Analog5:002 Article 004

The Hackers conundrum

By: FragUPlentt
Published: March 20th, 2007

I think the realization of who you are occurs in high school, and most schools have a place to put you to help you realize your potential. An athlete interested in football would probably want to join the football team, if they are interested in soccer they join the soccer team. The problem that we face is that there is no team for us. We quickly realize that what we want cannot be satisfied by the programs that schools offer, they do not offer something for us. The last time I checked, all the computer courses did was teach you how to use Word and Powerpoint.

“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...”

Hackers are quickly ostracized from the social structure that runs the schools, you have a groups of people that hang out together. The athletes, the preppy kids, the wanna be gangsters, the real gangsters, the stoners, and of course we cant forget the rich kids that probably should go into the preppy group. Heres our problem initially upon entry into the high school world we almost immediately realize that we wont fit in.

“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...”

Then we begin to realize the reason we do not fit into the high school atmosphere. It is because the high school atmosphere was not intended for us. It was intended to help people like the above mentioned groups succeed in life and society. Hackers however are seen as unimportant, they are seen as being the counter culture of success. Its not that we are anti social, actually it is usually quite the opposite most will answer any computer question you have, Usually in great detail and length. This is an oddity because most people assume that in order to have knowledge of something that you need a diploma or certification of some sort. This results in us having a problem, where as we are unable to proceed with our lives due to the fact that high school will totally turn you off of any school in the future. Soon though A hacker finds an outlet, some way to make a living off what they do. Usually this happens later in life though.

“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.”

Eventually we realize this is our world that we can tap into the system and use it to our advantage. We have the ability to do things that others cannot, we can stare for hours at code, or hardware and without even knowing what we are doing, fix it, or modify it to do something better. It is almost as if our subconcious mind has been modified to allow us to understand how computers work at a level others cannot.

“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.” All quotes taken from “The Hacker Manifesto” By: The Mentor

-FragUPlentt