then it happened... a door
opened to a world... rushing through the phone line like heroin
through an addict's veins, an electronic pulse is sent out, a
refuge from the day-to-day incompetencies is sought... a board is
found. "This is it... this is where I belong..." I know
everyone here... even if I've never met them, never talked to
them, may never hear from them again... I know you all... Damn
kid. Tying up the phone line again. They're all alike... You bet
your ass we're all alike... we've been spoon-fed baby food at
school when we hungered for steak... the bits of meat that you
did let slip through were pre-chewed and tasteless. We've been
dominated by sadists, or ignored by the apathetic. The few that
had something to teach found us willing pupils, but those few are
like drops of water in the desert. This is our world now... the
world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We
make use of a service already existing without paying for what
could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons,
and you call us criminals. We explore... and you call us
criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals.
We exist without skin color, without nationality, without
religious bias... and you call us criminals. You build atomic
bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to
make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals.
Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is
that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they
look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that
you will never forgive me for. I am a hacker, and this is my
manifesto. You may stop this individual,but you can't stop us
all... after all, we're all alike."