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- File: HACKER MORALITY
-
- A lesson in phreaking and hacking morality:
-
- I find it truly discouraging when people, intelligent people seeking
- intellectual challenges, must revert to becoming common criminals. The
- fine arts of hacking and boxing have all but died out. Though you newcomers,
- you who have appeared on the scene in the last year or two, may not realize it,
- we had it much better. People didn't recognize our potential for destruction
- and damage because we never flaunted it, nor did we exercise it.
-
- For hacking, it was the intellectual challenge which drove us to do it.
- The thrill of bypassing or breaking through someone's computer security was
- tremendous. It wasn't a case of getting a password from a friend, logging on,
- and destroying an entire database. We broke in for the challenge of getting in
- and snooping around WITHOUT detection. We loved the potential for destruction
- that we gave ourselves, but never used.
-
- Today, after so much publicity, the fun has turned to true criminality.
- Publicity we have received is abhorring. From WarGames to the headlined October
- Raids, to the 414's, the Inner Circle, Fargo 4a, and the recent NASA
- breakins--not to mention all the local incidents that never made the big
- newspapers, like breakins at school computers or newspaper computers. TRW
- credit information services claims hackers used the three stolen accounts to
- aid them in abusing stolen credit cards. The thrill of entering and looking
- around has shifted to criminal practicality--how can I make my bank account
- fatter--how may I use this stolen credit card to its fullest--how could I take
- revenge upon my enemies.
-
- And then there is the world of Phone Phreaking. The number of phreaks has
- grown from an elite few, perhaps ten or twenty, to well over a thousand.
- Still, there remain only about 10 or 20 good, longlasting phreaks. The rest
- receive information and abuse its uses until the information is no longer valid
- .
- Even worse, they seek publicity! They WANT to be caught! Many even use their
- real names on bulletin board systems to promote publicity. Meanwhile, the REAL
- phone phreaks have been resting in the shadow of the rest, waiting for
- phreaking to become so dangerous as to become a challenge once again. Once
- security tightens and only the strong survive (phreak Darwinism?), phreaking
- will be restored as a way to 'beat the system' without costing anyone anything.
-
- Hacking may soon be dead, but may phone phreaking live on!
-
- Big Brother
-
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