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A way of characterizing the commonalities of the hacker culture(s)
is to describe a shared ethical platform. The hacker ethics were summarized
in its most influential form by Stephen Levy in Hackers: Heroes of the
Computer Revolution (Bantam books, 1984). Since then, they have been
widely quoted and disseminated.
1. Access to computers--and anything which might teach
you something about the way the world works--should be unlimited and
total. Always yield to the hands-on imperative!
The "hands-on imperative" is typically interpreted both technically
and socially. If you want the publisher of an interesting text to offer
a WAP-readable version, for instance, don't complain to the publisher.
Learn XML, write your own converter and publish it for others to use
and improve (in the spirit of free information, below).
Similarly, if you want changes in society, don't complain but act.
A strong interpretation may point towards political activism outside
the boundaries of public law.
2. All information should be free.
A close analogy might be the standpoint of indian chief Sitting Bull
concerning the colonization of the North American continent: "Land
cannot be owned".
The free information credo is at odds with majority views on copyright
and proprietary software. A good example is the copyleft policy of the
Free Software Foundation. The following piece is taken from the introduction
to the (very detailed) GNU General Public License, version 2, 1991.
"The licenses for most software are designed to take away your
freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public
License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change
free software--to make sure the software is free for all its users.
This General Public License applies to most of the Free Software Foundation's
software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it.
(Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by the GNU
Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to your
programs, too."
There are subtle differences between free software and the currently
more popular concept of open source. Free software in Richard Stallman's
version is a profound view on freedom, community, cooperation and emancipation
in the ideal society. Open source concentrates more on development efficiency
and co-existence with contemporary business models. However, they can
coexist: what is today known as Linux should strictly speaking be called
GNU/Linux since a large portion of the software in the Linux distribution
comes out of the GNU project.
3. Mistrust authority--promote decentralization.
A theme running through hacker cultures is to argue based on primary
sources: facts and information that should be equally accessible. Authority
in this context is associated with substituting power for information.
A recent example is the debate concerning the secret documents of The
Church of Scientology. When some of the documents were moved into the
public domain through appearing in a court trial in the US, they were
immediately copied and disseminated in a thousand places on the Internet.
Mainly by hackers or people affiliated with the hacker culture(s).
Operation Clambake is a full-scale
site in Norway dedicated to shedding as much light as possible on The
Church of Scientology. The disclaimer reads as follows:
"The Church of Scientology is using copyright laws to withhold
information from the public. Are they doing this for honest or dishonest
reasons? In the case of doubt there is one way to find out. That is
to publish their material. Not extracts but in some cases its entirety
so there can be no argument about quoting out of context or misinterpreting
what was written.
I, Andreas Heldal-Lund, have reviewed the secret materials of Scientology
and after careful consideration have concluded that these materials
are being kept secret in order to withhold information from the public
with the sole purpose of deceiving the public as to the true nature
of Scientology. I feel it is my moral duty to society to reveal this
information to the public in order to alert them as to its nature.
My belief is that the content of this material will clearly vindicate
my actions."
4. Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus
criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position.
Hacker cultures are meritocracies where positions are based on demonstrated
knowledge and achievements. This is well illustrated in the piece below,
published in Phrack, #7.
"The following was written shortly after my arrest...
\/\The Conscience of a Hacker/\/
by +++The Mentor+++
Written on 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."
5. You can create art and beauty on a computer.
6. Computers can change (your) life for the better.
The last two lines of the traditional ethics are perhaps not surprising
today. They must be understood in their historical context. In the 70s,
computers were strange and unfamiliar to most people. In case they meant
something, the images mostly had to do with administrative data processing,
computing centers, punch cards and teletype interfaces. Art, beauty
and life changes were not in the mainstream notion of computers.
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