Krispy Kremes and Ancient Ethics
   --------------------------------
   by Brendan Koerner

   The  decidedly  seedy  Hotel  Pennsylvania,  a  tourist magnet
   opposite Madison Square Garden, seems like an odd place for a guy like
   Greg  Newby  to foment his cyberrevolution. After weathering countless
   sales  meetings and sweaty travel clubs, ITS airport-chic interior has
   warped  and  faded.  The  lights  are  caked with yellow gunk, and the
   claustrophobic  rooms  appear plucked from an old videocassette of The
   Shining.

   Yet  there  was  Newby  last  week,  at  the  Hackers  on Planet Earth
   convention  (H2K),  making  a case for his "Hacker's Code," a document
   designed   to   accomplish   the   seemingly   impossible:  unify  the
   technophilic,  anarchy-inclined  denizens of the computer underground.
   Newby's  Hacker's  Code is a list of 12 basic principles that he hopes
   will  "help  hackers to spot their common heritage, and recognize both
   their diversity and their potential power."

   But  first  he  had to get the attention of hundreds of laptop-toting,
   utility-belt-wearing  teenagers  who  preferred  to  debate  the finer
   points  of shortwave radios and Linux platforms until the wee hours. A
   few  miscreants,  wired on cheap beer and Krispy Kremes, tossed around
   fireworks and fiddled with the elevator controls.
     _________________________________________________________________

   "I want people to know, especially the younger people, that you're not
      the first angry person to come along. You're not the first to be
        belittled by classmates, or misunderstood, or ostracized." 
     _________________________________________________________________

   For  Newby,  an  assistant  professor  of  information  science at the
   University of North Carolina, the esoteric banter and juvenile hijinks
   were  mere  sidelights.  He  wanted the sugar-buzzed kiddies to settle
   down  and  think about their culture's roots. His code borrows heavily
   from  famous  texts,  including  the  medical profession's Hippocratic
   Oath.  And  the document's ethics were inspired by Isaac Asimov's Laws
   of Robotics, rules that preach against harming humanity.

   But  the  code's  most recognizable forefather is a 14-year-old screed
   known  as the Hacker's Manifesto. Written by a character known only as
   the Mentor, the manifesto is a bile-filled rant against a society that
   persecutes  the  geeky.  "My  crime,"  the  Mentor writes, "is that of
   outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for."

   That bold statement motivated Newby to pepper his code with such riffs
   as   "Hackers   often  disagree  with  authority,  including  parents,
   employers, social customs, and laws."

   "I want people to know, especially the younger people, that you're not
   the  first  angry  person to come along," says Newby, 35, who has been
   fiddling with computers since the late 1970s. "You're not the first to
   be belittled by classmates, or misunderstood, or ostracized."

   Newby aims to promote the growth of "hacktivism," a movement that uses
   Internet  monkey-wrenching to further social justice. "We have to be a
   little  bit more thoughtful about what we do," he says. "If you deface
   a  Web  site  because  that just happens to be the one you can deface,
   that's  vandalism.  But  if  you  target  a  Web  site  because of its
   particular message, then that's hacktivism."

   Some  H2Kers  wonder whether the underground is simply too unwieldy to
   accept  a  set  of  guidelines. "The Prophet," who moderated an ethics
   panel  at H2K, says the culture is becoming even more splintered, as a
   swarm  of Matrix-loving newcomers flood the scene. "The kids have been
   dumbed  down  and  mainstreamed, and they understand very little about
   the  powerful  exploits  they're  using or the technologies with which
   they're interacting."

   "Juintz,"  Web  coordinator for WBAI's hacker-oriented radio show, Off
   the  Hook,  says his peers are likely to resist anything that remotely
   resembles  a  set  of  regulations.  "The  most important and defining
   statement  [in  the code] for me is 'Every hacker must make his or her
   own  decisions  about  what is right and wrong,' " Juintz says. "I'm a
   firm  believer  in  the  right of an individual to make his or her own
   decisions  and  not  be  told that they should think a certain way, or
   that they can't do certain things."

   Newby  understands  that  hackers  are an independence-loving lot, and
   that his code will have a difficult time garnering recognition. Still,
   he has posted it on his Web site and will incorporate any feedback
   into  a  final  draft  destined  for  publication  in 2600: The Hacker
   Quarterly.

   The  Prophet,  however,  believes  Newby  could  save himself a lot of
   trouble  by  distilling  the code into a simple edict. "It really only
   needs to be four words," he says. " 'Do the right thing.' "