#hackers

For the first time, individual hackers could afford to have home machines comparable in power and storage capacity to the minicomputers of ten years earlier - Unix engines capable of supporting a full development environment and talking to the Internet. ↗

— Eric S. Raymond

#capable #capacity #comparable #could #development

This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals. We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals. Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for. ↗

— The Mentor

#beauty

While many hackers have the knowledge, skills, and tools to attack computer systems, they generally lack the motivation to cause violence or severe economic or social harm. ↗

— Dorothy Denning

#cause #computer #economic #generally #hackers

While the vast majority of hackers may be disinclined towards violence, it would only take a few to turn cyber terrorism into reality. ↗

— Dorothy Denning

#disinclined #few #hackers #into #majority

See, unlike most hackers, I get little joy out of figuring out how to install the latest toy. ↗

— Jamie Zawinski

#get #hackers #how #i #install

Younger hackers are hard to classify. They're probably just as diverse as the old hackers are. We're all over the map. ↗

— Larry Wall

#diverse #hackers #hard #just #map