438 DEAR HACKER

438 DEAR HACKER

lot of naive curiosity. I was never a “hacker” per se since I have about

a third-grade computer literacy level and the extent of my hardware knowledge is knowing what card plugs in where, and I did do some things in that dark time right after the breakup of the phone company that some water under the conscience tells me were not too nice, but

I really didn’t know any better. With my little toy I discovered a whole new method of communica-

tions, with the immediacy of a telephone call and the depth of a letter to the editor. It also opened up the world of everyday technology: I heard about the rainbow of boxes that certain people use to test the limits of the phone system that 99.9 percent of people (myself some- times included) take for granted. I heard about different computer systems and how to get into them. Frankly, I’ve never really wanted to hack myself, but it’s always been fun to find out how I could do it, and stories from those who did such things were always fun to read.

In short, I experienced what the framers of the U.S. Constitution had hoped for when they sat down in Philadelphia in 1787: the free and open exchange of ideas (to borrow from WABC’s Bob Grant). Even if the information shaded a little to the gray, it was still useful. But, freedom and paranoia go hand in hand: if you are free to do what you wish, eventually the exercise of that freedom may impinge upon the freedom of someone else. That is why we have laws, some fair, some not. Now, I’m not saying that laws cause criminals because there is

a certain percentage of humans who will always do things at the ex- pense of other humans, but I do believe that unfair laws will awaken otherwise latent tendencies in people. Since people will increase their “law-breaking” in the face of unfairness, those in power will retaliate with tougher laws, and so it spirals up until it can go no higher and suffocates in the stratosphere of social collapse.

What does this have to do with 2600? Your publication is one way responsible citizens have of combating the unfairness in our post- industrial society. Since information has become power in our soci- ety (witness the inordinate influence that CNN has over government policy), those in power, whether they are government or business, find it incumbent upon themselves to control what people know. Fortunately, we live in a more-or-less free society and we can get access

A C U LT U R E O F R E B E L S

to information if we dig for it. There is enough self-incriminating information spread across all of the U.S. government’s own pam- phlets and press releases to keep self-appointed “government watchdog groups” in Brooks Brothers suits, but that information is not publi- cized. So maybe the key to our so-called “Information Economy” is publicity. Sure, IBM gets all the publicity for marketing a bug-ridden, hard-to-use computer, and Apple Computer can “Win the Hearts and Minds” of computer users, but who outside of semi-hardcore computer buffs know about the Amiga, or even Steve Jobs’ neXT? They can blow the disk drive doors off even a fully-loaded IBM power user’s dream machine, but who’s really heard of them?

So this isn’t the “Information Age,” it’s the “Publicity Age.” As Adolf Hitler said, if you must lie, tell the most outrageous lie you can. It’s easier to believe that way.

The Disco Strangler South Riser, NJ

Dear 2600: After reading your summer 1990 issue, I would like to throw my two

cents in. Most of the negative feedback writers compared breaking into a house with “breaking” into a computer. I find this to be an inaccurate comparison.

The reality of the situation is this. The hacker made a phone call. When the computer at the other end answered with a high pitched carrier tone, the hacker’s computer made some high pitched whis- tling sounds back. What are those whistling tones? They are a lan- guage, words, a representation of human thought. In America we have an outdated set of laws called the Bill of Rights. perhaps the most radical legal document of all time, but dated, nevertheless. The First Amendment of the Bill of Rights protects a citizen’s freedom of speech. A modem and a computer are just as much a tool of language