The Hacker Manifesto
by
+++The Mentor+++
Written January 8, 1986
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.