Levy_S-Hackers-Heroes-Computer-Revolution

systems, an expert on all phases of interrogation, brainwashing, and control." No matter. Whoeverthis demented user was, he began arranging the storage bits inside the XDS-940 into frazzledscreeds, flip commentaries of the times spiked with unspeakable visions, calls to armed revolution,and dire predictions of big-brotherism predictions rendered ironically by the use of 1984-stylecomputer technology in a radical and creative fashion. "Benway here," he'd announce himself in atypical entry, "just a daytripper in the sands of this fecund data base." Benway was not the only onewho took on weird personas as hackers had already discovered, the computer was a limitlessextension of one's own imagination, a non-judgmental mirror in which you could frame any kind ofself-portraiture you desired. No matter what you wrote, the only fingerprints your message borewere those of your imagination. The fact that non-hackers were getting off on these ideas indicatedthat the very presence of computers in accessible places might be a spur for social change, a chanceto see the possibilities offered by new technology.Lee would later call it "an epiphany, an eye-opener. It was like my experience with the Free SpeechMovement and People's Park. My God! I didn't know people could do this!"Jude Milhon developed on-line personalities, wrote poems. "It was great fun," she'd later recall."Your dreams incarnate." One CM regular swapped electronic missives with Benway, elaboratingon the Naked Lunch theme to create a computer "Interzone," in honor of the decadent flesh marketof the soul created by Burroughs. At first Benway's messages indicated surprise at this variation;then, almost as if realizing the democratic possibilities of the medium, he gave his blessing."Certain nefarious pirates have spoken of cloning the Benway Logo ... go right ahead ... it's publicdomain," he wrote.Jude Milhon met Benway. He was, as she described him, "very shy but capable of functioning in theworld of Community Memory."The group flourished for a year and a half, moving the terminal at one point from Leopold's to theWhole Earth Access Store, and placing a second terminal at a public library in San Francisco'sMission District. But the terminals kept breaking down, and it became clear that more reliableequipment was essential. A whole new system was needed, since CM could only go so far with theHulking Giant XDS-940, and in any case the relationship between CM and Resource One (itsfunding source) was breaking down. But there was no system waiting in the wings, and CommunityMemory, low in funds and technology, and quickly burning up the store of personal energy of itspeople, needed something soon.Finally, in 1975, a burned-out group of Community Memory idealists sat down to decide whether tocontinue the project. It had been an exhilarating and exhausting year. The project "showed whatcould be done. It showed the way," Lee would later claim. But Lee and the others considered it "toorisky" to continue the project in its present state. They had too much invested, technically andemotionally, to see the project peter out through a series of frustrated defections and random systemcrashes. The consensus was to submerge the experiment into a state of temporary remission. Still, itwas a traumatic decision. "We were just developing when it got cut off," Jude Milhon later said,"[Our relationship to] Community Memory was like Romeo to Juliet our other half-soul. Then all ofa sudden CHOP it's gone. Nipped in early flower."Efrem Lipkin went off and tried once more to think of a way he could get out of computers. Othersgot involved in various other projects, some technical, some social. But nobody, least of all LeeFelsenstein, gave up the dream.