Consider the story of Leo, a lifelong hacker:
The Hacker Acumen
Leo has been serving one of the oldest technology organizations in the world for past 30 years.
Leo was a self-taught programmer who led his way to a multinational tech organization via acquisition of his own tech security services company.
Leo had used punch cards. Worked with age-old technologies such as Fortran, Cobol, Basic and C/C++, watched email being invented, coded business apps with Xbase languages such as Clipper, saw the PC market being taken over by Microsoft in mid-nineties and also saw Apple being the world’s most valuable company in the past decade surpassing the PC era.
Even in his fifties, Leo lived a geeky life. Several years ago his wife passed away. His children found their way in their own lives and here was Leo, alone yet peaceful and content with what he’s been doing with his life.
One Saturday night, he was spending some time working on a complex algorithm in his home office.
He saw an abnormal activity in one of the backup servers he was monitoring. A hacker was trying to get into the server and get access to the code but was not able to.
Leo’s home backup server hosted the legacy code of an Operating System he had developed long ago.
Experienced Leo soon caught the hacker, “You’ve been trying so hard to break into my backup server,” he told the hacker, “and you should not return empty-handed. Please take the source code of the operating system I built long ago as a gift.”
The hacker was puzzled. He took the source code and went offline.
Leo sat on the floor, reflecting about hacking. “Poor guy,” he mused, “I wish I could give him my ‘Hacker Acumen’ to him, which means to create and learn, not to steal.”
My Takeaways
- Hacking does not mean breaching the security of systems; it means being a creator…a lifelong learner.
- If you commit to the work of your life then you don’t worry about spending your time at work. Even you’re at home, you create your workplace. You do it for a simple reason: it is no longer just your work, it’s your life!
- Source code has no value in the word of a competent hacker. I remember when I was worried about “protecting” the source code of the Business Apps I was building in early 2000. Fast forward to 15 years and it has never helped me. I mean having a “copy” of the source code just gives mental relief that you have something, but in the real world, if you know what you’re doing, you’ll easily create new source code without any hassle. And if you’re not competent, it doesn’t matter much.
- Just trying to crack into someone’s server does not make you a hacker. A hacker has a ‘Hacker Acumen’, a mindset of continuous exploring, trying, failing and learning.
- Get absolutely clear about hacking: Real hackers solve problems and build things, and they believe in freedom and voluntary mutual help; So-called hackers (Crackers) break them. Decide which kind of hacker you want to be.
[bctt tweet=”Real hackers solve problems and build things; crackers break them. Choose to be a #hacker.” username=”utpalvaishnav”]
Be a Real Hacker, Be Like Leo
This is Leo.
Leo is a hacker.
Leo spends a lot of time building things. Leo is crazy. Leo does not hack to break any system’s security. Leo hacks to help.
Leo has a real hacker acumen.
Be like Leo!
