Steven Levyis an American journalist who has written several books on computers, technology, cryptography, the Internet, cybersecurity, and privacy. Currently a senior writer for Wired, Levy was previously chief technology writer and a senior editor for Newsweek. He has had articles published in Harper's, Macworld, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Premiere, and Rolling Stone. He is regarded (along with Walter Mossberg) as a prominent and respected critic of Apple Inc. In July 2004, Levy wrote a cover story (which also featured an interview with Apple CEO Steve Jobs) which unveiled the 4th generation of the iPod to the world before Apple had officially done so, an unusual event since Apple is well known for its tight-lipped press policy.

Levy has won several awards, including the "Computer Press Association Award" for a report he co-wrote in 1998 on the Year 2000 problem. In 1978, Steven Levy rediscovered Albert Einstein's brain in the office of the pathologist who removed and preserved it.

In 1984, he wrote a book called Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, in which he described a “hacker ethic," which became a guideline to understanding how computers have advanced into the machines that we know and use today. He identified this Hacker Ethic to consist of key points such as that all information is free, and that this information should be used to “change life for the better."

In 1984 Levy established the 7 commandments of the Personal Computer revolution. It was the base for the Personal Computer and Internet social ethos:

1. Access to Computers - and anything that might teach you something about the way the world works - should be unlimited and total.
2. Always yield to the Hands-on Imperative.
3. All information should be free.
4. Mistrust authority - promote decentralization.
5. Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race,or position.
6. You can create art and beauty on a computer.
7. Computers can change your life for the better.

Related Links

Steven Levy's home page
Steven Levy's Wikipedia page
Works by Steven Levy at Project Gutenberg
About Steven Levy

Steven Levy Quotes

I came to the conclusion that the brain, in sectioned form, was still in the possession of the pathologist who removed it from the Einstein head, Dr. Thomas Harvey. I tracked him down in Wichita, Kansas. At first he didn’t want to tell me anything, but after a while he finally admitted that he had the brain. After a longer while, he sheepishly told me it was IN THE VERY OFFICE WE WERE SITTING IN. He walked to a box labeled “Costa Cider” and pulled out two big Mason jars. In those were the remains of the brain that changed the world.

Computer technology is so built into our lives that it's part of the surround of every artist.

The fact that biological, or "natural" rules might help in the creation of a computer generated work of art is interesting, but even a wonderful work of art made in this fashion isn't the same as a person, with all his or her experiences and emotions involved, making art.

The world is poised on the cusp of an economic and cultural shift as dramatic as that of the Industrial Revolution.

There has never been an unexpectedly short debugging period in the history of computers.