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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.
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 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...