Loyd Blankenship, hacker manifesto (1986)

Loyd Blankenship aka The Mentor, wrote this text shortly after his arrest at the beginning of '86'. It was published in Phrack magazine, and became a reference text for hackers.

One of the most beautiful texts on how to see the world of hackers, and which allows many of us to understand that we are not alone in having this way of thinking.

The Mentor – January 8, 1986 – Phrack.org

The following was written shortly after my arrest…

Another one was caught today, it's all over the newspapers. “Scandal: A teenager arrested for computer crime”, “Hacker arrested after hacking a bank”… Damn kids, all the same.

But you, in your psychology of a three-piece suit and your technological consciousness of the 50s, have you ever thought of looking at the world with the eyes of a hacker? Have you ever wondered what made him act and what forces animated him? I am a hacker, enter my world... My world, it begins with school... I am more alert than most other children and the stupidities that we are taught bore me... Damn kids, it's all the same.

I'm in middle or high school. I listened to the teachers explain for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I understood well. “No Ms. Dubois, I did not show my work. I did it in my head.”Damn kid. He certainly copied. They are all the same.

I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a minute, that's cool. It does what I want. If it makes a mistake, it's because I screwed up. Not because he doesn't like me... Not because he feels threatened by me... Not because he thinks I'm a smartass... Not because he doesn't like teaching and shouldn't be there... Damn kid. All he does is play. They are all the same.

And that's when it happens. A door opens...Electronic impulses surge through the telephone line like heroin in the veins of a drug addict. To find in a Forum the refuge from everyday stupidity. "This is it... This is where I have to be..." Here, I know everyone... Even if I have never met anyone. I've never spoken to them, and I may never hear from them again one day... I know you all.Damn kid. Still hanging on the phone. They are all the same.

At school, we were given baby food even though we couldn't wait for a steak... The pieces of meat that you kindly handed us were pre-chewed and tasteless. We were dominated by sadists or ignored by apathetic people. The only ones who had things to teach us found in us students of good will, but these were like drops of water in the desert.

This is our world now... The world of electrons and switches, the beauty of baud. We are using an already existing service, without paying for what might be cheap if it were not run by greedy profiteers, and we are the ones you call criminals. We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious dogma... and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you finance wars, you murder and cheat, you manipulate and you lie and try to make us believe that it is for our own good... and yet we are the criminals.

Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they think and say, not by how they look. My crime is being smarter than you, something you will never forgive me for.

I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You can stop one individual, but you can't stop us all...After all, we are all the same.