"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." - the times directly refer us to the famous beginning of Dickens' novel. Science triumphs and technology gallops - but wars rage, the majority of our fellow humans are hungry, and we are governed by unworthy puppets. Christos Papadimitriou, a leading computer science scientist, professor at Berkeley, and author of the novel "Turing: Lessons in Love," speaks to us without restraints about this world, speaks bluntly, and spares no one (perhaps with the only exception being the hackers in the title). The book "Life Sentence for Hackers?" has opinions on terrorism and democracy, the Internet and drugs, war and the state, intellectual property and the history of ideas, genes and game theory. An opinion sometimes technocratic and sometimes subversive, very often both - and above all, an opinion always bold, intelligent, and fresh.