Computer Hacker Quotes & Sayings

I'm proud of it. Apart from marking the first occasion when I used my talent on behalf of other people without being asked and without caring whether I was rewarded
which was a major breakthrough in itself
the job was a pure masterpiece. Working on it, I realized in my guts how an artist or an author can get high on the creative act. The poker who wrote Precipice's original tapeworm was pretty good, but you could theoretically have killed it without shutting down the net
that is, at the cost of losing thirty or forty billion bits of data. Which I gather they were just about prepared to do when I showed up. But mine ... Ho, no! That, I cross my heart, cannot be killed without DISMANTLING the net. — John Brunner

Fredkin believes that the universe is very literally a computer and that it is being used by someone, or something, to solve a problem. It sounds like a good-news/bad-news joke: the good news is that our lives have purpose; the bad news is that their purpose is to help some remote hacker estimate pi to nine jillion decimal places. — Ray Kurzweil

When a hacker gains access to any corporate data, the value of that data depends on which server, or sometimes a single person's computer, that the hacker gains access to. — John McAfee

I am by now completely convinced that my downfall in life is going to be my inability to achieve computer nirvana like a true hacker or hackette. I think this lacking is the most unmodern facet of my personality - the career equivalent of having six fingers, or a vestigial tail. — Douglas Coupland

Somebody could send you an office document or a PDF file, and as soon as you open it, it's a booby trap and the hacker has complete control of your computer. Another major problem is password management. People use the same password on multiple sites, so when the hacker compromises one site, they have your password for everywhere else. — Kevin Mitnick

For this to work, we need to find a computer system to break into." I looked up at Jack. "I don't suppose either one of you have previously undisclosed hacker abilities?"
Jack shook his head. "Not one of my many talents, sadly. But if you have a cherry stem I can show you a really cool one."
"I'm not great," Lend said. "You need Arianna."
"I think you're right. Jack, can you take Lend back and bring Arianna here?"
"But - " Lend started.
"No, there's not anything you can do here. Go back home and figure out what, exactly, your mom and the others want me to do. If I'm going to make a decision about them, I need all the information I can get. Also please put some clothes on because sleeping, nude Lend is a huge distraction I can't deal with right now."
He laughed. — Kiersten White

When you zap things with light to build quantum computers, you're hacking existing systems. You're hijacking the computation that's already happening in the universe, just like a hacker takes over someone else's computer. — Seth Lloyd

Attribution is an enduring problem when it comes to forensic investigations. Computer attacks can be launched from anywhere in the world and routed through multiple hijacked machines or proxy servers to hide evidence of their source. Unless a hacker is sloppy about hiding his tracks, it's often not possible to unmask the perpetrator through digital evidence alone. — Kim Zetter

Being able to break security doesn't make you a hacker anymore than being able to hotwire cars makes you an automotive engineer. — Eric S. Raymond

Tsukiko Saionji: He doesn't look like a weed whacker.
Aoi "Flippy" Kyogoku: But I'm a computer hacker, and a safe cracker, and a butt smacker ... and I've got just the right equipment to trim your hedge. — Yuu Watase

Unix is not so much a product as it is a painstakingly compiled oral history of the hacker subculture. It is our Gilgamesh epic: a living body of narrative that many people know by heart, and tell over and over again - making their own personal embellishments whenever it strikes their fancy. The bad embellishments are shouted down, the good ones picked up by others, polished, improved, and, over time, incorporated into the story. [ ... ] Thus Unix has slowly accreted around a simple kernel and acquired a kind of complexity and asymmetry about it that is organic, like the roots of a tree, or the branchings of a coronary artery. Understanding it is more like anatomy than physics. — Neal Stephenson

The Hacker Ethic: Access to computers
and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works
should be unlimited and total.
Always yield to the Hands-On Imperative!
All information should be free.
Mistrust authority
promote decentralization.
Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position.
You can create art and beauty on a computer.
Computers can change your life for the better. — Steven Levy

Everyone wants to be called an outsider so I'm a proud insider. If I was young I'd be in my parents' house shutting down the government on my computer. The new delinquent is the hacker. — John Waters

Thanks to a hacker known as Guccifer who wormed into the computer of the 43rd president's sister, the world has learned that George W. Bush is an amateur - I would say serious amateur - painter. — Roberta Smith

Nobody wants another computer hacker movie, unless it's something amazingly different. — John Badham