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Teaching and Learning Hacker Ethics

Ultimately, we learn from others

  • Hackers are often self-taught
  • But we learn from others: their code, writing and actions (as well as face to face communication, at HAL, etc.)
  • We've learned what is right and wrong in many situations, but the background we get from parents, school and friends might not apply directly to online environments.
  • So:
    • We can make up our own ethics, based on feelings and past experience. (We can interpret without much input from others, but originally it was other people who taught us how to make ethical judgements).
    • We can assume ethics doesn't apply to the online world. (After all, it's not real).
    • We can look for signals for ethical interpretations of behavior. (For example, reading what people have to say who are in similar situations.)


  • This last situation is something that all hackers can help to happen: we can communicate our beliefs about ethical behavior through our writings and our code.

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