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Piss Issue 27
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- P.I.S.S. Philez Number 27 =
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- The Hacking Life =
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- by AT2SCreech =
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[Yes I know that may not have been an appropriate title, but you come
down here and edit all these files. Sheesh! -Def]
Hackers, what are we and what are we doing here of all places, in
the Navy, serving a country some people would rather destroy than see
live another day? There is a difference between living in a country and
existing in one, I am not sure what group you fall into, (or may think
you do,) but I will at least try and explain so bear with me. People who
exist someplace are the ones who accept what they are given, never think
about anything except what their televisions tell them, they want to be
spoon-fed information by CNN and their local religious leaders, it is
entirely to hard for them to make up their own minds about how to live
their lives so they let others do it for them. If you're mad at that last
statement, you are probably in that category. That's where what I am
trying to point out comes into play, the minute anyone charges them with
changing their personal status quo they immediately go on the offensive
and hide behind shallow ideological or political philosophy... without
change there is no evolution.
Cyberpunks, hackers, and phreaks for the most part, are just some
of the groups of people that actually live, these are people that have
control over their own destinies and expend a great deal of
technology-oriented creative energy in doing so. We are the white, (not
racially, the moral alignment,) mages, the closet techno-philosophers,
the dark geeks and computer addicted rejects of today's society.
What I find most amusing about it is that people actually want to
become this way, and when they get their first taste of the lifestyle
they reel back with a bad taste in their mouths, preferring to regard the
computer underground as something out of "Wargames" or the aptly titled,
(and seriously lame,) "Hackers." They get scared off by the hours of
typing, reading, studying, learning and searching for the one last piece
of the puzzle in the internet ocean. They don't understand, (my
ex-girlfriend had particular problems with the last and this next one)
why we want to spend six hours walking through a dilapidated warehouse
filled with dirty and defunct computer parts and then actually buying
some of it. They don't understand why we don't party or go out,
preferring instead to spend time behind the screen in a quiet room
listening to music and typing away or reading. They don't understand how
you can tell someone you've never seen everything you know about
yourself, and yet you won't tell them. You can trust someone that knows
you by what your brain holds and your abilities and hasn't judged you by
what you look like. Just because someone looks like the label you are
trying to pin on them doesn't mean anything, all it means is you have
some well developed stereotypes.
Being in the Navy...and doing the same thing? Some people are
bound to accuse me of selling out everything that I claim to be by
working for "The Man." The military has treated me well, they gave me a
job, pay me, (it's not much but enough that I can live comfortably,)
taught me vast volumes of information without hesitation, let me work on
some damn badass hardware, and ask only that I get an occasional funny
haircut and come to work on time. It's what you make of it that matters.
There are very few of us in the military, most of us never see or hear
from each other except in little moments that make up for the lost time.
We retain everything we see, learn from every possible source and move
on, sorting out the reality from the bullshit. Those of us that are here
exist in kind of a bastard realm, not really a part of anything because
we know so much that is considered "magic," thus scaring off the vast
majority from associating with us. I sometimes sit and wonder what it
would have been like to lead a completely normal life, to have gone to
college instead of this, I wonder if what I would be doing there is the
same as over here. Games of semantics mostly, but it has it's purpose. It
kicks ass being on the outside like this, alot of the personal stuff that
goes on the military is seriously reminiscent of high school, you'd be
amazed at what some of your tax dollars are paying for.
It's funny more than anything else, watching people stab each
other in the back and listen to the who is screwing who rumors, (there
are alot of them in a thoroughly mixed male/female Navy.) The only part
that eats is when something goes wrong with the computer system, or
someone does something puerile on the net or whatever, the fingers all
come stabbing at you like knives and your knowledge of computers. They
have some sort of idea that since you can use the hell out of DOS, beat
UNIX up on the side, (we use Novell's UnixWare, quick little tangent- god
I would love to add a "z" to the end of that and watch people shit
themselves trying to figure out what "UnixWarez" means ;) and posses some
modicum of understanding as to how the LAN works that you're some sort of
hacker. I actually had a couple of people yelling at the top of their
lungs one day about whether or not I was or was not a "hacker," it was
flattering and embarrassing at the same time. I was in the same room
copying some philez for someone who couldn't use DOS when they decided
that I was "their" personal hacker, someone else objected and a debate
ensued as to my status. I am what I am and I embrace it fully, but I am
not someone's personal anything.
It bothers me that the Navy has the image that it does of
cyberpunks, (I realize that I am using Gibsons definition rather
loosely, forgive me,) in general, for instance I was up talking to one of
my friends in the Admin department when I noticed something taped to
desk. A picture depicting various enemies of an innocent looking Navy
computer, one of them was a cyberpunk, he had spike hair, bad foakley
sunglasses and a leather jacket. Looked more like Sid Vicious than anyone
else, what disturbed me more than that it was the false perception that
this forces on people, that we're all a bunch of motorcycle riding
computer thrashing assholes. I don't look like that...nor do I imagine
you do either, yet again people are going to start believing the urban
myths that start with false information like this, and pretty soon any
kid with a laptop and a PCMCIA modem is going to be a hacker out to break
into your bank account or crash the power grid in their city. The fact
that they may actually know alot about computers is going to reinforce
this belief, this false image. They'll never ask him/her what they're
doing, they'll just have them arrested and go home to their equally
uninformed spouses and brag that they stopped another dirty
hacker-bastard. Not thinking for a minute that they may have busted
someone that would never dare overstep their bounds, they just wanted to
learn...and since they wouldn't teach whoever...they had to do it on
their own. Punish the motivated, screw the smart, blast the thinkers,
ignore their questions and maybe they'll all go away, don't answer your
fone, turn on the TV, crank the radio, buy prepackaged lives, go to bars,
believe the hype, laugh at people fighting for your rights, cross at the
light only, register your warranty, dispose of unused portions, open junk
mail, respond or lose your chance to win, don't have sex, go to bars and
ogle people, wear makeup, buy nice clothes that look good, lose weight,
eat trendy food, drink coffee and try to look intellectual, stand in this
line, for faster service...get an appointment, have all paperwork ready
before you get to the window, place thumb on scan pad, fill in your
social security number, read this fully before answering any questions,
answer yes or no when asked: "do you understand these rights as I have
read them to you," use before the date on the container, exercise
restraint, buy this, do that, listen to this, some conditions/side
effects not applicable to all product users, BELIEVE WHAT WE TELL YOU
BECAUSE IT'S THE TRUTH. WHY? Because we say so and billions before you
did...and died for it. You don't know enough to dare ask such a question
of us. Go ahead and live in that world, it's ultimately your choice. I'd
prefer not to though.
It is not exactly easy living like this, as what is generally
perceived as a menace and not a contributor to the whole. Actually to put
use the most applicable word, it sucks. There isn't a day that doesn't go
by that I don't think about what is going to happen if the full extent of
my talents and what exactly I can do with them is realized by one source
or another and I am persecuted for it. They simply won't understand that
I can't stop this, I could easier cease breathing than stop using a
computer and learning what I am so driven to. I don't know, maybe it's an
addiction to be cured, a problem to be solved, another aberration to be
eliminated from society. I can't explain this drive to learn, the need to
hear the modem and watch the screen as I download another text phile or
pull another diagram or article for future reference. The closest thing
that I can liken it to is being hungry, (bet that you thought I was going
to say sex, please, comparisons to sex are so overrated,) having a closet
full of food and not understanding what to eat and wanting Chinese
carry-out suddenly. This is like all other things, it has become what
some people would regard as an obsession, but in reality it is nothing
more than our society evolving into it's next form. Half of a millenium
ago the predecessors of what I am were burned at the stake for their
investigations into the esoteric and ignored realms of science and
medicine, now we trust these once heretics with not only our lives but
everyone's around us. I would expect no less than to be figuratively
burned for my quest, society has changed but like all things the cyclic
nature of history proves that we act in steady and predictable manners.
Every time something new comes along we shake trees, gnash teeth and get
mad at the people doing "it" until such a point that everyone is doing
"it" and anyone not doing "it" gets labeled with derisive terms like
"dork" and generally regarded as annoying. Anyone guilty of trying to
bring about change always gets the bad rap, and unfortunately it's not,
(usually,) until after the smoke clears that we finally accept the work
of these pioneers- building them statues and monuments to commemorate the
work they so slaved to do. A futile but recognized societal apology for
the bullshit that they were forced to put up with. They try so hard to
make it look like they were there for whoever the entire time, and they
manage to do so only for a little while before the true nature of the
fallacy comes to light.
Has it changed me? My perspectives? The way that I look at life
and those around me? You bet your ass it has. I cant stand people on
AOL now, I never minded them before but now the sheep-like qualities of
these people just drive me insane. The fact that they are willing to
tolerate bullshit rules and shaky access to something that they are
paying for, and what they are paying for it, is total crap. I find it
EXTREMELY difficult to not blast people who make computer mistakes, (the
computer illiterate, I have never flamed anyone without cause or them
first demonstrating behavior to deserve it,) like saying they are going
to "download" something from a computer to a 3.5 disk, or theyre going
to "hack the computer and crash it because that would be so fucking
funny." I hear this a lot where I work, every little idiot that can type
theyre name into a terminal thinks that since they can do that it makes
them a "hacker." I prefer hanging out with my computer than I do with my
a lot of my former "friends," those that have stuck with me during the
two years during my change into what I am now think that because of what
I know I am a god, steering clear of angering me because of "what those
hackers can do." There are times when I wish that I could tell them that
its not like that, you dont just sit around and think of the next swear
word to put in your quasi-political rant the next time you hack the CIA
website. Theres rules to this, you go in, learn all you can and leave
without harm, and hopefully without detection. The Mentor was right,
this machine, this collection of the chicanery of science doesnt judge
me, it doesnt want anything from me, it does what I ask and when it
screws up its because of something that I did to it to make it that way.
It doesnt want me to do something for it in order to work, (aside from
plugging it in,) and it listens to what I have to say, it exists in a
kind of symbiosis with me, it learns from me and I learn from it. Most
people are ill equipped to deal with this sort of reality, they dont
understand that you come to this point after hours of SERIOUS study and
experiment, its not an overnight thing. You just dont wake up one
morning and decide that youre now a hacker. Yes, I realize I am still a
newbie compared to some, but I wasnt "born" yesterday, or my "incept
date" wasnt in the last seven days for those of you who are Bladerunner
fans.
I am a hacker, I know that much to be true. What I do and who I
am are of my own determination, my occupation really has nothing to do
with it. The Navy is more than a collection of individuals, it is the sum
of all of it's parts and reflects that in the way it works, sometimes
good and sometimes bad, mostly good though. There are going to be people
that aren't going to like this idea very much, (especially my little
classification of myself,) but if you have problems e-mail me and I will
happily yammer away for awhile with you. You can learn alot from just
listening to people and what they have to say, more than most people
would like to have you knowing but then again, the question remains, who
and what are you...and what do you want to learn? That's the point, I
don't know what you are. Who you are is conjecture, who anyone really is
anymore is all conjecture, spoofed IP's, fake mail, doctored pictures and
plastic surgery have made it impossible to tell. We are composites of
what we have said, seen and done, and there is no altering that for
anyone. You can paint a barn blue but it is still going to be a barn,
only blue. The chickens, horses, cows, stink of hay and bullshit is still
going to live inside, and there isn't much you can do about it for that
matter. We are what we are.
[Fuckin A!]
AT2Screech
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PISS - People into Serious Shit
Founders - Defenestrator, PhrostByte
Members -
Author Parselon
Wu Forever
kQs
CGibbons
Extinction
Faekon/Homarid
Grench
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Tim 121
Rhodekyll
Dial Tone
Psycho Phreak
Djdude
Circular Reclusion
Havok Luther
Contributors-
Sameer Ketkar
AT2Screech
PISS, the author, and anyone else does not take responsibility for what
you do with the stuff contained in this file. If you get busted,
don't cry to us. We don't care.
Want more stuff? Go to http://www.angelfire.com/sc/PISS/philez.html
The site will change as soon as I get money for one..
E-mail the group at chrisbarron@hotmail.com
(C) Copyright 1997 PISS Publications and also copyrighted by the author.
This file may be posted freely as long as this notice stays on the end.
All rights reserved.
