• 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 butt...
    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 butt 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.

    +++The Mentor+++