This is in response to Robert Siegel’s June 20th feature “Going After ‘Hackavists’”.

I am one of those people who likes to “tinker or modify hardware or software”. I “support free speech”, and I am grateful for the transparency that WikiLeaks provided – the details of which NPR enthusiastically reported. I enjoy “entertainment” and I fear that the weak link in our nation’s security is our cyber security.

According to your interview on June 20th with Hugh Thompson, I must be a hacker. I freely admit that I am a hacker and I am not ashamed of that fact. I am not, however, a criminal. I do not trespass, or steal, or destroy other’s property and I do not believe that those actions are justified by any ideology. ‘Hacking’ is the last, best term for people compelled to express their creativity in a medium of technology.

Creative people express themselves in many ways: including writing, singing, or the visual arts. There are virtuous writers. There are evil writers. There are writers that leverage their gift toward moral or political ends but I have never heard Ann Coulter or Karl Marx referred to as Writavists. Was Pete Seeger a Songavist? If not, then why do you advance the term Hackavist?

I am not alone. There are hackers everywhere – and you should be grateful for that. Without the efforts of ethical hackers, open source software developers, and creative commons content creators, our lives would be bereft of many wondrous things we take for granted. There would be no Internet as we know it: no Linux, no Firefox, and no Wikipedia. As of February 2010, the open source Apache web server powered over 54% of all web servers on the planet…and over 66% of the planet’s busiest web servers. Without high quality, open source software – like Linux – proprietary software – like Windows – would be even more expensive and less reliable than it is already.

Bad hackers release viruses into the world, they steal, and they break in to computers. They are miscreants that get some kind of twisted psychological satisfaction from hurting others. Like child molesters. But virtuous hackers imagine a better world and they take a personal initiative to realize it. Like Gandhi or Martin Luther King. You asked why hackers do what they do. I suggest you let Dan Pink explain it to you: What motivates hackers and beekeepers.

There is no better word for what we do. The term ‘inventor’ has been spoiled by patent mills and intellectual property lawyers. “Maker” is a bland, vague, and proprietary term. “Tinkerer” might work but only if one wears a bowler hat and spats. A ‘DIYer’ describes someone that shops at Lowes or Home Depot. No, hacker is what we are and hacking is what we do.

There are many different types of hackers. There are biological hackers (http://www.diybio.org), weekend hackers (http://www.instructables.com/ and http://makezine.com/), electronics hackers (http://www.adafruit.com/, http://www.sparkfun.com/, http://hackaday.com/, and others) and even food hackers (http://www.cookingissues.com/). I am a bee hacker and my blog is at http://www.beehacker.com. We are not criminals but we are all hackers.

The reason I am writing to you (NPR) and not Fox News is because I believe you want to get the story right. You can’t do that if you paint all hackers with the same brush.

Respectfully yours,

Tom Rearick