The Hacker Manifesto and Matrixism

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With the court verdict in on the gentlemen running The Pirate Bay I recently saw posted "The Hacker Manifesto." I first came across this piece of writing a number of years ago and felt it pretty inspiring and very much true to who I am. I thought it apropos to discuss it here as the ideologies presented by "The Mentor" in this writing are ideologies that are supported by Matrixists.

One idea is of making "use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons." The creators of the Yahoo/Geocities Matrixism site included a rule that Matrixist support free trade of copyrighted material. We at the New Matrixism are not convinced in that copyrighted material, whether music, movies, games or software, be freely traded. After all, shouldn't a person be able to earn a living off of their creations? The catch is a person should be able to earn a living. Making millions of dollars to play a part in a movie is more than a living. Record companies hording most of the profits from sale of a music doesn't offer the musician who created the work a living. Charging people hundreds of dollars for a piece of software doesn't benefit anyone but the company who is charging that price.

We still don't necessarily encourage trading and pirating as it has its own problems. Finding alternatives to the expensive products that benefits only mega-corporations is the best route. Use freely available open-source software, buy music from independent musicians and labels so they benefit from the purchase, and support your local, struggling artists.

Continuing to put money in the coffers of corporations does not aid our world. Instead, it empowers the wrong group of people. It empowers corrupt people who do nothing to help society,but only strive to help themselves. It is these people who call us criminals. It is these people who continue to take away privacy from us. It is these people who are destroying any sense of freedom that most of us once knew.

Finally, a reminder to some of my readers, "We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias..." "My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like." I think The Mentor's words from 23 years ago, speaks for themselves.

For those of you who are not familiar with the text of "The Hacker Manifesto" here it is as it was published in Phrak magazine in January 1986.

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 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 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 will- ing 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.