A European living outside Australia, SKiMo has been hacking for at least four years, although he probably only joined the ranks of world-class hackers in 1995 or 1996. Never busted. Young—between the age of 18 and 25—and male. From a less than picture-perfect family. Fluent in English as a second language. Left-leaning in his politics—heading toward environmentally green parties and anarchy rather than traditional labour parties. Smokes a little dope and drinks alcohol, but doesn't touch the hard stuff.
His musical tastes include early Pink Floyd, Sullen, Dog Eat Dog,
Biohazard, old Ice-T, Therapy, Alanis Morissette, Rage Against the
Machine, Fear Factory, Life of Agony and Napalm Death. He reads
Stephen King, Stephen Hawking, Tom Clancy and Aldous Huxley. And any
good books about physics, chemistry or mathematics.
Shy in person, he doesn't like organised team sports and is not very confident around girls. He has only had one serious girlfriend, but the relationship finished. Now that he hacks and codes about four to five hours per day on average, but sometimes up to 36 hours straight, he doesn't have time for girls.
`Besides,' he says, `I am rather picky when it comes to girls. Maybe if the girl shared the same interests … but those ones are hard to find.' He adds, by way of further explanation, `Girls are different from hacking. You can't just brute force them if all else fails.'
SKiMo has never intentionally damaged a computer system, nor would he. Indeed, when I asked him, he was almost offended by the question. However, he has accidentally done damage on a few occasions. In at least one case, he returned to the system and fixed the problem himself.
Bored out of his mind for most of his school career, SKiMo spent a great deal of time reading books in class—openly. He wanted to send the teacher a message without actually jacking up in class.
He got into hacking after reading a magazine article about people who hacked answering machines and VMBs. At that time, he had no idea what a VMB was, but he learned fast. One Sunday evening, he sat down with his phone and began scanning. Soon he was into phreaking, and visiting English-speaking party lines. Somehow, he always felt more comfortable speaking in English, to native English-speakers, perhaps because he felt a little like an outsider in his own culture.
`I have always had the thought to leave my country as soon as I can,' he said.
From the phreaking, it was a short jump into hacking.
What made him want to hack or phreak in the first place? Maybe it was the desire to screw over the universally hated phone company, or `possibly the sheer lust for power' or then again, maybe he was simply answering his desire `to explore an intricate piece of technology'. Today, however, he is a little clearer on why he continues to hack. `My first and foremost motivation is to learn,' he said.