Hackers, cyberpunks, and technophilosophy

[fermentor666]

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.

 

 

 

[fermentor666]

Elf Qrin interviews The Mentor

 

 

 

THE MENTOR- Handle of Loyd Blankenship. Also known as the Neuromancer. Elite hacker and former member of the Legion of Doom, the PhoneLine Phantoms, the Racketeers and Extasyy Elite. Writer of the legendary "Conscience of a Hacker." He also used to work for Steve Jackson Games, where he wrote _GURPS Cyberpunk_. He is currently a freelance game designer/electronic musician. [Handle is from the Grey Lensman series by E.E. "Doc" Smith.]

(from the Hacker's Encyclopedia by Logik Bomb)

 

 

July, 31 2000

 

 

Elf Qrin:

What has been your first experience with a computer? And which was your first computer?

 

Mentor:

We moved from Austin right before the summer between my 5th and 6th grade years of school (early 1976). When I got to San Marcos, I didn't know anyone, and started hanging out at the Southwest Texas State U. computer lab in the college library. It was populated with Pet-10s, CompuColors and some early Apple II machines. I mostly played games on them (Artillery, etc.).

 

The place my mom worked had a giant PDP mainframe, and I got to meet some of the sysops. They showed me a game called _Star Trek_ on it that I loved. I got them to print out the BASIC source code for it, and taught myself BASIC by porting it over to the Compucolors.

 

The first computer I actually owned was an Apple IIe that I got in either 1979 or 1980.

 

Elf Qrin:

How did you become a hacker?

 

Mentor:

If you mean 'hacker' in the true sense, I think it happened when I started porting _Star Trek_. If you mean it in the 'breaking into computers', it started during that first summer when I found out the university had a PDP-4. I wrangled a guest password from a friend of the family, but it expired at the end of the summer. By then I had a pretty good list of user account pairs, and I hacked an account (something like [1,5], pw: games I think).

 

Elf Qrin:

How did you join the LOD/H? What do you remember of that experience?

 

Mentor:

I was in the "2nd generation" of LOD folks that grew out of Summercon '88. I remember sitting in a hotel room with The Leftist, Doom Prophet, Phantom Phreaker, Control C, Urvile/Necron 99 and several others I'm sure I've forgotten. We had all brought boxes of printouts, etc., and realized that among us we basically had control of the entire nation's phone network.

 

Elf Qrin:

What you liked more of '80s (even unrelated to computers)?

 

Mentor:

The 80s were very mixed for me. I had some great times, played in some fun bands, did some really stupid shit, met my wife, dropped out of college, got my first book published, and generally behaved like most 15-25 year olds.

 

Elf Qrin:

Why did you write the "Hacker's Manifesto"?

 

Mentor:

I was going through hacking withdrawal, and Craig/Knight Lightning needed something for an upcoming issue of Phrack. I was reading _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_ and was very taken with the idea of revolution.

 

Elf Qrin:

What do you think when you read the Manifesto today?

 

Mentor:

I still find it very valid. I only cringe when I see the phrase "beauty of the baud," but I was 21 so am inclined to forgive it :)

 

Elf Qrin:

You are considered a "living legend" from all the hackers worldwide. How does it make you feel?

 

Mentor:

If I could just get all of them to send in $1.00 each... :) Seriously, I'm very flattered by the attention. The volume of email gets out of hand occasionally, but I try to answer every one, even with just a form letter.

 

Elf Qrin:

Why you quit the scene in 1990?

 

Mentor:

When I put up _The Phoenix Project_, I knew I had to stop. I was running the highest-profile (and best) hacking BBS in the world. I knew I'd be watched. I was also at the point where a lot of the original challenge was gone -- LOD had control over pretty much anything we wanted to at that time, and I personally had finished taking over huge chunks of Autonet. Prime Suspect owned Telenet. Erik Bloodaxe owned pretty much anything he wanted (plug here -- Erik Bloodaxe was the best hacker I ever met). Our phone gurus owned every phone network in the country. There was nowhere to go but down.

 

Elf Qrin:

What changed in the hacking scene between now and then?

 

Mentor:

How easy it is to get caught now days. We got all of our stupidity out of our systems prior to the era of the digital switch.

 

Elf Qrin:

Do you think today's hackers are as though as the old ones, when there were no hard disks or GUIs?

 

Mentor:

That's hard to say, I don't personally know many people active now. In fact, I don't know *anyone* really well that's active in the underground.

 

Elf Qrin:

What do you think about the Internet revolution?

 

Mentor:

Saw it coming in 1986. I love it.

 

Elf Qrin:

What are you doing now? What is your job?

 

Mentor:

I'm a multimedia developer. I do everything from sound design/music to authoring to 3d animation and digital video.

 

Elf Qrin:

Do you have children, and do you teach them hacking or computer science?

 

Mentor:

No kids, no plans for any.

 

Elf Qrin:

A final word for the kids who want to become hackers.

 

Mentor:

If you're going to break into computers, be careful out there. You're most likely gonna get caught, and it sucks. There is so much you can do legally (learn linux & programming, for instance) that I'd recommend starting with that.

 

 

Issued on Elf Qrin's Hacking Lab

Legal notices and disclaimer

 

http://www.elfqrin.com/docs/hakref/interviews/eq-i-mentor.html

[fermentor666]

Basically, discussions on all things relevant to the topic's sentiment. I'd like to post more in here and so should others.

 

For instance, I was thinking a bit about how Apple is now using Intel processors. This could mean that there will be a future for non-propietary hardware for the Apple OS. Hence, the two differing technologies and code for "Apple machines" and "PC machines" will merge and Windows will have literal competition on PC hardware. Apple II's were the original hacking machines, because they allowed bare-bones programming, which is why so many of the great, older game programmers such as Richard "Lord British" Garriot and John Carmack, started on Apple II's.

 

Macintosh computers, on the other hand, are not known for their easy-to-program abilities. It means less viruses, but it also means less non-cosmetic flexibility. Perhaps, this merging of technology will enable this flexibility while using a Mac-OS, so that it intergrates and interacts with Windows OS much like Linux users can script bugs and programs for Windows.

[fermentor666]

C'mon motherfuckers, you know you want this.

[El Mamerro]

I don't know much about hacking, but I do love technology, so good call on starting this. I just don't know how to add to this for the moment, I'll hop in when the topic moves in a direction I'm more familiar with.

[Qawee]

my favorite were always website defacements.

[Dawood]

yeah, um, I know a guy who works for the geek squad and I , like, have a laptop too.

[TheOh]

yeah, i think this stuff is really interesting but im so out of my realm here, i will probably just read along. i know fuck about computers.

[fermentor666]

I love how Best Buy dresses up the "Geek Squad" in a suit (minus the jacket) and calls them geeks. Isn't that how all the jocks dress once they've grown up and become used carsalesmen and business executives?

 

 

I don't know much about programming and my attempts at "fucking shit up" are basically just using front-end programs to freeze peoples computers or stuff that anyone can do. I do subscribe to the ethic, though. This is a pretty decent definition on what a hacker is (from dictionary.com/jargon file):

 

hacker <person, jargon> (Originally, someone who makes furniture with

an axe)

 

1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary.

 

2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming.

 

3. A person capable of appreciating hack value.

 

4. A person who is good at programming quickly.

 

5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work using it or on it; as in "a Unix hacker". (Definitions 1 through 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.)

 

6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example.

 

7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations.

 

8. (Deprecated) A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information by poking around. Hence "password hacker", "network hacker". The correct term is cracker.

 

The term "hacker" also tends to connote membership in the global community defined by the net (see The Network and Internet address). It also implies that the person described is seen to subscribe to some version of the hacker ethic.

 

It is better to be described as a hacker by others than to describe oneself that way. Hackers consider themselves something of an elite (a meritocracy based on ability), though one to which new members are gladly welcome. Thus while it is gratifying to be called a hacker, false claimants to the title are quickly labelled as "bogus" or a "wannabee".

 

 

There are circles where you would never be considered a hacker unless you could program with skill. But out of the first five, correlated definitions only 2 and 4 involve programming. Definition says "programming rather than just theorizing about programming." But definition 3 says "appreciates the hack value", which really should say "theorizing about programming". One issue that I find with that definition is that there are many who cannot program who have greatly influenced computer culture and specifically hacker culture and I feel that they fit the hacker credo, if you use the term hacker to define an ideology. William Gibson, author of the Neuromancer trilogy for one, who invented the term "cyberspace" in 1984 to give a name to the network of corporations and government that connected the world, and that the central characters--"Cowboys"--worked against.

 

Neal Stephenson is another author who has written influential, modern technological fantasies that are highly relevant to us, now. "Snow Crash" is his most well-known work and it's where I got my original Quake (1) and then IRC moniker from. I'll post a bit about it later, but it delves very deeply into language origins, mixing passages on the Tower of Babel from Sumarian culture into futuristic cyberpunk.

 

These guys and others broaden the spectrum, because if the focus was only on programming then it would be purely mechanical and limited. Those who do so have blinders on their talent. The internet spreads these ideas more and more, at best, to the point where discourse can be made to people who would otherwise have no social interest in such matters. The downside is that with the sheer abundance of information that is obfuscated by absurd amounts of commercialism and banality, it's hard to seperate the wheat from the chaff. Especially when the chaff is addicting.

 

But I can't sit down and talk to writers about hacker culture in my city. For one, I don't know many, for a few years and I was active and I didn't meet a single writer other than some hellos and at-the-wall or party conversations. But here, I can do so much more lucidly although I can't tell if anyone is listening. I lived on the edge on the internet and have been a very hardcore computer gamer since I was 6 and we got an Apple IIc, and I saw a lot of that in graffiti which is one of the things that drew me towards it. In the Boston thread, the word "computer rock" is thrown around when describing older generational styles (80's, early 90's) and I think there is a lot of weight behind that phrase.

[fermentor666]

Dawood, I'll make a deal with you. I'll read the Qur'an start to finish if you read the Neuromancer trilogy start-to-finish. Together, the three books take up about 600 paperback pages. "Neuromancer", "Count Zero", and "Mona Lisa Overdrive", better known as the Sprawl Trilogy.

[Issac Brock]

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...

 

Is this shit a joke?

 

Its like a pseudo-justification of hacking as if its some godsend for geniuses. No one cares about hackers. So you learned how to slightly annoy the rest of the world, good job. You think you're smarter than everyone else, that you're part of some superior underground culture. Grow the fuck up. How about trying to accomplish something in life instead of wallowing in your parent's basement convincing yourself how cool you are for knowing how to work an insignificant sequence of numbers and letters.

[fermentor666]

You're missing the point entirely, IB, and you're being really callous and petty about it, too. You've got a lot to learn about the world, judging from that comment. Trust me, this forum would not be here were it not for the scripting that was done by hackers to create vBulletin. Know the ground you stand on before you attack it.

 

 

You should start by reading the entirety of a thread like this before making remarks. I posted enough in here in the span of a day to make clear that hacking does not equal screwing up computers. Flex your head, kid.

[fermentor666]

Also, I'd like this thread to involve science-fiction debates as I believe the state of communication that the internet gives has allowed the benefit of discussing more than just art-lust and "right or wrong" ideology as more normal, level-headed people join. It was started by smart, level-headed people but a lot of the early adopters of the WWW have been idiots or children, nothing against children.

 

Dawood's religion thread really got me wanting to have discussions on that level with more than just religion and politics. Here's a quote that I just read of his that jostled my memory of an idea that I had while I was watching War of the Worlds the other night:

 

"Oh, and next time you breathe , think about the interdimensional being that was kind enough to create your lungs and provide air for you and allow you to inhale and exhale it,

that would be a start."

 

 

I don't think it's a spoiler at this point to say that War of the Worlds ended with the aliens being wiped out not by man, but by the viruses and bacteria that animals and insects have grown immune to over millions of years. The quote, as read by Morgan Freeman, at the end reads like this:

 

"From the moment the invaders arrived, breathed our air, ate, and drank, they were doomed. They were undone, destroyed, after all of man's weapons and devices had failed, by the tiniest creatures that God in his wisdom put upon this earth. By the toll of a billion deaths, man had earned his immunity, his right to survive among this planet's infinite organisms. And that right is ours against all challenges. For neither do men live nor die in vain. "

 

 

 

Now, this is all well and cheery for the future of mankind on earth at the end of the film. We're safe from those genocidal alien maniacs because of bacteria and virii that are foreign to them. BUT, what does this mean for interplanetary travel!?!?? And this is important, because if we consider other planets as being able to have life and can accept the idea that it may differ vastly from life on our planets, would it not be acceptable to believe that the viruses and bacteria would be included in being completely different from planet to planet?

 

So, how could we travel to another planet and actually exit our spacesuits? I'm sure NASA has thought of this but they aren't telling us about it for whatever reasons, maybe military-based maybe embarassment maybe they don't want us to lose hope. This blew my mind the other night and suddenly I saw War of the Worlds in this different, much much darker light. I already knew about the whole "don't be too dependant on machines" thing in that the aliens (at least from the H.G. Wells book) had large heads and small bodies, from relying on machines to do all the work. This was a clue to their weakness as their physical immunities were not top-notch.

 

But look how a foreign virus like the Bubonic Plague or Ebola can completely wipe out everyone, and we've been on this planet a long time. What if the Ebola virus was the common cold on another planet? The people on that planet would never know that it could liquidate all your major internal organs because over thousands of years they have continously grown immune to that aspect of the virus, now it just gives them a sore throat and a stuffy nose. And yet like us, they have no vaccination for the common cold. How could we, as humans, exist on this planet in any form apart from bubble-boys? Perhaps that's the invisible castle walls on each planet, but then if this was God-created, what purpose would it serve?

[lord_casek]

good thread to start fermentor.

i'll add some to it later on.

tons of good news and tech shit

to talk about.

tons.

[El Mamerro]

So, how could we travel to another planet and actually exit our spacesuits? I'm sure NASA has thought of this but they aren't telling us about it for whatever reasons, maybe military-based maybe embarassment maybe they don't want us to lose hope. This blew my mind the other night and suddenly I saw War of the Worlds in this different, much much darker light. I already knew about the whole "don't be too dependant on machines" thing in that the aliens (at least from the H.G. Wells book) had large heads and small bodies, from relying on machines to do all the work. This was a clue to their weakness as their physical immunities were not top-notch.

 

I'd say that the possibility of reaching a fully livable planet, as opposed to a somewhat livable one we can terraform, is just so far off that it's not an relevant enough issue to discuss right now, but NASA is definitely very much aware of this (there was a NASA industrial design studio in college that I didn't get to be part of, but I did read a lot the curriculum's literature... this was definitely discussed). We gotta get past bone loss in zero gravity and other space travel issues first. By the time we get there, I'm sure our knowledge of human physiology and chemistry would be so advanced we could probably detect any kind of dangerous substance or organism way before we set foot in the place.

 

The War of the Worlds scenario, in my opinion, while really quite poetic and fitting as a parable, doesn't really seem to be a realistic approach to me. If they were there for so long, and had developed technology and logic-processing advanced enough for interplanetary travel, it seems odd they wouldn't have the foresight to detect something harmful in the environment. A much more blatant example of this would be in the movie Signs, where the aliens completely ignored the fact that our planet is made of mostly water.

[RumPuncher]

I dont like the term hacker as applied to computer based mischief.

Here's a wiki article on the background

 

I think a hacker could also be called a 'tinker' because they tinker around with things.

 

If you open your iPod to replace the battery, that's a hack.

If you tinker around with your car engine to get more horsepower, that's a hack.

I'm always finding ways to jerry-rig my work computers to do specific tasks without programming anything. Is that a hack?

 

 

 

 

 

 

oh... and if you really want to see a classic case of 'flash-in-the-pan' culture, just watch the movie Hackers.

I guess that was cool for 6 months sometime when the x-files was new and the Prodigy had that one hit.

[lord_casek]

i agree. hacking is a term that is often misused.

[Qawee]

You can draw the parallel with graffiti fairly easily, you'll have people that say "O NOES DON'T DEFACE TAHT WEBSITE, THATS NOT WHAT WE'RE ABOUT, WE WANTS TO HELPS TEH PPL"

and then

"YO MAN, I LOVE MAKING MY ART, 4 ELEMENTZ OF HIP HOP DOOD"

Who cares.

Where i live this dumbass mayor is talking about installing all these high tech security cameras around the city that will use some advanced WI FI shit, it would be awesome to drive around with the laptop and catch the video feeds from some of them.

[lord_casek]

Spinning in a dot

 

For the second time in four days, a new development in quantum computing has turned up. Ars has covered quantum computers several times in the past, where we have looked at the development of memory systems, computational units and miniaturization. However, one thing has been clear: all implementations suck beyond belief, especially when thinking about building something beyond a demonstration. This is because the "computer," which is really stretching the term, occupies at least one optical table and probably involves a vacuum system as well.

 

However, sitting quietly in the background, solid state scientists have been working to implement all the bits and pieces necessary to make a quantum computer. All along scientists have thought that electron spin states in a solid would be a great choice, since all the engineering knowledge used to a make normal electronic devices can be brought to bear on technical issues. However, the IC industry's prowess has had to wait for several fundamental developments.

 

Normally the electrons in a material do not maintain a particular spin state for very long due to interactions with other electrons and the crystal lattice. However, the development of quantum dots, which are essentially tiny boxes that can trap electrons, have allowed physicists to trap and measure the spin properties of single electrons. Within these traps, the electrons can maintain their spin state for very long periods of time, which is also a necessary requirement for quantum computers.

 

A critical missing component in the development of logic gates for a quantum computer has been the ability to manipulate the spin of an electron. The solution to this has been to use electron spin resonance, which is exactly the same technique as that used for nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) imaging. A magnetic field is applied to the electrons, which creates an energy difference between the spin states aligned with the field and those aligned against the field. When the electrons are subjected to an oscillating field that has the same energy as the energy difference between the spin states, the spin flip between states. NMR has been around for a while, so you might be wondering what caused the delay.

 

The problem is that there are two competing requirements. The energy difference between the two states must be large enough that environmental noise cannot flip the spins and the energy splitting must be small enough that the excitation frequency is accessible. To meet these requirements the experimenters designed two quantum dots in close proximity but set up such that an electron can only travel from one dot to another if it is in the correct spin state. They then inject an electron into one dot and set the spin state with a strong magnetic field. After irradiating the first dot they can observe the spin-flip by detecting the presence of an electron in the second dot. Because there is only a single electron in a very well controlled environment, the thermal interaction with the electron is very small. This means that the energy difference between the two states can be made very small, which lowers the frequency of the field used to flip the spin state to the radio frequency range.

 

This represents a major break through in terms of practical quantum computing. There are no laser sources, no vacuum systems and no complicated trapping systems. These devices are constructed on generic semiconductor materials that you will find in the laser system of your CD player. Admittedly, this is early work and there is much more to be done before my optimism is warranted. Nevertheless, I am optimistic.

[lord_casek]

You can draw the parallel with graffiti fairly easily, you'll have people that say "O NOES DON'T DEFACE TAHT WEBSITE, THATS NOT WHAT WE'RE ABOUT, WE WANTS TO HELPS TEH PPL"

and then

"YO MAN, I LOVE MAKING MY ART, 4 ELEMENTZ OF HIP HOP DOOD"

Who cares.

Where i live this dumbass mayor is talking about installing all these high tech security cameras around the city that will use some advanced WI FI shit, it would be awesome to drive around with the laptop and catch the video feeds from some of them.

 

 

easy enough to do. especially wireless. i loves me some wireless cams.

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=systm

http://thebroken.org/

[LOTUS of Weaver Heights]

I've got love for hacking: It used to be I could recite the hacker's manifesto on command: I learned BASIC at a very young age (around 5th grade) and circuit design even earlier, But when I realized that it would take real work to 'stay' smarter than my peers I kinda lost interest. I've done some virus work and fingered around IPs but the way hacking is right now just isn't cutting it. It's too easy to get busted for a REALLY long time. But I've got a Moto Q and I see portable computing as the next big thing, so hacking WiFi and broadband through pocket PCs seemsw like something I should hustle down on...

Anywayz, hacking wuz my first real passion before Graffiti. It all seems to blend real nice, like If one person could pull it all together then the "underground" could be a really powerful concept :)

 

Peace

[the.crooked]

ill be back, but i just wanted to say that fermentor, im slowly believing that you are my intellectual counterpart. more so in you seem to start threads much along the same lines as i have been thinkin about.

 

I have been on the verge of starting a futurism thread, but I think this one pretty much covers it. Kudos. be back when i have more time to write.

[the.crooked]

or nemisis. whichever you wanna call it.

[fermentor666]

^^^ Muahahaha

 

 

I'd say that the possibility of reaching a fully livable planet, as opposed to a somewhat livable one we can terraform, is just so far off that it's not an relevant enough issue to discuss right now, but NASA is definitely very much aware of this (there was a NASA industrial design studio in college that I didn't get to be part of, but I did read a lot the curriculum's literature... this was definitely discussed). We gotta get past bone loss in zero gravity and other space travel issues first. By the time we get there, I'm sure our knowledge of human physiology and chemistry would be so advanced we could probably detect any kind of dangerous substance or organism way before we set foot in the place.

 

The War of the Worlds scenario, in my opinion, while really quite poetic and fitting as a parable, doesn't really seem to be a realistic approach to me. If they were there for so long, and had developed technology and logic-processing advanced enough for interplanetary travel, it seems odd they wouldn't have the foresight to detect something harmful in the environment. A much more blatant example of this would be in the movie Signs, where the aliens completely ignored the fact that our planet is made of mostly water.

 

 

 

You've got a point, but it would take phenomenal advancements in medicine to immunize ourselves from virii and bacteria that we don't even know exists. Personally, I consider the fact that life might not even be carbon-based, on other planets. The aliens in WOTW might have completely different concepts of virus and bacteria. After all, they were immersed in liquid within the machines.

 

And that was one of the main reasons I hated Signs, such a stupid idea.

[fermentor666]

Quantum computing is amazing stuff, even though it's not really anywhere near completion. Once it's done there's going to be so much movement in the sciences, it will cut down computing time by soooooo much. I don't think it will mean much for us on a consumer level, at least not in the near future.

 

 

You can draw the parallel with graffiti fairly easily, you'll have people that say "O NOES DON'T DEFACE TAHT WEBSITE, THATS NOT WHAT WE'RE ABOUT, WE WANTS TO HELPS TEH PPL"

and then

"YO MAN, I LOVE MAKING MY ART, 4 ELEMENTZ OF HIP HOP DOOD"

Who cares.

 

Except that writing graffiti doesn't do anything other than deface property or paint a pretty picture. Hacking involves a variety of things, from cracking to what Rum said to creating Linux. It does change the world and it has. Like I just said, you wouldn't be using this computer if it weren't for hackers. The most that graffiti has done along those lines has been creating Belton and Montana. And there is no stupid shit like "4 elements" that people use to cling on.

 

And then, there are writers who get together and do amazing work as a team that wouldn't be done by one person. Graffiti jams, for one. Maybe you've never been, I dunno. And there is also the most important part of modern graffiti, which is studying letter structure and manipulating it to the best of it's and your abilities. People spend their whole lives doing it, the ones who are real writers. That is the biggest parallel that I see between graffiti and hacker culture, not the stupid shit that you said.

 

The reason why there is no "four elements" bullshit with hackers is because hackers do not set up strict guidelines for self-definition. Graffiti is just the opposite, people work hard to develop their own style specifically for themselves and to suit their own ends. The kids who say "OMG I WRITE TO CHANGE THE WORLD, MAN" or "DUDE, HACK FOR THE PEOPLE, I'M SO INTO JUST LIBERATING THE INTERNET MAN" are children, high school kids searching hard for an identity. They will grow up and either leave it behind or develop it.

[El Mamerro]

You've got a point, but it would take phenomenal advancements in medicine to immunize ourselves from virii and bacteria that we don't even know exists. Personally, I consider the fact that life might not even be carbon-based, on other planets. The aliens in WOTW might have completely different concepts of virus and bacteria. After all, they were immersed in liquid within the machines.

 

And that was one of the main reasons I hated Signs, such a stupid idea.

 

Definitely, I'm just saying, we'd probably have the good judgment of not taking our helmets off until we've made sure. I just think that aliens so advanced would be so far ahead knowledge-wise that it's just impossible for me to believe that they wouldn't have thought of it. I mean, WE'RE thinking of it. Computers at that stage should be able to run just about any combination of possible molecules and chemicals and how they interact with each other, so even if there's fundamental differences in biochemistry there should be the computational power available to simulate the effects of this radical new environment on the body. We might not be able to immunize, but I'm sure we'll be able to see if something's gonna go wrong.

 

Alternative biochemistry is intriguing. It's a tough sell, cause carbon is just too perfect a LEGO block for life and is plentifully generated in nuclear fusion. Silicon is probably the next best choice, but it still has drawbacks. But given the size of the universe, it's really hard to leave out the possibility.

[fermentor666]

True, true. I didn't mean that we would be snuck upon like the aliens in WOTW, I'm taking the pessismist's stance of saying that we would never be able to take the helmets off not because it would kill us, but because we know it would kill us. It's like how we can go under the ocean and look at all the cool stuff, but we can't interact with it naturally because we can't breathe inside water. When the thought occured to me, I got really frustrated.

[lord_casek]

so, you guys read newscientist?

you can access full articles by going to http://www.bugmenot.com

it always works for newscientist.com

[fermentor666]

Dude that bugmenot site is fucking awesome. I'll have to check that out.

[Issac Brock]

I posted enough in here in the span of a day to make clear that hacking does not equal screwing up computers. Flex your head, kid.

 

Really? Because you also stated that you have attempted to "fuck shit up." And let me clear this up for you, obviously I have no problem with people working and figuring things out like coding for V bulletin, and I honestly don't care that much about illegal hacking, because it really has no affect on me, or anyone else who knows a little bit about online safety. That little manifesto is just poorly written and pretentious as hell. Like I said, being knowledgable with computers doesn't make you smart or a better or more interesting person than anyone else.