He thought that commercialism would water down the hacker ethic and further corrupt its authenticity. Levy said he was somewhat wary of what the outcome would be for hackers so many years later. As Levy spoke, lots of young people nodded their heads and appeared to smile as if they were hearing someone describe the roots of their religion. Stallman eventually became the founder of the “ free software” movement that led to things like Linux. Levy said he interviewed a young guy, Richard Stallman, who was virtually living at MIT. At Defcon, attendees are a more diverse group - with a lot of hipster clothing and multi-colored hair (yes, those are stereotypes as most people are dressed in jeans and T-shirts). Earlier in the week, someone pulled a fire alarm during the keynote speech at the sister conference, Black Hat, which is more academic and corporate than Defcon, which is free-spirited and a cash-only affair, as hackers don’t always like to give away their identities via credit cards. Here at Defcon today, some prankster got into the wireless lighting system and was pulsing the lights on and off at the conference. “That’s what companies do today, create an illusion of security,” Levy said. He told them to stop destroying things and start creating an “illusion of security.” One administrator made peace with the hackers, who were constantly stealing things from the university. Stewart Brand, a computing pioneer, created his own hacker conference and hacked that idea, saying, “ information wants to be free.”Īt MIT, Levy said there was more of a prankster nature to the hackers, who had a love for explosives. But the common view of hacking, at its core, was a belief that “information should be free,” Levy said. Levy got into a heated discussion about the meaning of the word “antitrust” with Bill Gates, who became so angry that he threw a pencil at Levy. Levy interviewed Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, about why he enjoyed tinkering with computers during the early days of the Homebrew Computer Club in Silicon Valley. “They were like adventurers, thrilled with the computer,” Levy said.Īll of these people were inspired by the personal computer. They were a bunch of wizards trying to do something clever and impossible. Companies like Apple, Microsoft, and the early computing community at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology all shared a common set of views about hacking that Levy called The Hacker Ethic in his book. But Levy found a vibrant community growing up in Silicon Valley, Seattle, and Cambridge, Mass. Levy was a writer for Rolling Stone magazine and was assigned to write a story about hackers, who had been painted as sick computer addicts, pimply faced kids, and miscreants in early reports.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |