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H2K2 (2002): "The Conscience of a Hacker"

Channel2600 · 20.6K views · 2012-09-12 · 28:35

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Overview

The Mentor (Loyd Blankenship) reads his 1986 essay "The Conscience of a Hacker" at H2K2 in 2002 and adds his own insight about its backstory.

On Hacker News

Linked in Hacker Manifesto threads as the author's own account of the essay's origin and meaning.

Recommended by 1 HN people across 1 months · HN mentions 2016–2025

Topics

Hacker culture & free softwareSecurity & hacking
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hacker manifestothe mentorloyd blankenshiph2k2hacker ethic

What people said

uola · 2016-08 · Recommendation

It's slightly anticlimactic when the comment being responded to is a casual dismissal completely missing the context of the text. I've seen plenty of stories on HN where there's some random flamewar on top and the authors insightful comments are at the bottom. For the backstory by the author you're better off with the talk given at HOPE in 2002. [VIDEO]

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basilikum · 2025-11 · Reference

Loyd Blankenship (The Mentor) about the "Conscious of a Hacker" 16 years later in 2002 at H2K2: [VIDEO]

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catpea · 2022-02 · Reference

DaVinci's website is 25+ years old now. In some way the art is from the beginning of the earliest more creative websites. 1024x760, for some, is a statement that demands a decent computer. A lot of people had 800x600 resolution. And DaVinci Ice made it clear that his art required more. I hate to say, but by internet standards the website is an archaeological artifact. The web.archive.org link shows the last time the site was up. It is gone now. Goggle returns nothing. The subdomain return DNS errors. As to the UX. Back then we used to put up these dumb a$$ door pages, before you entered a website. It is like a splash screen, in many ways. And this was right after 9/11 so DaVinci Ice passionately, and angerly, put up the banner. This is the world of the old Hacker Manifesto, my friend. Which is extremely valid today due to the nuclear threat just made on the free world. I am sorry, but the past must not be forgotten. Even if it does not work well on modern gadgets. Here is another piece of history, from that era, The Hacker manifesto in text, not crazy HTML goofyness. [LINK] And here is Loyd Blankenship himself, with annoying microphone noise: [VIDEO] I never knew who DaVinci Ice was, I just came across his work on the internet, and loved the colors and art so much, that I remembered to look him up 20+ years after that. I also posted a link to Fravia, [LINK] which may even be more confusing. It breaks my heart to know he passed away in 2009: [LINK] (Ps, to me the modern web is

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Sources

Video by Channel2600, played through YouTube.

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