A Love of Community

There are two factors, beyond a love of technology, that shone through the computer culture from the TMRC days to today: a love of collaboration and a desire to freely share their knowledge. The TMRC members shared their discoveries with one another, but this was a cinch because they were mostly friends and classmates and worked in close proximity with each other.

The philosophy was better tested in the ‘80s and ‘90s when the Internet was gearing up and the hacking community was spread thin. Unable to collaborate in person, hackers exchanged textfiles of lore, usually truthful but sometimes hilariously inaccurate. New publications like Phrack and 2600 served as more formalized textfiles. Online hacking groups like the PLA were organized, and some of these took on the notoriety of criminal gangs, though actual victims were few and far between.