Study & Write T12 (Hackers' ideals in 2020s)

In this post I will take a brief look at the ideals of hackers' culture that are mentioned in Hacker Ethic by Pekka Himanen and Hacker HOWTO by Eric S. Raymond and whether they are applicable in the modern world or not.

First of all, I would like to mention that cybercrime has drastically risen in the last 10 years and the aim of these crimes is now usually financial profit. We need money for almost everything, and hackers figured out ways to make money on the Internet and there are getting more of these ways every year thanks to the technical development. Therefore, hackers are now often associated with criminals that steal money from ordinary people. Although it is sadly partially true, it is not right to say that all hackers are bad.

Secondly, freedom of word and free access to every piece of information, which is the main aim of hackers, becomes less real every year. Popular social media have censorship, which is contrary to freedom. Users' privacy has also become less valuable. Interestingly, the information is now becoming less accessible because of outdated copyright laws. It is becoming harder to share information even with your friends without getting copyright strikes. Everything mention above leads to the digital freedom as a whole getting less possible.

Apart from these details, other hackers' ideals have not really changed in their realisation. However, I would like to point out that the English language has indeed become a language of IT, so it is now essential to know it not only to develop mechanisms of your language, but also to communicate with others on the Internet. Programs are written in English and software engineers prefer to leave English comments, even if it is not their native language. One more detail that makes English international digital language is the fact that it has the most accurate translations to almost all languages in online translators.