René Descartes (1596–1650), a mathematician with interests in geometry, optics and physics, introduced a subjective element into epistemology: “How do we know for certain that we know?” I think, therefore I am … Any other claim about the world is doubtful. We can know only ourselves with certainty; everything else could be an illusion. This plunged philosophy into a sceptical quagmire from which it has not yet emerged. Aristotle’s plain account of the world, without any profound account of how we apprehend it, came to seem pedestrian and naïve.
2002: Dan Verton, Confessions of Teenage Hackers, chapter 3, page 65
Many involved naïve teenagers who had become caught up in the allure of the hacker underground.