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<TITLE>CDNE Chapter 2: Hackers!</TITLE>
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<P ALIGN=CENTER><font size=+2 face="Times New Roman"><b>Chapter 2<br>
HACKERS!</b></font> </P>
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<p align="left"><font face="Times New Roman"><b>HACKER... </b></font>
<font face="Times New Roman">the word itself has an air of magic, and
many connotations. Some associate it with computer crime, intrusion,
and espionage. Others imagine a skinny and myopic teenager, whose acned
face is constantly illuminated by the glare of a computer screen. Many
immediately think of the information officer at work. In recent years,
some have even embraced the hacker as a hero. Personally, I see the
hacker as a messenger sent by humanity to explore the worlds of information.
This mission may seem superficial and self-imposed - perhaps even foolish
- but it will make more and more sense the more you read on.</font>
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<p><font face="Times New Roman">The word originally applied to the people
who spent their time crawling under the railroad tracks at the Tech Model
Railroad Club's (TMRC) facilities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) in the 1950's, connecting switches and relays with cables. This
model railroad was one of the first computer-like structures. A </font>
<font face="Times New Roman"><i>hack</i></font> <font face="Times New Roman">
originally meant a prank of the kind that students and faculty played
on their school (or rivaling institutions), such as wrapping the entire
roof in tinfoil. A good hack would be very conspicuous, and also prompt
the observer to ask him- or herself: </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>"How
in the hell did they do that!?".</i></font> <font face="Times New Roman">
Later, the word became synonymous with a spectacular solution to a technical
problem, or an ingenious computer program, or some other generally brilliant
design. A </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>hacker</i></font> <font face="Times New Roman">,
therefore, was someone who created and implemented things of this kind.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">A hacker, generally speaking, is a person
who uses a computer for its own sake because it's fun. An author that
uses a word processor all day is not a hacker. Neither is a graphic designer,
inventory specialist, or computer instructor. Their professions simply
require them to use a computer to simplify or improve the efficiency of
some other task. However, a </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>programmer</i></font>
<font face="Times New Roman"> that loves his or her work is a hacker.
Likewise, an enthusiastic computer technician or microcomputer designer
is also a hacker. Last but definitely not least, there are </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>hobby
hackers</i></font> <font face="Times New Roman">, who actually constitute
the largest and most overlooked group of computer enthusiasts - probably
because they don't use a computer in a professional sense. These amateurs
do not have PR directors shouting their cause, nor do they have publishers
or trade journals that print their opinions. Some elements of the media
focus on this group, but they seldom speak for them; rather, the computer
media generally focuses on "bringing up" the amateurs to the
standards and norms of the professionals.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">In the following section, I will try to
summarize a variety of concepts, names, and ideas, all relating to electronic
culture and especially the hacker culture. I will also attempt the rather
difficult task of classifying these events and ideas from a historical
perspective. This can be a risky venture, considering that the time frame
is short and it is the type of thing that often generates lots of criticism.
Nevertheless, I will proceed; I feel worthy of this task because I have
grown up in this culture, and I consider myself to have a very personal
relationship to it. I will even suggest that I have some of my information
generation's spirit in my blood. Furthermore, I </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>feel</i></font>
<font face="Times New Roman"> that it needs to be done</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">It is a tangled story primarily concerned
with young people in the 60's, 70's, 80's, and 90's. It is a history of
devotion, computer programs, authority and ingenious scientists. The tale
is about hippies, yippies, libertarians, anarchists and classical socialists
in one sordid mess, and the ideology that was born out of this mess through
a conglomerate of subcultures. We will be thrust between order and chaos,
from quiet computer rooms where the only the soft clicking of keyboards
can be heard, to high-octane decibels at techno-rave parties in European
warehouses.<br>
</font> </p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Let us travel to MIT, sometime in the 60's,
for it is where the story begins...<br>
</font> <font face="Times New Roman"><b><br>
</b></font> <font face="Times New Roman"><b>The Cradle of the Hacker Culture</b></font>
<font face="Times New Roman"><br>
</font> <font face="Times New Roman"> It was no coincidence that
the hacker culture was born at MIT. This is where the first large computer
networks were created, and the faculty discovered that some of their students
were so devoted to their computer studies that the teachers let them work
independently. Among the more famous people at this liberal faculty we
find </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><b>Marvin Minsky</b></font>
<font face="Times New Roman">, now a legendary scientist in the field
of artificial intelligence. Thus, the first hacker's association was born
out of a close-knit group of dedicated students. The work ethic that formed
among these early hackers resembled both that of academic study and that
of a non-profit organization.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">A "Hacker Club" by itself was
hardly anything new; like other student groups, both bad and good things
came of the association. However, this club became more sectarian and
devoted (read: fanatic) as it grew. The mood of the group came to resemble
that of the group of students in the movie </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>Dead
Poets' Society</i></font> <font face="Times New Roman">, and the members
increasingly neglected their studies in favor of the exploration of computers
and computer technology. In particular, Digital Equipment Corporation's
</font> <font face="Times New Roman"><b>PDP-1 </b></font> <font face="Times New Roman">computer
turned out to be incredibly addictive. This machine differed from the
mammoth IBM machines that had been used by universities since 1948, in
that you could work </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>directly</i></font>
<font face="Times New Roman"> with the computer. You could see your program's
execution, and you could correct errors (debug) while the program was
running. In a flash, the hackers invented a number of new programming
tricks and developed, among other things, the first computer game </font>
<font face="Times New Roman"><i>(Spacewar</i></font> <font face="Times New Roman">)
and the first joystick. The accomplishments of these hackers became so
notable that they were asked to assist in the development of the </font>
<font face="Times New Roman"><b>PDP-6</b></font> <font face="Times New Roman">
computer, which became a huge hit for Digital. The company currently manufactures
behemoths like </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><b>VAX </b></font>
<font face="Times New Roman">and </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><b>DEC
</b></font> <font face="Times New Roman">computers, and it owes a great
deal of its success to the hackers at MIT.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">If these hackers had been treated like other
students, they would have been expelled when it turned out that they spent
their days (and especially nights) hacking away on the school's computers
instead of studying for their finals. That would have been the end of
the story. However, by a stroke of luck, the American Department of Defense
developed an interest in MIT's resources through ARPA (Advanced Research
Projects Agency), which paid MIT to hire developers for a project named
</font> <font face="Times New Roman"><b>MAC</b></font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>.</i></font>
<font face="Times New Roman"> MAC stood for Multiple Access Computing
and Machine Aided Cognition; the goals of these projects were to have
several users sharing a computer, and to make it simple for users to take
advantage of the computer's resources.<br>
</font> </p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">At MIT, the hackers progressed to developing
networks, message systems (one of the worlds first time-sharing systems,
which allowed users to share a computer by allowing it to process the
requests of one user at a time), and above all </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>artificial
intelligence</i></font> <font face="Times New Roman"> (AI), a research
area in which MIT is still a world leader. The hackers speculated about
the nature of intelligence, and could not understand what made it so difficult
to capture even the simplest operation of intelligence within the circuits
of a processor. In the late 70's, a computer science professor by the
name of </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><b>Douglas Hofstadter </b></font>
<font face="Times New Roman">released a book with positively religious
undertones called </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>Gödel,
Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid</i></font> <font face="Times New Roman">,
which has served as an articulated statement of the hackers' world view.
This work is well-known among hackers, and is also considered a masterpiece
by literary experts. Unfortunately, the book is </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>challenging
</i></font> <font face="Times New Roman">(but not hard to read), and it
is found in the mathematics section in most libraries, which tends to
scare off many potential readers.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Hackers derived a philosophical foundation
for their culture from Hofstadter, and speculations about self-referential
intelligent systems (self-referential means "learning from mistakes",
or simply: learning ) figured heavily in this philosophy. Parallels were
drawn to such varied subjects as paradoxes among the ancient philosophers,
</font> <font face="Times New Roman"><b>Bach's </b></font> <font face="Times New Roman">mathematical
play with harmonies, </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><b>Escher's</b></font>
<font face="Times New Roman"> mathematically inspired etchings and drawings,
and </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><b>Benoit Mandelbrot</b></font>
<font face="Times New Roman">'s theories of order within chaos (which
are physically illustrated by computer-generated chaos images, also known
as </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>fractals</i></font> <font face="Times New Roman">).
The arguments in the book eventually lead to an understanding of Gödel's
Theorem, which proves that every complete mathematical system, by virtue
of its characteristics, contains errors - i.e., there must exist statements
that are true, but cannot be proven inside the system.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Hofstadter's book culminates in an argument
regarding self-reference and artificial intelligence, which is designed
to describe human and machine intelligence as a function of mathematical
systems. As mentioned, MIT housed the pioneers in artificial intelligence,
and many of its hackers were convinced (and remain convinced) of the possibility
of building intelligent machines. However, it is sufficient to establish
that this early generation of hackers were very concerned with mathematics,
mathematical philosophy, and classical natural sciences. This MIT-born
philosophy, centered around intelligent systems, became the mainstay of
the hacker generation. It also became important for hackers to display
their own cultural identity. According to </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><b>Sherry
Turkle</b></font> <font face="Times New Roman">, a Harvard sociologist
and the author of the book </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>The
Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit</i></font> <font face="Times New Roman">,
the hackers that she has interviewed prefer listening to Bach in particular,
and avoid more romantic composers such as Beethoven because of a </font>
<font face="Times New Roman"><i>lack of</i></font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>order</i></font>
<font face="Times New Roman"> in these compositions.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">That the hackers formed a tight core, with
their own esthetic and philosophical values, was also a result of their
voluntary seclusion. Among all university students, technology majors
tend to keep the most to themselves, and an overwhelming majority are
male. Among technology majors, computer science students are the most
reclusive, and they are even more disproportionately male. If you happen
to be a "reject" from the beginning, it is not hard to start
re-evaluating your view of society and your environment in general. If
you also happen to be Army buddies, this process is almost inevitable.
The hackers mostly associated with each other, preferably by computer.
In essence, they formed a government-sanctioned subculture.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">The original hackers at MIT were, among
others, </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><b>Alan Kotok, Stewart Nelson,
Richard Greenblatt, Tom Knight, </b></font> <font face="Times New Roman">and
</font> <font face="Times New Roman"><b>Bill Gosper</b></font> <font face="Times New Roman">.
They were known to pull thirty-hour shifts in front of the computer and
then crash for twelve hours. They found the machines so fascinating that
they forgot about everything else while they were working. At the same
time, they nurtured an ideology that held that all information should
be free, ate Chinese take-out, and taught themselves how to pick every
lock in the computer science building - which they justified with their
devotion to putting all available equipment to its best use. Many considered
this behavior to be careless and disrespectful, but the hackers considered
it necessary to get the job done.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">The fact is that the hackers constituted
a homogeneous group that should be the envy of any teacher: they were
interested in the subject of their studies, and they spent all day and
all night solving problems related to their field. The faculty did not
try to constrain them.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">At this time, the history of networks began.
Two computers were connected, then three, then many - and shortly, an
entire network was created. Communicating by computer removes a host of
irritating particulars present in real life: you don't have to dress up
while punching on a keyboard, you can be totally anonymous, nobody will
notice you belching or eating with your hands, and no one will know what
the color of your skin is. Another user forms his or her opinion of you
solely based on your written communication. Social status identifiers
are virtually erased, and your opinions are just as valid as anyone else's.
Nobody can beat you, fire you, or repress you if you decide to be insolent
or speak from your heart. People who communicate by computer tend to be
surprisingly honest and forthright, since the discussion is created by
everyone and anyone can participate.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, and other major
American universities were the pillars of the American defense project
</font> <font face="Times New Roman"><b>ARPAnet</b></font> <font face="Times New Roman">,
which became the core of what is today known as the Internet. Through
this network, MIT hackers came into contact with hackers at other universities,
laying the groundwork for an national hacker culture which would later
spread to Europe and, in particular, Sweden. Many of the slang terms that
can be found in </font> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>The Jargon File
</i></font> <font face="Times New Roman">(a widely available file that
includes a dictionary of hacker terminology) stem from this period. Some
of the most venerable expressions can be traced to the original model
railroad club, TMRC. In addition to the dictionary, the file contains
anecdotes and observations on the nature of hacking, making it perhaps
the most important written work of the original hacker culture.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">When hacker culture spread from MIT through
ARPAnet, it first reached the other large American universities that performed
computer research, including the prominent Stanford and Berkeley schools
on the other side of the continent. Thanks to ARPAnet, the hackers were
not hindered by geographic distances, and could cooperate and exchange
all kinds of information across this vast expanse - a privilege that normal
people would not enjoy until the 90's. In San Francisco during the late
60's and early 70's, hackers were influenced by hippie culture, and this
influence spread throughout the hacker communities of the entire world
through ARPAnet. This was the first interaction between the hacker community
and the hippie culture.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">The hacker culture first reached Sweden
in 1973, when the Linköping School of Technology (LiTH) started specializing
in computer technology. The students formed a computer association called
</font> <font face="Times New Roman"><b>Lysator</b>, which still claims
to be the oldest computer club in Sweden (which is true), and the origin
of the true Swedish hacking tradition (which is more questionable). Lysator
will play a part in later sections of this book.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Hacker culture not only has its roots in
the academic realm; these university hackers only constitute a small part
of the digital culture scene. Now and then someone comes along and states
that only the hackers that attend college and basically live in the computer
labs are "real" hackers. Such a statement is ignorant and stupid.
The meaning of a word is, naturally, defined by its users, and anyone
who chooses to call him- or herself a hacker has the right to do so.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">If we now allow the 60's to roll into the
70's, we will observe a monumental event: the introduction of the high-tech
amateurs, who were just as much hackers as Bill Gosper and his MIT buddies.</font></p>
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