Hack-Tic, Techno-Anarchist Magazine (1989 -1994)

by Rop Gonggrijp, former publisher and editor of Hack-Tic

The last issue of Hack-Tic is just that: the last issue.  That's right, Hack-Tic Magazine is no more.

I've decided not to continue the magazine because I think that after five-and-a-half years it is time for me to work on other things.  Since I couldn't find anyone crazy enough to carry on, the curtain falls for Hack-Tic.

I've been thinking about the future of the magazine for quite some time now, and I think there would have been ways to continue the magazine.  These ways all have one thing in common: I would have to invest much more time in a more professional (read: slick) magazine that appears more often.  In its current form the magazine is not financially viable.  Hack-Tic never was about making money.  It all started because a small group of people wanted to share forbidden knowledge with other enthusiasts, and because we wanted to make a contribution to the hacker subculture.

We have come to a time in which not only computerfreaks have a computer and a modem.  A network community has emerged on the Internet.  That community largely overlaps the audience that Hack-Tic was originally written for.  Although I have had much fun publishing a paper magazine, I want to focus more of my energy on providing information to the network community.  Because reproduction and distribution are nearly free, the information would be free, and everybody's happy.

A multimedia, interactive clickable online Hack-Tic?

Who knows.  We're working to put at least part of the back-issues online in World Wide Web format, and we're also putting some artwork by Hack-Tic's own KoHo on the Internet.  I've spent little time thinking about what this new information flow should look like.  Maybe I'll just post fun articles in the hacktic.* newsgroups (the newsgroups will stay), or I'll make nice anarcho pages on the Web.

In the very first issue of Hack-Tic I wrote:

"Starting a magazine has a lot in common with childbirth: even in this modern age full of technology, it's still not certain that the baby will live.  Even though this baby is not so heavy yet, using its big mouth it hopes to add weight to many discussions."

[cry mode on]

Now that the end has come it's good that "my baby" dies in the strength of its life, and that I don't have to pull the plug on a respirator a few years from now.

[cry mode off]

But let's not be too sad.  We didn't waste our time!  Hack-Tic has put its mark on the early-1990s.  If there were technical shortcomings in the phone system, we pointed them out.  If the police or judicial system were abusing technology, we said so.  If the public was lulled to sleep with stories of secure computers and communication systems, we woke them up again.  Boy did we give all these people in the boardroom a hard time.  Gentlemen, hold off the party.  Hack-Tic was reading material in the nursing room of an entire generation of people that sees through your tricks.

We didn't only point to what was wrong, but we made some changes ourselves.  When we started our "Hack-Tic Network" computer network, we did not dare hoping that this would grow to be a large Internet provider for private people (under the name XS4ALL).  When we helped build the Digital City freenet, we couldn't have dreamt that this city would be a national and international example of citizen networking.  A lot has been accomplished, but as long as not everyone can exercise their democratic rights online, as long as the PTT can keep increasing their rates, and as long as our government wants to ban encryption, we'll keep nagging them.  The spirit lives on!

Maybe even more important: we've been the core around which a subculture has formed.  A generation of hackers have met each other at mass meetings like "The Galactic Hacker Party" and "Hacking at the End of the Universe."  Our Hack-Tic Office Parties (HOPs) and the yearly Hack-Tic beach parties were hotbeds for new ideas.  The Hack-Tic beach party tradition will continue, and the fact that the magazine doesn't exist anymore will not stop us from organizing fun meetings in the future.  The spirit lives on!