“The people I met from academia, at Stanford, and the growing PC world were not anti-social nerds. What he actually found, when interviewing hackers, “blew away the stereotype,” he said. Zimbardo said that a hacker’s 'fascination with computer becomes an addiction, and with most addictions, the substance that gets abused is human relationships.'Īt the time of his assignment, Levy thought he would go to Stanford University in California and “talk to these weirdos,” and then write the story about these solitary outcasts. Hackers, in their first presentation for the general public, a Physiology Today article written by Philip Zimbardo, were debuted as anti-social nerds, losers, with unhealthy curiosities. Levy also recalled how his initial reporting on hackers, for the book, revealed to him a much different culture than was portrayed by the near-universal stereotype. He then challenged the room full of attendees to strive for the (seemingly) impossible when it came to making the advancements necessary to build securable technology and keep systems safe. “They are telling us, all of us, that if you aren’t making use of this technological bonanza and make something new, you’re missing the great opportunity of our times,” he said. Levy cited Google’s efforts in such areas as space exploration, self-driving cars, and work to postpone aging as examples of hacker vision.

But, “the spirit of hackers drive our technology, even today,” he said.Īnd he explained how his technology reporting has lead him to believe that the best in the technology industry have adopted from hackers the drive to strive to do the impossible.

Levy acknowledged that the word “hacker” does come with unwelcome baggage today, and some of it deservedly so. I think that hackers are the key thinkers of our age,” Levy said. “In the three decades that I’ve been reporting about technology, I’ve found one subject that I keep coming back to again and again and again.

LAS VEGAS – In an engaging keynote to close the 2013 Qualys Security Conference, technology journalist Steven Levy – author of the 1984 classic Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution – shared his vision of what modern computing – and society – owes to hackers.

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