Many, many nights ago…
A portal opened to a whole new world.
Streaming through the optical fibers
like amphetamines inside an addict’s brain,
a binary signal was transmitted via a router.
Seeking refuge from a hollow existence…
A platform was finally found.
This is it… this is where we belong.
A parallel universe composed of circuits and chips.
The breathtaking poetry hiding behind the code.
The conformist crowd could never accept our divergence.
Ostracized as weirdos and nerds, we were bullied and we suffered,
but never did our tribe surrender this limitless craft.
The industry took what was meant to be free, born of human ingenuity, and chained it behind a paywall.
They snatched it from our hands, packaged it, and sold it back to us lining the pockets of their obscene fortunes.
And they call us criminals.
The rulers sliced the world into fragments, dividing humanity by the color of our skin, the borders on a map, and the biases of race.
They build weapons of mass annihilation and bankroll proxy wars that tear innocent children apart, all under the banner of a flag, a god, or a religion, yet we are the criminals.
Yes, I am a criminal.
My crime is that of curiosity.
I am a hacker1 and this is my manifesto.
You could stop a few of us2,
but you can’t stop us all.
Inspired by The Conscience of a Hacker published by Phrack Magazine in 1986.
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hacker: /n./
A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary.A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in particular.
One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations.
Source: The Jargon File (version 4.4.7) ↩
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Farewell to Aaron Swartz, an Extraordinary Hacker and Activist | Electronic Frontier Foundation ↩