Networkers, hackers, and basically anyone who is involved in IT gets into it because they understand something that few others in the world do. We control the flood gates of information to the rest of the world in essence. The backbone on which this modern world is built, is maintained by groups of people often so misunderstood and secretive, that in many peoples eyes, we are standing on the fringe of being a human being. We are something else entirely at times.

The rules and codes that most of us operate by don’t follow society’s understood rules most of the time. If an emergency comes up at 3 AM, we have to act on it with a moments notice. Having a normal conversation can often lead to awkward situations when you say things like, “Excuse me, the store database just crashed, I don’t know when I’ll be home, sorry honey,”. Or when another professional from another field walks up on a group of us when we’re talking mostly jargon, only to hear nothing by alphabet soup, “Yeah, the DMZ was hit yesterday by the ABC bug, since it’s running ASP.NET it got hit really hard and we had to reset the LDAP directory just to get the CEO back into his CPU,”.

Talking with most IT professionals or people closely related to the industry feel this way too. Most people have no clue as to what we do, or what we’re actually capable of, especially when we start calling on friends to help. Yes, geeks have friends too. Oh, and before anyone gets offended by the term geek, let me give you my definition of it: a 4 letter term used to describe someone with a six-figure salary or higher involved in the technology field. Not only do we have friends, but they in terms of what can be done, are some of the most powerful people on the planet, forget presidents, dictators, or would-be world conquerors, as the old saying goes, the meek shall inherit the earth.

Now this probably qualifies as a rant about how society doesn’t understand what we are as a group, or even that as individuals we control the flow of a company’s information, and we often get overlooked because of our somewhat hidden nature, but I would rather say that this is similar to the mentors manifesto. I read it when I was 13 and really wondering where and what I would do with the knowledge I had. In honor of that manifesto, I’m reposting it at the end of this post. Enjoy guys!

SCECEBRB     dsds            \/\The Conscience of a Hacker/\
-=-=-=-SS N N-F-FNDNDUSUSSSSSNONOONON A A A A T T E ELOLOESESATATR R EX
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 threeX
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 preXchewed and tasteless.
We've been dominated by sadists, or ignored by the apathetic.  The few
that had something to teach found us willing 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 dirtXcheap 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.
OVOV Y Y T TLELE T +++The Mentor+++