hacked

Evil will always triumph because good has better things to do.

We attack others

At least, that’s what it looks like

Unwitting scapegoats

 

For someone’s cheap thrills

Years of hard work put at risk

Irreplaceable

 

So violated

Dozens of systems tainted

Can’t trust anything

 

Rebuilding from scratch

No research being done now

All for the sake of…?

 

Scripts are revealing

Security is a myth

Machines do the work

 

Machines never rest

Mere months to break any code

What does it matter?

 

If you can download

You have all the skill it takes

You’re a 1337 h4x0r!

 

Careful barriers

No defense against ----heads

Playing criminal

 

Congratulations

You’ve cost many days of work

Selfish victory

 

But we are learning

Dissecting your handiwork

It won’t work again

 

Still no guarantees

There is no perfect defense

But it won’t be you

Author's Note

You get 3 guesses where I've been, and the first 2 don't count.

Some background that should help in understanding: I work in a research and development group. Someone got into our network and set up shop staging break-in attempts against other networks. For the last several days, we've all been putting in 12-13 hour days and we have more days of fun to look forward to next week as we rebuild our network and try to ensure that it can't happen again, knowing full well (most of us are computer scientists) that we can't ensure anything - we can only make it harder for the next attacker. "1337 h4x0r" is pronounced "leet haxor" and is "leet-speek" for "elite hacker". You can basically be sure that anyone using leet-speek is anything but. A few downloaded scripts and an idiot's guide to hacking is pretty much all it takes. Defending, by contrast, takes a disproportionately insane amount of effort.

Reviews

[Mark]

I've always liked the Haiku-cycle metier (my term; most on this site call it a Haiku-stringalong). I wonder why you let your syllable count lapse in Sts. 6&7, though; you might sub "leet speekr" for "1337h4x0r" to get that line's count down to five, and add the phrase "Yet take" before "months to break" to bring it up to seven...Unless there was a point to be made by starting right and ending right, but with glitches in the middle, which I failed to discern.
Your anger at your invader is a tangible thng in this poem, but I hear the resignation in your voice, accepting the inevitability of attack of computers, by computers and their drivers, who have no idea of the grief they cause with their version of "Play."

[Mason Vail]

How appropriate. I lost THIS poem after an edit gone bad. Fortunately, unlike most of what I write, I had a backup of it!

[Shelly Araujo]

hello Mason, I am not good at unraveling poems at times, but I sense war in your words. I also sense hopelessness and maybe fear that things will never return to "normal." This line is interesting, 'you're a 1337 h4x0r!" but I haven't a clue of the meaning. Maybe you could share more of what you are feeling in that line. Shelly