The Hackers Manifesto

\/\The Conscience of a Hacker/\/
The Hackers Manifesto
written by a real hacker
The Mentor.
In the movie 'Hackers', after the newbie is arrested, Agent Bob reads part
of the hackers manifesto out loud.


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This is in fact the whole manifesto by "The Mentor"
Written on January 8, shortly after his own arrest in 1986
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HACKER'S MANIFESTO

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.

+++The Mentor+++