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How to Become a Hacker
F2F sent us linkage
to a bit written by ESR called How to Become a Hacker.
The best quote is "being able to break security doesn't make you a hacker more than being able to hotwire cars makes you an automotive engineer. "
eric is no hacker, nor his articles worth reading any more.
i can see the replies now... 'he wrote the official hacker dictionary!! he must be a hacker!!!'
get a grip.
peep at l0pht/cDc to see what real old school hacking is about.
> Does it piss you off when you can't solve a problem that should be simple?
;+>
Absolutely!
> Have you ever passed up sex to finish solving such a problem?
My x-wife has made that claim. I still don't believe her.
> Have you ever jubilently screamed "YES!!" when some new hardware/software product that you've been waiting for gets released?
Of course. But that's normal.
> Do you prefer to do things the hard way just to see if you can do it?
"The hard way?" You mean, "the interesting way".
> Do your friends ever ask you "Why" whan you tell them about your current project?
Not any more. Though some are still kind enough to let me talk about the projects anyhow.
> Do you come into work late, but then stay even later?
Only when the toys at work are better than the ones at home. However, I now get to help with the purchasing decissions at work...
412% of IRC users are arrogant, pompus bastards. IRC seems to give people a power rush of some kind. I'm not quite sure why.
I think you have a point, however, there are many "script kiddies" who are just gamers who like to download stuff and mailbomb poeple. A dude in my school was complaining to me today about how he got kicked off an ISP for sending several mailbombs and using Back Orifice. He thought it was really funny... no I didn't tell him to do some code hacking, just told him that if he wanted to hack, do it with style.. find some new buffer overflows in some daemon. He didn't even know what I was talking about.
I don't hate "script kiddies" or crackers and believe it or not, there still exist poeple who crack computer systems who are very much like us code-hackers. And I'm not talking about L0pht of Phrack, they just think they're so cool it's sad. But the script kids, and mailbombers DO NOT wanna code, they wanna use and download warez but they don't really CARE or even LOVE the systems.
When a hacker or cracker loves computer systems, it just don't matter what he/she does.
Slashdot: Can't you find some REAL news? This is OLD and BORING.
"breaks into things and damages other people's work,"
That is not what the original poster was saying.
You just combined two totally different streams of thought as far as I'm concerned "breaking into things" and "damages other people's work".
What you describe in the first is perfectly acceptable in the old school ethic. If you get into a system, you can learn about the system.
What you describe in the second sounds more like modern 'script kiddie' morals or some lame flashback from the LOD/MOD wars.
There are such things as so-called white hat and gray hat hackers, after all.
Back to the original comment, I agree with his asessment of ESR. Raymond is no hacker, good or bad.
I think he suffers from the same problem all programmers-turned-journalists do - they like to assume identities of groups they are not. Take Katz for a good example of this.
Before ESR published his "Hackers Dictionary", nobody in the h/p community knew who he was. Most people still don't, or simply laugh at him if they do.
-OSI
on top of that, cDc is the longest surviving hacker group in the nation.
they are the *definition* of old school hack.
To be a hacker, one should know Unix. We should remember that Unix is the grandfather of almost all modern OS's. How many operating systems have their bases in VMS, hmmmm, let's see, that would be Win NT. Well, we know how that is turning out. No offense to VMS, I actually like it quite a bit, but I cut my teeth on Unix, and have learned my trade from Unix.
/grandfather/ of Linux and Minix. That's 2 modern OS's.
Unix is not "the grandfather of almost all modern OS's".
Modern Unixes (Solaris, Irix, AIX, etc) have their roots in the same code (4.4BSD or SVR4). Therefore I guess you could say Unix is only really the
And then there's truly modern OS's like Plan 9 and the HURD... not based on Unix.
Furthermore, NT and VMS are unrelated in design. Maybe some ideas from VMS made their way into NT (some of the designers of VMS were hired by Microsoft), but one is not "based" on the other.
I don't agree that every hacker needs to know Unix. Unix hackers need to know Unix.
I hope this translation was not meant to be serious, because I honestly fail how you could claim this. Think about it. You write a good, powerful program and release it with good intentions (whether for money or not), and you become a hero, let's say. What he's trying to say is, instrad of striving to declare yourself that hero, you should simply wait and let it happen, and even if your head swells about it, try to be quiet and gracious, and yes, even modest. Maybe even if these qualities don't come naturally to you (they only come to me 70% of the time; it depends on what I'm doing). I hardly see this as sneaky and underhanded, simply proper.
You still do not understand, and chances are you never will.
Continuing to use the words cracker and hacker interchangably only reveals your inability to read the comment above.
Why don't you and Tsuomoto throw a little pissy party and discuss how mean all those big, bad hackers are on the net.
It takes a hacker to understand the hacker mentality. Hacking is not cracking. script kiddie stuff is not hacking.
Discovering a flaw in firewall software, breaching the company's site, and then working with them to fix the bugs is hacking.
Please do the readers a little favor, and do not pretend you know something that you clearly do not understand.
Yet another uninformed, media-fed drivel factory.
I bet you went to see the "Hackers" movie and believed every bit of it, too. Did you rush out to buy a pair of rollerblades so you too could look like a "hacker"?
I really despise opinions like yours. They show no background on the subject matter, which leads to blank stereotyping.
If I work my way into MILNET and bounce from node to node seeing what's there, does that prevent me from being of the old school?
The defendent is hereby sentenced to 4 years in prison to watch Sneakers and Bladerunner continually.
-u4ea
Yesterday I posted the url of this howto on hackers, because I wanted the Dutch 'hackers' to know that -in stead what they are thinking- I'm not a hacker YET! :-) :-)
posting can be found in alt.hit2000.nl and alt.hack.nl it's very weird that slash dot makes a artikel about it a day after posting
btw look at http://www.hit2000.org on a crackers/hackers & linux meeting in Europe
You seem to be insinuating that the beliefs set forth by Ayn Rand, her philosophy is known as objectivism, in Anthem, yes, but more so in The Fountainhead and in what she considered her masterpiece Atlas Shrugged are bad?
I have read a lot of Randian philosophy and I believe a lot of her work makes sense. She believes in things and the closest words we have for them are egotism and selfishness. This is getting off the point but I would like to see what you think and feel is wrong with Objectivism?
Also, if you consider Objectivism is a very liberal system of belief and that ESR is a Liberaterian (if you look through his FAQs he maintains the Libertarian FAQs) then it does not seem bizarre that he wrote The Hacker HOWTO that way.
Nick Shane
nshane@mindless.com
Bravo, Bravo. A poster with a clue, finally.
It makes me physically ill when the uninformed masses label Bugtraq/Phrack/LOD&H papers as "skr1pt k1dd13" stuff.
Doesn't matter if you call them white hat, gray hat, black hat, computer security analyst or security administrator - they're all part of the proud hacker tradition.
No thinking about it brah, and ESR still *is* the poster boy of the whole ['Open{r} Source(tm)'](tm)(r) organization.
What a laugh.
Every time I see "ESR" and "hacker" in the same sentence... I have this uncontrollable urge to laugh my head off out loud.
Oops, I did it again.. bwahahahaha.
u4ea,
I did see Hackers. I thought it was poorly done, poorly acted, and a poor portrayal of cracking and of hacking. I do not own a pair of rollerblades and if I did I would not own them to be like the characters dipicted.
I have seen Blade Runner. I am going to read the book upon which it was based, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. The movie was interesting, well acted, and somewhat thought provoking though not so much as I believe the novel form will be.
I saw the beginning of Sneakers, I believe. I was tired and, if it was Sneakers, fell asleep watching it. But, again, I digress.
You can despise my opinion. However, I think you are misinterpreting me or perhaps intentionally bending my meaning.
"If I work my way into MILNET and bounce from node to node seeing what's there, does that prevent me from being of the old school?" you wrote. This is a misinterpretation of my writing,
"But most modern 'hackers' read antiquated text files and break into systems without seeming to have a real understanding of what they are doing."
If you worked into MILNET and figured out how to bounce from node to node then you had to know something about the structure and the network. For you to have worked on MILNET you would have had to figure out at least one login/password pair, figured out the commands, etc. The key is figured out. I hope it is not as if you downloaded a text file, copied the method they proscribed (including login/password pair, nodes to bounce to, etc.), and used it verbatim. Your MILNET example is still, to me, cracking but it is a highly skilled, approaching hacking kind of cracking. I recognize that you needed skills to have performed this but the virtual breaking-and-entering is what seperates hacking from cracking.
What I was trying to say is that most people that now claim hackerdom by claiming ability to break into systems are, in my experience, script-kiddies. It seems to me as if these kiddies are just downloading, compiling, running. There is not much figuring out now, so it seems. It seems as if they are downloading a port scanner, learning some exploit, logging in, and running it. This is what I meant by cracker.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Nick Shane
nshane@mindless.com
His website is were I found information on Linux in the first place, I read a good portion of that article over 2.5 years ago.....looks like slashdot is like just a little behind the times on this baby.
Or maybe you will not read K&R just because it was written so long ago???
:P
Nope, but I will k&r2, which I own
/* Eric, most people are exactly sure what free means. */
Most people have =no clue= what free software means. Even most people in the computer industry think it means "freeware" which is either half-assed DOS programs nobody could charge money for anyway or crippled commercial programs given away as a marketing gimmick.
As a former cracker, I think your comments about alienation are right on. When I was 16 I just didn't understand the world around me. Unix and the Internet on the other hand, I could understand very well. Yeah, I prowled around people's systems (this was back in the late 80's before places like rootshell made "r00t-in-a-kit" scripts readily available) and probably accidentally messed a couple of places up in the process. Now I'm a respected adult and am contributing to the software industry and even to Free Software.
Such is the stigma associated with "crackers" that I don't feel like giving out my name. But, quite a few now-famous "hackers" were once "evil crackers" of a sort.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. .
Your logic is ok, but an important point is missing in your premices that destroys your whole demonstration: there is another informal group of people, that existed for much longer, that called itself "hackers" (yes I'm talking about the people that, as odd as it might seem to you, don't break at all in other's computers, but use their time to program theirs).
I am a pascal programmer for quite sometime in the dos world. Having to expenriece linux and like it. I'm thinking of learning another language to help me in my programming skill and hopefully to enable myself to contribute to the open source commuity. Python seen to be a language to for me. But C seens to be the most used one of all.
can anyone tell me which one should I start up with. and which one can be the most useful to me ?
I think it depends on what sort of apps you want to write. C is the most used in general. But if you wanted to write Net/administration type stuff then perl/python would be good. Since it's your app I guess yo write it in what you want, the only thing to be concerened about is whether enough people know the language so you can see othjer code and possibly people will help you. As an example I can't help with Mozilla cos I don't know C++
blah
Python should be more easy (no pointer stuff). C would be more useful since 99% of Linux code is written in C ; Python would be more useful for your general programming knowledge and coding style, and can be interfaced with C (high-level in Python, low-level speed-intensive code in C, and glue with swig).
Maybe try to learn Python for a short time, and C once you're tired. The two languages are complementary anyway.
Your logic is ok, but an important point is missing in your premices that destroys your whole demonstration: there is another informal group of people, that existed for much longer, that called itself "hackers" (yes I'm talking about the people that, as odd as it might seem to you, don't break at all in other's computers, but use their time to program theirs).
This entire argument was started by my defending ESR. This entire thread started with my saying that hackers were hobby computer scientist or hobby computer engineers or hobby coders in response to someone saying that they were using the "old school" definition and that the "old school" definition meant someone who performs acts of virtual breaking-and-entering, i.e. cracker.
My entire argument was based on the premis that "old school" refered to the oldest. Since it was understood that the discussion was of computer hackers, "old school" really means the first people that used the word hacker; people like the students at MIT, people like the engineers at the Xerox PARC, and people like the engineers that started the IETF and IRTF.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Nick Shane
nshane@mindless.com
cDc was created in 1984. Thus they fall in the following definition:
"From the late 1980s onward, a flourishing culture of local, MS-DOS-based bulletin boards has been developing separately from Internet hackerdom. The BBS culture has, as its seamy underside, a stratum of `pirate boards' inhabited by crackers, phone phreaks, and warez d00dz. These people (mostly teenagers running PC-clones from their bedrooms) have developed their own characteristic jargon, heavily influenced by skateboard lingo and underground-rock slang.
Though crackers often call themselves `hackers', they aren't (they typically have neither significant programming ability, nor Internet expertise, nor experience with UNIX or other true multi-user systems). Their vocabulary has little overlap with hackerdom's. Nevertheless, this lexicon covers much of it so the reader will be able to understand what goes by on bulletin-board systems."
While the Jargon File, thus the (real) hacker culture largely predates them:
"The original Jargon File was a collection of hacker jargon from technical cultures including the MIT AI Lab, the Stanford AI lab (SAIL), and others of the old ARPANET AI/LISP/PDP-10 communities including Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN), Carnegie-Mellon University (CMU), and Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI).
The Jargon File (hereafter referred to as `jargon-1' or `the File') was begun by Raphael Finkel at Stanford in 1975. From this time until the plug was finally pulled on the SAIL computer in 1991, the File was named AIWORD.RF[UP,DOC] there. Some terms in it date back considerably earlier ( frob and some senses of moby, for instance, go back to the Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT and are believed to date at least back to the early 1960s). The revisions of jargon-1 were all unnumbered and may be collectively considered `Version 1"
I Dont feel like ESR represents me by what he writes.
No way.
And for one thing what the heck do RPGs and those things have to
do with hackers????
He'd better stop talking.
"A Lot Of people send mails asking me how to become hackers"?????
What is this? Somebody nuke him please (sorry)
THere has to be some sort of middle ground we can all come to terms with. A hacker is someone who simply "finds a way". Anything he wants to do. I like his quote "freedom is good". A hacker is someone who has freedom and will stop at nothing to prove it. If a hacker wants to do something he will find a way to do it, at all costs. Whether it be fixing a buffer overflow in his code, or causing one. It's all about freedom
What about hardware hackers? Do we have to know Unix too?
The old master solemnly shouts "FOO!!" and hits you with a stick.
(We used to call these works ``free software'', but this confused too many people who weren't sure exactly what ``free'' was supposed to mean. Many of us now prefer the term ``open-source'' software).
Eric, most people are exactly sure what free means. Free software means free software. With free software, you have freedom to share with your fellow hackers and lusers.
It's true that Open source does not mean free software.
Personally I will never use the term open source, because many people (including myself) are not exactly sure that "open source software" means exactly the same as free software.
Free means true freedom- open doesn't mean free, because it is more limited than free.
Eric: Realize that Apple doesn't care about hackers, they care about profit and success.
Frankly, I think that having said coding skills and sense of purpose tends to come about from having that "specific kind of attitude". I do respect L0pht/CDC and their hacking skills. I think they have all of the hacker qualities you mention. Just listen to talk they gave at Beyond Hope in 1997 regarding the theory behind the operation of L0phtcrack. (Here is the RealAudio talk.)
I'm glad that the author got it right when he
described what a hacker really is. I consider
myself a hacker in the tradition he described and
I'm proud to be one although I haven't done anything as grand as create the protocols the internet runs off of. Even so I have to be careful who I say the word hacker in front of. There are so many people out there who think that a hacker is someone like Kevin Mitnik(sp?). I've had 1 person threaten to turn me into the police when I describe myself as a hacker. Of course this person know less than nothing about computers and that vacuum where knowledge should belong is filled with fear and paranoia. I'm not doing anything illegal so I've really got nothing to worry about, but it's still insulting to have someone threaten you like that. It's really a shame that the term hacker has been mis-associated with a computer criminal. I just don't know of any other word that describes what it is to be someone like me (or us) so well. The word cracker doesn't really do a very good job at describing the sociopaths that cause so much trouble. Trasher or Thrasher seems more descriptive to me. Maybe I'll start calling them that.
I find it quite amusing that you use the term "old school" to describe crackers. The hacker and general geek culture has long proceeded the cracker culture. The term hacker predates the ideas of virtual breaking-and-entering. Therefore, wouldn't claiming the "old school" definitions mean going to back to the original -- excluding a hacker being someone who makes furniture from wood -- and, therefore, mean, basically, a hobby computer scientist or a hobby computer engineer or a hobby coder?
Crackers, under the guise of hackers, claim knowledge through first hand experience. But most modern "hackers" read antiquated text files and break into systems without seeming to have a real understanding of what they are doing. You may defend yourself saying those are just the script kiddies but it seems to me that most of the Cracker/Phreaker/Anarchist/etc. "culture" is made up script kiddies.
Now, you mentioned the l0pht. The l0pht is a great group and I respect what they do. The l0pht members are, as far as I am concerned, hackers. When I say hackers I use it to mean hobby computer scientists or hobby computer researchers -- not saying that people with degrees in CS or CE, Computer Engineering, aren't hackers but I'm digressing.
I think your argument of "Before ESR published his 'Hackers Dictionary'..." is fairly weak. It could be applied also to the l0pht: Before the Black Crawling System [the BBS that the orginal members of the l0pht were a part of] no one knew Brian Oblivion, mudge, Weld Pond, etc. Or Before l0pht.com no one knew Brian Oblivion, mudge, Weld Pond, etc.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Nick Shane
nshane@mindless.com
"Just another Anonymous Coward"
I read this article a long time ago. I think I even read some of the pre-articles of this on the
:), that claim to hack.
newsgroups before slashdot even existed.
The problem I have with this article is that it seems too idealistic to me. It sounds like whoever wrote it was running for a popularity contest too. Deny it all you want, but hacking has a dark side too. Many people are drawn to hackerdom through alienation from society. The alienation gives them the time and energy to learn how machines work. They may do things that society considers bad, eg. use someone's machine without permission. As they associate with supposed true hackers they may make the transition to the light side.
Unfortunately, many get used to ignoring society's apparently silly rules. Of course, the supposed light side hacker denigrates these dark siders as crackers and lately, script-kiddies. However, I think the hackers have more in common with the script-kiddies than other types, such as suits.
I'm sure there are many hackers that will claim they have always been on the light side and have never even thought about cracking. On the other hand, there are many "crackers" out there that are much better hackers than the happy masses, ie. Katz
I'd love to hear some comments from the belittled script-kiddies and crackers.
AC
I'm sure there are many hackers that will claim they have always been on the light side and have never even thought about cracking. On the other hand, there are many "crackers" out there that are much better hackers than the happy masses, ie. Katz :), that claim to hack.
You could think this, but you'd be wrong. :)
I went to a business meeting with my boss the other day (I was the token geek), and to get there we rode the train to the site. On the way there, we chatted a bit and the conversation turned to why the meeting was important.
As I listened to my boss go on about finding ways to reduce moral hazard and adverse selection in the insurance product, it occurred to me that the sorts of tradeoffs he was making were very similar to the tradeoffs I make when designing a program. And his personal motivation for the deal was to make it easier for ordinary people to manage financial risk, which is very similar to what motivates a lot of people to write free software.
He has the hacker nature, though he wouldn't be able to write a program to save his life, because he wants to increase the number and power of the tools other people have. It's important to him to expand the choices people have.
On the other hand, when I was in school I once knew a person who could be called a cracker. (As it happens, the feds agreed and he was convicted of wire fraud. Then he was expelled from the university, and I lost track of him.)
Though I could usually understand the technical details of what he did, I never liked him very much. He was into computers because they were mysterious to most people. He saw them as a source of "secret knowledge", and he was always trying to use his knowledge to belittle other people and to make them afraid of him. For example, if someone asked him for help, he tried to hide the details of what exactly he did to make them dependent on him.
He did not have the hacker nature; he valued mystery as a source of power, and did not want to reduce other peoples' helplessness or ignorance.
Hacking is about expanding the scope of choice, for yourself and for others. This is why good design is so important to hackers -- a well-designed program is one that can be used for many purposes, even ones the original creator did not envision. A functional program solves a problem; a beautiful program solves a whole class of problems.
True... true. I took the internationalization into consideration when commenting on the spelling. Just the way he put it made it seem like in order for you to be classed as a hacker and not a twit was to have g00d gRaMm3r. :)
.
I liked the part where he said not to publish or email anything that was full of spelling errors. He said it made you a twit and not a hacker. I wonder if he's seen any of Raster's emails. I also noticed quite a few spelling errors in that document itself. Sorta hippocritical (I can't even spell that) if I may say so. Linus has even sent quite a few emails w/ tons of spelling errors. Tons of people known to the world as "hackers" have terrible spelling when sending emails or such documents.
.
Well... being esr, I think he's within his rights to claim the spotlight a bit. :)
--
And those write-ups do fill a very important part of the open-source community needs.
I guess it depends on how the person is breaking security. If you're boring your own hole, or painstakingly mapping the cracks in the wall -- I'd say you're dedicated and talented enough, in a lot of cases, to be called a hacker -- if you don't cause any damage, and if you then turn around and disemminate the information so it may be fixed. (Points if you write the patch yourself.)
On the other hand, if you're just taking advantage of the time between discovery and patch, and not actually doing any work yourself? Go home to mommy.
--
annoying phenomenon of people using "hacker" where
they ought to use "cracker" is here to stay.
Reason: It's been popularized, assimilated by the
pop culture. Say "hacker" and 99% of people out
there will think of someone who breaks into
computers. Say "cracker" and they'll think you're
trying to talk about white people.
My advice: Get used to it. It's not the end of the
world if hacker means cracker. It's not going to
change, so it's not worth getting excited over.
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Two things.
1) I saw this around a year ago.
2) I disagree. While a script kiddie is most definitely not a hacker, being able to break security does in fact make one a hacker. Somebody who can sift through thousands of thousands of lines of kernel code finding bugs in the way the kernel reassembles fragmented packets is a hacker by any definition of the term. And as an added bonus, the write-ups of the security flaws can be viewed as glorified bug reports.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Posted by Cassull:
/. so what the hell am I thinking- I bet only the first lucky few get to read it before it gets /.'ed into that seamless oblivion we see so much in dreams...) Try it tho, ya might like it...
Well, at least it's not sponsored by Ed McMahon or made as a Star Search, or something totally silly like that. Some useful information. Prevents a bit of rampant script-kiddie attacks, if it's disseminated right. (Oh, yeah, it's on
Posted by Bocharn:
This article brings closer the moment when people stop mixing the word "hacker" with the word "cracker".
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
I think that more than anything, it's a mindset that makes a hacker. Does it piss you off when you can't solve a problem that should be simple? Have you ever passed up sex to finish solving such a problem? Have you ever jubilently screamed "YES!!" when some new hardware/software product that you've been waiting for gets released? Do you prefer to do things the hard way just to see if you can do it? Do your friends ever ask you "Why" whan you tell them about your current project? Do you come into work late, but then stay even later?
If you have answered yes to most of these questions you're probably a hacker.
Hackito Ergo Sum.
LK
Sure, this is an old article, but it's also a *classic*, like The Story of Mel, A Programmer. (well, maybe not *that* old, but...)
:)
Anyhow, I don't mind, because I meant to bookmark this a while back...
Tim Berners-Lee was right when he created the web as a personal mnemonic device, when I forget where something is, someone else remembers it for me, wonderful!
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I agree... I am a terrible speller, does that mean that I have absolutely no chance of ever being a hacker...
hell, I could be the greatest programmer of all time, I could solve the halting problem durring my lunch hour and release an open source program to demonstrate the solution for all others to see and use, but if my documentation was poorly edited I guess I just couldnt be a hacker
I mean common, lets go a bit easier on the spelling impaired here!
a prize to the person who responds to this intelegently without correcting any spelling errors!
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
oh my
truth on the wire how refreshing can't complain, argue or dispute it. Definately a lock. Am so sick and tired of the "bad rap". so if a hacker is bad what are we? what do you call the terminally obscessed?
His "HOWTO become a hacker" has been around for quite a while. It's like posting a news item about the Bazaar essay. I do understand that is an important document (as is the Bazaar essay) and that every aspiring hacker (even if you know it or not) should read it. However, this isn't News. This is a great link that doesn't grow old.
By putting it in the "News" section implies that this is "New".
I love this essay by ESR. I'm just suprised it' the first time it's being mentioned here. I found it almost exactly one year ago. It's how I learned about Linux in the first place. My research on Linux eventually led me hear. Now my life is better.
:-)
It may seem a bit simple for some, and others my not agree with everything ESR said. but I think it's a good starting point.
Kojo
I believe that I have the know-how to be a hacker. I have 20 years programming experience, I know how to write device drivers for several OS's, I know a few different kinds of assembly language, and I work on BIOSes. However, I don't exactly have the attitude of a hacker, since I'm not really as involved in hacking as I used to be. So I don't call myself a hacker. But if I really wanted to ignore my wife and hack away on my OS/2 machine, I could and then I would be a bona-fide hacker.
--
Timur Tabi
Remove "nospam_" from email address
True, true. Eric's love for technology revolves more around getting quoted as much as possible in all kinds of media, and taking over the movement after everybody else did the hard work.
This, indeed, is a noble cause.
--Joakim Ziegler
Nah.
I've heard people claim that kind of thing before. Mostly, the people who do are wannabees who want to have a pretense to call themselves hackers without doing the work.
But the real hackers have just a few things in common: Experience, understanding, common sense, intelligence, and the ability for logical reasoning. And, not a single one of them sat down and instinctively knew LISP the first day they saw a computer. It takes work. It takes dedication. It takes practice.
The term is a badge of respect. I don't call myself hacker (I'm not ready for that), but I know quite a few, and I know them when I see them.
--Joakim Ziegler
curse your tounge boy! :)
/me ponders how such a "bland" AC comment got a Score:1
--
Scott Miga
just printed it out earlier and the 10 pages look like a good read. ill be sure to read it during the 11 full hours in the car tommorrow going to spring break. :)
--
Scott Miga
Me too too....
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"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
At the same time, I also feel that the system is working because it means that someone else thought my ideas were worth reading. After all, I couldn't vote my own score higher even if I were a moderator, nor would I want to if I could. Part of being an intelligent person means being critical of one's own ideas, and being willing to admit when you've said something stupid, because it's going to happen sooner or later.
The payoff comes when you achieve the respect you deserve for writing something that is truly useful. Before the new moderators, all of my posts (good and bad) would be buried among all of everyone else's posts (good and bad). It was almost not worth bothering to post because with 250 or more posts for the more inflammatory topics, even if I felt I had something really useful to say, it would get buried in the noise. Now, I can post anyway, and if peer review deems it good, it shoots to the top, and I feel good. I also benefit when reading slashdot, because I get to see the best of what everyone else has to offer first.
To some extent, I think this is the trap ESR has fallen into: if he truly follows the beliefs that he's written, then he deserves to be called a hacker just as much as any of us, but for him to seek out the spotlight (and especially to seek out getting his name in print as some sort of Open Source guru) can only blind him to his true position in the community, whatever that may be.
Yes, it was an ego boost the first (and only) time someone asked me if I was "the" Jake Hamby, but it's not something I expect to hear any time soon, nor am I seeking that out. I hope to find myself in a position in the next few years where more people will know my name, but only through writing more (and cooler) software, not because I want to get my name out there (before you ask, no I haven't yet written any software worth mentioning).
It's a slippery slope, and to tie this to another slashdot thread, I think that in the balance between getting the recognition one deserves for doing cool stuff and indulging oneself in shameless self-promotion, people like CmdrTaco, Bruce Perens, and Linus Torvalds fall on one side, and people like ESR, RMS, and Jon Katz fall on the other.
Either way, they're not nearly as bad as this guy. Follow the link to read a Salon mag story about an author of a crummy sci-fi book who, upset because his book was being trashed in viewer comments on amazon.com, retaliated by logging in under several fictitious identities, giving himself five stars and glowing reviews to boost the average! Even more shocking, rather than hiding in shame over such a dastardly act, he turns around and writes a Salon article saying exactly what he did, without even bothering to apologize for it in any way. Unbelievable.
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Jake
While ESR spends some time posturing about "open source" vs. "free software", and writes some comments about ego gratification that, while true in general, seem to be much more true for people like ESR and RMS than, say, Linus, it's worth its weight just for the lucid analysis of the core beliefs shared by all hackers, but very few non-hackers:
The rest of the essay's advice may find itself looking rather dated ten years down the road (Python and Linux could easily find themselves replaced by something better), but those five core beliefs will never be obsolete.
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Jake
Ah, so being a hacker is a matter of being an obnoxious bozo who breaks into things and damages other people's work, never producing anything of their own. Doubtless people who egg houses on Hallowe'en should be called "building hackers". Sheesh.
The excuse of "we're just doing to learn things" was always weak, and today it carries no force at all. Do crackers learn about Web servers by breaking into them? Do crackers learn about TCP/IP by SYN flooding Win95 boxes? Wouldn't they learn a good deal more by running a Web server of their own, or implementing IPSEC for Linux or *BSD? Ah, but that would take some effort and requires actual knowledge. If a cracker was truly smart and skilled, they'd be capable of doing original things that would actually be useful.
Anyway, what if the solution to the halting problem had a call to DestroyWorld and your comment read something like this:
bsd call kept for bakwards compatabillitey (where you weren't watching your spelling and typed 's' instead of 'a')
Well, that's just begging for some BSD coder to muck with that. Always knew that a fateful combination of your bad spelling and Berkeley would be the end of us. ;)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I've seen it too, and i rather like it. It doesnt take some dweeb with a C++ book to be a hacker. It takes a certain attitude and disposition.
I by no means consider myself a whats looked on today as a hacker. I cant program for shit, i dont break into places, and i dont spend my saturday nites dumpster diving behind Lux Bond & Green looking for CC receipts. To me, its the attitude thats important.
l0pht/cDc are more crackers than hackers. I respect them and their work. But it takes more than coding skills and a purpose to be a hacker. It takes a specific kind of attitude.
It always seemed to me that Linus was half-joking about world-domination. I don't think he would be heartbroken if it never happened... it's just that he sees the potential.
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I'm sorry, but I have to politely disagree.
Eric has been courting corporations to use "open source" for quite some time now - selling the idea, as it were. While this isn't bad in and of itself, witness the squabbling over who gets to represent the "community" on the issue of Business v. The Hackers, part i.
Eric wound up in a messy trademark-dispute, Richard Stallman has gone off the deep end with his insistence on the GNU/Linux designation, and Linus Torvalds is insisting on world domination.
Why is it all our leaders have a perpensity to self-destruct once they become popular?
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Many people are drawn to hackerdom through alienation from society. Though this is probaly true, I find that "society" sometimes requires too much processing to deal with (and besides, the rules are too arbitrary, damnit!), so we voluntarily withdraw so that we can spend more time hacking. Purrr.
Windows is the Acme of computing -- in the Wile E. Coyote sense.
1) Invent the term "Open Source(tm)".
2) Appeal to users of "Free" software by stating that "Open Source" really means the same thing.
3) Irresponsibly manage the term "Open Source(tm)", by endorsing non-free software under its name.
4) Misrepresent yourself to the community and businesses by implying that you own the trademark and domain for "Open Source(tm)".
5) Write a paper on "How to be a Hacker" stating that hackers prefer the use of "OS(tm)" over "Free".
6) Promote yourself tirelessly.
I would not have sent the link to slashdot, if the article was not signed with 03/26/1999 date.
:)
For all of you that have already seen it - there are many more people who need to know this stuff.. It is as important, as it's entertaining..
Or maybe you will not read K&R just because it was written so long ago???
Cheers
Maybe I read into this more because of recent events, but here goes my logic. I find this to be a recipe of how to become a tribal elder. Saying that visibly reaching for fame is dangerous; the keyword being visibly. Saying you have to sort of position yourself so it drops in your lap suggests a premeditated attempt to gain this fame or power. My point is Linus is a hero because he did exactly what you said, ESR sounds like he had the intentions of being a hero and that writing software was the way he was going to enable that.
Oooops...hit submit instead of preview.
Let me say this...I don't disagree with everything ESR says and I appreciate what he has done for Linux, but I hope his 15 minutes is almost up. Power corrupts and anyone seeking such power is probably already handicapped in that regard. What was the quote from one of the Hitchiker books, "Politicians are rarely able or competent and those that are would never be a politician" (or something like that.) The message is always more important than the messenger. I am not saying ESR should run and hide, just be aware that he is under the microscope and following his own statements, this community won't put up with baloney.
I read this before ESR was the "spokesperson" for the free or open source movement. I thought it was crap then and I feel it is crap now. Here comes a clue: If you need to read how to be a hacker, you will never be a true hacker. I will give him credit for stating a lot of true things, but some of it is pure shit. For example:
"If you aren't the kind of person that feels this way naturally, you'll need to become one in order to make it as a hacker. Otherwise you'll find your hacking energy is
sapped by distractions like sex, money, and social approval."
Words fail me.
And this is the best yet:
"Beware: hackers distrust blatant ego in their tribal elders, so visibly reaching for this kind of fame is dangerous. Rather
than striving for it, you have to sort of position yourself so it drops in your lap, and then be modest and gracious about your status."
Maybe ESR should take some of his own advice. So what he is saying is, "instead of being open about my agenda, I should be sneaky and underhanded and usurp the power of the leaders...yes,yes this will work!" I think he should have said that the community will decide who their leaders are and consider yourself lucky if you are appointed. Maybe that should be unlucky because you will undoubtedly be torn limb from limb by some luser on Slashdot;-)
I think this man is as contrived as anyone using this article would be. The way he talks about if you are in the culture and if you are called a hacker, than you *are* a hacker makes me ill. Yeah man, I want to be in the *in* crowd!?! I have always been an outsider and will always be an outsider. The view is much better and there is a lot more room and freedom out here. I don't need anyones lame labels.
Eric Raymond sounds like an intelligent man, but no Obi Wan Kenobi is he.
Cool article. I was trying to explain that being a hacker didn't necessarily mean being the kind of guy/girl who could write an OS from scratch, but that it was the person who could solve a problem using the tools available. I generally am most proud of solutions in which I didn't have to build something from scratch but could take preexisting programs or hardware and use it in a novel way. That was HACKING it out. I have saved my clients money, and myself time, by finding solutions that let them do something with what they had. Often I could have billed higher for a product that I custom wrote, but that isn't always the right solution.
While I have enjoyed tremendously the process of writing an application in which every single line was mine, boy would I have hated it if I found out that someone else wrote the same damned program...
I clicked to that article from some site (I forget which) easily over a year ago. I think it would have been late '97 even, or at least early '98. It was the first time I ever crossed paths with the linux community.
I clicked it because the title looked interesting. Having never heard of linux before, I probably wouldn't have clicked something called "The spirit of the Linux community".
I also ended up 'residing' here on /. after that article caught my interest in Linux and I slowly found my way around this corner of the web. That is truly a great document, if for other reason that it is a very effective recruiter. The word 'hacker' does have considerable esteem attached to it, no matter which interpretation you prefer.
Vidi, Vici, Veni
Hmmm, I would have to agree with this article. To be a hacker, one should know Unix. We should remember that Unix is the grandfather of almost all modern OS's. How many operating systems have their bases in VMS, hmmmm, let's see, that would be Win NT. Well, we know how that is turning out. No offense to VMS, I actually like it quite a bit, but I cut my teeth on Unix, and have learned my trade from Unix. I also agree with the dedication part. Programming is not easy. It requires that you think about your world in a very unique way. I am a Mechanical Engineer by training(though I work as a C/C++ programmer), and I find that programming is much like Engineering. It requires that you look upon your surroundings with analytical eyes. As with engineering, you don't learn everything on your own. Instead, you draw upon the knowledge of your peers and seniors.
Coding is the engineering of the modern age. Just as many cultures revered fine engineering(the Romans and Greeks), so does ours revere coding. We coders may not yet have the status of famous Architects and Designers, but our time is comming. Programming is the tool that will solve tommorrows pressing questions. The human Genome project, Space flight, Tissue engineering and so on, all rely heavily on computers, and in particular, code. Our ability to model our world is directly tied to our ability to manipulate it. Computers are the tools to help model, and coders are the ones that make it possible(No offense to you EE's out there, we have love for you too). Anyhow, perhaps I digress from my original thought. To make a long story short, I thought the article was well written, and presents a true picture of what it means to be a hacker.
Master Switch out
-Master Switch, one more element in the machine
From looking over the rest of his site, the $DATE just lists the date it was last modified, not the post date. He may have been updating links, adding new parts, or fixing grammar/spelling.
just have to read a book or set 'the net' with sandra bullocks right?
-- greg
I've really got to hand it to Eric. I think he's got something that's missing in many computer "enthusiasts" today - a love for technology that DOESN'T revolve around money.
A good and thoughtful article on this has been long overdue. As I recall, the first misuse of the term hacker in it's derogatory sense was by a guy who wrote a column for Popular Electronics, of all things. A self-appointed expert from outside the community who declared himself correct, and other definitions wrong.
The popular press, never much on correct usage, loved having a special term to refer to bad guys who broke security. They should instead be referred to as crackers, or perhaps jackers (thinking of two different, but equally amusing equivalents to the activities they pursue.)
Many of us have been hackers since before the birth of many in the press. Technological arenas routinely define jargon in their areas of specialization. If we choose to formalize the meaning of hacker, it would seem to be our privilege.
--- Bill
I found it almost exactly one year ago. It's how I learned about Linux in the first place.
me too
(snip)...
If you have answered yes to most of these questions you're probably a hacker.
I once had a sexual fantasy (in the shower, no less) about proving that P=NP. Does that count?..
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Victor Danilchenko
Well, he did write fetchmail (it was based on an earlier program and he did have help from others, but still...). I know, one program does not a hacker make, but the guy can code and that counts for something in my book.
De gustibus et coloribus non est disputandum
I saw this a while back. I would have sent it in if I thought it would be posted on the /. homepage.
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I run BeOS. The rules don't apply.
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I run BeOS. The rules don't apply.
Speeking of community mnemonics, does anyone remember where a page along the lines of "How to Manage a Hacker" might reside? I've got a few people who need to read it.
A
I thought /. was about NEWS for nerds. The ESR article is very old news. I think it's very well written and a must read. But it's hardly news to the avarage /. reader? Or maybe I'm above avarage, haha :-D
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
Have you ever jubilently screamed "YES!!" when some new hardware/software product that you've been waiting for gets released?
Ohhhhh, yes. My jaw literally dropped today when I discovered that Emacs v20 has been ported to AmigaOS. Boy, I'm sad :-)
There's bound to be spelling errors. Not everyone on the web speaks english as their first language.
I think he was probably referring to those dreadfully annoying people who WriTe EvERytH1nG lIke tHis AnD think they're rEAlLy c00l.
Geez, I'm starting to annoy myself.
I thought he was the spokesmodel/poster boy
for (Open(TM) Source(TM) Software(TM))(R).
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
Slashdot is also about "Stuff that matters".
I didn't dig the comment about IRC.. I think IRC is one of the few places on the net that hasn't become dominated by commercialism. Its also a great spot to get into a community for just about anything computer related.
Not to mention many great coders (and authors of my favorite ORA books) lurk about on IRC and I am at times overwhelemed that I can so easily interact with them its like being able to talk to your favorite celebrity when you have the guts to just approach them.
as for the article itself *bleh*, kids if you want to be a hacker go out to your mailbox... depending on how many days its been since you'll find a number of AOL disks, install it and then visit your favorite video store and rent Hackers: The Movie... you'll do alright.
your right :) but theres still good people there, doesn't mean there isn't a ton of clueless ones, or wannabes or anything like that but it is still a cool medium and I was just defending it a little..
I agree with most of his statements about hackerdom and all that, but his actions seem to go against his statements in two respects:
1. He _seems_ to be seeking out the spotlight.
2. He _seems_ to have a bit of an "us and them" attitude.
Maybe I'm out to lunch on this one, but much of what I've seen in the media of late seems to support my views.
Also, anybody see a resemblence to his stated beliefs and the views of Ayn Rand as evidenced in her book "Anthem?"
J
Oh well, no point in steering now.
True, I personally don't mind *grin* that mixture. :(
It's like a dream that will never come through. Sort of like My Dad using Linux
The more I deal with people who are related to computers I get this feeling that "one does not become a hacker, but one is born to be a hacker."