerful tools
that inflict damage on other people, real "digital weapons",
without having a clue about how they work or how they should be "handled".
The average guy can get locked up just for perpetrating what he thought
was a "cool" joke, even if it was in bad taste.
All those lamers-wannabe-hackers should better satisfy their needs with
APEX v1.00 r10/8/91, a nice program written by Ed T. Toton III (however
the original idea is older) that simulates the connection to different
US government and military computers (like those of NORAD, or of NASA),
among other things it is also possible to pretend that you are the President
of the United States of America, and enter the system that controls the
nuclear weapons.
With a bit of ability and practice, it is possible to convince some friends
that you are really trying to force the US computer systems, and pass
the time having good clean fun, without hurting anybody, risking a jail
sentence and/or offending the hackers by trying to pretend to be what
you are not.
But besides this, outside of the "criminal" context, something
that bothers hackers is the ever increasing mass of self-claimed computer
"experts", that actually don't know much more than how to turn
on a computer and launch a program, and they fill their mouthes with loads
of technical words about which they know nothing.
At this point, it is very interesting to read this text from the already
quoted home page of the KIN:
I remember [...] When writing software was closer to art and magic than
to business and/or just coding. I miss that now. What happened after that?
Well, tons of fast graduates appeared who could only do Basic or Clipper/DBase
programming, who pretended to be the best. They could wear suites and
had money and relatives... I called them nephews. How many times were
you in the situation when you gave the best offer, and you simply feel
you HAD to write this software - but in the end your client says something
like: "I'm really sorry, but I just got a call from my wife and her
nephew works for this company in Nebraska who are certified Basic engineers
so we'll have to give the contract to them?" The nephews produced
terrible software which led to terrible disappointments in the industry
('I've invested so much money in computers and it's not really working
for me').
[...] The Net gives you a chance to be first creative and then think about
business. Let's use it now - before nephews will get their certified degrees....
Sadly, a crowd of nephews are already working, with or without certified
degrees, and armed with programs like Front Page or Publisher creating
websites, filling their big mouths with words like FTP and client-server
application, even if they don't know what they mean or what they are talking
about.
Luckily, the Net is large and, - at least for the moment, - it generates
its own rules by itself. There is room for everyone.
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