Hackers are significant because of what our fear of them says about our unease with new technologies … The fallout from this fear is already apparent … It is possible that once computer networks become as commonplace as our national highway system, we will learn to treat them in much the same way. Rules of the road will emerge, and people will learn to respect them for their own safety and for the common good.
Predictor: Hafner, Katie
Prediction, in context:In their 1991 book “Cyberpunk,” Katie Hafner and John Markoff tell about people who gained fame in the “computer underground” of the 1980s and early ’90s. They write: ”The inspiration for this book came when we began to see a change in the way computers were being used. We found harbingers of cyberpunk, young people for whom computers and computer networks are an obsession, and who have carried this obsession beyond what computer professionals consider ethical and lawmakers consider acceptable … In the 1960s and ’70s, to be a computer hacker was to wear a badge of honor. It singled one out as an intellectually restless soul compelled to stay awake for 40 hours at a stretch in order to refine a program until it could be refined no more … In the 1980s, a new generation appropriated the word ‘hacker’ and, with help from the press, used it to define itself as password pirates and electronic burglars … Hackers were no longer seen as benign explorers but as malicious intruders … These hackers are significant because of what our fear of them says about our unease with new technologies … The fallout from this fear is already apparent. As we were finishing the book, something of a hacker hysteria was sweeping the nation … in the spring and summer of 1990, more than 30 raids on young computer users took place across the country … Federal agents have gone after computer hackers in 1990 as if they are the next scourge after Communism. Do young people who illegally enter computers really represent such a menace? … the answer isn’t a simple one. All three of the young men we write about were caught up in what society views as criminal activities, yet none saw himself as a criminal. Each felt he was an explorer in a remarkable electronic world where the rules aren’t clear … It is possible that once computer networks become as commonplace as our national highway system, we will learn to treat them in much the same way. Rules of the road will emerge, and people will learn to respect them for their own safety and for the common good.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1991
Topic of prediction: Community/Culture
Subtopic: Ethics/Values
Name of publication: Cyberpunk
Title, headline, chapter name: Introduction
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Pages 9-12
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney