The Rise of the Tech Hackers.

Thoughts in relation to the Benedikt (1993) reading:

I was exceptionally drawn by the role of the cyberspace as an avenue for the acting out on mythic realities mentioned in thread one. Indeed, from a very young age, we were told tales of the mythical world that are out of the world we are residing in. I could vividly remember the desire to be in the fantasy whimsical tales that are fed to me through various media. From books, bedtime stories told by my grandma, Disney movies to television. The need to be apart of something wildly out from this world lingers even as I grow older. Children in the world we are living in are thrown into the complexity of advanced technology. Unlike the generation before them, they did not have the opportunity to experience the evolution of these technology. Nonetheless, they are exposed to fables, superheroes comics and endless movies which enables them to have fantasies to be apart of those seemingly interesting or bizarre worlds. For many young boys, the hunger for empowerment, to be adored, to complete an impossible mission, identical to the fictional heroes. In my opinion, the hunger usually stays with them as they grow up. Thus, the emergence of online games provides them a platform to perform and achieve the power they could not receive in real life. The other night, my boyfriend told me about this particular player was obviously hacking the online gaming system so that he could achieve the highest score by gunning down as much enemies as possible. That got me contemplating what drives some people to resort to all sorts of rebellious ways to be on top of their game? Fame? Getting the attention they want? Narcissism?

Putting aside the issue regarding online games, I once heard of the story of a young boy who managed to crack into America's CIA security system. These seemingly complex nodes of encrypted codes is challenged by a deluge of what we now dubbed as 'tech hackers'. So what are they trying to prove? Is it true that they struggle into adulthood and seek satisfaction in acting out against the technology? Or they seek for the thrill of discovering something even more complex than what we have in real life?

The cyberspace open up endless opportunities for us to be apart of what would have be considered as impossible in the past, to quench our need to dwell in fiction. These reasons could be the answers to the rapid rise of a new generation of tech hackers in this era.