[Venture]

and that story is that hacking is not an activity, but a culture, and a lifestyle that leads to adaptation through every aspect in your life. By thinking, and living the hacker's mindset you WILL be a problem solver, and one who understands how to dissect ANYTHING in life, and how to make it work to your advantage. It's how a kid who had a social disorder learned social skills so well he is now more socially adept than most normal people. It's also a skill that's made the most effective hackers of all generations, but the point of the origin story is the HACKER MINDSET. It seems this principal has been long forgotten, and as it's faded so have those who truly blossom as hackers, reclusing to those who only seek out hacking with the notion of notoriety, profit, or revenge. The origin of the hacker mindset is one without discrimination of any form of quality, the hacker mindset is one where a person does not see age, race, gender, or any trait other than a persons actions, and where people are judged by merit, and ability. Now lets take a step back into TIME, and go back to the dark ages of the internet where our origin story begins.....

The following was written shortly after my arrest...

                      \/\The Conscience of a Hacker/\/

                                     by

                              +++The Mentor+++

                         Written on January 8, 1986
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

       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 three-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 pre-chewed and tasteless.  We've been dominated by sadists, or
ignored by the apathetic.  The few that had something to teach found us will-
ing 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 dirt-cheap 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.

                              +++The Mentor+++

and then moving into the era of mitnick....





and we move into the age of hacktivism.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAECyLvSCHg

and then the next chapter.... That chapter is being written NOW! YOU ARE THE NEXT GENERATION! The fate of the future is in the hands of those who stand now?


If you ask yourself where do I start, before picking a path you must first learn.

I'd recommend learning General Computing, Coding, and then Security and in that order.

Some free resources

https://cybrary.it/ to learn about general computing
https://www.codecademy.com/ for learning coding


Good luck to you Gentlemen,

Sincerely,

Venture

[ethelooking]

Becoming a hacker will take intelligence, practice, dedication, and hard work. Therefore, you have to learn to distrust attitude and respect competence of every kind. Hackers are people who think outside the box on how they can solve problems with technology for their own benefit. You should never underestimate them. They are always willing to work extra hours in order to make their ideas a reality.

Hackers are also creative and adaptable, which is why they are able to create new products and services that are not available to the general public. Many hackers are also artists, musicians, writers, or other creative types.

[russian]

era of mitnick seems so far away, no one hacks for fun anymore lol it's so profit driven its crazy. what happened lol

[xraytech]

For anyone interested this "Story" is know as the hacker manifesto and there's a good reference to it in the 1995 movie "Hackers" which I highly recommend.

Mitnick was a great story about hacking for fun, becoming a professional and living the life until he stole someone's idea/product and claimed it as his own. This is considered by many to be a dick move, especially in the hacking scene where cred is often the only recognition people want. Stealing someone's project for profit feels to most, myself included, as the ultimate sell out and sacrifice of what hacking means to most hackers.