Noncryptographic Security Issues - Codes: The Guide to Secrecy from Ancient to Modern Times - page 384

for entertainment. These are called grey-hat hackers . Moreover, we may have
nontrivial intersections among the types since it is often the case that white-hat
hackers were once black-hat hackers, and that is why they are so good at what
they do.
In 1984, Steven Levy, in his topic [150], defined the code of conduct of a
hacker as the free sharing of information that did not allow for the harming of
any data encountered. We now turn to this “ethic” since it, and the people who
lived it, were the founders of a culture that was benign in intent and gave us,
arguably, some of the best of the modern computer world that we enjoy today.
Our “definition” of hacker, given on page 384, is a modern-day interpretation
to which we will return once we look at the lives of the pioneers who saw things
quite differently.

Hacker Ethic : The hacker ethic consists of the conviction that informa-
tion sharing is a positive goal in and of itself, and that it is a social responsibility
of hackers to share their expertise by producing freeware and access to comput-
ing resources wherever possible. It may also include the notion that breaking
into a system for leisure activity is ethically valid provided the hacker com-
mits no criminal offense by altering, deleting, or otherwise tampering with data
found. (Perhaps it is the latter that has led to the modern-day notion of the
hacker.)
Some hackers extrapolate the above ethic, and maintain that all information
should be free with any proprietary regulation being unethical. In 1984, a
hacker named Richard Stallman (See Figure 10.2, courtesy of Richard Stallman)
founded the GNU project based on that belief. GNU (pronounced guh-noo ), is
a recursive acronym for Gnu's Not Unix . He also founded the nonprofit Free
Software Foundation (FSF), which is the main support organization behind
the GNU Project (see www.gnu.org ). Another organization he founded is the
League for Programming Freedom.

Hacker Pioneers
We are now going to look at those who helped to create the hacker ethic
and who lived it. These individuals believed in group effort for improvement,
who enjoyed the intellectual challenge, and were dedicated experts and enthu-
siasts. 10.9
Stallman : He was born on March 16, 1953 in Manhattan as Richard
Matthew Stallman (although he prefers his nickname given by his initials
RMS ). In 1971, as an undergraduate at Harvard University, he became a

10.9 In this context, to “hack” something takes on a more general meaning and may refer
to any human enterprise. In other words, in the most general context possible, a hacker is
any human being who fully dedicates themselves to their craft whether it be music, poetry,
mathematics, physics, architecture, dance, or whatever. If the individual has skill, dedication,
and commitment that runs deep, then that is a hacker. In this sense, Richard Feynman was
a hacker (see Footnote 9.31 on page 366); Einstein was a hacker; Bach was a hacker; and just
about anyone at the upper levels of arts and science is a hacker.