==Phrack Inc.==
Volume One, Issue 7, Phile #3 of 10
The following was written shortly after my arrest. I am
currently groupless, having resigned from the Racketeers, so ignore
the signoff...

The Conscience of a Hacker... by The Mentor... 1/8/86

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+++
Racketeers ==============================================================================

Hail Eris!
All hail Discordia!

wtf