to the knife against evil marauding "hackers." They
didn't seem to grasp that "hackers" had built the entire
personal computer industry. Jobs was a hacker, Wozniak
too, even Bill Gates, the youngest billionaire in the
history of America -- all "hackers." The new buttoned-
down regime at Apple had blown its top, and as for the
feds, they were willing, but clueless. Well, let's be
charitable -- the feds were "cluefully challenged."
"Clue-impaired." "Differently clued...."
Back in the 70s (as Kapor recited to the hushed and
respectful young hackers) he himself had practiced
"software piracy" -- as those activities would be known
today. Of course, back then, "computer software" hadn't
been a major industry -- but today, "hackers" had police
after them for doing things that the industry's own
pioneers had pulled routinely. Kapor was irate about
this. His own personal history, the lifestyle of his
pioneering youth, was being smugly written out of the
historical record by the latter-day corporate androids.
Why, nowadays, people even blanched when Kapor
forthrightly declared that he'd done LSD in the Sixties.
Quite a few of the younger hackers grew alarmed at
this admission of Kapor's, and gazed at him in wonder, as
if expecting him to explode.
"The law only has sledgehammers, when what we need
are parking tickets and speeding tickets," Kapor said.
Anti-hacker hysteria had gripped the nation in 1990. Huge
law enforcement efforts had been mounted against illusory
threats. In Washington DC, on the very day when the
formation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation had been
announced, a Congressional committee had been formally
presented with the plotline of a thriller movie -- DIE
HARD II, in which hacker terrorists seize an airport
computer -- as if this Hollywood fantasy posed a clear and
present danger to the American republic. A similar
hacker thriller, WAR GAMES, had been presented to Congress
in the mid-80s. Hysteria served no one's purposes, and
created a stampede of foolish and unenforceable laws
likely to do more harm than good.
Kapor didn't want to "paper over the differences"
between his Foundation and the underground community. In
the firm opinion of EFF, intruding into computers by
stealth was morally wrong. Like stealing phone service,
it deserved punishment. Not draconian ruthlessness,
though. Not the ruination of a youngster's entire life.
