These ubiquitous words are perhaps the most famous programming related quote, in those early days, nothing was possible without perhaps what is called reverse engineering. I was just another dumb engineers till I saw my inclination for it, and took to it like a fish to water. Hacking came naturally to me because of a huge archetype in my head, I guess, everybody has it, they just haven’t looked at it programmatically. The thoughts were one of getting things done no matter what, ethics didn’t play a part, it was the year 2001 and while the world looked at the Y2K problem, my office had to contend with passwords disappearing, computers locked for no reason, software nuke bombs and software cracked. Suffice it to know, that I have had a huge trail of hackers and it took 20 years to bring them to see the light. My keenness for anonymity is a pull back from those years, and nothing anybody could have taught me, could have taught me how to remain anonymous at the corporate, which is of course to use proxies for intranet surfing too, but in the real world as well.
I am an Electronics engineer from a C level university and I didn’t realize what my skill set was till 2015, when it emerged in my head that I was more mechanical minded and preferred my reality to be constructed in wood and steel than in protons, electrons and neutrons. In the virtual world, anonymity is precious and I remained sane till this young girl, an intern squealed, I had been tutoring her on programming and she happened to look at my work and saw some of my tricks. I was programming in assembly language when no one in the office was, and of course there was no need, assembly is the preferred language for hacking and reverse engineering. Nothing had prepared me for what happened next, I was called to the project managers office and told that they had a software that needed to be opened up, they didn’t have a legitimate serial number or original software. I looked at the Project Manager, and asked her, “What me?” I laughed, a stiff one though, inside I was wondering what next, I had been tinkering with Softice and all those red and blue lines flashing on the screen like in the movies must have made the intern a bit dizzy, “My hero,” she had looked at me, though a bit sheepishly.
Don’t you, don’t you worry …
I have spent an entire fortune and time on bringing these hackers back from death, it was just not worth it, nobody would understand, initially, “Yea I am the One,” they would say, and then transgress on why they were the One. Hacking is a real crime, the one committed on the computer is only 1/4th the story, I told one hacker, “While you were using the backdoor on the computer, they were stripping women with their eyes on the street,” the real story is about what men do when they have an alibi.
There were noises in the house, my head was a doldrum as I tried to figure out why I was a “that,” after all I hadn’t been fooling around with any woman, that’s what they held me responsible for, because I ran their heads during that time. Every person who has you in their memories is a potential disaster for you, I drove headlong into it. My world had changed and I had no clue why, every morning was the same routine, get up and get out, sometimes breakfast on the street, lunch definitely, food lost it’s taste and everything was bland and uninteresting. The real thought was that somebody was chasing me down and every day they caught up with me. It would have ended in certain death, unless somebody came to help out, for no apparent reason but Agape’ Love. He taught me to just accept what’s coming my way, not to fear but to face it, if your mind wanted anonymity, just go public with the thoughts. These weren’t my thoughts, they belonged to somebody else, I knew it and yet I didn’t, the complete opposite of what I am today. I don’t know today and yet know, and before I forget to say, I am Christian today. I said “Hello World!!,” in 2019.
He is my Man
Mona and Jude Dsouza were newly married and worked at the same office as me, she spoke to me often, especially when I was hacking, sat across from my cubicle. Jude was a quiet man but knew a lot and they made a fine pair.
I sat there working and with my headphones on, singing “She’s always a woman to me,” a touch too loud, and she called out to me over the song in my head, “Thank you,” I told her. I resigned in 2001 of course, and they left for Australia soon after, but the thoughts that played out in my mind was that this couple, younger to me by a few years, knew more about dealing with life than I did. They had all alone managed to work it out in their head, without the need for their parents, just the two of them against the world. I am proud that I knew them then, they are the only rope of sanity in my mind. Though sometimes I think, I dream too much.
“Born to Darkness” is how I paraphrase my life till the 2020, Covid troubled the world, and my troubles seemed to be getting over, it was indeed the 20 year itch and I capped it off with a song on my guitar.