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receive information and abuse its uses until the information is no longer valid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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