72 lines
4.5 KiB
Markdown
72 lines
4.5 KiB
Markdown
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---
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title: "The Hacker Mindset"
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date: 2024-02-24T16:43:00+01:00
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image: /images/cliff.jpg
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---
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Image credit: [AT&T Tech Channel - Cliff Stoll: Good Science](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHEIOgONq6A)
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First, there comes excruciating pain. Suddenly, an eye blinding flash travels across his eyes. Look at
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him. He finally gazed outside the womb. He is now a small fraction of this world and all of its
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complications. Where will this child go? Just how will reality shape him? Will he break and succumb to
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despair, or regrow into an even more resilient, mature human? As the mother cries in joy, his little
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neurons start to fire little sparks of data that resonate all across his brain from hemisphere to
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hemisphere. And they do so very quickly. With a sheer speed of 100 meters per second. His brain has
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millions if not billions of connections! That is not a super computer. That is a human.
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Before his parents know it, he is already learning his first ABCs and doing basic mathematics. A few
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years pass, and he starts developing new emotions. More years pass and he is capable of deep abstract
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thought. Curiosity and questions are like fuel and oxygen. Waiting for the little spark to complete the
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job and burst into a violent reaction of fire. For knowledge. A new experiment proves to be as exciting
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as a new question. Forcing the child to push the limits of his brain and make connections based on his
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experience, or lack thereof.
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This is how I like to describe hackers. We lack hackers. Passionate people. People that will pass
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knowledge down the generations with real excitement. And you cannot imagine THE BEST of such
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people until you see them in action. If you scout through the internet carefully, you might notice them.
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Here are some that I cannot help myself but to share. For they have deeply impacted my thinking:
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- [John D. Boswell](https://www.youtube.com/@melodysheep)
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- [Richard Feynman](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1ww1IXRfTA)
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- [Cliff Stoll](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt0844ViQDI)
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- [Tom Scott](https://www.youtube.com/@TomScottGo)
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- [Richard Stallman](https://www.gnu.org/)
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- [Khan Academy](https://www.khanacademy.org/)
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“Hackers”. I am not referring to cyber security specialists, consultants, or attackers, although they do
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constitute a big portion of individuals with such a mentality. I am referring to people that wonder and
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explore. What hackers used to be defined as before media acted out with its usual "drama, drama,
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drama.. drama" move and pictured us as "the bad guys". The bad guys are not hackers. They are
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criminals. End of the story.
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Why do we lack them? Because people are not flawless. We make mistakes, even when we think we
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are doing the right thing. A statement kills curiosity. It closes your options and puts you on a single
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track. Some parents do that. Some teachers do that. Which can have profound effects on the child.
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Children need questions. They are born to be curious. If the environment models them to be silent, shut
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up, and not question about the system or statement in question, how will they ever familiarize
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themselves with it? That is why extreme patience is needed when introducing somebody to a topic.
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Especially children.
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Is there a way out of such closed thinking? Perhaps. For me it was FOSS (Free and Open-Source
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Software). I no longer am tied to a proprietary system that I detest. I am free to use my computer
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however I like. Which pushes me to understand my own system better and in more depth. It enables me
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to think in new ways and make my computer do funny things. Even if impractical, it still is.. fun. The
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reason behind it also lies in data protection and privacy. But that is another discussion. For you, the
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entry point might also reside in FOSS, or maybe mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, etcetera. At
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the end of the day, all major subjects are fundamentally interlinked. Curiosity will push you outside of
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your own field if you just let it do so. That is when you will realize that every subject has a profound
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meaning and beauty.
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The greatest twist will come when you discover something new on your own that is interlinked with
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what you know you LOVE doing. But that resides inside a completely different field that you
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remember hating because of a past experience - like school.
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This is what I learned in my concluding years of adolescence.
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I now like to think optimistically about the coming generations.
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Let's take care and be welcoming of our future pioneers.
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Let’s respect the work of the ones who came before us.
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They are after all, the reason why we are here.
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Kevin
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