John Perry Barlow - Electronic Frontier Foundation

Cyberspace Declaration of Independence

A war is being fought in the Internet twenty-four hours a day. A team of defenders spread throughout the world, are ready to stop and neutralize every attack. It is the Global Thread Operation Center where all attacks are being monitored; any of which could be the signal for a stronger hit that could generate absolute chaos. The room looks like a set from a futuristic movie. Four huge screens in the front of the room display the process data that is taking place. Several rows of desks and panels fill the room. More than twenty people are moving around, answering and making phone calls, talking to each other, and examining computer screens. They are re

q Hackers should be judged by their hacking.

Steven Levy was one of the first writers that got involved with hackers. In his book “Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution” Levy recorded the original hacker ethic:

“Governments form the industrial world; I come from cyberspace, the new home of mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome here. You have no sovereignty where we gather. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders, your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement and context do not obey to us. They are all base on matter and there is no matter here” (EFF)

Unfortunately, the press uses the term hacker incorrectly when describing illicit access on computers with malicious or criminal purpose. The Atlantic Magazine, Feb. 17, 2002 par. 1 “It has been widely noted that last week’s attack by hackers against the Internet sites Yahoo, Amazon…” and it continues, “the fact that hackers were able […] to cripple these major sites…” How can such important magazine permit such barbaric mistake? Many other important publications and periodicals follows the same mistake. “ Stopping hackers from malicious breaking into computer networks is often a game of cat and mouse”, “Every attack on a computer by a hacker leaves traces” said Paul Eng from ABC News.com.

q Mistrust authority -- promote decentralization.

Some topics in this essay:
Mafia Boy, Captain Zap, Lauderdale Garcia, Matthew Pavlovich, Hands-On Imperative, England TLC, Threat Center, Marie Moore, Operation Center, Hackers TLC, hat hackers, captain zap, white hats, world cyberspace, white hat hackers, black hat, future past, black hats, computer systems, hacker ethic, white hat, movement context obey, concepts property expression, property expression identity, expression identity movement,