780 lines
46 KiB
Plaintext
780 lines
46 KiB
Plaintext
HACKER BEING
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on the meaning of being a hacker
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by Valerio "Elf Qrin" Capello (http://www.ElfQrin.com)
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Copyright (C) 1999 Valerio Capello
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First written: 23JAN2000
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v1.1eng 26MAR2000
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This is a translation from the original Italian version v1.5 r23JAN2000
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(first written: 31AUG1999-09SEP1999)
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Supervisor for the English language: SirD.
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Latest version available from:
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http://www.ElfQrin.com/docs/BeingHacker.html
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Other language versions: Italian
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"But did you, in your three- piece psychology and 1950's
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technobrain, ever take a look behind the eyes of the hacker?
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Did you ever wonder what made him tick,
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what forces shaped him, what may have molded him?
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I am a hacker, enter my world..."
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("The Conscience of a Hacker", The Mentor)
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"Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that
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shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known"
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(Matthew 10:26)
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THE HACKER
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Another idiot has been locked up because of committing a senseless act with
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little or no thought to the consequences. Law enforcement needs to look good,
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the news becomes public domain and the press is unleashed, using attention
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grabbing headlines like: "Computer terrorist busted", or better, a "hacker".
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Not only is the term misused, but it is usually only understood to be a mere
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synonym for "computer pirate", which is not only limitive, but completely wrong.
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Few people, even those who would define themselves as such, really know
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what "being a hacker" means.
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The WWWebster Online Dictionary (http://www.m-w.com/), at the "hacker" entry
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says:
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Main Entry: hacker
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Pronunciation: 'ha-k&r
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Function: noun
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Date: 14th century
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1 : one that hacks
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2 : a person who is inexperienced or unskilled at a particular
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activity "a tennis hacker"
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3 : an expert at programming and solving problems with a
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computer
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4 : a person who illegally gains access to and sometimes tampers
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with information in a computer system
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Among the various meanings quoted above, (besides definition 1, which is
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obvious...), definition 4 is the one which generally corresponds to the idea of
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"the hacker" that the majority of people have, while definition 3, is the one
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which is actually closer to the real meaning of "hacker", even if it is still rather
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limiting.
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A dictionary rarely gives a definative answer, but it is always a good start.
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For a more precise definition we can consult a specific dictionary such as the
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Jargon File, the most prestigious dictionary of hacker terminology, "a
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comprehensive compendium of hacker slang illuminating many aspects of
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hackish tradition, folklore, and humor", begun by Raphael Finkel of the
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university of Stanford in 1975, and then passed in management to Don Woods
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of the MIT, up to see the light of the printed paper in 1983, with the title of "The
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Hacker's Dictionary" (Harper & Row CN 1082, ISBN 0-06-091082-8, also
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known in the scene as "Steele-1983").
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The on-line hacker Jargon File, version 2.9.10, 01 JUL 1992 (part of the
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Project Gutenberg), at the "hacker" entry says:
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:hacker: [originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe] n. 1.
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A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable
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systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most
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users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary.
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2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who
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enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming.
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3. A person capable of appreciating {hack value}.
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4. A person who is good at programming quickly.
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5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does
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work using it or on it; as in `a UNIX hacker'. (Definitions 1 through 5
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are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.)
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6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy
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hacker, for example.
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7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively
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overcoming or circumventing limitations.
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8. [deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive
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information by poking around. Hence `password hacker', `network
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hacker'. See {cracker}.
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Since this is a specific dictionary, the definition of hacker here is closer to its
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original meaning, even if it is necessary to extrapolate it from the varied
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proposed meanings in order to obtain the closest and most faithfull
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interpretation.
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A hacker is a person that loves to study all things in depth (definition 1),
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especially the more apparently meaningless details, to discover hidden
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peculiarities, new features and weakness in them. For example, it is possible
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to hack a book, by using it to equalize the legs of a table, or to use the sharp
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edge of one of its pages to cut something. The main point being that it is used
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for more than it's conventional function of being read. But more than this, a
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hacker soon learns that the same techniques used for exploiting computer
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systems can be used to manipulate people. This is the so-called social
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hacking. With a little skilled psychology, the masters of "social hacking" can
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convince other people to do what they want (within limits of course, and
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depending on the abilities of the "social hacker"), in order to obtain the
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information they require. This may sound like an unusual and unatural practise,
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but once you take into account that this is performed quite regularly, in
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everyday life, by girlfriends, friends and teachers etc. to obtain what they want
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from others, it's not that strange, even if hackers do use a little more skill and
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technique.
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Another way of bringing hacking out from the computer's world, is the so-called
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vadding (the term is actually rarely used, but the activity is largely practiced)
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this consists of exploring places where the average person doesn't normally
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have access, such as basements, roofs of public buildings, maintenance
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tunnels, elevator wells and similar places. Sometimes, some of these activities
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born inside the hacker scene, grow and eventually separate, becoming new
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entities, like phreaking, the term applied to the world of "hacking" telephones
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and telephone systems, or the term carding, which is basically "techno-credit
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card fraud",.. very illegal and risky.
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In short, a hacker has the tendency to use his skills also beyond of the
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computer context, and anywhere tends to use the hacking techniques and to
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discover what is normally hidden to the common man.
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For a hacker, the ability to reason, harness his full brain capacity and maintain
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his mind at maximum efficiency levels, is most important.
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With a few exceptions, it is unusual that a hacker would smoke, use drugs, or
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drink excessively (however beer appears to be the preferred choice, when
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alcohol is drunk). Speaking of John Draper, (a.k.a "Captain Crunch", one of the
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most legendary phreaker/hackers, famous for discovering that by sending a
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tone of 2600Hz over the telephone lines of AT&T, it was possible to effect free
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calls), Steven Levy says: "Cigarettes made him violent": smoking next to him
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was extremely hazardous to your health...
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A hacker is certainly a programming maniac, (definition 2): once a technique
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has been discovered, it is necessary to write a program that exploits it.
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Hackers often spend many day's and night's in front of a computer,
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programming or experimenting with new techniques. After spending so many
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hours in front of a computer, a hacker gains a remarkable ability to analyze
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large amounts of data very quickly.
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The ability to program quickly, (definition 4) can be a characteristic of a hacker,
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but is not always necessarily so. As far as a hacker is concerned, it is faster to
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type on a keyboard, than it is to write things down, many hackers spend quite a
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lot of time reflecting over, or analyzing previously written code, while they are
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programming.
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Definition 5 is, in effect, a restrictive meaning of the word "hacker" since it
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limits it to a single field (as in UNIX), it can however be considered as a
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specialization.
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Actually in these cases, especially when it concerns true experts in a field, the
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terms wizard or guru are preferred. For example, the definition "UNIX wizard"
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in the United States is also recognized outside of the hacker environment and
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it can be included in a resume.
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Definition 3 may be considered apart: a person that qualifies for this definition
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is not neccasarily a real hacker, but a very experienced person with a good
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knowledge, who is not neccasarily able to develop hacker techniques. To
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make it clearer, think about the differences between a good author and
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someone that appreciates a good book.
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Definition 7, together with definition 1, are the ones that get closer to the real
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essence of the hacker. To study a system, to discover weaknesses, the
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peculiarities and hidden features of it, and then use them to go beyond its
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limits, with creativeness and imagination. This, in a certain way, brings us
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directly to definition 8. The person with these skills can use his knowledge to try
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to access information to which he doesn't have the right to access, and here
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the discourse gets complicated, because for a hacker there is no information
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which he does not have the right to access. We will get back to this point later,
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when we will speak about the "hacker ethic".
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Finally, although it has nothing to do with the character of the hacker, I would
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like to attract attention to definition 6; for a hacker, the term hacker is always
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positive: if he speaks of a "hacker of astronomy", he speaks of a true expert of
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that subject. Contrary to this, in everyday language, according to definition 2 of
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the WWWebster dictionary, a "hacker" in a certain field is a person that is not
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skilled in that specific field.
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After giving the definitions, the Jargon File provides more information on the
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meaning of the word "hacker":
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The term `hacker' also tends to connote membership in the global
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community [...]. It also implies that the person described is seen to
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subscribe to some version of the hacker ethic [...].
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It is better to be described as a hacker by others than to describe
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oneself that way. Hackers consider themselves something of an
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elite (a meritocracy based on ability), though one to which new
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members are gladly welcome. There is thus a certain ego
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satisfaction to be had in identifying yourself as a hacker (but if you
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claim to be one and are not, you'll quickly be labeled {bogus}). [...]
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[or most commonly, the most used term in these circumstances is
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"lamer", even if next versions of the Jargon File use this term in a
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slightly different context]
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But, perhaps more than anything else, curiosity and above average intelligence
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are the signatures of a true hacker. The hacker has an almost physical need of
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knowledge of any kind.
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The hacker is most certainly a voracious reader, even if his preference is only
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for scientific matters or science fiction, and generally one would find many
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shelves full of books in his room. But a hacker is not satisfied by the "ready
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made" knowledge, of the information that he finds in the books written for the
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average person, a hacker wants it all, and collects all possible information.
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Schools are institutions that are not able to furnish all the information that a
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hacker needs. The governments and all the public or private institutions have
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the tendency to furnish the least necessary information.
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About this point, Steven Levy in "Hackers, Heroes of the Computer Revolution"
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(written in 1984), affirms that the hackers "are possessed not merely by
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curiosity, but by a positive *lust to know.*"
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This idea is even clearer in these excerpts took from what is a considered "the
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hacker's manifesto": "The Conscience of to Hacker" (sometimes erroneously
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reported, in a nearly prophetic sense, as "Mentor's Last Words"), written by
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The Mentor on January 8th 1986, and published for the first time on the e-zine
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Phrack, Volume One, Issue 7, Phile 3.
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This text collects in a few paragraphs, a large part of the hacker philosophy,
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with touching results for most true hackers (even if it may be difficult to think of
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a hacker as a person that has a heart as well as a brain).
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[...]
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Mine is a world that begins with school... I'm smarter than most of
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the other kids, this crap they teach us bores me... Damn
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underachiever.
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[...]
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we've been spoon-fed baby food at school when we hungered for
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steak... the bits of meat that you did let slip through were
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pre-chewed and tasteless. We've been dominated by sadists, or
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ignored by the apathetic. The few that had something to teach
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found us willing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in the
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desert.
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[...]
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We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge...
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and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without
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nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals. You
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build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to
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us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the
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criminals.
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Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of
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judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like.
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My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never
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forgive me for.
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[...]
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In these words, you will see the frustration of living in a defective world, that
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deprives the individuals that wish to rise above the mediocre, of the very
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information and resources they desire, to know what is kept hidden, and it
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condemns them hypocritically as criminals.
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But the desperate search of knowledge is only one of the characteristics of the
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hacker. Another sure one is the pursute of extreme perfection. An interesting
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article, is the one that narrates the history of the first hackers, and of how they
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developed "Spacewar!" (the first videogame in history, born as a demo for the
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TX-0, meant as a "killer application" for this computer, with all its features
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exploitable), is "The origin of Spacewar", written by J. M. Graetz, and published
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in the August, 1981 issue of Creative Computing magazine.
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One of the forces driving the dedicated hacker is the quest for
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elegance. It is not sufficient to write programs that work. They must
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also be "elegant," either in code or in function -- both, if possible.
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An elegant program does its job as fast as possible, or is as
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compact as possible, or is as clever as possible in taking
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advantage of the particular features of the machine in which it runs,
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and (finally) produces its results in an aesthetically pleasing form
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without compromising either the results or operation of other
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programs associated with it.
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But the elegance and the perfection of hackers is not always comprehensible
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to the average individual. A hacker can often be in ecstasy reading some code
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written by another hacker, admiring his ability and "tasting" his style, as if he
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was reading poetry.
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For example, normally to exchange the content of two variables (a and b, in this
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case), the statement most commonly used is this, which uses a third temporary
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variable:
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dummy = a : a = b : b = dummy
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The following method, instead, doesn't need the third variable, because it
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exploits a mathematical peculiarity of the boolean operator XOR:
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a = a XOR b : b = a XOR b : a = a XOR b
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Even if this system is at least three times slower than the first one because it
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requires the execution of three mathematical operations, (however it allows the
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saving of memory that the third variable would normally occupy), a hacker will
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surely admire the ingeniousness and the elegance of this method, to him it
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assumes the taste of a Japanese haiku.
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Talking about the perfectionism of the hackers, in "Hackers: Heroes of the
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Computer Revolution" written by Steven Levy in 1984, in the chapter 2 ("The
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Hacker Ethic"), we read:
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Hackers believe that essential lessons can be learned about the
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systems--about the world--from taking things apart, seeing how
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they work, and using this knowledge to create new and even more
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interesting things. They resent any person, physical barrier, or law
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that tries to keep them from doing this.
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This is especially true when a hacker wants to fix something that
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(from his point of view) is broken or needs improvement. Imperfect
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systems infuriate hackers, whose primal instinct is to debug them.
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This is one reason why hackers generally hate driving cars--the
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system of randomly programmed red lights and oddly laid out
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one-way streets causes delays which are so goddamned
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UNNECESSARY that the impulse is to rearrange signs, open up
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traffic-light control boxes . . .redesign the entire system.
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In a perfect hacker world, anyone pissed off enough to open up a
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control box near a traffic light and take it apart to make it work
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better should be perfectly welcome to make the attempt.
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It's just in the name of such principle that the Linux operating system and the
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Gnu C compiler have been developed, their code is open and available to be
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changed and modified by anyone.
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Lately, many important commercial software producers also started moving in
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this direction, as Netscape: Netscape Communicator 5, will, in fact be the first
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software, originally born as a "closed" commercial product, to be developed
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with this type of philosophy.
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A hacker is never satisfied with the default settings of a program or of the
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custom installations, he always has to open the configuration menu and set the
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options to get the maximum performance, and to make the product work as
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close as possible to his "way". A hacker must be able to use, to modify and to
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check all the possible features of a program.
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But after all, what motivates hackers? Why do they create programs that exploit
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advanced techniques and then distribute them free? And why do they freely
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distribute knowledge that was incredibly difficult to obtain?
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A good answer could be found in the site of the KIN (Klever Internet Nothings,
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http://www.klever.net), they are not exactly a hacker crew, but a group of people
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that write programs and release them freely on the Internet:
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What makes people write software and distribute it for free? Vanity,
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you said? Well, maybe.. But after all, what is this business all
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about? Is it all about money? Ask anyone - it's not. Most people I
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know in the industry will tell you that.
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Their idea is "just leave me alone and let me do what I love to do".
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In short, it's not about money. It's about feeling free to do what you want, and,
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just possibly, to find someone that appreciates your work.
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THE HACKER ETHIC
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The true hacker doesn't have morals, and he would never censor information or
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ideas of any kind. An initiative of the Italian priest Don Fortunato di Noto,
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(fortunad@sistemia.it,) who in January of 1998 formed the "Committee of
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resistance against the Pedophiles", and who asked for the help of the hacker
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community to unmask, capture and close the sites of the pedophiles on the
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Internet, failed miserably as it was only supported by self-acclaimed hackers
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without any skill.
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Besides, hackers are tolerant by nature, and rarely get angry, but they are
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irritated by people and tasks perceived to be wasting their time.
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There are however, some things that hackers can be intolerant of. One of these
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is when lies are told, to, or about them, you can say that hackers are imbeciles
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(it's an opinion, after all), but you can not say that they steal chickens. And yet, it
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would still be unusual that hackers would hack a site to remove the lies
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propogated about them. It would be more typical that they would create another
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site, refuting the lies against them.
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Hacking can be used like as a form of protest, breaking into and modifying the
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websites of very well known societies and government or military corporate
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entities, can be a way to make public certain injustices (especially attacks to
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the liberty of information or expression) or violations of human rights. The
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hacks, of the websites of the CIA (that became Central Stupidity Agency) and
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of the Department of Justice, are famous for being hacked with this intention in
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mind.
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In the article "Hacking for Human Rights?" by Arik Hesseldahl
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(ahess@reporters.net) published on the online magazine Wired
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(http://www.wired.com) dated 14.Jul.98 9:15am, the hacker Bondie Wong, (a
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dissident Chinese astrophysicist who lives in Canada, that temporarily
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disabled a Chinese satellite in 1997), a member of the famous hacker crew,
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Cult of the Dead Cow (which in the beginning of 1999 released the Back
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Orifice trojan) threatened to attack the computer networks of foreign
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companies that did business with China, causing them serious damages and
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huge financial losses.
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In an interview conducted by Oxblood Ruffin, a former United Nations
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consultant, and published on Wired, Blondie Wong says: "Human rights is an
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international issue, so I don't have a problem with businesses that profit from
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our suffering paying part of the bill".
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Contrary to the complete lack of moral judgement (but, above all, of moralism)
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of hackers, lies a deep ethical sense, that is something allmost "religious" in
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most hackers.
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About this point, we can go back to the Jargon File:
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:hacker ethic, the: n.
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1. The belief that information-sharing is a powerful positive good,
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and that it is an ethical duty of hackers to share their expertise by
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writing free software and facilitating access to information and to
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computing resources wherever possible.
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2. The belief that system-cracking for fun and exploration is ethically
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OK as long as the cracker commits no theft, vandalism, or breach
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of confidentiality.
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Both of these normative ethical principles are widely, but by no
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means universally) accepted among hackers. Most hackers
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subscribe to the hacker ethic in sense 1, and many act on it by
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writing and giving away free software. A few go further and assert
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that *all* information should be free and *any* proprietary control of
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it is bad [...]
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Sense 2 is more controversial: some people consider the act of
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cracking itself to be unethical [...]
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But this principle at least moderates the behavior of people who
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see themselves as `benign' crackers (see also {samurai}). On this
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view, it is one of the highest forms of hackerly courtesy to (a) break
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into a system, and then (b) explain to the sysop, preferably by email
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from a {superuser} account, exactly how it was done and how the
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hole can be plugged --- acting as an unpaid (and unsolicited) {tiger
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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], <20> contacted his victims through Icq, a "talking place", offered
|
||
by many Internet providers<72>. 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.
|