Yes, the "hacking scene" - probably the biggest force stunting the growth of hacking itself. For a group of people who *dare* to call themselves anarchists, I have never seen such a blatantly ordered institution. There is a strictly set-out protocol to the scene, what is cool, what is not, how to look elite etc. etc. Although classed according to opinion somewhat, it always comes down to the same things...

     And those "same things" I refer to, have absolutely FUCK ALL to do with hacking. Trading n34t0 3L1t0 0-d4y sPL0itZ with complete twits on IRC, who probably haven't the first idea about how the thing actually works. Defacing webpages pointlessly just so other people in "the scene" can see your handle, or sometimes trying to pin an ill-fitting political motivation to your defacement as an after-thought (which is worse). Gathering in IRC channels  where nothing technical is ever actually discussed, and life is all about showing everyone how leet we are, how many boxes we own and how dumb everyone else is. And even when there *is* technical conversation, the motivation behind it is all fucked up - it's not for the sake of learning from eachother - its all about making eachother look stupid, or making one's self look smart. Anyone who can honestly say that the hacking scene promotes hacking is either a liar, or a complete outright idiot. Look at the people that become well known in the hacking scene - lets pick gov-boi from hack.co.za as an example.

     Why did he become well known? Because he can hack? Hell no! It wasn't 4 months ago that man was writing "No Distro" mIRC war scripts (I can publish them if you don't believe me), his C code makes even novice coders laugh and he's never actually done *anything* requiring any intelligence. So why do people know him? People know him because he has taken the time to categorize a wholebunch of exploits into the operating systems they affect, and put it on a webpage. This means that various clueless individuals have a one-stop resourcefor clicking on the operating system they want to hack, downloading and running the exploit they don't understand, and getting illegitimate access to some-one else's system in a matter of seconds. And because gov-boi provides this service - he is "elite".

     And the point is: this is what is required to be an important person in this institution. This is what one HAS to do. Know the right people, hang in the right places, have the right exploits - and you're elite. Without even having to be able to do anything requiring an IQ above that of a piece of cheddar cheese. And even in the higher ranks of the hacking scene, where everything is supposed to be different - it's the same old shit. How many people will fight to be the new editor of Phrack when route retires (or when some-one finally kills him :P), not because they have a vision for Phrack's future, or because they have a good style of writing, or because they *honestly* believe they could do a better job than the other candidates, but because they want to be the Editor of PHRACK and thus ELITE.

     I want to hack. Not break into systems, Not look cool on IRC, Not kiss ass to get into "leet hacker groups", I want to HACK: to play around with stuff on my system, learn how things work better, try out new ideas just for the sake of trying out new things: without any extra "culture" bullshit. As soon as I finish writing this epilogue, I want to take a stab at using the JNI to have Java-controlled low-level packet creation. I want to audit every daemon on Tucows, find all the buffer overflow bugs I can, code exploits for them, and then delete thce exploits as soon as I get them to work! I want to do pointless arb shit that will benefit me and nobody else, and never apply anything practically, just for the sake of extra arbness. ;P

     Fuck Subculture. What a dumb idea. :) And while we're at it, fuck culture, it's also just another obstacle in the way of individualism. And finally, fuck YOU: For being in a subculture, for reading this zine instead of finding out stuff yourself (which will prob be better anyway) and (most importantly) for not sending me free beer. :P

     And so, as you can imagine, I've had a great deal of trouble deciding wether or not to stay "in" the scene, wether or not to continue Forbidden Knowledge and wether or not to just drop my current handle and move on. And ultimately I've decided: No, I haven't changed the opinions of enough people to call it quits just yet. I was gonna drop out of the scene totally, but talking about it with NtWaK0 and Moe1 and re-reading my own cyberpunk.txt from FK4 changed my mind. I'm still, however, going to carry on with my new idea of just  screwing around with stuff that interests me and not necesarilly taking time to implement all my ideas, whilst keeping a minimal connection with "the scene", which means that FK *will* continue, although it will probably be less orderly, more abstract and won't explain as much to the newbie reader sector. But that doesn't really matter - I'm not terribly fond of any form of order what-so-ever, and the newbies will just have to go and get smarter or something. :) Oh yeh, I also might wander off what many of you would call "hacking" more often, but if you don't *still* call what I'm covering hacking, yer probably not the kind of reader we want anyway.

     Also, through-out most of 2000 and early 2001, there is going to be somewhat of an FK go-slow. I have a lot of things ahead of me: my final year of school, and starting the company Pneuma and I want to get running in 2001. Also, much of 2000 will be devoted to developing the AI that our company will be selling - so my schedule is quite packed. Ultimately, the more articles I get, the less the go-slow will be noticed. And if I get enough articles (as I did with this issue for a change :P), you probably won't even notice. Yeap, a year has gone by and there are some things that need to be changed, but I think we grew pretty well. Also note that as from sometime early next year, all feedback and article submissions should be sent to my new addy, which will be wyze1@sexdrugsunix.org

     So FK will probably continue until about 2025 when World War 3 breaks out, y0. Heh, I can see it now: The USA vs Everybody else on the planet. :-P But thats cool - I'd love having the opportunity to re-build society once its been nuked to oblivion and I also think that a war like that is *exactly* what the USA needs to slap some sense into it. Think about it: they are constantly "saving" other countries from attack, but they have never been attacked on their *own* land, had people come into *their* house, waste *their* kids and rape *their* wives. And I think that's what they need to realize exactly what they're doing to other people.

     Look at the undeclared war between South Africa and Angola in the seventies - I'm sure one in every 5 South African readers knows somebody who died in that war. Now, it is publically admitted that the war happened, and that actually, the war was between the USA and Cuba, each supplying SA and Angola respectively with equipment - Yes, it was the USA valiantly bashing those horrible commie scum again. Go Fucking Go. But the point is - the issue of the war is in the open now - South Africa admits to it, Angola admits to it, Cuba admits to it, and the USA... *still* denies that they were responsible for

     MORE death in OTHER people's countries. I am sorry, but America is the fucking *king* of hypocrisy: "Ooh, look at all the racist South African scum, what a crap country!" Hello?!! HOW many Native Americans are in powerful positions in the USA? Hmm.. *I* don't know of any - Perhaps that could be because they WASTED 90% of them a hundred years ago, and those that we *DO* have we treat like *SHIT*. So children, *learn* from America's wisdom - don't discriminate, kill. *Sigh* What a crock of shit. The USA is probably one of THE most racist countries around. The fucking mixed marriages act is still in place in Alabama, The USA has *never* had anything *but* a white president, and ultimately, when it comes down to being *nice* to and *respecting* other races, attitudes in SA are FAR less anal retensive. I could go on for ages about other reasons why America can suck my dick, like the fact that the US hacking scene think everything revolves around them and them only, but I won't. I've wasted too much space with this weird stream-of-conscious epilogue already, and just the thought of having to mention *that* country or *that* lame subculture one more time makes me nauseous.