SSIDENT.

Weirdly, Goldstein is living in modern America under conditions very
similar to those of former East European intellectual dissidents. In
other words, he flagrantly espouses a value-system that is deeply and
irrevocably opposed to the system of those in power and the police.
The values in 2600 are generally expressed in terms that are ironic,
sarcastic, paradoxical, or just downright confused. But there's no
mistaking their radically anti-authoritarian tenor. 2600 holds that
technical power and specialized knowledge, of any kind obtainable,
belong by right in the hands of those individuals brave and bold enough
to discover them--by whatever means necessary. Devices, laws, or
systems that forbid access, and the free spread of knowledge, are
provocations that any free and self-respecting hacker should
relentlessly attack. The "privacy" of governments, corporations and
other soulless technocratic organizations should never be protected at
the expense of the liberty and free initiative of the individual
techno-rat.

However, in our contemporary workaday world, both governments and
corporations are very anxious indeed to police information which is
secret, proprietary, restricted, confidential, copyrighted, patented,
hazardous, illegal, unethical, embarrassing, or otherwise sensitive.
This makes Goldstein persona non grata, and his philosophy a threat.

Very little about the conditions of Goldstein's daily life would
astonish, say, Vaclav Havel. (We may note in passing that President
Havel once had his word-processor confiscated by the Czechoslovak
police.) Goldstein lives by SAMIZDAT, acting semi-openly as a
data-center for the underground, while challenging the powers-that-be
to abide by their own stated rules: freedom of speech and the First
Amendment.

Goldstein thoroughly looks and acts the part of techno-rat, with
shoulder-length ringlets and a piratical black fisherman's-cap set at a
rakish angle. He often shows up like Banquo's ghost at meetings of
computer professionals, where he listens quietly, half-smiling and
taking thorough notes.

Computer professionals generally meet publicly, and find it very
difficult to rid themselves of Goldstein and his ilk without
extralegal and unconstitutional actions. Sympathizers, many of them
quite respectable people with responsible jobs, admire Goldstein's
attitude and surreptitiously pass him information. An unknown but
presumably large proportion of