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From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Feedback on Computer Crime
Message-ID: <9008082037.AA05189@world.std.com>
Date: 8 Aug 90 20:37:26 GMT
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What's changed over the years are the following:

	a) Computers used to be a really
	odd field to be in. And the few people who
	actually understood their inner-workings
	were beyond wierd, even among technical
	circles. Hackers were these "beyond wierd"
	people.

	b) Computers were these huge, "one or two
	to an organization" things. The people who
	cared for them and kept them running, if good
	at it, soon became organizational folk heros.

	c) Things we consider "fundamental" today,
	such as drawing on a graphics screen, were
	very difficult back when, especially squeezing out
	the last 10% (performance, whatever.) Hackers
	were people you turned to for that.

	d) Because of their centrality, computers and
	computing centers were often found at the center
	of the funding structure, and that funding structure
	was often the product of much fatter times, particularly
	in regards to research funding.

The environment has changed. Computers are today fairly mundane and
everyday objects. Anyone can own one, and modern computers are not all
that hard to keep running.

The skill has fallen from the level of high-priesthood to the guy down
the block that likes to tinker (for what most people want or can
appreciate.) Most things we want from computers are, today, fairly
easy to get by just buying a package.  Funding and novelty have
dropped and it's become, to a large extent, just another piece of a
business.

I would guess that at the large super-computing centers, for example,
you'll still find people who's lives remain similar to the old
hacker's lives. More likely you'll find the ethic in some biogenetic
engineering lab, and having nothing to do with computers. Like those
guys who spell their names out with single atoms or protein sequences.

Something else that's important is that no matter how much people
would love to either be known as a hacker or feel like they have
access to one, that much hasn't changed a lot.

"Back when" there were probably a few dozen people who would fit the
term. Today there are probably still only a few dozen such people.

It's just that back then everyone in computing knew a hacker, today
people throw the label on anyone who can do a little systems
programming, you probably don't know any hackers in the old sense.  In
some ways, it's gotten much harder to be one, what's hard today is
either too hard (e.g. natural language) or too obscure to be
appreciated by many.

But that's really the point, "hackers" weren't adulated back then
except by the few who could understand what dragons they had slayed,
and it's not much different today. One thing that often set hackers
apart was that they had seemingly bizarre goals that often got them in
trouble with the "powers that be".

It wasn't that long ago, I certainly remember, that designing software
for a dumb CRT was considered exotic overkill and whacko stuff. Bitmap
screens, user interfaces etc were beyond the pale, complete wastes of
money, what could they do that you couldn't do on a (much cheaper)
printer? Why screw around with higher-level languages? Electronic mail
and "networking" were considered stupid wastes of valuable computing
resources (oops, on that one they may have been right :-)

It's like the moral of a fairy tale, if the average person could
admire what they did, well, then it wouldn't be hacking, the magic
would be lost.

        -Barry Shein

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