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9 to 5 [RE: The Fall of Hacker Groups]
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So this happened: phrack changed it's format and posted a nice analysis of the | |
(nowadays missing) hacker community and societal behaviour of hackers in | |
general: http://phrack.org/papers/fall_of_groups.html | |
This article reflects a lot of thoughts I've had over the last couple of | |
months. In a very positive way. | |
Yea sure, the scene we grew up in changed to what has now become a bullshit | |
business like any other. Originality is scarce and every time I see SQLi or | |
XSS on a full-disclosure list I want to puke. | |
We all know this. The scene is dead. That's beside the point. Whatever. | |
For the last couple of years I've been either employed or self-employed as an | |
engineer for everything basically. So I mainly do IT-infrastructure stuff like | |
a lot of other people. I read up on security related topics and hack on stuff | |
I'm interested in in my spare time. I'm usually late for work because I stay up | |
half of the night to do this kind of things. I work long hours. I don't sleep as | |
much as I'd like to. I still love the work I do, it's challenging, it's extremely | |
interesting and I always learn new things. Does this sound familiar? Right. | |
We choose challenges because we like to solve puzzles. We like to have nice | |
toys to play with and to make them perform really well or to do tasks they're | |
not supposed to do. People actively /working/ in the security business like to | |
exploit things, have fun, get fame and all that. But once it's your job and not | |
your hobby anymore, it somehow loses it's spark, it's magic and is filled with | |
bullshit reports, annoying customers and meetings you'd rather ignore completely. | |
Those of us who can choose their employers or customers base their choices of those | |
on possible opportunities to hack on creative things and work on projects we could | |
not afford to work on privately. | |
The thing is: we don't have to. | |
Not so long ago, in my early twenties, I used to live off a very small amount of | |
money every month, did not take business flights to the states, did not go out | |
to eat every day, did not buy all the unnecessary gadgets that I'm not spending | |
enough time with anyways, didn't buy expensive single malts, did not smoke | |
cigarettes all day, did not work most of the time. It wasn't as comfortable, | |
but it sure was more fun. I used to backpack all over the world, read a lot, | |
cook regularly, hack on stuff I was genuinely interested in. I was very | |
limited by the resources I had, so I had to be creative with time, energy and | |
hardware. You get to meet a lot of people and grasp ideas you wouldn't have | |
come across otherwise. | |
So what changed? | |
Nothing, right? | |
Nope. | |
You get comfortable. You get accustomed to toys, money and lifestyle. You get | |
the idea, that somehow, the company or customer you work for and their business | |
interests directly reflect to your own interests. This might sometimes even be | |
true, but it's mostly not. You end up in a bond of necessity for creative | |
input, compensation and recognition by your peers. That's not a bond you have | |
with your own interests, it's a bond you have with your work life. People end | |
up committing their entire life and health to it. They depend on it. | |
The question you have to ask yourself is: for how long will I be doing this? | |
What will I achieve at the end of the day (or your life) and does it even | |
matter if I achieve at all? Most of us won't end up with a Wikipedia entry, | |
most of us won't become silicon valley millionaires and even so - do you even | |
want that? It's not something substantial that has any value or matters at all. | |
It'll be forgotten and you will end up having built a physical or mental empire | |
for yourself that, in the end, did not satisfy you because you've missed out on | |
your own fucking life. | |
This is something _I_ have forgotten. But that article reminded me of myself a | |
few years back. | |
So how do we break the circle? Do we even want to anymore,.. now that we're that | |
far? It's up for you to decide. | |
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftgjf-fRqL0 | |
azet |
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