What is the Hacker Ethic - Redux

by Lexi Conn  (lexi.con.thoughts@proton.me)

Who are we, what is our ethic, and how does that fit into the times we now live in?  Most of all, are hacking and politics/advocacy really separate line items, or are they so co-mingled that we cannot talk about one without addressing the other?

It is the beginning of February 2025 when I am writing this, and the events of the last several weeks since the inauguration have prompted me to reexamine what all of this means to each of the communities I am a part of, not just the hacking community in isolation.

I spent my life pursuing science and technology.  It's been a passion of mine since I could first walk and speak.  My dad was a scientist who chose to become an educator and teacher instead of pursuing commercial employment.  Our house, and our basement in particular, was filled with a vast library of books on science, mathematics, philosophy, history and art - a treasure trove of knowledge that opened my mind and my world view.

My dad taught anthropology, biology, physics, and chemistry.  In addition, he loved history and archaeology as much as science.  Our basement was a mad scientist lair filled with chemicals and machines, with skeletons and models of everything he taught.  While most kids would dream of toys for Christmas, I would pore over the Sargent-Welch catalog, a 1200-page tome filled with delights of science exploration and education.

This was in the 1960s, well before anyone really knew what a computer was, or how that technology would irrevocably change our lives forever.  The first device I disassembled was a tube-based baby monitor - I had to learn and understand how it worked (I did manage to reassemble it).  Electronics technology back then consisted of the warm glow of tubes, and the smell of grease and ozone during operation.  Tracing circuits without a schematic meant painstakingly following discrete components soldered in place with point-to-point wiring.

And oh, how he encouraged that pastime.  Once I learned how to ride a bike and gained mobility, he showed me how to ride the urban allies to search for discarded radios, televisions, anything with electronics.  From there I met another kindred spirit, and we would dumpster dive behind engineering firms and device manufacturers.  If I found something too heavy to drag back home, he would drive me to the spot in whatever alley I discovered my newfound treasure and would cart it home waiting for me to disassemble.

I learned mechanical engineering this way as well.  I once took apart this huge mechanical calculator/computer the size of a large IBM Selectric.  It took me two months to learn and understand how all of the levers, gears, and springs could perform the magic of this mathematics calculator/computer.  For weeks I could not shake the smell of lubricating oil and grease, but I didn't care.  I was in heaven.

What I really took away from that formative experience was so much more than knowledge itself; I eventually learned how to put things back together after disassembly.  From there I learned how to repair and even create my own creations.  That led to my first foray into hacking; I learned how to modify and improve the objects of my experimentation.  It solidified the foundation for what would become a very successful career in engineering.

Nothing comes for free, and this was no exception.  There was an equally dark side to my childhood that had as much impact in molding and shaping the person I became.  I had known since I was around age five that my biological gender did not match the gender I truly am.  Growing up in a house whose parents were both teachers, I innocently believed that I could share all of my true self.  Tragically, that proved not to be the case, and therein formed the schism that would separate and isolate me from my family.  In that time, I did not possess the vocabulary to express I was transgender; I thought of myself as defective, a freak of nature, something that demanded the villagers to hunt down the likes of me with tiki torches and pitchforks.  I was, for all intents and purposes, a gender Frankenstein.

Every parent's dream, at least in theory, is to prepare their child to blossom and prosper as they go out into the world.  To have a voice and use that voice to form their own unique identity.  To form their own ideas, morals, and values that will prepare to participate in society in a way that benefits everyone, and allows them to express their own "self."  Or so you would think...

Except that's not how my childhood played out.  As long as I engaged in activities that were deemed socially and culturally acceptable, I was out of harm's way.  And so, I had to learn to practice stealth; I had to act one way in public, while desperately searching for like-minded individuals and communities where I would be accepted.  Thus laid the seeds for the next stage of my development.

This is the point in the story where the typical "Hacker Perspective" tale begins.  By the time I was 11, I was aware of the newly budding computer hobby.  I read a myriad of articles on the Altair, the IMSAI, the RCA COSMAC Elf.  I filled my bookshelves with catalogs from PolyPaks, Delta Electronics and John J. Meshna, and with brochures from Ohio Scientific, Processor Technology, and SWTPC.  I read a myriad of articles in Radio-Electronics and Popular Electronics.  I wanted to be part of this!  The flame had been lit.

The first computer I laid my hands on was an Apple ][ through a family friend.  I taught myself Integer BASIC, and learned how to program the machine to display graphics in "sprites."  By the time I graduated high school in 1981, I had "acquired" a TRS-80 Model III.  The seeds started to germinate.

The game changer came in my first year of college.  All engineers had to take a Fortran 77 class.  That meant having to register for time on the school's IBM 360 mainframe, and waiting for printed output stuffed into shared bins with the other students.  There had to be a better way.

I found that way!  The school had 300 baud dial-up lines, which would allow anyone with VT100 (or similar) or a micro computer running a terminal program to connect.  A line printer attached to the computer would provide the printed output.

There was one problem...  I could not afford to purchase a terminal software package.  There was an assembly listing in one of the many books provided by RadioShack for the Model III, but I lacked a Z80 assembler.  I "acquired" a copy of RadioShack's EDTASM (editor/assembler), typed in the program, compiled it, and tried to run it.  No dice.

It was at that point that in order to find the bug(s), I had to teach myself Z80 assembly language.  I obtained the schematics for the RS-232 board, found the specs for the UART chip, figured out the bugs, and voilà!  I had a running terminal program.  Bare bones at best, but it worked.  I borrowed an acoustic 300 baud modem from another friend; I was online!  No trips down to school to do the assignments.

Around that same time, I came across a list of local BBSess in my area.  Intrigued, I started dialing up and logging in.  Holy f*ck!  Where once I was blind, now I could see.

I wanted to learn more!  It didn't take long to discover that there were hacker boards and pirate boards (sometimes the same BBS); there were BBSes everywhere just waiting to be explored.  It also didn't take long to figure out the gifts of Allnet, Sprint, and MCI to reach beyond my locality.  Suddenly the world was my oyster.  Ghostship I and II, the TARDIS, Gandolf, Most Significant Byte, it was all out there.  I still have a shoebox of 80-track, double-sided, double-density floppies spilling over with text files, the stuff that would later become 2600.

It also opened another door I had not anticipated; I found other folks in the queer community, and more specifically, folks like myself.  All rejects from society, all blazing our own trail without the permission or approval of the society in which we lived.  That experience greatly influenced how I acquired my technical and hacking knowledge.  We didn't stop to ask the question "How do I become or learn xxx?"  They say necessity is the mother of invention, and there is no greater necessity than survival.  It never occurred to me to ask "How do I learn xxx?" in the hacker community... that too was a matter of taking risks to ask and learn, but more importantly, to do the work!  Without effort, in any pursuit, you won't get far.

From college into the work world, I was living three lives: The life in public that my family and community saw, the life of who I really am as transgender, and the life in the hacker world.  And oh, what a balancing act.  Like all juggling acts, there comes a point where you can't keep all of the plates spinning forever.

I tried to put the last two lives to rest, and be "normal."  I got married, had a kid, then divorced.  I tried to live the life my family and childhood friends expected, but that all began falling apart.  At that point, I had a successful career and business, but everything else around me was falling apart.

About ten years ago, everything came to a crisis point.  I needed to be who I really am, all of who I am, if I was going to survive.  No more living in the shadows; that just wasn't working anymore.  I started my transition and began living full-time.  Legal name change, body changes, the whole nine yards.

I was working for a major large company as a hardware/software engineer, in what had been a very privileged male-dominated "tech bro" world for most of my entire career.  It was at one of those shops where I came out as trans.  My life has never been the same.  Many of my friends and family have excised me from their lives; I am no longer welcome.  It was then I decided a fresh start was needed.  I moved 2000 miles away to a new city and, quite literally, started over.

To say things have been challenging would be a gross understatement, a disservice to those whose footsteps I was following in and to those who follow in mine.  But it also gave me a new resolve to use my skills, really use my skills to help others.  I was always involved in advocacy of all kinds, but now it had even more purpose.

In addition to the LGBTQ+ community, I pushed advocacy for who we are as hackers, to push back against the stereotypes and the bad actors who wear the title but are far from practitioners of the practice or spirit.  To educate the public on who we really are and what problems we are trying to solve.

A funny thing happens when you take a risk and shed the fear of authenticity.  You no longer care about others judging you by their own metrics.  You take back your agency and own your own individuality without apology.

Which bring us full circle to where we now find ourselves in this moment in time.  As hackers, we have to not just strive for the truth, but insist on shining a light into the darkness of lies, deceit, and conspiracy.  Where our mission is to push the limits of technology, it is incumbent upon us to raise our voices against the denial of science and "alternative facts."  Our community has been fighting the good fight against the narrative of corporate greed and control by our three branches of government.  At no time has this been more critical than the dystopian reality we currently find ourselves in.

Given the inextricable co-mingling of science and technology with bro-ligarchs making policy for the rest of us, we no longer have the luxury of choosing the former while blindly ignoring the latter.  These sycophants of a self-proclaimed orange god are exerting their power, wealth, and influence in every facet of our lives: how we communicate, how we use our dwindling purchase power, which voices get amplified and which are silenced.  We have never been under greater threat than the place we now find ourselves.

So what is the hacker ethic?  What does it mean to be a hacker?

At its most basic core, the hacker ethic is about removing the obstacles and artificial limitations that impede the pursuit and practice of advancing our technological and philosophical skill set to remove barriers to entry, and to empower everyone to educate themselves with facts.  It allows any of us to unlock our potential to expand our minds, and to solve the world's most difficult and challenging problems without the societal limitations.  It shatters mythical boundaries that divide us, and uplifts anyone who wishes to be a better version of themselves without fear or favor, without regard to race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation.  In short, it encourages and rewards us for continually striving to be the best version of ourselves in every moment we draw breath from cradle to grave.

The Washington Post's masthead states "Democracy dies in darkness."  So too will the hacker community if we ignore the warning signs, and fail to take notice and take action.  After all, isn't change what we embrace?