Reading 3: Big Hacks, Big stacks

 Reading 03: Big Hacks, Big Stacks

    Naivety killed the “True Hacker” spirit, but not the Hacker Ethic itself. Since the first page of Hackers, I viewed those die-hard idealists seeking to make the world conform to their beliefs would not last through the generations of hackers. Each generation of hackers, from the True Hackers to the Gaming Artists lived life almost via a two-way mirror; they could easily see and comment on the outside world but those going about daily life could not understand the passions driving the hackers. The Hacker Ethic being adopted en masse, in my humble opinion, was always a pipedream.

    This is not to say that it is dead nowadays or dwindling. While Richard Stallman coined himself as “the last True Hacker”, he failed to realize that more people than ever had started hacking on computers in each their own way. The spread of the Hacker Ethic led to the computer craze which in a Capitalistic society that is America is no surprise led to the monetization and commercialization of computer software.

    I think the book fails to realize that as the era of the Game Hackers lost some Hacker Ethics by forming bureaucratic companies, the group of people across America who refused to accept copyright law and proprietary software grew in proportion. Hackers such as Mark Dachaineau were frequently rubbing elbows initially with hackers whose main goal was to liberate software and games from the shackles of copyright protections. This defiance is just like what transpired in the MIT AI lab as they rebelled against passwords on the 9^th floor machines, but just on a national level. Through such acts of rebellion, Hackers without central organization kept the Hacker Ethics alive by Sharing software and ensuring that it remained open to the public solely because they thought it was the righteous thing to do.

    Although the proliferation of computers across America increased the number of genuine hackers such as John Harris in society, it did the same for “professional hackers”, and probably to a larger extent. Those “goal-oriented” and “responsible” programmers should not be seen as a blight to those who identify as genuine hackers. Instead, I suggest viewing them as the engine that keeps the Technology Train chugging in today’s economy. If every programmer only worked on his passion projects and on his own schedule, then I would never get to order Chic-fil-a from Duncan on my phone. I do not know anyone who’s passionate about automating food delivery app software, yet GrubHub still found a group of programmers who were able to produce a working app. What I am trying to say is that while it is important for programmers to be motivated to work on a project, that project does not have to be their goal in life. “Professional Programmers” are not worse than those truly passionate programmers, they just have different driving forces in their life. Whether they are programming for financial security or because programming is just the best they are good at, the “professional programmer” promotes the growth of the software/hardware industry just like “passionate hackers/programmers”.

    While I might be biased in my assessment of “professional programmers” being equal to “passionate programmers” due to the fact I will most likely have to follow the mentality of a professional in my job after I graduate, I find it hard to criticize either style of life. They both need each other to exist because it is the “passionate programmer” who puts in the work to push the limits of technology and the “professional programmer” who helps establish the new status quo.

    As for if money ruined the hacker ethic, simply no. The greatest driving force for innovation in the USA is either the military industrial complex or good-old capitalist greed to sell as much as possible. The True Hackers would not exist without DARPA money, the Hardware Hackers would not exist without companies like Intel trying to make cheaper microprocessors to increase their revenue, and the Game Hackers would not have come into their Golden Age without the capitalist market to sell their games to. In all the three generations of Hackers, money was a key component to drive the Hacker Movement.

Reading 02: (Computer) Power to the People

 

Reading 02: (Computer) Power to the People

Much like the game of LIFE discussed in both parts of Hackers, the hacker ethic grows and spreads like the cells on Gosper’s CRT until it can no longer sustain its original shape. In the case of the original 32 hackers in Gordon French’s garage who started the Homebrew Computing Club, there was no way the hacker ethic could remain one single minded cooperative entity once the hacker goal of demystifying the machine was achieved across America.

I feel like everything is so obvious in hindsight. The hacker ethic of acceptance and cooperation was already showing its fragility with the limited cooperation, despite close proximity, of the “True hackers” and the “hardware hackers”. The most both groups interacted was with Peter Deutsch setting up the time-sharing system for the original Community Memory and “Uncle” John McCarthy attending some of Bob Albrecht’s Midpeninsula Free University sessions. “True Hackers” viewed hardware hackers’ hacks as basic and unimpressive. Likewise, most “Hardware Hackers” viewed the MIT elite as being government dogs and did not approve of their hacks for moral reasons. This simple separation between both groups reinforces that even in the beginning of the “Hardware Hacker” movement, the hacker ethic #4, “Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not criteria such as degrees, age, race, sex, or position” was already being thrown to the wayside.

In a crude sense, it’s like cyber protestants and Catholics. Both MIT and hardware hackers agree on the same set of hacking commandments (i.e. the hacker ethics) but disagree fundamentally on how to interpret them. The proliferation of BASIC in the hardware hacker community was like Martin Luther’s 95 Theses for the “True Hackers”. While the “True Hackers” talked to computer God in Latin (assembly), the hardware hackers preferred common English (BASIC).*

That’s as deep as I want to go with the religion comparisons because hackers did not persecute each other.

Moving on from crazy comparisons, I would say the compromises made by the “Hardware Hackers” to spread the benefits of technology to the world are inevitable and probably for the greater good. For computer technology to spread, there had to be large entities/corporations willing to invest. I probably would not have been into computers were it not for the ease of access to video games and having my parents’ computer while growing up. Despite the passion hackers had for computers like the Altair 8800, it was not meant for mainstream acceptance. I think Adam Osborne hit the nail on the head thinking that “people were happiest when relieved of anxiety-producing choices”; sadly, the average person has no desire to be a hacker.

Apple has perfected this philosophy of easy entry into computers. My dad can barely turn on a tv sometimes yet knows how to use his iPad without any help from his “computer science” son (for the most part). Reaching this level of advancement in user interface and widespread adoption could only be achieved through fierce competition amongst tech companies. Without the birth and death of companies like Osborne Computer, MITS, and IMSAI, computer tech for the masses would have stagnated.

However you view the rise of tech giants, you cannot argue that there have ever been more hackers in American society than now. With the compromise of the hacker ethics for the sake of business, there has been a rise of brave youths how would rather not pay Adobe $250, and instead just get the “free version” from torrent. Hackers who still believe all digital information should be free, do not trust centralized powers of corporations and government, and will accept anyone into their ranks solely based on their hacking of modern systems. Hell, the GTA6 trailer leaked as a hack by teenager Arion Kurjal using an Amazon Fire stick, a hotel television set and a mobile phone from a Travelodge hotel while in custody for another hack he had previously committed. It’s reminiscent of “Captain Crunch” John Draper hacking phone companies while under probation using his prototype Apple II for no other reason other than he could, so he did. Both Draper and Kurjal did not do their hacks with criminal intent, instead did so out of their inability to not view any information as free, to not view any authority as absolute, and because they thought it would make life more fun.

To finish up my rambling, I do not think the hacker ethic was truly compromised by greed and corporate desires. Those that compromised or “sold-out” were just opening the door for more hackers to be born with the technology they were releasing to the world.

*It is important to emphasize that this comparison to Christian society is only on a superficial level and am not suggesting there was any deep seeded hatred between both hacker groups like in the case of Europe’s wars of religion.

 

Reading 01: To hack or not to hack

It’s incredible to think about how one of the dominoes in the path to modern computing was teenagers and model trains at MIT. Despite trains being an excuse to just build relays and circuits, model trains are what got hackers like Peter Samson and Alan Kotok to stop wandering around aimlessly Building 26 at 3am and to dive headfirst into becoming a “True Hacker”.

I was genuinely surprised at how novel hacking initially was. Fledgling hackers would join the TMRC because they wanted to be a part of its P&S division and naturally learned that to continue hacking, authority would have to be ignored, and no one could stop you until the hack was completed. I was envious of this innate curiosity to explore a passion as far as you can because I am certain if I walked in Tech Square in Cambridge, I would instantly be labeled a loser.

I live my life under the “jack of many trades, master of none” philosophy. Once I learn the basics of a hobby or interest, I move on to the next. While I have hacked in many mediums, from building an electric guitar from scratch to following a ‘how-to’ guide to set up a cloud-based Minecraft server, I have never focused on one hack to perfect. Both hacks I left at a stage of satisfactory; the electric guitar can play any note (just ignore the interference), and the Minecraft server can only run vanilla Minecraft with three players at a time.

My jealousy of hackers is solely with their passion to perfect and delve deeper into their area of interest. I wish for at least some period of my life I could convince myself to work on a project until I have no ideas left on how to improve it. Everything else that comes with being a true hacker, I find kind of just sad.

Aside from their achievements, I do not appreciate the hacker lifestyle as I view it limits happiness to just purely a project-based endeavor. If you are a hacker and you weren’t producing, then ed Fredken would employ some “social engineering” and move that hacker far away to another company or lab for the sake of both his previous location and him. Hackers were judged solely by work done, not by who they were. Even in the world of baseball, where stats define if you are employed or not, there exists the “clubhouse guy”: a player whose value isn’t really how good he plays baseball but the good vibes and energy he brings the team.

Moreover, there was the typical hacker way of life. Reading about Richard Greenblatt’s legendary stench, so powerful it had to be measured using a new olfactory measure of “milliblatts”, makes my previously held assertions of poor hacker hygiene look downright clean. The saddest part to me is that the stench is a byproduct of the concentration hackers require to complete a cycle of 30 hours of work. Poor hygiene and 30-hour work cycles then lead to no social life aside from hacking Chinese menus with your fellow lab mates.

However, most hackers were happy with these sacrifices.

“All the while, Silver was soaking up knowledge in this Xanadu above Cambridge. It was a school no one else knew about, and for the first time in his life he was happy"

While I could never live the hacker lifestyle, I find it important to respect the choice of those brave hackers. Much like beauty, happiness is decided by the beholder. While I do not and cannot be labeled a true hacker, I will try my best to integrate the passion for hacking into my life.