Ask HN: Who is the Laughing Man IRL?
Who is the Laughing Man (LM) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laughing_Man_(Ghost_in_the_Shell)] in real-life?<p>Those of you familiar with Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (SAC) know who I'm talking about, otherwise checkout wikipedia's entry on the topic for a quick debriefing of who/what LM is.<p>IMHO, our technology isn't nearly advanced enough to fit SAC depiction of what LM is capable of in real-life; however technological progress is almost irrelevant, LM can better be characterized in today's context, by the manner of <i>how</i> he exploits some technology.<p>In short, each and everyone of his exploits almost seemed staged in a theatrical fashion where the players [characters] and the game [story] they're playing is already set. His exploits almost behave as some sort of real-time authoritative meta-interpretation of the events at hand, which in turn discloses facts and information that would have not normally been unveiled for the audience.<p>In a sense, he is hacking people's perception through an unconventional dissemination of information. I can't think or know of a single hacker who fits this description, mostly because LM is such a mythical figure; however, I can think of a handful of litery figures that do.