Mentor's Last Words

[Mephisto]

This is probably over 10 years old, so keep that in mind while reading certain parts.

Yes, I realize that I just posted yet another wall of text.

Man, I still get chills every time I read through this.

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"Mentor's Last Words" courtesy of the Jolly Roger

 

The following file is being reprinted in honor and sympathy for the many

phreaks and hackers that have been busted recently by the Secret Service.

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\/\The Conscience of a Hacker/\/

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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 incompetence's 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.

+++The Mentor+++

[May the members of the phreak community never forget his words -JR]

 

 

-----------Exodus-----------

Edited July 17, 2005 by Mephisto