Underdogs and Hackers

The other day I was recalling the wild and woolly days of the computing industry before there was Internet, before there was Windows, before there were anti-virus scanners, and before there was such wide-spread adoption of computing technology. In those days, "normal" people did not have computers. And as college students, we had access to the computing frontier. We knew how to ride the range and avoid the sheriff so to speak.

It is because of those days and the "experimentation" that people like me engaged in that we have such concern for computer security now. But back then, there were entire computing systems that were accessed with a username only, no password. We cruised through the mainframes from our serial terminals and dial up modems and explored the vast reaches of the university networks. We wrote software to access things we should not, do things the system was not capable of, and invented the computing industry along the way.

Yes, we were hackers.

But we actually wanted that title and accepted it with pride. You see, in the early days, the "establishment" created computing systems for really boring reasons, like business. We used the spare computing power of those systems as a playground for learning and honing our skills. If you were labeled a "hacker" it meant you had respect from your peers for your skills. It was a good thing. The vast majority of the "hackers" in those days did little mischief, mostly they were just seeking the thrill of making something exceed its original specification.

The term hacker was commandeered by the media to be used as a negative label for criminals. But in its inception, it was not a negative term. Arguably, now it is.

Mastering a mainframe time-sharing system was no small trick. There were many nuances of the command line environment. And we created new environments from the primitives offered until we had our own little villages. I would not dare call them castles as nothing was that permanent. We were constantly changing and evolving our environments. The goal was not to create an environment to use, the goal was to learn about creating environments and to expand continually. It was the journey and not the destination that was the reward.

Over the years I have watched the computing industry flex, grow, change, and even cycle. Once upon a time everything was centralized at a mainframe and all access was from connected "dumb" terminals. They were called dumb because they could only display text and accept text from a keyboard. Then things changed with the advent of personal computers when IBM, Apple, and a smattering of others came on the scene. And over time, things evolved to being de-centralized and distributed across a number of smaller computers, like personal computers.

But as the business requirements grew, and so did this little thing called the Internet, there was movement to bring business processing back into centrally managed server farms with remote access from personal computers. The personal computers ran applications that communicated with the central servers and since they were no longer doing all the heavy lifting, companies started introducing "thin clients" that were less expensive personal computers, and somewhat limited in features. Thus the personal computer essentially became "dumb" terminals once more, but now you could play Solitaire and Winmine.

Then someone noticed all that computing power going to waste and the migration toward distributed computing began again. I honestly don't know where it has most recently arrived. Are we distributed, centralized, or just some mish-mash? I think that since it is so confusing we are probably at some mish-mash state.

And now, the computing industry faces the biggest threat to date. A threat that exceeds all worries of virus attacks, trojans, worms, security attacks, or even spam. This threat is nothing less than the market dominance of one company, Microsoft. It does not matter which company is dominant, when there is only one primary player, you have a monopoly, and that has never been a good thing. There is no such thing as a benevolent monopoly.

And everywhere you look, every product, software tool, or gadget is compatible with Microsoft Windows, and many if not most are only compliant with Windows. And since that is what most people use, it makes perfect sense. No one would sell MP3 players that only connected to obscure computers running obscure operating systems. That would be bad business. So the problem kind of self-propagates. As products tend toward supporting only the MS Windows platform, there is little desire to use any other platform by users. Well, at least the majority of users.

Which brings me finally to the point of this post. You see, all those devices that are "Windows only", well that makes people like me think "why?" Or more precisely "what prevents it being used on something else?" And so we look to find ways to connect those devices to other platforms, most notably the Linux operating system. And so the hackers take gadgets and devices apart, they tinker, and they write software or possibly even warm up the soldering iron. And usually they get the system to do something it was never intended to do. They get the Windows only gadgets to do things like connect and communicate with Linux.

All of this makes Linux an underdog in a Windows world.

I use Linux in my job and on my laptop. Its not that I don't think Windows XP is a good operating system (well its nominal and Vista is too new to be known well) and its not that I think Microsoft is evil (even though they are a convicted monopoly that still has not lived up to their court sentences), its just that its a return to those wild and woolly days long ago. There is more to explore and learn about operating systems, networks, software technology, and technical "stuff" in Linux than you could ever discover in Windows.

Microsoft Windows packages a set of tools that do a set of tasks that most people find useful. It also provides a platform for software companies to write application software. But I find it amusing that when confronted with a task that varies from the set of supported features that most just give up and say "it doesn't do that". And they are probably right. Windows embodies a "point solution" approach. What that means is that Windows application software is written to do a specific job. And thus when the jobs are not what is expected, you have to find another point solution for that job.

But in the Linux world, software is typically written as a set of building blocks that can be recombined and reconfigured and connected in different ways to accomplish tasks that were never anticipated. And this brings out the hacker in me. Not an evil hacker, the original good hacker that seeks to make a system do things it was never intended. Its a return to the wild and woolly days in a way. Except this time around, the frontier is much larger. But the number of explorers ( i.e. hackers) is larger also.

I have spent the last 24 years in the computing industry starting in college in 1983. And over that time I have seen amazing advancement and evolution of computing technology and software. I have learned more and forgotten more than I ever anticipated. It seems that the more I learn, the less I know. Its just that as I learn more, I become more aware of all that I do not know. So I continue to learn and hack and play with computers.

After all, its only software :-)



Copyright 2007, Kevin Farley (a.k.a. sixdrift, a.k.a. neuronstatic)

Deep Thoughts From The Farm Well

As it happens while living, occasionally a deep thought is verbalized from any of the five kids, and sometimes the parents. Lately we have been talking about deep thoughts and some of the things that are said that are so descriptive, or at least indicative of our family. So for posterity's sake, I have decided to write just a few of these down.

Granted, there is nothing earth-shaking here. Just thoughts expressed in and around our home.

"That's so random."

I think this phrase is said by my eldest daughter nearly daily, and for good reason! There are so many random things said and done in our home. She, as a teenager, finds the things a 5 year old, or a 41 year old, doing and saying to be completely random. Well sometimes they are, other times, its just teen-itis.

"Dog loves you."

I often refer to our coon hound Millie simply as "dog". One day Millie came up and wanted attention from my son. He was petting her and I said "Dog loves you." Maybe its just me but I think there is a deep thought in there when you think about it.

"Small children on a trampoline are static in motion."

Think about it a moment, if you need to.

"I don't want a tornado to come around."

Said by our official family worrier, the 9 year old. Surely I am not the only one that sees the ironic humor in this. She finds something to worry about daily.

"Pimp my tree."

Said by me in regard to the high pollen count this spring. Think about it.

"Hound dogs smell!"

Its just the way it is. They can and do smell. I have a coon hound to prove it.

"That vacuum sucks!"

A winner of the most obvious award.

"If scissors could run, should they?"

Think about it. I ask this of people I meet and I either get odd looks or a confident and quick answer.




Copyright 2007, Kevin Farley (a.k.a. sixdrift, a.k.a. neuronstatic)