Hi everybody,
I think it's time for some nostalgia. I stumbled across this page in 2009 and was immediately fascinated. I was young and I spent almost all of my time into the challenges. Many great hackers were active, yes, it was a good time indeed, days and nights full of wonder
But I grew up, adolescence arrived, other things, people became more important ... and so I slowly lost interest in this page, also as the activity lowered.
I'm glad that I had the opportunity to be part of these days. I loved hacker.org, I loved its map and I loved all the people here. I participated in other hacker websites, but hacker.org is unique. You can feel some kind of "aura" here. Because the people who created this site knew that hacking is not only about great programming, knowledge, smartness .... no:
hacking is art
Well, this truth is not hidden:
The hacker explores the intersection of art and science in an insatiable quest to understand and shape the world around him.
But you must understand this truth. How to explain?
Well, many challenges are unsolved, I haven't even got a clue. But there are those people who solved them. I admire them, because they have something a have not, they have the answer, but the also know what the challenge is about. There is a passionate feeling in me wanting to know the answer. And the best part is: The answer to all those challenges is simple, mostly just a string. And even the method of decoding the message is easy. And it is also not difficult to explain how a challenge can be solved. You just need
an idea. In the years of solving challenges I learned the value of ideas. And I learned that the right idea can be infinitly difficult to find for me, but there is no way around it. Forget about money, education, work - you can not buy answers in the grocery store. Finding the idea is an art and our quest is to find it.
And the creators of this page knew this. Every challenge is build on top of this point of view, there are many funny moments.
As a solver in those days, I didn't know about art or whatever, I just solved the challenges. But the challenges guided me well and now I can say that every minute I spent here was valuable.
I'd like to be a guide one day to show people the beauty of the world, but I still have much to learn.
But you can find this truth everywhere, not only here, not only with hacking. My impression is that hacker.org's time is over. It feels like in a museum here, my memories come back - but it is not really a place to make new experiences.
Like a old man looking back on his life. Well, for me, hacker.org is over. Start something afresh.
Greetings
outsider
)
