This is a legacy from the hackers or cyberpunks who were the first to realise the potential offered by cyberspace, and who continue to believe that and to act as if they are entitled to explore it without boundaries. The following manifesto was first published in Phrack by The Mentor, spokesperson for a hacker alliance known as The Legion of Doom.

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 weren't run by profiteering gluttons, 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 you will never forgive me for. I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all.

(reprinted in Mondo 2000 - A User's Guide to the New Edge, HarperCollins, New York, 1992, p60)

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