

The Conscience of a Hacker - flog
http://www.phrack.org/issues.html?issue=7&id=3&mode=txt
Edit: removing Aaron's name from the title. In retrospect I don't feel it's respectful.
======
loydb
As the author, I've been amazed over the years at how well this resonates with
people 25+ years after the fact. I continue to get 2-3 emails a week from
people about how it affected them (unfortunately, about half of the emails
also ask me to break into something for them).

It is difficult for anyone who didn't live through the BBS years to understand
the feeling of no longer being isolated and alone. I strongly recommend Jason
Scott's documentary 'BBS' (in which I'm interviewed) for a glimpse at a bygone
era.

~~~
kaolinite
Thanks for writing this Loyd. It made an impression on me when I was younger
and I re-read it fairly often. I recall (with slight embarrassment)
translating it into French for an assignment whilst at school (we had to
translate an article/story we liked). I don't think the teacher was very
impressed with my choice.

------
dphase
I hate that the majority (I assume) here on HN didn't get to cut their teeth
in the BBS era, you really missed out.

I see comments below mentioning "breaking into computer systems" -- you have
to realize this was an era pre-Google, pre-www, in a lot of people's cases,
pre-Usenet even. We were often limited to 60 minutes of access daily to a BBS,
fighting busy signals to even get a node. Using every minute of that time to
download textfiles, download cool stuff from the demo scene (sometimes with
the pleasure of compiling them with TASM). We didn't have Linux boxes piled up
in the back, to learn and explore Unix, many, like myself, had to fire up a
war dialer, find a system, and use those crazy textfiles we read from our
local BBS to work our way around. It wasn't, in most cases, for nefarious
means -- it was our only option.

It was a great, great era. Hard to understand if you weren't there. Do
yourself a favor and check out a few old boards that are still available
through telnet. It's not the same, but you'll get an idea.

(I guess this response officially puts me in the "get off my lawn" club!)

~~~
pxlpshr
Couldn't agree more... it was the frontier days.

I grew up in rural Texas about :45 minutes away from Houston. I ran a BSS for
my neighborhood around the time of Duke Nukem 3D. We traded our custom maps
over it, and coordinated our bamboo fort building plans for the summer so our
parents didn't know where it was located.

We also got our hands on the anarchist cookbook and remember Hacker Manifesto
being circulated everywhere. And a time when aliases matured into leetness
like .oOo. Silicon Toad .oOo.

Then we got our first taste of mass internet with AOL, visual basic war
proggies, and IRC scripts like teardrop.c and port attacks on Windows 95...
and it's been downhill ever since. :)

Oh the memories...

~~~
dphase
Silicon Toad! Completely forget about that name. Lots of fun groups back then,
actually writing interesting code instead of useless antics likes DDoS and
website defacement.

------
rauljara
I can tell already this won't be a popular sentiment around here. Also, I want
to preface this by saying I wasn't around in bbs era, and maybe my reaction
would be different if I had been.

But this kind of irks me: "...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?"

Did the author ever take a look behind the eyes of the people whose systems he
was breaking into and wonder why they didn't react well to having their
privacy violated?

Perhaps I'm being unfair, but what I get out of it is "I'm smarter than you,
so I'm entitled to do whatever I want." And I get that the author was treated
poorly in school, and he has my sympathy for that (I was too). But that
attitude of entitled superiority is dangerous. It can and has been used to
justify really awful things. I don't think this manifesto should be lionized.

~~~
api
It's a valid point. I have a confession though: I was a teenage hacker (in the
cracking sense). I suspect many people around here were.

I didn't break stuff or steal stuff _on purpose_ , or have explicit malicious
intent. I practiced what is sometimes called "catch and release" hacking. It
was a game... to me at least. I'm sure it was an annoyance to the ones on the
other end, but I was 14-15 and wasn't thinking like that.

But boy did I ever learn a lot. By the time I made it to college, I knew more
than a lot of the CS seniors. So much that I didn't bother majoring in CS. I
wanted to learn something else. At 18 I knew: C, C++, 80x86 assembler, shell
script, Perl, how to compose and validate an IP packet, the OSI networking
model, basic protocol design, peer to peer protocol design concepts, and quite
a bit about cryptography including how to properly construct an authenticated
cryptographic envelope and the importance of choosing the right block cipher
mode of operation. Password cracking led me to hash functions and SALTs, which
led me down the rabbit hole, and I got fascinated with crypto. At one point I
worked through the math of Diffie-Hellman and RSA. It was very hard stuff, and
required that I delve into a lot of deep math that was way beyond me at 15
going on 16. But knowing it made me more of a badass hacker ninja. Cause it
was crypto, and crypto was big time hacker stuff. When I comprehended the one-
way trap door function behind Diffie-Hellman I felt like I'd stolen a car and
gone joyriding with the archetypal cool kids.

More than that, I found that my knowledge was more hands-on than the CS
students I encountered. I not only thought in code, but thought in networks.
To this day networking and network protocols are completely natural to me,
while otherwise very good programmers tend to gnash their teeth at the thought
of implementing them. Also, for some reason this network experience translated
right into multithreaded coding. Working with threads, even at a low level,
with all the blocking and priority inversion issues, is no sweat. Network
hacking made me comfortable with non-determinism.

I highly doubt I'd know this without the challenge of hacking (sense 2).

But wait, you say... why don't we just create a corewar-style game? Why can't
schools have Defcon-style attack/defend tournaments.

I wouldn't have touched this with a ten foot pole. No rebellion, no interest.
That would have been an "organized activity" put forward by adults. Blech.

Honestly, a similar ethos got me interested in startups much later. Startups
sort of felt rebellious in a way... like little scrappy hack-trepreneurs
sticking it to the big guys. It was when startups popped their shirt collars
and went all douchey and "mainstream" that I lost interest.

~~~
loydb
I like the phrase 'catch and release.' We always worked from the philosophy of
'do no harm.' I can certainly see the top poster's side of things -- there are
a lot of issues that I feel much differently about as a near-50-year-old than
I did as a teenager. For what it's worth, I was never trying to provide moral
authority for hacking in the perjorative sense when I wrote it, I was just
venting...

But you're right, the rebellion was the delicious topping on the technical
exploration sundae. By the time I outgrew the illegal portion of things, the
technical 'hacking' imperative was firmly established in me, and has continued
to this day.

~~~
api
Oh sure. I'm sure what I did was incredibly annoying to someone, if not
downright dangerous.

I don't know what the solution is though. We've denuded our society of
independent ways of knowing accessible to the young: hacking, cracking,
dangerous chemistry sets, and so on. On one hand there are "good" reasons for
this. On the other hand: where will the next generation of engineers come from
if they can't combine learning with individuation?

I really have to underscore this: as a teenager, I had _zero to negative_
interest in anything sanctioned by school or by the adults I was surrounded
with. It was by definition lame, constraining, and uninteresting.

------
crntaylor
This was written by Loyd Blankenship shortly after his arrest [0].

[0] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyd_Blankenship>

~~~
wyclif
This Wikipedia entry is oddly sparse.

------
sp4rki
I remember being around 7 or 8 and reading this (and other texts of the times
in question) and being inspired by the inherent culture which had at it's
simplest reduction an insatiable need to consume knowledge by means of
discovery. It inspired me to learn C and tinker with Linux and BSD. It also
had a part on a quirky math phase I had - which ended causing my math teachers
pain when trying to teach a 13 year old the usual basics ended having to grade
exams with the most intricate and elaborate (and long) solutions to simple
questions and puzzles.

It inspired me to open up my old Packard Bell branded computer and tinker with
it until a soldering iron made it meet it's demise. This series of texts also
inspired in me a need to know everything there is about computer security, and
of course, the only way to put that knowledge to the test is in real world
applications like hacking the school systems to take a peek at que quarterly
final exams, compromising machines to use as botnets to do fun stuff in IRC,
and of course taking advantage of the "unlimited" bandwidth available to the
school. Thankfully the school took this as a rebellious kid/teen learning as
much as possible about computers and systems and ending up giving me the task
to secure their network and physical machines, to the dismay of the actual
computer administrators in school.

I bet that this type of reading material inspired an army of people just like
me to tinker, hack, and learn as much as possible. Aaron Swartz was probably
one of them - being only three years younger than me, and probably one of the
most influential in this harsh times for both hackers and activists. Now
hopefully his person and his work will become part of the inspiration for
future generations, the same way this text by "The Mentor" was for my
generation.

------
zxcdw
It's a shame that the old computing culture is dead. VX scene, demoscene,
crack scene, ... Everything that used to be interesting for the curious is
dead.

Now we have... web development and "front end engineering" and "value
creation" which rule the game. It really pisses me off that I care about none
of these. I care for technical superiority with scarce resources, but today no
such domains exist really. Really depressing.

~~~
coldpie
Mmmh, sorta. Mobile development often lets you work bare-metal with scarce
resources, especially in the world of game consoles. One of my favorite
experiences in high school was developing homebrew games for the PSP and
experimenting with homebrew on the GBA. Right now I'm reverse-engineering an
NES game from 1992 just for the hell of it (god it's fun).

Hardware hacking is still around, there's just so many other options that it
can get lost in the noise.

~~~
gavinlynch
Yah, even though that scene is growing smaller by the year, the 6502/2A03 ASM
geeks are still crunching away... looking for extra space inside NES Rom's to
cram some new, cool feature their favorite games would benefit from. Did a
little in the mid-00's, was a great time and taught me how a microprocessor
works.

So fret not! A good old-school time can still be had in this modern age of
new-fangled-front-end-engineers!! (of which I am one)

:)

------
flog
To me, this is one of the founding texts of our sub-culture.

No, I didn't know or interact with Aaron Swartz, but his plight reminded me of
this manifesto.

~~~
lclarkmichalek
Really? I think the hacker news community is more focused around node.js than
it is around unauthorised access to computer systems. I do agree there is a
common theme of the joy of discovery, but I find it hard to cheer on people
breaking into computer systems.

~~~
ynniv
_I think the hacker news community is more focused around node.js_

Ugh, do you have to remind me? The community here is becoming so risk averse I
can't fathom how they expect to hack by any definition. The Manifesto was from
an era when the hardware you owned was practically a useless toy, and learning
about computers almost required sneaking some time. The well off were able to
take it more legitimately from their institutions at night, but what about
everyone else? And what about systems that even the well off couldn't play
with? Jobs was adamant that Apple never would have existed without him and Woz
cutting their teeth blue boxing (a crime which sadly in modern times would be
labeled terrorism, with extradition from anywhere in the world). How far ahead
of the game do you really think you can get when you're asking permission at
every step? Just don't be malicious.

~~~
chimeracoder
> The Manifesto was from an era when the hardware you owned was practically a
> useless toy,

I'd argue that's what we're moving _towards_.

~~~
ynniv
Hur, indie programmer humor. People who think that are idiots. We live in a
time when you can buy a computer the size of your hand that can do real time
image analysis on a couple of AA batteries for $40. A couple decades ago that
would be a classified munition with the assumption that one would build a
better guided missile from it. Just because that computer in your pocket is
polished doesn't mean it's a toy. A toy is a remote terminal incapable of
executing machine code outside of drawing letters on the screen. Or a computer
that only can remember 16,000 numbers at a time (that's not enough enough
space for a crappy, unanimated GIF). Remember War Games, when he cracked open
the handset of a payphone and made a free call by touching a soda can tab
between the microphone and a ground wire? That was the level of technology not
so long ago. Try writing your RoR craigslist knockoff using that.

Kids these days.

~~~
loydb
^this++

One of the arguments I make _against_ black hat hacking when I answer emails
to (mostly) kids is that there is _soooo_ much available you can do to fulfill
your wildest geeky dreams. I'm around 90% sure that, were I growing up now, I
would have eschewed cracking and instead be hip deep in some nerdvana corner
of the maker universe, wiring cats up for spaceflight or something similar.

~~~
ynniv
So much of cultural is contextual, and on closer inspection the hero and
villan are rarely who you thought they were. I saw your manifesto a long time
ago, in a small town far, far away, and it played some part in making a
bankers son want to be a hacker. Thanks for that.

------
Illychnosis
"The main thing is to have a soul that loves the truth and harbours it where
he finds it. And another thing: truth requires constant repetition, because
error is being preached about us all the time, and not only by isolated
individuals but by the masses. In the newspapers and encyclopedias, in schools
and universities, everywhere error rides high and basks in the consciousness
of having the majority on its side."

-Goethe

------
chrisrickard
I remember being 13 and having this up on my wall... really good to be
reminded of it again.

~~~
flog
Yeah, I think we tend to forget our history (since tech evolves so fast).

For me, I originally had this on the BBS I hosted as a teenager. And it was
something important to me as an out-of-place teenager at the end of the world
in NZ - the thought that we live in a borderless community of like-minded
people.

What's interesting to me is this disconnect between our world (borderless,
egalitarian, where information wants to be free) and reality (legal
jurisdiction, protective business models). It was a problem then, it's a
problem now, and future conflict is certain.

------
yuvadam
Makes you wonder what _Hacker News_ has to do with any of these words well
said.

~~~
RobAley
I think it has a lot to do with these words and the sentiment behind them. The
childen of that era (like the author) have grown up, and through their
experiences and determination helped to shape a world where we can learn,
explore, develop, interact and hack on things, like they did, but in a more
tolerant and willing (and less illegal) environment. Many of the stories on HN
focus the problems with education, big corps and the authorities (the stories
about Aaron Swartz encapsulate all of these), particularly with regards to
people like HN readers. Its a different world to that story, but the issues
are still relevant.

~~~
saraid216
Hm.

It makes _me_ think of civil disobedience. And it makes me wonder: hackers
today are used to tinkering with machines, whereas earlier hackers often
worked with people. It feels like we lost something there. So many hackers
today look at the world and The System and say, "It's too hard. Let's not
try."

~~~
DanBC2
>whereas earlier hackers often worked with people.

There's a book detailing the rise of hacker culture. There's a bit about
hackers 'borrowing' tools from someone. The contempt they showed that man, and
his tools, shows that working with people was even then not a skill that all
of them had.

~~~
oofabz
It sounds like you are referring to "Hackers" by Steven Levy. It's a great
book and that's a great story. I've posted it here:

<http://frammish.org/used_up.html>

~~~
djhworld
I only read this book last year, but it really is a cracking read

------
aortega
AKA the teenager manifesto. Sorry but the feeling of superiority that many
hackers have is their biggest weakness. You are not a beautiful butterfly that
nobody comprehends. Everybody else is not less intelligent than you, no wonder
hackers are always in the wrong side of the police boot. You better start
working fast.

------
jiggy2011
The problem with writings like this is that they murky the waters between
curiosity , creativity and doing stuff that is actually illegal.

Nobody is going to arrest you for "curiosity" but they might arrest you for
bank tampering because somebody might you know have their life savings in
there.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
I assure you, these people were not interested in your life savings. Having
never met the author of this piece, I can still confidently say that he and
everyone else in that culture, then and now, would have opposed anyone hacking
to raid some poor bystander's bank account.

It's this sort of fear mongering that got us here.

~~~
loydb
Well, that's not _strictly_ true. I know at least a couple of folks from that
era who would pilfer a bank account in a heartbeat, given the opportunity
(they tended to be active 'carders'). They were, however, treated with disdain
by 99% of the 'exploratory' hackers I knew.

The catalyst for me getting out of the black hat side (other than aging out of
the 'being bad is fun' stage) was getting into a massive system from which I
could have easily pilfered millions. Thoughts of everything from "set up Swiss
bank account, fill up" to "offer to 'consult' with the company in question to
fix the holes" went through my head. In the end, I just said "game over, I
won," stopped cracking systems, and put up the Phoenix Project BBS as a center
of learning. Which lasted until the Secret Service showed up at my door in
1990...

~~~
lawnchair_larry
I'm not saying none of them existed, just that isn't what this culture was
about. As you said, such types were unwelcome in the community, and I'm pretty
sure that isn't what your manifesto was about (but correct me if I'm wrong).

~~~
loydb
No, you're right. I just don't want to see it painted in a fairy dust of
nostalgia. There were some real criminals involved, and I'm sure there were
many who nobody ever knew played both sides. There were plenty of guys that
were good enough at hiding their True Name that they could have been anyone.
Not just random dudes on a bbs, but folks I "knew" with serious technical
skills.

------
duairc
Commie bullshit.

~~~
Jach
For the benefit of those who don't get the joke:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMX7JFSJDsY&t=490](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMX7JFSJDsY&t=490)

~~~
nitrogen
The sickest joke is that Youtube is still running with that on it and
MegaUpload is not.

------
TomGullen
Written on the year Aaron Swartz was born. Very poignant.

------
xtracto
And to think I could have whored some karma if I had created a thread instead
of a simple comment <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5051486>

------
moccajoghurt
That was written 2 years before I was born.

Hard to tell how to judge that text if you didn't experience that time.

If someone wrote that today, I'd think that he'd be a hypocrite. But I am sure
the situation was different in 1986.

~~~
hobbyhacker
It is as relevant, if not more relevant today than when it was written.

~~~
moccajoghurt
Could you tell me why you think that it is?

~~~
hobbyhacker
Because in todays legal climate most of the things that were 'gray' back then
are forbidden explicitly now. Things that as a kid in my days you'd be
receiving a stern talking to for will now cause you to go to jail for very
long periods in addition to likely resulting in you filing for bankruptcy.

~~~
loydb
Also, remember that back then it was _way_ harder to get caught. We did stuff
like wardial entire area codes with impunity. The general lack of
awareness/focus on computer security combined with non-digital phone switches
(oh crossbar, how I loved thee) made it much less risky.

~~~
hobbyhacker
Just one little anecdote for old times' sake. I used a sequential dialer to
scan for interesting numbers in the country capital. After hitting one
particular number the phone to which the modem was connected rang. This was
before the days of anr indicating that whoever backtracked that number in less
than a minute had quite a bit of pull. The guy on the other side asked me what
we were doing calling that particular number. The phone actually felt hot in
my hand and I realized: _Busted_. So on the spur of the moment I said I was
trying to connect to a bbs and he said 'don't call this number again' and hung
up. I was still shaking an hour later.

~~~
loydb
My attitude (and that of most of my contemporaries) was that hacking
government computers (in our own country at least) was a Damn Stupid idea.

A corporation will make an ROI decision about pursuing someone. Is it worth
their time and money and hassle to pursue, or should they just change the
admin password to something other than "secret123" and forget about it.

The government, on the other hand, has whole branches of people with nothing
better to do than follow up on this kind of thing, and they aren't motivated
by 'profit.'

------
graham_king_3
HN needs a "pin" feature, so this can be top all the time.

------
keypusher
Classic. Anyone interested in this era should check out "The Hacker Crackdown"
by Bruce Sterling.

------
cryowaffle
I read this to my 10th grade English class back in 1999, people loved it.

------
gopher
after all, we are all alike

