Winning back the hacker mentality/integrity

Patrick Gichini
Jul 27, 2017 · 3 min read

The orchestrated myth

‘Hacking’ just saying the word sounds too much of a cliché nowadays. It’s the word in every wannabe’s mouth. It’s the IT equivalent of the American dream, be the free Eagle who roams the world without a care in the world. But just like the American dream, it is all fabricated and unreal.

What we perceive as hacking has been greatly influenced by Hollywood and the media. We all want to be like Elliot, making magic happen within milliseconds. We all want to be like those awesome dudes from that really cool hacker movie that we saw last weekend. Don’t get me wrong, I like them too. The promise of that much freedom, that much power, who cannot want it?

My only worry is that hacking is not what it used to be. My generation has been exposed to a different construct of the world’s imagination. Imagination is always good but I fear that it might do more harm than good. Just google hackers and what do you see? The most famous hackers are on the FBI’s most wanted list. I agree, some of them are awesome and are being persecuted for thinking differently. But what about the malice? Since when did it become cool to hack bank accounts and steal from people? Since when did it become cool to hack the grid and endanger thousands of lives if not millions? Since when did it become cool to use your power to take whatever it is that you want and not give a shit?

You might say, ‘Patrick, these are hard times. We are fighting ruthless powers and sometimes the force is necessary’. Well, someone once said, ‘You have to be careful when you’re fighting evil, be careful that you don’t end up becoming what you’re fighting’. To me, hacking was about curiosity, it was about the quest to find knowledge. It was about taking all that information, turning it into power and using it for good. It was about being whoever you wanted to be. The new age had come, the age of Information Economics, and we were the new custodians.

Now we have reduced this noble tradition to mediocrity. The use of knowledge for no cause. Noble knowledge seekers turned into mere burglars and con men. Where is the honour now? Where is our pride? We were tasked to free information, yet we took it and used it for our own good. Where are all the hackers now? All I see are a bunch of crackers. Yes, they have the knowledge, yes they the skill, but deep down, they are still thieves and burglars.

But who’s to blame?

We are to blame for this. We do not show our kids the real meaning and honour of tradition. We have conditioned him to love and associate with malice. Where is the good guy? Who shows that it is cool to spend hours behind a monitor protecting the people and making life better? The white hat has been labelled as lame. We have taught our generation that it is cool to not respect other people’s space, privacy, property and existence. It is cool to do whatever we want with our power.

It hurts me to see my favourite culture go down this road. I once told a friend of mine, ‘hacking has been reduced to a skill set of tracking down cheating spouses’. I want my cool culture back.


Originally published at Decode.

Decode_ke

Decode_ke is a tech blog aiming at presenting technology in an understandable context while providing expert opinion.

Patrick Gichini

Written by

Linux Ninja | Data Eng | Former Network Eng | Poet

Decode_ke

Decode_ke

Decode_ke is a tech blog aiming at presenting technology in an understandable context while providing expert opinion.

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