Hacker's Manifesto
Hacker's Manifesto
The Mentor (Loyd Blankenship)Preface
This article was published in the underground hacker e-zine Phrack on January 8, 1986, by The Mentor (Loyd Blankenship) shortly after his arrest.
In order to preserve the historical context in which the author originally wrote this piece and to avoid distorting the beliefs he intended to convey, the original text is presented in the same form in which it was first published: plain ASCII text. No Markdown formatting, emphasis, or rendering has been applied to the original content.
As for a translation, I ask your forgiveness for not providing one.
Firstly, because translating this article would inevitably lose some of the meaning conveyed by the original text (I believe everyone can understand that different languages naturally introduce differences in expression). Secondly, I believe that translating this article would go against the author’s hope that readers possess an absolute sense of curiosity. You should read the original text.
Hacker culture itself is inseparable from the English language, and this is especially true for an article originally published in an electronic newsletter such as this one. Every line break and sentence structure chosen by the author carries its own purpose. Therefore, you should read the original text.
Finally, I would like to state that this article is a repost included here solely for personal appreciation and sharing. Copyright information for the original author is provided at the bottom of this article. All rights to this work belong to the original author.
Original Text
==Phrack Inc.==
Volume One, Issue 7, Phile 3 of 10
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The following was written shortly after my arrest...
\/\The Conscience of a Hacker/\/
by
+++The Mentor+++
Written on January 8, 1986
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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 will-
ing 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+++
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