“What hackers do is figure out technology and experiment with it in ways many people never imagined. They also have a strong desire to share this information with others and to explain it to people whose only qualification may be the desire to learn.”

“Most hackers are young because young people tend to be adaptable. As long as you remain adaptable, you can always be a good hacker.”

“Dear 2600: Tell me how much one of your hackers would charge me to delete my criminal record from the Texas police database. [NAME DELETED] Well, we would start with erasing your latest crime, that of soliciting a minor to commit another crime. (Your request was read by a small child here in the office.) After you’re all paid up on that, we will send out the bill for hiding your identity by not printing your real name, which you sent us like the meathead you apparently are. After that’s all sorted, we can assemble our team of hackers, who sit around the office waiting for such lucrative opportunities as this to come along, and figure out even more ways to shake you down. It’s what we do, after all. Just ask Fox News.”

“The primary obligation of any prisoner is to escape. Whether that means actually leaving or simply figuring out a way to handle things so you don't go crazy is up to you.”

“Be very careful. We suggest getting a book on HTML to avoid becoming a real legend in the hacker world. Putting up a web page before you know how to put up a web page is generally a very bad idea. The .gov sites are an exception.”

“Corporate secrets bouncing around a computer system thats open to the world? Hey, that’s fair game and they deserve the embarrassment of its discovery. But using this knowledge to line your pockets or, worse, using insider knowledge to get the information and then calling that hacking is an affront to any of us who hack for the sake of learning.”

“Dear 2600: Please help me to learn how to become an elite one day. The first thing to learn is never to use the word elite as a noun. In fact, don’t even use it as an adjective. It’s radically lame.”