The Manifesto

Ive been looking over my archive on my computer, and I found the Hackers Manifesto by +++The Mentor+++, does anyone know what the meaning behind the writing? Or why he wrote it... If anyone doesnt have the thing, Its below :) I look forward to your responces

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Another one got caught today, it's all over the papers. "Teenager Arrested in Computer Crime Scandal", "Hacker Arrested after Bank Tampering"... Damn kids. They're all alike. But did you, in your three-piece psychology and 1950's 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... Mine is a world that begins with school... I'm smarter than most of the other kids, this crap they teach us bores me... Damn underachiever. They're all alike. I'm in junior high or high school. I've listened to teachers explain for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I understand it. "No, Ms. Smith, I didn't show my work. I did it in my head..." Damn kid. Probably copied it. They're all alike. I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it's because I screwed it up. Not because it doesn't like me or feels threatened by me or thinks I'm a smart ass or doesn't like teaching and shouldn't be here...damn kid. All he does is play games. They're all alike. And then it happened. A door opened to a world. Rushing through the phone line like heroin through an addict's veins, an electronic pulse is sent out, a refuge from the day-to-day incompetencies is sought... a board is found. "This is it... this is where I belong..." I know everyone here... even if I've never met them, never talked to them, may never hear from them again... I know you all... Damn kid. Tying up the phone line again. They're all alike... You bet your ass we're all alike... we've been spoon-fed baby food at school when we hungered for steak... the bits of meat that you did let slip through were pre-chewed and tasteless. We've been dominated by sadists, or ignored by the apathetic. The few that had something to teach found us willing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in the desert.

This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals. We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals.
Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for. I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all... after all, we're all alike.

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this is a great example of the misconception of hackers. probably the best i've heard. it was written right after he got busted and goes into how he feels about the whole situation: how hackers are usually the outcast because they are smarter than everybody else, how cyberspace is the only place one can feel accepted without any form of discrimination, how being curios and wanting to learn is a crime.

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My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for.

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This is always a given.

Teacher kicks you out of class coz you are always two steps ahead of the class.. and calls u a smart arse. Giving u "special" exams after pointin out their mistakes and telling you "since you are so smart, why dont i let you do one of these special exams.."

but that is juz one scenario.. it always happens everywhere anywhere at anytime..
They dont like you for being smarter than them..

i think it is deeper then that though. i think that it says how corporate america is evil. it also says how the laws that govern hackers are hypocritical becuase the crimes hackers commit are nothing compared to the crimes the government commits.

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The following data has not been completely researched and may be considered as
rumors. Bit Blitz busted for phreaking, the organization and enforcement
agencies are unknown. However, $3000 worth of computer material (7 computers)
were confiscated. Also it is reported that The Mentor informed on him.

The Mentor was busted for breaking into his school to steal 29 computers. Also
it has been said that Poltergeist is in the hospital with leukemia.
It is unknown if any other members were busted for any other reasons. However,
all former members are apparently safe now.

The Bit Blitz and Crustaceo Mutoid are supposedly forming a new group called
Rising Force and The Mentor is starting an elite hacking group.

==Phrack Inc.==
Volume One, Issue Two, Phile 9 of 9

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Ok, I sympathize with hackers who feel alienated by their own intelligence. That sucks. And "Last Words" is an nice little insight into how hackers can be treated. Being smarter is not a crime. But using this knowledge to commit crimes is wrong.

If you read this quote and the similar crap that abounds in The Prack Philes and other trashy magazines, you can see how pathetic these kids are. The Mentor (gotta love the prentitious handle) broke the law and got busted. Sorry but actions have consequences. Isn't AO all about stopping people like this?

on one way it is true that people alienates to to other people they feel are more knowledgeable then they are in pc.
I remember in my only pr class, after doing a presentation on pc and security and gotten the pc to crash as being my conclusion, being ask one question only :
"are you a hacker?" pointless to say no/or yes they had already made their mind and i could feel the strange looks on me as if the fbi was going to burst in to arrest me in any minute...
this is all about perception of the non-pc people they look at us as wizzards sometimes cuz we can solve all their petty problems yet they are reppelled by what they don't associate.
They imagine that we are all nerds/techies/geeks... they refuse to understand that it is only a generaliization.
I respect the "Mentor" point of view, yet he still got busted cuz he was on the wrong side... too bad but he does have some points

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crimes hackers commit are nothing compared to the crimes the government commits.

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i agree but there are some cases where a hacking incident is a major problem.. like da time when a juvenile took down an air traffic control tower and planes had no choice but to fly in circles up in the air and wait till the tower goes back on line.. now the kid didnt knew that he took down an air traffic control tower.. he thought it was a local radio station... thousands of people could have died if the air traffic control tower didnt go back online...

But is not knowing really a crime, the public doesnt know what goes on behind the eyes of a hacker, when a hacker gets arrested the public says, 'Well, he knew too much'. But does that make it OK for them to arrest him? Everyone thinks we were born with computers in our hands, they dont know how hard most of us worked to get at this level in knowledge, that is the reason everyone is 'scared' of hackers, Knowledge is Power, and with power comes revolt, and so was born, the hacker.

BTW, does anyone know what the whole thing with MafiaBoy was?

but with power comes responsibility. abuse of that power is no good either...

What I heard -
Mafiaboy was arrested for breaking into computers and being in possession of stolen info.


Don't know of outcome?

damn i love reading that

The whole story behind it all can be found in "The Hacker Crackdown" by Bruce Sterling.
http://www.mit.edu/hacker/hacker.html for example.

the 'hacker manifesto' is a prime example of a pretentious and arrogant person. there is no hidden meaning and should be taken at face value. it is an obvious attempt to sound esoteric and create some sort of legacy for the person. As for all of you reading it as if it is a pledge of allegiance, i seriously that doubt any of you truly relate to it. The whole thing is nothing but a romantic notion. I doubt any of you are actually as smart or as alienated as you claim to be.

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Originally posted here by oblio
the 'hacker manifesto' is a prime example of a pretentious and arrogant person. there is no hidden meaning and should be taken at face value. it is an obvious attempt to sound esoteric and create some sort of legacy for the person. As for all of you reading it as if it is a pledge of allegiance, i seriously that doubt any of you truly relate to it. The whole thing is nothing but a romantic notion. I doubt any of you are actually as smart or as alienated as you claim to be.

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I disagree. The hacker manifesto is one of the ways many hackers define themselves, it outlines hackers as being smarter, better with technology and bored/annoyed with the snails pace at which teachers try to force them to go along at. I think it is also an attack at th corproate world for charging so much for services that could be 'dirt cheap' and a final statement declaring taht hackers as a whole will never be stopped. Anyways, thats just my opinion

oblio,
it all depands what you call smart... how would define an original australian aborigen dmart or dumb ? he might not know how to order a burger with no pickle or even how to operate a phone, yet he is smart enough to survive in a very hostile environment in which you'd probably last less then a couple days... it takes around 32hr to kill a man without water
well in the comp this is the same, most people ignore/refuse to learn the basis to security and when they realize they've been ahcked for whatever reasons; they take it personnaly. It is their fault that the hacker/white/grey/black/whatever got in!!! they were outsmarted !!! that they can't stand.
now as far as you thinking we are not smart enough, well i think for myself but i'm pretty sure that everyone will agree (except you) i don't care wether or not you think i'm smart... i don't care about whomever's opinion about me. I don't need to have people call me and tell you are the smartest.... I know what i'm worth, i know my achievements and i have nothing to proove. that can be generalized to most hackers,
the real one , they don't care about recognition for they already know where they stand, the script kiddies will put their handles on a site to impress their bodies (ie mafiaboy)...
as for romance, if you have had it once be grateful ..... lol

Maybe oblio is just frustrated because s/he can't relate to it and wishes s/he could. I don't know, I'm not a shrink and I don't even play one on TV. One thing I agree with: there is no hidden meaning. It is all very up front and straightforward and lays a lot of truth on the line, even if not every hacker would agree with it or feel s/he could relate to it.

I personally know what it is to live through being stifled in the public school system -- mind you in one of the nation's best-rated & wealthier east-coast counties -- and being constantly criticized, sarcasm-flamed, put down and "shamed" for my intelligence, precocious insight, and endless curiosity. It rendered an underachiever out of me to my own detriment (i.e. why bother to study when the As are free and your grasp of the right answer is virtually its own "sixth sense"? -- till you hit highschool and college and suddenly you have the demands of the work needing to be done without the good habits formed earlier, etc.) and resulted in my wasting a lot of valuable time that could have been invested in the future, which future is here now, with me doing so much catching up I barely have time for today.
Then I got to watch it happen to my kids because the spiraling & snowballing of the above led to the fact that I failed to place myself ahead of time in a sufficiently advantageous financial position to prevent it from happening to them.

Anyway, I like the manifesto. If nothing else, it reveals the need of a young mind for competent guidance and instruction, say nothing of appreciation. That's something I think far too many eyes need opening about.

I see exactly where he is comming from - in my old school I got badly injured durring a rugby match - left me unable to walk for 3 weeks.......what did my teachers do? Stuck me in the school library as it was the only place without stairs leading into it >_<; Oh but the excitment of it all!! Alone for 3 weeks with nothing to do except fiddle on the library computers which were locked down solid - so of course I quickly got bored with the restrictments put in place on the computer so I found ways round them - so they locked them down tighter - so I found another way......it became a game of wits and I lved it :) I guess thats where my intrest in security came from - so I guess I should be gratefull to them for ignorring me ;)

But I don't agree with the aelination aspect of it as it didn't make them look upon me as another smartass kid. to their credit they respected me for it and even got my to help out - unofficially of course ;) And in return nothing was ever said about how quake got onto the library machines and there seemed to be a few extra peps with admin provlages......

So i guess I was lucky - they recognised I had a talent, so ok I wasn't using it in the best of ways but I wasn't doing anything malicous either so they let me get on with it even encouraged me slightly....

v_Ln

hmm.. most of us here prefer to defy what most people think that we should juz go along with the hand we are dealt with when we think we shouldnt..

software companies shuv us softwares and tell us to use it, its good, it has nice features.. but we prefer to examine it more, and practice our free choice..

i think obilo is juz doin thesame.. we agree on somefin, he defies it..

one thing most of us have in common, the defiance of what the world shows us. Which is also i can say about the Manifesto. The Mentor defied his society he didnt want to "just go along with it"..

though i would prefer it if oblio would try not to insult the people. It would be better to try to start some convincing arguments.

You wont get people to agree with you if u deck them with insulting words.

Personally I think it needs to be "updated" or a new one needs to come out.. It's tight though

Re: Sonic's post

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software companies shuv us softwares and tell us to use it, its good, it has nice features.. but we prefer to examine it more, and practice our free choice..

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I completely agree with this. People should think and act for themselves, instead of just swallowing whatever life feeds them.

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one thing most of us have in common, the defiance of what the world shows us. Which is also i can say about the Manifesto. The Mentor defied his society he didnt want to "just go along with it"

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Ok, thinking and acting for yourself is one thing. But breaking the law is something else. There are plenty of intelligent people who don't use their knowledge to destroy things. Granted, The Mentor should not have been made to feel alienated the way he was, but that is no excuse for breaking the law. You have to separate the two. I think society is slowing learning to do this. We aren't as scared of intelligent computer geeks as we used to be.