Lecture 8 Hacker Culture Introduction to Information Technology Lecture 8 Hacker Culture Dr. Ken Tsang 曾镜涛 Email: kentsang@uic.edu.hk http://www.uic.edu.hk/~kentsang/IT/IT3.htm Room E408 R9 With thanks to Dr. Haipeng Guo

Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution

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.

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

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

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

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.

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'

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

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.

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

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."

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

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

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

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"

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

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

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

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

Bill Gates Before Microsoft Courtesy of Microsoft

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 http://www.sourceforge.net) Windows emulator for Linux if you really want to run Windows programs!

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

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

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!

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 http://www.fsf.org, http://www.gnu.org/ http://www.osi.org