51 lines
3.1 KiB
Plaintext
51 lines
3.1 KiB
Plaintext
The Hacker's Manifesto
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The Hacker's Manifesto
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by: The Mentor
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Another one got caught today, it's all over the papers. "Teenager
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Arrested in Computer Crime Scandal", "Hacker Arrested after Bank
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Tampering." "Damn kids. They're all alike." But did you, in your
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three-piece psychology and 1950's technobrain, ever take a look behind
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the eyes of the hacker? Did you ever wonder what made him tick, what
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forces shaped him, what may have molded him? I am a hacker, enter my
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world. 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 underachiever.
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They're all alike." I'm in junior high or high school. I've listened to
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teachers explain for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I
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understand it. "No, Ms. Smith, I didn't show my work. I did it in
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my head." "Damn kid. Probably copied it. They're all alike." I made a
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discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is cool. It does
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what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it's because I screwed it up.
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Not because it doesn't like me, or feels threatened by me, or thinks I'm
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a smart ass, or doesn't like teaching and shouldn't be here. Damn kid.
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All he does is play games. They're all alike. And then it happened... a
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door opened to a world... rushing through the phone line like heroin
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through an addict's veins, an electronic pulse is sent out, a refuge from
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the day-to-day incompetencies is sought... a board is found. "This is
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it... this is where I belong..." I know everyone here... even if I've
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never met them, never talked to them, may never hear from them again... I
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know you all... Damn kid. Tying up the phone line again. They're all
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alike... You bet your ass we're all alike... we've been spoon-fed baby
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food at school when we hungered for steak... the bits of meat that you
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did let slip through were pre-chewed and tasteless. We've been dominated
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by sadists, or ignored by the apathetic. The few that had something to
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teach found us willing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in
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the desert. This is our world now... the world of the electron and the
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switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing
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without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by
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profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals. We explore... and you
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call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals.
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We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious
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bias... and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars,
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you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our
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own good, yet we're the criminals. Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that
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of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and
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think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you,
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something that you will never forgive me for. I am a hacker, and this is
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my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all...
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after all, we're all alike.
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This was the last published file written by The Mentor. Shortly after
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releasing it, he was busted by the FBI. The Mentor, sadly missed.
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