Date: Mon, 2 Mar 92 18:52:34 CST
From: Digital Free Press <max%
[email protected]>
Subject: File 7--"Real Hackers?" Comparing the old and the new (DFP Reprint)
((Moderators' note: The following article is reprinted from the
Digital Free Press. DFP and the Underground Computing Foundation BBS
are useful sources for material on the Computer Underground. The DFP
can be contacted at: max%
[email protected]))
Real Hackers?
There is a lot of talk these days about how the word 'hacker' has
been redefined by the press. The theory is that the old hackers, as
portrayed in Steven Levy's excellent book _Hackers: Heroes of the
Computer Revolution_, were good and pure and this breed of hacker
dramatized in the press is some new evil non-hacker terrorist. This is
nonsense.
According to the book, the hacker ethic(paraphrased) is as
follows:
1. Access to computers should be unlimited and total.
2. All information should be free.
3. Mistrust Authority - Promote Decentralization.
4. Hackers should be judged by their hacking.
5. You can create art and beauty on a computer.
6. Computers can change your life for the better.
In pursuit of the hacker ethic these heroes performed various acts
that would not be looked upon favorably in today's anti-hacker
society:
Used Equipment Without Authorization (Page 20)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"So, without any authorization whatsoever, that is what Peter
Sampson set out to do, along with a few friends of his from an
MIT organization with a special interest in model railroading. It
was a casual, unthinking step into a science-fiction future, but
that was typical of the way that an odd subculture was pulling
itself up by its bootstraps and growing to underground
prominence-to become a culture that would be the impolite,
unsanctioned soul of computerdom. It was among the first computer
hacker escapades of the Tech Model Railroad Club, or TMRC."
Phone Phreaked (Page 92)
++++++++++++++++++++++++
"He had programed some appropriate tones to come out of the
speaker and into the open receiver of the campus phone that sat
in the Kluge room. These tones made the phone system come to
attention, so to speak, and dance."
Modified Equipment Without Authorization (Page 96)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Nelson thought that adding an 'add to memory' instruction
would improve the machine. It would take _months_, perhaps, to go
through channels to do it, and if he did it himself he would
learn something about the way the world worked. So one night
Stewart Nelson spontaneously convened the Midnight Computer
Wiring Society."
Circumvented Password Systems (Page 417)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Stallman broke the computer's encryption code and was able to get
to the protected file which held people's passwords. He started
sending people messages which would appear on screen when they
logged onto the system:
'I see you chose the password [such and such]. I suggest that
you switch to the password "carriage return. "It's much
easier to type, and also it stands up to the principle that
there should be no passwords.'
'Eventually I got to the point where a fifth of all the users on
the machine had the Empty String password.' RMS later boasted.
Then the computer science laboratory installed a more
sophisticated password system on its other computer. This one was
not so easy for Stallman to crack. But Stallman was able to study
the encryption program, and as he later said, 'I discovered
changing one word in that program would cause it to print out
your password on the system console as part of the message that
you were logging in.' Since the 'system console' was visible to
anyone walking by, and its messages could easily be accessed by
any terminal, or even printed out in hard copy, Stallman's change
allowed any password to be routinely disseminated by anyone who
cared to know it. He thought the result 'amusing.'
Certainly these hackers were not anarchists who wanted only to
destroy. They had a personal code of ethics, the hacker ethic to base
their behavior on. In fact the modern hacker has his/her ethics
intact. Compare the above hacker ethic with the hacker ethic found in
_Out of the Inner Circle_ by Bill 'The Cracker' Landreth, a teenager
arrested by the FBI (Page 18,60):
1. Never delete any information you can not easily restore.
2. Never leave any names on a computer.
3. Always try to obtain your own information.
The common denominator to these ethics systems are the respect for
technology, and the personal growth through free access and freedom of
information. Certainly the attitude towards private property is the same.
Accessing and using equipment that you do not own is okay as long as
you do not prevent those who own it from using it, or damage anything.
With respect to the hacker ethic the hackers mentioned in
_Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier_ by Katie
Hafner and John Markoff were in fact good hackers. If free access, and
free information were the law of the land would Kevin Mitnick have
gone to jail? I do not think so. Sure he got the source code for VMS,
but is there any evidence that he used this information for personal
gain, or did he simply use the information to improve his
understanding of the VMS operating system?
Robert T. Morris's worm program was a clever hack. Of course he
'gronked' it by programming the replication rate much too fast, but
still there is no evidence that he had any intention of doing harm to
the system. It was simply a computer experiment. Who owns the
Internet? Is it some mysterious 'them' or is it our net? If it is out
net, then we should be able to try some stuff on it, and to heck with
'them' if they can't take a joke.
Of course the German hackers are a different story. What they got
in trouble for was espionage, and not hacking, which is a breach of
faith, and is hacking for personal gain. However selling Minix to the
KGB almost makes it forgivable...
It is my contention that hackers did not change. Society changed,
and it changed for the worse. The environment the early hackers were
working in correctly viewed these activities as the desire to utilize
technology in a personal way. By definition hackers believe in the
free access to computers and to the freedom of information. If you do
not believe in these principles you are not a hacker, no matter how
technologically capable you are. You are probable just a tool for the
greed society. Current bad mouthing of hackers is simply snobbery.
Rather than cracking down on the modern hacker, we should reinforce
the hacker ethic, a code of conduct not based upon greed and lust for
the almighty dollar, but instead for personal growth through the free
access of computers and information, and a respect for technology.
It is the humane thing to do.
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