/* The Hacker World */ by: Saiyaman

This article is nothing more than a personal recollection of my "journey" into the hacker world.  Some choose to say
underworld, and in a lot of ways I think that's an accurate description.  The Hacker World is very much underground, but not
because it focuses solely on illegal matters.  Rather it deals with things that most people are not yet ready to know, information
deemed "too sensitive" for public consumption, and therefore the people who possess it have nowhere else to turn.  That's not to
say it isn't a very friendly world, you need only step through the rabbit hole to see it for yourself.
	After being into computers for years and years, I discovered the world of the hacker.  But who were these people?  Where
were they meeting, what did they talk about, and most importantly, what did they do?  My first excursion into the underworld was
through IRC.  While idling in #linux on a server whose name really doesn't matter, I noticed another channel name go by.  The
channel was #heetflash, and the person who posted it out in the open was quickly chastised.  Naturally, curiosity got the better of
me.  While on the server the next day, I entered this forbidden channel (no, not invite only) and found five other people.  Like
the server, their names are not important either.  They welcomed me, asking how I found them, and I told them I had seen a post
"somewhere" online.  They seemed nice enough, and I asked what the topic of the channel was.  The first reply was "Whatever" but
the second was more direct, "Computers and shit."  I told them I was into computers, talked about some of the projects I had been
involved in, and suddenly they welcomed me with open arms.  It was as though I had proved myself by simply discussing what I had
done, and that was fine by me.  I hung out for a while, getting to know them a bit more.  Three of them were mostly into radio,
with the other two being computer programmers.  What I quickly discovered, was that knowledge was what they were interested in.  It
didn't matter what your name was, who you were, or what you had done...what you knew was what gave you stature.  My knowledge with
C and C++ they found intriguing, and I found myself among friends.
	They soon grew tired of IRC, and at around 2:45 A.M. my time, they decided their eyes hurt and they would hop on a
conference call instead.  The number was some mesh of loop lines in California, and they gave me the number I should call.  I got
off the computer and dialed it up, hearing only silence.  Next came a jingle of touch tones, and then a human voice calling out for
anyone else who might have inhabited this area of non-space.  I said hi, and from there the conversation commenced.  Only two more
people joined, but we had a good old time talking about computers, radios, phones, and whatever else came to mind.  What made it
especially great, was that we were part of a community.  We had met up in a digital universe, and were conversing outside
"accepted" channels.  Our conference was lost amid millions of other telephone calls, and there we were, a group of computer
hackers going on and on about whatever came to mind.
	Next, we played with the system we inhabited.  Like rebels in The Matrix, we manipulated the system to make it do what we
wanted it to do.  We called operators, brought them into conversations, connected to other conference lines people knew about,
dialed up voicemails, tried to get information in distant lands, created echo, and brought in all the people we could think of.  It
was great fun, the kind of fun you have when you're part of an inner circle.  We were doing things that most people had no idea
could even be done, and what was really cool, was that we were doing it through technology.  There was no need to leave home, we
could hook up and do whatever we wanted by using the equipment we had at our finger tips.  And that was the beauty of this
underworld, there were so many different means by which we could communicate.  So many different systems to play with, so many
endless electronic corridors to explore.
	Few people realize how many digital means interconnect the world around us.  But this is the hacker's playground, it's
their world.  And upon entering it, you find yourself lost in a maze of questions, answers, curiosity, and fun.  They meet, they
play, and they share.  It's a world I'm proud to be a part of, and I hope more people discover the secrets it holds as I have done. 
And the next time you look at a phone line, or see a computer mainframe, think about who's inside it.  Who's venturing through that
electronic universe.  Odds are it's hackers, because that's their world.