Disclaimer #1 (my un-qualifications): I may or may not be qualified to tell you what a hacker is. If I am not, well, deal with it, because I'm doing it anyway. And since when does lack of qualification / authorization / certification / etc. mean that something can't be done? And since when does a general consensus that something can't be done mean that you or I cannot do it ?

Disclaimer #2 (females): Being politically incorrect, I use "he/him" not "they" or "he/she / him/her" -- not just because I happen to be politically incorrect, but because I have, very unfortunately, seen almost no females with any more than "work-a-day" computer skills. If you are female and can prove me wrong, 1) please do so, 2) thank you for existing, and 3) please see to it that your genes are reproduced as much as possible.

Okay, here we go:

A hacker is not lame.

A hacker would not claim the title of "hacker" because only people who are lame feel that such titles are necessary.

A hacker will not ping flood or do denial of service attacs, etc. just because he figured out how to and thinks it's neat. -- doing a "/msping #teenchat" with BitchX/ice falls under this category (tempting, I know, but resist being lame at all costs) (for those who don't know, /msping utilizes a bug in Windows to crash the computer of everybody in an IRC channel).

A hacker despises AOL.
At this point I feel it necessary to address a letter in the Summer 1997 issue of 2600 magazine. This person named Magus quoted The Conscience of a Hacker by The Mentor, in defense of AOL. First of all, this person should be shot for this offence. But on the actual issue -- yes, "`...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...'" (he quoted this from The Conscience of a Hacker -- and then he went on to say "But we have our own forms of bias, and this is one of them. I am sick of being banned from IRC channels, sick of having my emails deleted without being read, sick of having people snicker when I announce an @aol.com email address." Okay, here's my response: Just as The Mentor said in The Conscience of a Hacker, we exist without most of the biases of the world of the flesh. But yes, we do have biases. We judge people by what they say, and what they do, here, in cyberspace. And by the choices they make. You made a choice to use AOL, and that is what you get this treatment. Because to us, it is a bad choice. We are amongst the last to deny people choices, but that doesn't mean we'll hold a bad choice against you.

A hacker will gain access to computers which he has not been explicitly granted, not for personal gain -- other than the access itself.

(most ?) Hackers want to put a bullet through Bill Gates' head. Actually I think swords would be more neat. Would it not just make your life to read a headline saying "Bill Gates was Hacked" ?

A hacker understands how hacking, phreaking, and anarchy all are part of the same mindset, even if he can't actually put it in words.

A hacker will drool over elegant code, and would kill somebody for saying "yeah, my code is ineficient, but the speed and inexpensiveness of today's processors will make up for that".

A hacker believes that governments of the flesh have no place in Cyberspace.

Hackers exist in the Grey Areas.

A hacker does not respect stupid rules.

A hacker is not politically correct.

A hacker probably can't spell.

A hacker respects those who know more than he.

A hacker helps to spread our collective knowledge to all those willing to, and intereted in, soaking it in.

"Sunlight ? What's that ?"

Any upstanding citizen of Cyberspace has an overwhelming desire to do horrible things to those who spam.

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This page has never, by my doing, been touched by any microsoft application or any "HTML editor". It has been created and maintained entirely by hand under UNIX.

This page completely re-written on 8/17/97

We now return you to your regularly schedualed Reign of Chaos.