The Hacker as Independent Scientist

The first image of hackerdom to emerge in the '60s and 70s was of the benevolent computer science student pushing the limits of computer technology and his/her own intellect. Computer labs at MIT, Berkeley, Stanford and many other schools hummed through the night as budding brainiacs sat mesmerized by the promise of life on the other side of a glowing computer screen. These early hackers quickly developed a set of ethics that centered around the pursuit of pure knowledge and the idea that hackers should share all of their information and brilliant hacks with each other. Steven Levy summarizes this ethic in his 1984 book Hackers: "To a hacker a closed door is an insult, and a locked door is an outrage. Just as information should be clearly and elegantly transported within the computer, and just as software should be freely disseminated, hackers believed people should be allowed access to files or tools which might promote the hacker quest to find out
and improve the way the world works. When a hacker needed something to help him create, explore, or fix, he did not bother with such ridiculous concepts as property rights."

While this ethic continues to inform many hackers, including the author of the book you are holding, it has become more difficult for many to purely embrace, as the once innocent and largely sheltered world of hackerdom has opened up onto a vast geography of data continents with spoils beyond measure, tempting even the most principled hackers. The Knightmare weaves his way in and out of these ethical issues throughout Secrets of a Super Hacker.