1. Lecture 8 Hacker Culture
Introduction to Information Technology
Lecture 8 Hacker Culture
Dr. Ken Tsang 曾镜涛
Room E408 R9
With thanks to Dr. Haipeng Guo

2. Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution

3. Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
is a book by Steven Levy about the hacker culture. It was published in 1984 by Anchor Press/Doubleday.
Levy describes the people, the machines, and the events that defined the Hacker Culture and the Hacker Ethic, from the early mainframe hackers at MIT, to the self-made hardware hackers and game hackers. However since the book was written in the 1980s, there is no mention of the network hackers of the 1990s.

4. The Word Hacker
[originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe]
A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary
One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming
A person capable of appreciating hack value
A person who is good at programming quickly

5. The Word Hacker
An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work using it or on it; as in 'a Unix hacker'. (Definitions 1 through 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.)
An expert or enthusiast of any kind
One might be an astronomy hacker, for example
One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations

6. The Word Hacker
[deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information by poking around. Hence 'password hacker', 'network hacker'.
The correct term for this sense is cracker
The difference between a hacker a cracker is that a hacker builds things while a cracker break things

7. Hacker: from Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia
has several common meanings, the unifying characteristic of which is only that it refers to a person who is an avid computer enthusiast.
It is most commonly used as a pejorative by the mass media to refer to a person who engages in illegal computer trespass, which is its original meaning, but it can also refer to people engaged in ethical hacking, to the members of the open source and free software community or to home computer hobbyists.

8. What is a Hacker?
The hacker mind-set is not confined to this software-hacker culture
There are people who apply the hacker attitude to other things, like electronics or music
Actually, you can find it at the highest levels of any science or art
Some claim that the hacker nature is really independent of the particular medium the hacker works in
We will focus on the skills and attitudes of software hackers, and the traditions of the shared culture that originated the term 'hacker'

9. Characteristics of Hackers
Creating software and sharing it with each other
Placing a high value on freedom of inquiry; hostility to secrecy
Information-sharing as both an ideal and a practical strategy
Emphasis on rationality
Distaste for authority
Playful cleverness, taking the serious humorously and their humor seriously

10. As phrased by Levy, the principles of the Hacker Ethic are:
Access to computers—and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works—should be unlimited and total. Always yield to the Hands-on Imperative!
All information should be free.
Mistrust authority—promote decentralization.
Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race or position.
You can create art and beauty on a computer.
Computers can change your life for the better.

11. Traditional Hacker Ethics: 70s
1. Access to computers — and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works — should be unlimited and total. Always yield to the hands-on imperative!
If you want something or some changes, don't complain but act

12. Traditional Hacker Ethics: 70s
2. All information should be free
A good example is the copyleft policy of the Free Software Foundation.
"The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software—to make sure the software is free for all its users. This General Public License applies to most of the Free Software Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to your programs, too."

13. Traditional Hacker Ethics: 70s
3. Mistrust authority — promote decentralization
4. Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position

14. Traditional Hacker Ethics: 70s
5. You can create art and beauty on a computer
6. Computers can change (your) life for the better
perhaps not surprising today
But in the 70s, computers were strange and unfamiliar to most people. Art, beauty and life changes were not in the mainstream notion of computers

15. New Hacker Ethics: 90s 1. Above all else: Do no harm!
Do not damage computers or data if at all possible
Much like the key element of the Hippocratic Oath
Hacking is a quest for knowledge; there is no intrinsic need or desire to destroy

16. New Hacker Ethics: 90s 2. Protect privacy 3. Waste not, want not
Computer resources should not lie idle and wasted
4. Exceed limitations
"Telling a hacker something can't be done, is a moral imperative for him to try"

17. New Hacker Ethics: 90s 5. The communicational imperative
Communicating with and associating with peers is a fundamental human right
Some see it as strong enough to motivate violation of laws and regulations
According to this, blocking Wikipedia or Google is evil

18. New Hacker Ethics: 90s 6. Share!
Information increases in value by sharing it with other people
Data can be the basis for someone else's learning; software can be improved collectively

19. New Hacker Ethics: 90s 7. Fight cyber-tyranny 8. Trust, but test
Hacking is necessary to help protect the world from dystopian development of global information systems.
Robin Hood of the information age
8. Trust, but test
By engaging hands-on with technical and social systems, your discoveries can contribute to improving the systems

20. Origins of Hacker Culture
1. Hobby hacking
A strong interest in electronics
Cracking the copy protection of the games
Courtesy of Microsoft

21. Bill Gates Before Microsoft
Courtesy of Microsoft

22. Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak
Courtesy of Apple Computer, Inc.

23. Co-founders of Apple Computer
Courtesy of Apple Computer, Inc.

24. Origins of Hacker Culture
2. Academic Hacking
MIT AI Lab
Carnegie Mellon University
Stanford University
ATT, Xerox
Unix and ARPANET

25. Origins of Hacker Culture
3. Networking Hacking
Phone phreaks
Computer network hackers

26. Phreaking is a slang term coined to describe the activity of a subculture of people who study, experiment with, or explore telecommunication systems, like equipment and systems connected to public telephone networks.
The term "phreak" is derived from the words "phone" and "freak." It may also refer to the use of various audio frequencies to manipulate a phone system. "Phreak", "phreaker", or "phone phreak" are names used for and by individuals who participate in phreaking. Additionally, it is often associated with computer hacking.

27. The Blue Box
An electronic device that simulates a telephone operator’s dialing console
It functions by replicating the tones used to switch long-distance calls and using them to route the user’s own call, bypassing the normal switching mechanism
Woz built the boxes and Jobs sold them to his fellow students at the University of California in Berkeley for $150

28. Donald E. Knuth Computer Science Professor @ Stanford University
Winner of the 1974 Turing Award
The author of “The Art of Computer Programming”
The author of TeX, an excellent electronic typesetting program
Inventers of many algorithms
A great hacker!

29. Why is Knuth a hacker?
Knuth began TeX because he had become annoyed at the declining quality of the typesetting in volumes I-III of his monumental "Art of Computer Programming”
In a manifestation of the typical hackish urge to solve the problem at hand once and for all, he began to design his own typesetting language

30. Why is Knuth a hacker?
He thought he would finish it on his sabbatical in 1978; he was wrong by only about 8 years!
He then released TeX as a free software to share with others
He wrote many other programs as well

31. Richard Stallman (rms)
A MIT AI Lab Hacker in 1970s
A programmer philosopher
The saint of free software
The greatest hacker

32. Timeline
1983, resigned from MIT and started the GNU project with the explicit goal of reimplementing Unix as a free OS
1984, Launched the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
1989, FSF introduces a General Public License (GPL)
GPL is also known as “copyleft”
1991 ACM Grace Hopper Award for software development

33. What is Free Software?
“Free software” is a matter of liberty, not price
To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech”, not as in “free beer”
Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software

34. Four Kinds of Freedom
More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:
Freedom to run the program, for any purpose (Freedom 0)
Freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (Freedom 1)
Access to the source code is a precondition for this
Freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbour (Freedom 2)
Freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (Freedom 3)

35. What is the GNU Project? The GNU Project was launched in
1984 to develop a complete Unix-like
Operating System which is free
software: the GNU system
Variants of the GNU operating system, which use the kernel called Linux, are now widely used; though these systems are often referred to as “Linux”, they are more accurately called GNU/Linux systems
GNU is a recursive acronym that stands for “GNU's Not Unix”; it is pronounced guh-noo, approximately like “canoe”

36. From Wikipedia:
The wildebeest (plural, wildebeest or wildebeests), also called the gnu (pronounced /nu/ or /nju/), is an antelope of the genus Connochaetes.

37. What is the Free Software Foundation?
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is the principal organizational sponsor of the GNU Project
The FSF receives very little funding from corporations or grant-making foundations, but relies on support from individuals

38. GNU General Public License
Also known as “the copyleft” (vs copyright)
The licenses for most software and other practical works are designed to take away your freedom to share and change the works
By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change all versions of a program — to make sure it remains free software for all its users

39. Linus Torvalds Developer of Linux
an Open Source Operating System
The first "post-modern" technical leader
The most popular programmer on this planet

40. Linux OS
In 1991, Linus Torvalds, a 21-year-old student at Helsinki University, decided to write his own computer operating system
He published the source code on the Internet and invited other programmers to improve on it and to send their results back to him

41. Linux OS
After its first release, it soon attracted the attention of several other hackers.
While Linux initially was not really useful except as a toy, it soon gathered enough features to be interesting even for people uninterested in operating system development
Version 1.0 of the Linux kernel was released in March, 1994

42. Open Source Movement
Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process
The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in

43. Free Software vs Open Source
The Free Software Movement is different from the Open Source Movement
Free software is a matter of freedom
Open source is a software development method

44. Products of Hackers Unix operating system C programming language
ARPANET, TCP/IP, BBS, , WWW, Web browser, …
GNU/Linux
TeX, LaTeX
Perl ……

45. Free/Open Source Software
Hardware: buy it yourself
Recommended Software (all free!)
GNU/Linux
Open Office, TeX & LaTeX
Acrobat Reader, GSview
gcc, Java
Mozilla Firefox
MSN for Linux, QQ for Linux
…… (more on
Windows emulator for Linux if you really want to run Windows programs!

46. How to Become a Hacker? Learn how to program
Get one of the open-source Unixes and learn to use and run it
Learn how to use the World Wide Web and write HTML
If you don't have functional English, learn it

47. Things you can do to be Respected by Hackers
Write open-source software
Help test and debug open-source software
Publish useful information
Help keep the infrastructure working
Serve the hacker culture itself

48. Some other things to do Learn to write your native language well
Read science fiction
Study Zen, and/or take up martial arts
Develop an analytical ear for music
Learn to appreciate peculiar kinds of music
Learn to play some musical instrument well, or how to sing
Develop your appreciation of puns and wordplay
The more of these things you already do, the more likely it is that you are natural hacker material!

49. References "How To Become A Hacker." Eric S. Raymond
"The daemon, the gnu, and the penguin: A History of Free and Open Source." Peter H. Salus
“Hacker Cultures.” Jonas Lowgren
“Portraits of Open Source Pioneers.” Nikolai Bezroukov
“Free software, free society.” Richard Stallman