Preserving the Magic
As Arthur C. Clarke once said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Anyone who's been on this planet for more than a decade would probably agree to some extent. So are we in fact living in a time of magic? Let's look at where we've come.
We can now stay in touch with everyone we know no matter where we are. And by stay in touch, we're talking about nearly everything imaginable. It was enough of a revolution when you were able to start using a phone that wasn't connected to a wire. But now you can also be connected to the Internet. Not just for rudimentary text content but full graphics as well. The speed continues to increase and soon will be indistinguishable from a home or office connection. Many of us walk around now fully able to instantly respond to any email sent to us regardless of where we happen to be standing.
And of course, the phones themselves come with more and more extra features. It's become almost impossible to find a mobile phone that is only a phone. Odds are you will have a camera, MP3 player, organizer, and/or the equivalent of a small laptop attached to the thing you want to use to make phone calls. Naturally you will be able to transmit and receive the pictures you and other "phone users" take and those pictures will only get better looking as technology marches on. We've already entered the world of movies so in effect you may also have the equivalent of a small camcorder traveling around with you.
Oddly enough, the voice quality of a telephone call on one of these things is dramatically lower than something that's been around for many decades: a landline. The technology certainly could be developed to make every ere call sound as good as the MP3s you listen to on your phone. But for now, voice quality appears to have been the one thing left behind.
It goes without saying that computers have advanced at an incredibly rapid pace. In the early days of our publication, a 4.77 MHz processor with a ten megabyte hard drive was cutting edge. Today, we don't bat an eye at a 2.2 GHz processor and 400 gigabytes on a single drive.
In fact, when we started publishing, having a computer of your own was an unfulfilled dream in many cases. This dream is what led so many of us to the world of hacking. By exploring the phone system and packet switching networks like Telenet and Tymnet, people were able to stumble upon computers run by companies, schools, governments, or other institutions. It was that period of discovery that inspired so many and was indeed itself a magical era in the hacker world.
In many ways we've gotten exactly what we wanted. Early hackers were very keen on communications and loathe to pay the evil Ma Bell for the privilege. Phone calls of the past cost an astronomical amount compared to the rates of today. Connecting overseas was almost unheard of because it would cost multiple dollars a minute. And now it's less than a dime a minute if that much. With VoIP it can cost next to nothing. It would appear that the cheap and global connectivity we once fantasized about has become reality.
These kinds of advances are mirrored all throughout our society. Nearly every task - from typesetting a publication to making music to running a business - has been revolutionized by the magic our technology has achieved. And yet we seem to spend more time working at these tasks than ever before since the priority now is keeping up with everyone else who's doing the same thing. Nothing can deflate the sense of magic quicker than conformity.
And this is the problem that we have seen emerge. We take it all for granted and lose sight of the fact that these are true wonders of technology. And by losing that we also lose much of the inspiration that can lead us to much better advancements and new ways of doing things. Email isn't so much fun when you can't ever get away from it. And when using the telephone is something we do almost as much as we breathe, it somehow ceases to be exciting.
How many of us can say we remember what it used to sound like when making a long distance call? Even the term "long distance" used to have a different meaning and could apply to a destination less than 100 miles away. You could easily tell if you were speaking to someone down the road, in a different state, or on the other side of the country. And calls to foreign countries always had this air of mystique about them with the hiss of the trunk line, a slight echo, and the ever present in-band signaling tones. Telephone calls themselves used to be events. Phones rang with a commanding bell. You never knew who was on the other end until you picked it up. Even answering machines were rarities. A ringing phone simply could not be ignored. And because of the cost involved, there was usually a compelling reason for calling someone. Everything from the network to the ring to the sound of what was coming over the lines was inspirational and exciting for people who were curious.
Today it's barely recognizable. Everyone is constantly yammering away on a handheld device of some sort. Rings can be any audio sound you want. People actually pay for ringtones and not for calls. You can't tell from the sound quality if you're speaking to Cleveland or Beijing. We always know who's calling and there are so many ways of leaving messages. Phone calls have turned into non-events.
The Internet has had the same effect on computer communications. While few would want to go back to the days of logging onto single line bulletin board systems where you would wait hours for the busy signal to turn into a ring, it somehow was more of a big deal when you found that there was a message waiting for you on one of those systems. How many of us feel that way about the email we get today? Sure, it's more accessible. And much cheaper. But it's also very routine and mundane. The magic has been sucked right out.
Of course it would be ridiculous to resist advancement because of these nostalgic feelings. But we will be losing a great deal if we become so caught up that we fail to marvel at what we're actually doing when we communicate through technology. And not appreciating what it is that your computer is doing when you perform a routine task isn't much different than not understanding what's going on and becoming a mere user who will never stray from the norm or question the rules.
So how do we regain this sense of magic? It's simple. As long as we believe what we're doing is exciting and can be shaped into something that nobody else has accomplished, our passion will be as strong as it ever was. This almost invariably means taking risks and doing things in ways that are very different from what we're told. That's what hacking has always been about and that's what continues to inspire people to become a part of this world. It's the power of the individual to accomplish something despite everything they're told about how the only way to succeed is to be like everyone else. This obviously is a basic tenet of individuality, which can be applied to any aspect of life.
For all of the positive advancements we have witnessed, there is always a dark side. Our society has become obsessed with surveillance and individuals have an increasingly shrinking amount of privacy to protect. While we may have made our lives easier with satellite technology and the latest microscopic computer chip, you can bet that others have used this knowledge to create more efficient ways of killing and oppressing. And never before has the gulf between those who have a world of technology at their fingertips and those who have nothing been so vast. Not every advancement in technology is by default a good thing.
Our understanding and our passion have gotten us this far. We would be foolish to think that this is where it stops. As the people who design systems, find security holes, and constantly question all that we're told, we have a special responsibility to keep the whole thing magical, fun, and beneficial. We should never lose our link with the past. And we cannot let our link to the future be taken from us by those who don't know how to dream.