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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. "
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.
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.
.
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
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.
--
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.
--
Jake
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
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'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.