AussieHacker

Hack The Planet ! ! !

Another one got caught today, it's all over the papers. "Teenager
arrested in Computer CrimeScandal", "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.