"So you equate hacking and ethics, in the same breath?" Scott asked.
"I certainly do," said the middle aged German hacker known as Solon. "I am part of a group that promotes the Hacker Ethic. It is really quite simple, if you would be interested." Scott urged him to continue. "We have before us, as a world, a marvelous opportunity, to create a set of rules, behavior and attitudes towards this magnificent technology that blossoms before our eyes. That law is the Ethic, some call it the Code." Kirk had called it the Code, too.
"The Code is quite a crock," interrupted a tall slender man with disheveled white hair who spoke with an upper crust, ever so proper British accent. "Unless everybody follows it, from A to Zed, it simply won't work. There can be no exceptions. Other- wise my friends, we will find ourselves in a technological Lord of the Flies."
"Ah, but that is already happening," said a gentleman in his mid- fifties, who also sported a full beard, bushy mustache and long well kept salt and pepper hair to his shoulders. "We are already well on the road to a date with Silicon Armageddon. We didn't do it with the Bomb, but it looks like we're sure as hell gonna do it with technology for the masses. In this case computers." Going only by 'Dave', he was a Philosophy Professor at Stanford. In many ways he spoke like the early Timothy Leary, using tech- nology instead of drugs as a mental catalyst. Scott though of Dave as the futurist in the group.
"He's right. It is happening, right now. Long Live the Revolu- tion," shouted Che2. "Hacking keeps our personal freedoms alive. I know I'd much prefer everyone knowing my most intimate secrets than have the government and TRW and the FBI and the CIA control it and use only pieces of it for their greed-sucking reasons. No way. I want everyone to have the tools to get into the Govern- ment's Big Brother computer system and make the changes they see fit."
Scott listened as his one comment spawned a heated and animated discussion. He wouldn't break in unless they went too far afield, wherever that was, or he simply wanted to join in on the conversation.
"How can you support freedom without responsibility? You contra- dict yourself by ignoring the Code." Solon made his comment with Teutonic matter of factness in between mouthfuls.
"It is the most responsible thing we can do," retorted Che2. "It is our moral duty, our responsibility to the world to protect our privacy, our rights, before they are stripped away as they have been since the Republicans bounced in, but not out, over a decade ago." He turned in his chair and glared at Scott. Maybe thirty years old, Che2 was mostly bald with great bushes of curly dark brown hair encircling his head. The lack of hair emphasized his large forehead which stood over his deeply inset eyes. Che2 called the Boston area his home but his cosmopolitan accent belied his background.
The proper British man known as Doctor Doctor, DRDR on the BBS's, was over six foot five with an unruly frock of thick white hair which framed his ruddy pale face. "I do beg your pardon, but this so violates the tenets of civilized behavior. What this gentleman proposes is the philosophical antithesis of common sense and rationality. I suggest we consider the position that each of us in actual fact is working for the establishment, if I may use such a politically pass descriptor." DRDR's comment hushed the table. He continued. "Is it not true that security is being installed as a result of many of our activities?"
Several nods of agreement preceded a small voice coming from the far end of the table. "If you want to call it security." A small pre-adolescent spoke in a high pitched whine.