Chapter 1. The Hacker Mentality

Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values.

AYN RAND

Hackers are no more criminals than lawyers, politicians, or TV evangelists are. (Okay, so maybe that’s not the best analogy.) The point is that being a hacker doesn’t necessarily make you a criminal. Your attitude makes you a hacker, but if you’re not careful, your actions can make you a criminal.

With the news media ready to blame every computer glitch on malicious hackers, too many people get a one-sided point of view that hackers are just completely evil, bent-on-destruction-of-the-civilized-world malcontents who’d love nothing better than to demolish everything good in society and sow terror and chaos in their ...

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