READ & WRITE "TASK 12 Short opinion piece about the practical applicability of the ideals in the modern world"

 The Seventh Day: the values of hacker ethic in the new century

Short explanation of each aspect

• passion - hackers are moved by their intrinsic creative push that motivates them to explore, create and adapt, and rewards them with joy. Hackers view their work as an elaborate hobby - as testified by Linus Torvalds saying: "Linux has very much been a hobby (but a serious one: the best type)". An even better quote is from Tom Pittman from the Homebrew Computer Club of early days: "In that instant, I as a Christian thought I could feel something of the satisfaction that God must have felt when He created the world".

• freedom - Richard Stallman has defined the spirit of the MIT hacker community as 'playful cleverness': it means that instead of rigid 'optimisation' of time and outcomes, the best results are born out of necessity and creative exploration.

• (hacker) work ethic - one of the interesting metaphors used by Himanen is the one of monastery vs academy. According to him, typical Protestant work ethic derives from monastery with a set of fixed rules, written or not. On the contrary, the hacker ethic is a descendant (in a way) of Plato's Academy, where the truth was born in debates. Just like some MIT hackers famous of their irregular lifestyles were able to display supreme results, the hacker work ethic is not so much concerned with the form than with the essence.

• (hacker) money ethic - hackers tend to view money as a means to something more valuable, not as a value per se. Therefore, it is acceptable for them to dedicate some time for accumulation of enough resources, after which it is possible to turn to something more interesting (a good example is Steve Wozniak discussed above). In other cases, hackers have chosen smaller immediate profits while ensuring the broadest possible audience. While sounding idealistic, many central things of today's infrastructure would have been impossible without this kind of ethic - a good example is Sir Timothy Berners-Lee who refused to patent his invention of Web technology in 1991. Likewise, Linus Torvalds chose a free license for his Linux. In both cases, a rapid spread of technology followed, which among other things granted both inventors good financial standing as well.

• (hacker) network ethic (also called nethic) - hackers promote freedom of word and thought and resist censorship in all its forms. Nethic also materialises as online social norms (netiquette or network etiquette). This point is the direct descendant of the original "promote decentralization".

• caring - this is similar to Barnes' points, yet with a distinct hackery flavour. Himanen uses a metaphor of sports car driver who cannot afford looking around or enjoying the nice weather - all his energy and concentration goes into keeping the car onto the road. Himanen boldly states that starting from a certain "speed", there can be no more ethic. He presents the readers an awkward question asked by hackers: "Why do you need that much money?" and proceeds with examples of hacker projects, which (using Barnes' term) are directed towards 'upgrading the capitalism'.

• creativity - this is returning to the hacker roots. From the very first students getting their hands on MIT's TX-0, this has been a major tenet of hackers. And in today's networked society, its importance will ever increase.

My opinion about each element

• passion - Im mostly agree, with "hackers are moved by their intrinsic creative push that motivates them to explore, create and adapt, and rewards them with joy." for myself, I have same feelings not only in case, when Im trying to pentest something, but also when I develop something in general, usually, the pentest process, motivates me as a feeling in the end, of success, that helps me remind myself, that Im not a standard user of PC/IT field. The best feeling in such activity, when you finally solve puzzle. 

• freedom - If I understood it right, then, if the result will be more satisfied and successfully, in case of creative exploration and free "deadlines", Im completely agree. When you have to finish something in some specific time, it just ruins the whole vibe, of observing/developing. For my case, when I have a deadline, and I see, that Im not fitting in right time, Im leaving any creative solutions, for the most standard one's. That why, now, Im not participate in projects, with tough deadlines.  

• (hacker) money ethic - As mentioned above, about examples of free software, such as Linux and etc. I want to give them, my own respect, especially to Linus. Regarding to "hackers tend to view money as a means to something more valuable, not as a value per se." Im also agree, I have the same opinion about money, they are tools, to something more.

• (hacker) network ethic (also called nethic) - about free of speech in the net, I shared my opinion in previous topic on my blog, where I shared the same opinion, that everything should be free without censor. Here I probably should mention, that censor, anyway should be, but only in WhiteNet, and quite definite, for example, censor should cover some religious aspects, threats and etc. Of course, it's hard to track, but by the censor I mean, not the someone, who's tracking such things, but about us, we should understand, what it ethical, what is not. 

• Caring - I have nothing to say about it, because, I didn't got it to the end, what was the idea of that aspect, but there was a great question, like "Why do you need that much money?", usually we by our nature, not raised to share something with someone, I mean, not the people from your environment. Lets take an example of such word as "Country" , each country have their own borders, rules, languages, and opinions, about other countries. The main question, why we still have borders, why we should have such meaning as country. Usually, when someone, is asking me, where am I from, Im answering from Earth, of course, as a joke, but I will be happy, if such answer in future, will be understood as a normal one, like really, Im from earth. As you may noticed, Im such person, who are in favor of identifying themselves as a one people. 

• creativity - for those, who is working in such field, like cybersec engineer or hacker, they have to be creativity, the more you are creative, the more successfully you will be in your stuff. In case of hackers, they have to be super creative, to get access to something, same thing for cybersec engineer, you should be smart enough, use creative solution, to protect system, or other type of software from hacking.