Old Hackers, New Hackers: What's the Difference

Apparently, to people enamored of the 'old school' of hackers, like StevenLevy or Clifford Stoll, there is a big difference. Indeed, to the 'oldstyle' MIT/Stanford hackers, they resent the bestowal of their honoredtitle on 'those people' by the media... to many people, 'hacker' isreserved for a class of people in the 60s, a certain 'breed' of programmerwho launched the 'computer revolution,' but just can't seem to be foundaround any more... according to these 'old school' hackers, hacking meant awillingness to make technology accessible and open, a certain 'love affair'with the computer which meant "they would rather code than sleep." It meanta desire to create beauty with computers, to liberate information, todecentralize access to communication...
But what about the 'new' hackers? Many of the 'old' hackers think theydon't deserve the name, preferring to call them 'computer criminals,''vandals,' 'crackers,' 'miscreants,' or in a purely generational swipe,'juvenile delinquents.' The media uses the word 'hacker' to refer to young,clever computer users who use their modems to break into systems withoutauthorization, much as depicted in the movie War Games. And the old schoolhackers resent this. Many of the new hackers aren't good programmers; theyare just people without ethics who have no reservations about swipingpasswords, codes, software, and other information and trading them withtheir friends. They may be good at exploiting security holes in systems,but all they succeed in doing (say people like Stoll) is destroying thetrust on which open networks are built.
I am interested, needless to say, in the generational aspect to this battleover the name 'hacker'. Most of the old hackers of the 60s are of coursenow living in the 90s - Baby Boomers who, like their ex-hippie friends,went from 'freak' to 'straight,' finding jobs in computer security firmsand corporate software conglomerates. And like other counterculturalistsfrom the 60s, they just can't seem to figure out this Generation X formingthe counterculture of the 90s... where's the openness? The idealism? These"juvenile delinquents" just don't live up to the high moral standards ofthe 60s nostalgiacs like Levy and Stoll. But then, Levy rants about thosegreat hackers who founded Apple Computer and launched the PC revolution -those same ex-phreaks, Jobs and Wozniak, who actually allowed their companyto patent their system hardware and software!
The "cyberpunks" of the 90s, it seems, just don't live up to what peoplelike Stoll and Levy expect of them. And all the old 'hackers' go to greatpains to define themselves apart from the new breed of 'hackers,' alwaysgroaning in angst when the label continues to be applied to them. I wouldargue that the hackers of the 90s are not so different from the hackers ofthe 60s, that indeed, the same exploratory, antiauthoritarian, liberatoryimpulses are at work; it is simply that the hackers of the 60s do notunderstand the situation in which we live, and this is probably becausethey read 60s hippie lit rather than 90s cyberpunk SF... the 'old hackers'are simply too comfortable to be afflicted... they don't understand why thenew 'hacker' does what he does.
According to Levy, the differences between the old and new hackers arestark and clear. The first group strove to create, the second strives todestroy and tamper, he says. The first group loved control over theircomputers, but the second group loves the power computers gives them overpeople. The first group was always seeking to improve and simplify; thesecond group only exploits and manipulates. The first group did what theydid because of a feeling of truth and beauty in their activities; thesecond group hacks for profit and status. The first group was communal andclosely knit, always sharing openly their new hacks and discoveries; thesecond, he says, is paranoid, isolated, and secretive. For Levy, the oldhackers were computer wizards, but the new hackers are computer terrorists,always searching for new forms of electronic vandalism or maliciousnesswithout thought of the consequences.
But where Levy sees differences, I see some curious similarities. Old-styleMIT 'hackers' were rather well-known for getting around locks of both thephysical and electronic variety. Is there such a difference between therighteous anger of the MIT hacker toward the IBM 'priesthood' who kept himaway from the massive mainframe, and the 90s hacker who feels righteousanger over being prevented access from huge commercial databases without anexpensive account? The old MIT hackers were also known for theirexploration of the phone system, and exploring 'hacks' to make calls tounsuspecting places for free. Indeed, many of the early hackers were phonephreaks, plain and simple, ripping off service from the phone company (THEcompany, AT & T, alias Ma Bell, back then), which they resented for itsrefusal to share the technical information about telephony.
The 60s hackers were known for their desire for liberating information.They openly shared source code; members of the Homebrew Computer Club alsoopenly shared with each other the flaws of various machines, and 'hacks' toget around their lack of performance. Since Levy seems to think thatsoftware piracy should not be a crime (since he thinks source code shouldnot be copyrighted), his problem with the 'new hackers' does not appear tobe piracy. Neither does it appear to be the open sharing of some admittedlydangerous 'real-world' information taken straight from books like theAnarchist Cookbook on how to make bombs and drugs. Rather, it seems tofocus around the malicious misdeeds of a small minority, dedicated tospreading Trojan horses, logic bombs, viruses, worms, and other destructiveprograms...
In actuality, the majority of viruses (such as the Christmas virus) areharmless. They eat up small fractions of CPU space and are designed, ratherthan to wipe clean someone's hard drive, to just display a message at agiven time. They are, in short, pranks - something that Levy also pointsout the old MIT hackers were overfond of. They were known for playingcomplex tricks on people, and were masters of "social engineering" - theart of manipulating technocrats by being a good bull**** artist - just asthe 90s hackers are... their elaborate games and pranks often being ways todemonstrate their superiority to the faculty, administrators, or other"know-it-alls" who they felt got in their way of their access tocomputers...
In "invading" corporate voicemail systems, the modern 90s hackers are nodifferent than the 60s MIT hackers mapping out the labyrinths of the MITunderground tunnel system. They do it for the same reasons: because theyare told not to, because the conduits often lead to surprising places,because the activity is basically harmless even though it is declaredunauthorized or even illegal, and because it gives them a feeling ofmastery and control over a complex problem. The simple fact is, most of the90s hackers are not wantonly malicious or destructive. Indeed, manysubscribe to an updated 90s Hacker Ethic, declaring that they will not"hack" personal privacy or the personal computer user, instead declaringthat their "targets" will be large, unresponsive corporations orbureaucratic government organizations...
But the main reason for the difference between the 60s and 90s hackers isthat the GenXers are a "post-punk" generation, hence the term, "cyberpunk."Their music has a little more edge and anger and a little less idealism.They've seen the death of rock n'roll, and watched Michael Bolton andWhitney Houston try and revive its corpse. Their world is a little moremulticultural and complicated, and less black-and-white. And it is one inwhich, while computers can be used to create beauty, they are also beingused to destroy freedom and autonomy... hence control over computers is anact of self-defense, not just power-hunger. Hacking, for some of the new'hackers,' is more than just a game, or a means to get goodies withoutpaying for them. As with the older generation, it has become a way of life,a means of defining themselves as a subculture...
Many of them are quite deliberately 'nonviolent' in their ambitions. Theywill not lock others out from their accounts, damage or change data withoutpermission, or do anything to jeopardize system viability. Instead, theyenter computer systems to 1) look around and see what's there (if someonebreaks into your house, looks at the posters on your wall, then locks thedoor on the way out, have they committed a crime?) 2) see where else theycan go from where they are (what connections can be pursued?) and 3) takeadvantage of any unique abilities of the machine that they've accessed.MIT's hackers did all of these things and more with the various mainframesthey were 'forbidden' to access and explore... they questioned the right oftechnocrats to limit access, and openly transgressed their arbitrarylimitations based on invoked mantras of the preciousness of computer time.
Indeed, the 90s hackers pay a lot of homage to the first generation. Theyhave borrowed much of their jargon and certainly many of their ideas. Theirmodus operandi , the PC, would not be available to them were it not for theway the 60s hackers challenged the IBM/corporate computer model and madepersonal computing a reality... their style, their use of handles, theirlove for late-night junk food, are all testaments to the durability andtransmission of 60s Hacker culture. So why are the biographers of the 60shackers so antagonistic and hostile to the new 90s hackers? Do they sensesome sort of betrayal of the original Hacker Ethic and its imperatives? Isit just the classic refusal to pass a torch onto a new generation?
Breaking into the root node of a UNIX network or the system manager accountof a VAX network takes nimble thinking and clever programming. It oftentakes a knowledge of various loopholes in the system, and clever tricksthat can be done with its coding. It often requires unorthodox uses ofstandard applications. In short, it requires hacking in the oldest and bestsenses of the term. In doing it, many 90s hackers seek to expand theirknowledge of the system and its capabilities, not to sabotage the effortsof others or wreck the system. Phreaks, in 'hacking' the phone system, aresimply acting in the centuries-old tradition of American radicals who havealways challenged the ways in which corporate and governmental structuresprevent people from free association with their peers... challenging thenotion that "to reach out and touch someone" should be a costly privilegerather than a right.
Someday, the old and new 'hackers' may sit down, and discuss theircommonalities rather than their differences. They may realize that theyshare an alienation from the existing system. They might find out that theyhave motivations and principles in common. Most importantly, they mightstop competing with each other for a mantle or title. The old hackers mightsee the ways in which their countercultural visions failed to take accountof new realities, and they might provide a sense of communal vision andpurpose for the often backstabbing and self-aggrandizing new hackers. Ifthey were to actually team up, it might be mean what Bruce Sterling calls"the End of the Amateurs." And the beginning of "Computer Lib?"