Hacker Culture

Are Flagan writes with the review below of Hacker Culture. Flagan says this book "truly marks the entry of the 'hacker' into the realm of academia" -- a point which has both good and bad consequences. Read on to see if you might enjoy Hacker Culture as much as Flagan did. Hacker Culture author Douglas Thomas pages 266 publisher University of Minnesota Press rating 10(ish) reviewer Are Flagan ISBN 0816633452 summary A new critical history of hacker culture

Let me first recapitulate two brief preludes that figure prominently in Hacker Culture:

1. Around 1970 John Draper discovered that a freebie whistle included with Captain Crunch cereal sounded a tone that allowed him, as a literal whistle-blower, to take control of the phone line. Sounding the frequency of 2600 Hz, the high-pitched toy quickly sprouted a cottage industry of small electronic devices called "blue boxes" (first built by Draper) that emitted the commanding tune. Shortly thereafter, in 1971, Steven Jobs and Steven Wozniak built hordes of the boxes and sold them to students in the Berkeley dorms. Jobs and Wozniak would go on to build and found Apple computers by employing the same principle: take existing knowledge and turn it to profit by, eventually, making appropriation proprietary. (Slashdot readers are no doubt familiar with the fact that Mac OS X is not much more than an "aqualicious" -- and expensive -- wrap of FreeBSD.)

2. The first personal computer was arguably the Altair. It came as a raw DIY kit that required soldering for assembly and programming to make it work. An early success in coding came in the form of Altair BASIC, a programming language adopted from mainframe systems by Paul Allen and Bill Gates. Unlike other hobbyists who shared their exploits freely, Allen and Gates decided to charge for their adaptation, but were quickly thwarted in their race to the goldmine by the sharing of software at computer clubs, an action that prompted Gates to call fellow developers thieves. For these hobbyists, the notion that programs could be secret and had to be purchased violated the tradition of programming as an ongoing collaboration. The births of our two major personal computing platforms, Mac and PC, consequently both stem from significant changes in the relations between openness and secrecy, sharing and ownership.

In Hacker Culture, Douglas Thomas provides a rewarding account of what preceded and followed these developments, charting the evolution of cracking and hacking from early yet seasoned programmers, generally found at Ivy League departments or under ARPA jurisdiction, to the demonized teenage villains of the 1990s. Although the term "hacking" has become somewhat of an umbrella misnomer to cover diverse behaviors bridging half a century, Thomas does it remarkable justice through, as he puts it, "an effort to understand hacking as an activity that is conditioned as much by its history as by the technology that it engages." To this end, he seeks to engage the role of hacking from an expansive and useful perspective, covering the hacker relationship to technology and society, representation of the hacker through both mainstream media and outlets such as TAP, Phrack and 2600, as well as the juridical construction of the criminalized hacker, which is basically a fancy term for Kafkaesque travesties of justice (the cases of Kevin Mitnick and Chris Lamprecht are analyzed in depth).

Hacker Culture is thankfully not a stylized look at subculture, as an embryonic cult aspiring to become marketable culture, but rather a much broader view of the increasingly computerized networks that comprise society. It is an intelligent exploration beyond the package-design boxes of software, covering our documents, and the product-design casings of computers, housing our institutions. Seen from, or via, an autonomous, skilled perspective on the command line, Hacker Culture provides an indispensable insight into a history of computing that it has become increasingly important to understand for computer users of all levels and abilities. As such, it is perhaps best suited, and intended, for those who do not frequent sites like this, but even pundits with Slashdot bookmarked since it was listed in the root will presumably enjoy the thoughtful analysis Thomas brings to the subject.

A lingering criticism, not exactly directed at the book, is that this publication truly marks the entry of the "hacker" into the realm of academia, where this figure will be dissected ad nauseam along with other minority reports concerned with the so-called radical fringes. Earlier blockbusters on the hacker topic, like Steven Levy's eponymous Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution from 1994, had a certain "sensationalist" appeal that, akin to William Gibson's Neuromancer, drew more of their leitmotifs from classic frontier westerns than cultural criticism. Instead of reading about jacking in and cracking from these primal sources, we got a ton of obligatory theory that read between the lines and reported on the findings at twice the length. Thomas, although he writes both eloquently and lucidly in an entertaining style, is fundamentally connecting the dots of theoretical writing as a second-generation commentator, frequently quoting Levy, for example, and at times the discussion embarks on rather redundant pontifications as a result. (Recall how you can guess the subject of most connect-the-dots outlines, while it usually takes a child careful tracing to number 147 or so before a shriek of joy recognizes the rabbit.) Such misgivings, which are essentially more inspired by the predictable rhetorical mode of academia than this book, are however relatively minor compared to the welcome prospects of actually having some core ideas about free information and open-source computing distributed to a wider audience.

A question remains about what will happen to the figure of the hacker now that we have had, and discussed, both Matthew Broderick, in Hollywood's War Games, and Kevin Mitnick, in jail. In Hacker Culture, both lay claim to capture and coach the collective imagination with regards to what informed autonomy means and the paybacks it receives. Perhaps the future, following Hacker Culture, will prepare a better balance between revered stardom, obscene bankrolls, criminal records and lone isolation cells?

Reviewer Are Flagan has trouble remembering his own passwords. You can purchase Hacker Culture from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

Any book...

[Anonymous Coward]

on the "First Posters" culture?

fp

[Anonymous Coward]

fp biznatches

This calls for

[MrFredBloggs]

a tedious Kuro5hin style `debate` (two opposing sides not listening to each other) about why it's Cracker and not Hacker (or vice versa).

Re:This calls for

[ajs]

History loses to coloquial usage. "hacker" now has a common meaning: one who exploits flaws in computer security to gain access to computers and networks or to disable them. and a sub-culture definition among computer programmers and administrators: (a) a person who is primarily driven to explore technology by curiosity, and who indulges this curiosity in order to learn, often without regard to social convention (b) as (a), but used among computer programmers to define a type of programmer, specifically

These two sets of definitions were caused (as best I can tell) when the latter definition was used to describe Robert Morris Jr. to the popular media. Because Mr. Morris was responsible for the largest-scale computer intrusion yet measured in 1987 (the so-called "Internet Worm"), the media assumed that this term refered only to invasive and/or unauthorized "hacking", which was not true, but turned out to be too subtle a distinction to convey to the press.

The attempt, after the fact, to promulgate the term cracker to replace this mistaken definition of hacker met only limited success among those who already used hacker according to its traditional meaning.

What complicated the situation even more was the advent of the so-called "script kiddies", a sub-culture of disaffected youth who did not match the (comparitively altruistic) historical definition of hacker, but did meet the new, media-driven definition. This schism was forever imortalized in the movie, "Hackers", which besides being a terribly written movie also contained non-classic-hacker script kiddies, idealized to the level of pop heroes.

So, IMHO, when you say "hacker", you mean the media definition unless you are among a sub-culture which would recognize the classic meaning. Get over it.

Aaron Sherman - Hacker at large (and large hacker:)

Re:This calls for

[Anonymous Coward]

"The attempt, after the fact"

By whom? And who really cares? I know geeks are pedantic, but...

"So, IMHO, when you say "hacker", you mean the media definition unless you are among a sub-culture which would recognize the classic meaning. Get over it."

Get over it yourself. I know what I (and my peers) call hackers (either a fan of programming, or someone who accesses other peoples systems without permission) and crackers (people who remove protection from software), and i`m not very interested in learning new definitions from people who weren't around then, and don't know what they are talking about.

Re:This calls for

[iangoldby]

I quite liked Ed Felten's idea to use the work 'tinker' to mean what we understand by 'hack' (as in 'Freedom to tinker').

I'm just still not sure what to call a hacker. A tinkerer, or tinker? It doesn't quite have the same connotations really.

Re:This calls for

[Nazmun]

Nah... I think colored hats (White/Black hats) are the things nowadays.

Re:This calls for

[1lus10n]

if the person in question does not understand the difference between a script kiddie and a hacker then why are they having the convorsation in the first place ? (unless of course to explain the difference)

at this point does it really matter what people call us ? or what we call other people ? if i call somebody 'white hat' is everybody going to "get_it" ? i highly doubt it. and more to the point i couldnt care less.

-much of what once was now is lost.....-

HAcker culture

[Anonymous Coward]

was formed with the phrase "hack the gibson". Or by the l33t skilz of Jeff K, I'm not sure which.

yes -- here's an excerpt

[Anonymous Coward]

Wynn waited nervously by the gate, watching for a face that she'd only seen in electronic images before. The stream of travellers deplaning seemed endless; Wynn was abruptly afraid that Di had changed her mind at the last moment. Her fear was unfounded, however. One of the last women from the plane proved to be the real life image of Wynn's favorite gif files. An eager smile adorned Di's face as she nearly skipped from the jetway. Spotting Wynn, she strode lightly across the waiting area, stopping before her virtual lover. Hands twisting the hem of her black skirt nervously, Di looked up into Wynn's face.

"I was afraid you might not come," said Wynn, at a loss for words now that her paramour was finally here.

"The thought never crossed my mind," Di said. Then, blushing, she added, "Not much, at least."

Wynn took both of Di's hands in hers. A man carrying a garment bag gave them a strange look, but both women ignored him. "What do you want to do first?" Wynn asked.

Di smiled. "Find somewhere more private than the airport gate?"

Wynn nodded, smiling back, and led the other woman toward the baggage claim. Di glanced around nervously, realized that the latenight airport was pretty much deserted. "I've got something to show you," she whispered into Wynn's ear as they walked.

Wynn glanced at her questioningly. Di grasped Wynn's hand in hers and led it beneath the bottom of her skirt. Wynn caught her breath sharply as she felt the smooth, naked buttock beneath the bouncing material.

"I told you I was going to," teased Di.

"That's one up for you," Wynn said, grinning. She squeezed the other girl's rear once before reluctantly removing her hand. Di sighed, resisting the urge to turn and press her lips to the other woman's. Wynn gave her a knowing look, the wide smile still covering her face.

"Are we going to your house?" asked Di. The pair was seated in the front seat of Wynn's car, baggage thrown in the back.

"Of course," answered Wynn. "But I've got something to do first." Leaning over, she wrapped one arm around Di's shoulder and pressed her lips firmly to the other girl's.

At that first slight contact both women felt like a fireball had ignited between them. The air around them around them seemed to cave in, forcing their bodies closer, arms tightening as they fought frantically to fuse their lips together. Wynn felt Di's tongue slide into her mouth and gave a silent sigh. A small eternity passed as they savored the taste of each other's mouths in the abandoned parking garage, oblivious and uncaring of any passerby. When they finally broke, Di leaned back in her seat, eyes closed, breathing heavily.

Wynn wasn't quite finished, however. "I've got something to show you, now," she said, a mischevious smile spreading across her face. When Di's eyes opened again, Wynn lifted her sweater up to her neck in one smooth motion. Beneath it, her nipples were already hardening at the tips of her uncovered breasts. Di's eyes nearly popped out of her head.

"I told you I would," Wynn mimicked. Di didn't answer -- instead, she leaned forward and licked tentatively at the exposed breast. A shudder rippled through Wynn's body as she watched the tip of Di's tongue make the barest contact with her nipple. She grasped Di's head with both hands and pulled the other woman tighter to her breast, crying aloud when Di's mouth opened and sucked hard at the tender flesh. Di's hand flew to Wynn's other breast as her tongue laved the stiff bud in her mouth. After a moment Di pulled her head back, the captive breast distending as the suction from her mouth kept it trapped. When it finally popped free Wynn's nipple was swollen and glistening. Di attacked Wynn's other breast hungrily, and in a moment a series of convulsions shot through Wynn's body. Di straightened up in her seat, amazed.

"That's three for me," panted Wynn. She pulled her sweater back down, shuddering again as the material scraped against her hyper-sensitive breasts.

Di laughed. "What do you mean, three?"

"One for not wearing a bra, one because I kissed you first, and one because you didn't believe me that my nipples were sensitive enough to give me an orgasm."

"But one more for me," Di said, smiling. "I bet that we wouldn't make it home first, remember?"

Wynn started the car and released the emergency brake. "It's still three to two," she said. She gave her online lover a wicked smile. "You know what that means."

Di looked uncertain for a fleeting second, then she glanced at Wynn's still-heaving chest and the smile returned to her face. "I guess we'd better find a place to pay up," she said.

Di looked down at the top of Wynn's head with lust-filled eyes, one hand holding a near-empty glass of wine, the other hanging loosely over the arm of her chair. Between her naked legs kneeled Wynn, head moving back and forth slightly as her lips and tongue worked at Di's heated core. Di's back arched occasionally, uncontrollably, as Wynn's tongue swiped at her exposed clit. The kneeling woman's ass swayed invitingly, drawing Di's gaze and illiciting a Dip moan. Pushing Di's legs a bit further apart, Wynn kissed her way down one thigh and licked briefly at the inside of her lover's knee.

"It was very nice of you to pass on the win," murmured Di. She groaned again as Wynn's mouth returned upward, one broad stroke covering Di's outer lips. Driving her tongue Dip into Di's body, Wynn trailed her long fingernails down the insides of Di's thighs.

"I thought it appropriate for your first time," said Wynn, lifting her head momentarily from Di's dripping midsection. Di gently but firmly pushed her friend's head back into place, eyes shutting slowly.

"Oh, yes," moaned Di after a few more seconds. "Oh, yes, yes, yes!" She pulled her knees up to her chest, thighs flattening her breasts as she attempted to give Wynn even greater access to her convulsing nether region. Her legs began to shake uncontrollably and she screamed out loud. Wynn felt the other woman's inner muscles clench and release, once, then twice. Her body seemed ready to burst into flame; the skin was hot to the touch. Suddenly, every muscle in Di's body went taut, then a series of tremors shook her frame and she went limp in the chair, feet returning to the floor.

Wynn rocked backward to a sitting position on the floor before Di's chair, arms propped against the floor behind her. Di just sat weakly, the wineglass threatening to slip from her grasp. "I'm guessing you liked that," Wynn said. She smiled, licking her lips teasingly.

Di's hand went to her clit absentmindedly, then her eyes lifted as if she'd had a sudden renewal of energy. "Now I want to like something else," she said softly. Slithering out of the chair, she landed on her knees between Wynn's legs and pushed the other woman back onto the carpet.

"I've waited so long for this," Wynn whispered, half to herself. Di crouched over her on hands and knees, regarding the other woman's face intently for a moment before lowering her head. Her tongue brushed against the tip of Wynn's nose, then traced a line across the crease of her lips. Di's hanging breasts swayed back and forth, her taut nipples barely grazing Wynn's.

"Oh, I could fall in love with you," said Wynn as Di pushed herself toward the prone woman's feet, lips kissing and nibbling at the skin of her neck. Di paused momentarily to bury her face between Wynn's breasts, hands cupping the soft orbs to her cheeks. Thinking back to the moments in the car, Di swirled her tongue around one nipple while teasing the other with her fingertips. When Wynn's breathing became more ragged Di continued her downward journey, stopping again to tease her lover's bellybutton with her tongue.

By the time Di reached her ultimate goal Wynn's hands were gripping the carpet spasmodically. Di reached out tentatively with her tongue, wetting Wynn's clit slightly. A sharp "Oh!" sounded from above, encouraging Di to try more. She wrapped her lips around the tiny bud and sucked hard, pinching it lightly with her mouth. Wynn's fingers curled into fists and her head turned back and forth as Di sucked at her sex greedily.

"How'm I doing?" asked Di teasingly. Wynn's buttocks rose from the floor as she strove to push herself back onto Di's mouth. The other woman obliged, nuzzling the wet slit between Wynn's thighs before sliding her tongue inside.

"Oh, Di!" Wynn cried, her hips rotating in a circular motion. Di's tongue thrashed back and forth inside Wynn's body and her hands reached underneath to squeeze the cheeks of Wynn's ass. "God, Di, oh God!" A low growl emanated from Di's throat, the vibrations transferring through her lips to caress Wynn's sex. Suddenly, Di's tongue withdrew from Wynn's core and returned to her clit, one wet, soft organ grinding against the quivering little bud. Wynn's body convulsed in a more intense replay of her earlier orgasm in the parking garage and a her thighs were abruptly covered with a flood of liquid. Di craned her neck downward to lap eagerly at the explosion; her mouth was filled with an indescribably sweet sensation. She drove her tongue back between Wynn's nether lips and was instantly rewarded with another orgasm. Gripping Wynn's ass tightly, Di continued to lick and suck until Wynn's body stopped shuddering. Rolling over onto her back, Di lay beside her virtual lover and sighed.

"That was wonderful," breathed Wynn. She propped herself up on one elbow, then reached over and caressed one of Di's breasts.

Di smiled and covered Wynn's hand with her own, squeezing her own nipple. "Let's be wonderful all weekend," she said, and pulled Wynn close for another kiss.

Wow, I'm sooooo coool....

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi my name is Are Flagan and I'm a poseur. Notice the language used, pretty smart, huh? I had my thesaurus out the whole time(the dictionary too). I also feel the need to pick nits and pull leitmotifs out of my ass. I'm cool worship me.

Hmph....looks interesting...

[drblunt]

Looks like an interesting read. Now where can I download the e-book version of it? Doc "There are two essential rules to management. One, the customer is always right; and two, they must be punished for their arrogance." - Dogbert

Re:Hmph....looks interesting...

[Golias]

Interesting, yes, although I found the blurb, "truly marks the entry of the 'hacker' into the realm of academia" kind of puzzling. Didn't hackers come from the realm of academia in the first place? The first hackers were, after all, kids in places like UC Berkely and MIT.

Re:Hmph....looks interesting...

[drblunt]

True.
Although, I'm sure he's speaking of the popular viewpoint of the masses, although not nescessarily the larger masses. They shed their pre-assigned persona of the shadowy-figure, lurking in the dark.

Either that, or I'm off my rocker. Either way.

N

Re:Hmph....looks interesting...

[mwrm]

I think he means that the term 'hacker' is now recognised by sociologists and psychologists in academia as a subject worth writing studies on.

HOMOSEXUALITY IS WRONG

[Anonymous Coward]

So please fuck me in the ass. Pretty please?

Re:HOMOSEXUALITY IS WRONG

[Anonymous Coward]

A/S/L ?

Another source of hacker history

[Drunken Coward]

If anyone likes the idea of a hacker history and doesn't have the time to do the reading, I'd recommend Pirates of Silicon Valley. It aired a few months ago on TV and covers most of what the reviewer talks about.

Very cool to see the history of something that is still so alive today

Re:Another source of hacker history

[JordoCrouse]

Or just read Hackers , which is original and best account of the Hacker culture. All others are just imitations.

Re:Another source of hacker history

[pkalkul]

In her book on the origins of the broadcasting industy (Inventing American Broadcasting), the historian Susan Douglas provides an excellent chapter on the amateur radio operators of the early decades of the 20th century. These were young men who begged, borrowed and stole to construct cool but essentially useless technologies (sound familiar?), used them to show off to their friends, chat idly, and piss off authorities at Marconi Wireless and the US Navy. If you were to replace the word amateur radio operator with the word hacker it would read like a chapter from Steve Levy - except that Douglas provides a more critical (in the good way) of this phenomenon. She argues that is reflect shifts in the job market (an increase in white-collar, technologically oriented occupations), changing notions of masculinity (based on mastery of technology rather than physical prowess), etc.

An excellent read, and it provides a much-needed historical context for understanding hackers. A useful counter to the usual sensational literature (hacker as genius, hacker as criminal, hacker as arrested adolescent, hacker as cowboy), etc.

Re:Another source of hacker history

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't read the book, but I saw the movie a million times and ripped it to a RAID 0,1 cluster on my AOL machine.

That is how I got interested in 2600 Magazine kuz I thought Emmanuel was so k-rad in the movie. But I don't understand why he never uses his handle in the magazine, just the real name that he gave release rights to the movie people (check the credits if you don't believe me).

Re:Another source of hacker history

[Anonymous Coward]

The porn version is also really good. "The Butt Pirates of Silicone Alley". Bill trys to "screw" the software world "butt" finally gets "it" in the "end":)

Re:Another source of hacker history

[SScorpio]

There is another movie called "Hackers 2: Takedown". It's based off Kevin Mitnick capture. I have yet to see it but it appears to be a bootleg. It's supposed to be good and fairly pertray Mitnick.

Re:Another source of hacker history

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are either talking about "Owned" by Jen Read or "Freedom Downtime" by Emmanuel Goldstein

Re:Another source of hacker history

[Anonymous Coward]

Part of "Hackers" is available free, legally, here:

http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/richmond/88 /1 libl.htm

http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/15 7/ 15713.html

http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:QbcxF0AIl08 C: www.totse.com/en/hack/introduction_to_hacking/hckr s10.html+hackers+ebook+OR+etext+levy&hl=en&ie=UTF- 8

Re:Another source of hacker history

[Anonymous Coward]

I would, but the web site is so ugly with the black text on a textured green background, that I can't make out anything it is saying.

Re:Another source of hacker history

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody please hack the page and get rid of that background image!

Re:Another source of hacker history

[bdktty]

Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet
by Katie Hafner, Matthew Lyon

Very interesting book about the origin of computers that could talk to each other. Highly recomended.

Re:Another source of hacker history

[Paladin84]

The only people to call it Hackers 2 are the kids on Kazaa and gnutella "sharing" it. It's called Takedown, and is based on the Shimomura book with the same name. Depending on which side of the story you choose to believe, it's largely fictional. If you're looking for it, it was released on DVD in France as Cyber Traque. It can be found here.

Re:Another source of hacker history

[Exiler]

As Paladin84 said, it's actually called "Operation: Takedown" Read the book. ( ;

Re:Another source of hacker history

[Hunter Rose]

> If anyone likes the idea of a hacker history and doesn't have
> the time to do the reading, I'd recommend Pirates of Silicon
> Valley [imdb.com]. It aired a few months ago on TV and covers
> most of what the reviewer talks about.

Ah, yes. For the people who get their HISTORY from the inside of boxes of Captain Crunch.

ash
['Chocolate-coated Sugar Bombs - now with snoggy 'l33t warez inside!']

Re:Another source of hacker history

[Xenographic]

I had to read that twice, until I saw that you said to READ "Hackers" not to WATCH it... There's a BIG differece... :]

Sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

but I don't think that there is any culture with hackers. These are just frustrated acne-ridden teenage teenagers who what to get rid of their frustration by bring mischief over other people. This "finding security holes and increasing security" is just a bad excuse for this. Hahaha increasing security by hack into a system and install a rootkit and several assorted backdoors ?
And these "white hat" hackers are just a grown up version of these kids. Take a guy like fyudor the nmap creator who hacked into the system of some kiddy slashdot troll just because he called him a wanker. Security increasing by threatening 17 year olds ?
I think it's very bad when books like this glorify criminals - and that's what hackers really are. This takes kids onto the bad road ending them up in prison someday.

Re:Sorry

[inteller]

Yeah no kidding....it's no different that then day where teenagers would set tires on fire in the middle of the road.

Hackers

[RiotXIX]

I was introduced to computers from the hacker culture presented in the (mediocre) film hackers when I was in early teens. People grouch quite a lot about the portrayal of hackers in modern culture (speckled 'evil' nerd - 2600 letters often have stories of people who enjoy hacking and informing administrators of vulnerabilities getting suspended, and associated with people like the trenchcoat mafia), but I found the film really interesting - the characters seemed like normal people for a change (not segrated because of seclusiveness or 'black clothes', but because they were just smarter).

Re:Hackers

[CaffeineAddict2001]

Normal People?

Acid Burn - She is Angelina Jolie. Enough said.

Cereal Killer - Rubs his nipples, steals french fries, has dreadlocks and quotes scripture.

Joey - The only normal one.

Zero Cool - crashed 1500 (and 7!) systems when he was 12, hasn't used a computer in 6 years, and he can still sploit all the latest FBI systems.

Lord Nikon - Has a rainman-like photographic memory, but hasn't gone crazy.

Hackers was a great music video for the latest techno, but not much of a movie on real hacker culture.

Maybe the way hackers see themselves in their own mind because they have read too many gibson novels.

Is there gratuitous...

[motardo]

hacking the GIBSON in this book?

Re:Is there gratuitous...

[Anonymous Coward]

mod parent up!!!!!!1

Really.. shall we start from the top?

[wackybrit]

Why oh why do we have to go over this again?

figure of the hacker now that we have had, and discussed, both Matthew Broderick, in Hollywood's War Games, and Kevin Mitnick, in jail.

Matthew Broderick, in WarGames, and Kevin Mitnick, in 'low security but you still get pounded up the ass' prison, were not hackers.. they were crackers.

Hackers are friendly quiche eating Pascal programmers and Mac users, whereas crackers are naughty people who do a lot of hacking.

Crackers are also quite nice with some cheese on them.

Re:Really.. shall we start from the top?

[Lan-Z]

You contradict your self while trying to correct someone else! That is some funny shit.

Matthew Broderick, in WarGames, and Kevin Mitnick, in 'low security but you still get pounded up the ass' prison, were not hackers.. they were crackers.

Hackers are friendly quiche eating Pascal programmers and Mac users, whereas crackers are naughty people who do a lot of hacking.

Didn't you just say they are crackers and not hackers? Cuz, if so, I don't think crackers would be hacking now would they? Uhm, no, they'd be cracking. If you want to play the fun with words hacking/cracking game...get your own lingo straight before you go breakin' someone else's balls.

Re:Really.. shall we start from the top?

[jdcook]

Actually, I believe the preferred terms are GNU/Hacker and GNU/Cracker.

Re:Really.. shall we start from the top?

[Anonymous Coward]

Matthew Broderick, in WarGames, and Kevin Mitnick, in 'low security but you still get pounded up the ass' prison, were not hackers.. they were crackers. No, hackers are people who break into systems. Crackers are what blacks call white people or a type of snack food.

Re:Really.. shall we start from the top?

[jkramar]

That is only true if most of your essential components were produced by the GNU Project. If your liver has a GPL preamble, ... .

Re:Really.. shall we start from the top?

[Anonymous Coward]

Crackers are also quite nice with some cheese on them.

That's a personal hygine issue. Regular bathing will clear it right up.

Re:Really.. shall we start from the top?

[haa...jesus christ]

quiche eating Pascal programmers and Mac users

is this some new saying about geeks i'm not aware of? this has been showing up in the posts a lot lately.

Re:Really.. shall we start from the top?

[brsmith4]

I think it's a little too redundant to carry on this argument on hacker/cracker. The meanings of many words have always changed over time due to popular enterpretation. You may view yourself as a hacker, a coder who is out there for the knowledge, but if you state that to your average joe, he is gonna automatically assume that you are a malicious, FBI-db busting, NASA cracking, grade-changing feind. We can argue this all that we want, but as long as popular belief holds that hackers are evil people who compromise systems for their own personal gain, well, then that's what the word hacker means. (unfortunately).

Eponymous?

[crush]

Earlier blockbusters on the hacker topic, like Steven Levy's eponymous Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution from 1994

Huh? If Steven Levy had published an eponymous book it would have been entitled "Steven Levy".

Re:Eponymous?

[Otter]

This could very well be wrong but -- isn't it that Steven Levy would be the eponymous author of the book "Steven Levy"? Grammar nazis, please advise.

Anyway, I think the author meant that Levy wrote a book about hackers, the heroes of the computer revolution, and called it "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution"

Re:Eponymous?

[CandyMan]

Eponym: (noun) one for whom or which something is or is believed to be named. (from Merriam-Webster Online.

Huckleberry Finn is the eponymous hero of, well, Huckleberry Finn (The book). A book on hackers called Hackers can be called an eponymous opus.

Re:Eponymous?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't `Hackers` written in the 80`s? The copy I read must have been!

Re:Eponymous?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't it be that he would need to name himself "Book"?

Re:Eponymous?

[God! Awful]

Huh? If Steven Levy had published an eponymous book it would have been entitled "Steven Levy".

This bugged me as well. I don't consider myself a grammar-Nazi, but if you are going to use deliberately abstruse language (e.g. "leitmotifs" instead of simply "motifs") you probably ought to know what the word means.

-a

Re:Eponymous?

[crush]

Yeah. I have to confess to being a pedant when I'm in a bad mood, but what really bugs me is trying to make a simple point in fancy language.
I was annoyed because I had to spend extra time figuring out what the reviewer meant. He obscured his meaning in order to sound smart.

Sad news ... Stephen King dead at 55

[Anonymous Coward]

I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Horror/Sci Fi writer Stephen King was found dead in his Maine home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.

Hacker Culture ==

[L. VeGas]

oxymoron

Which 'hackers'?

[Otter]

I'm surprised to find myself raising the hacker/cracker distinction, but I'm entirely confused as to what this book is about.

Most of the time the reviewer is talking about "intruder" types, like Kevin Mitnick, Phrack and 2600, but then periodically jumps over to Steven Levy and the Altair, using a much more Jargon File-ish use of "hacker".

I don't care particularly which word is used but came away from the review without a clear idea of what the book is about.

Re:Which 'hackers'?

[Anonymous Coward]

Kevin Mitnick was a Hacker. Phrack was a hacker magazine filled with (somewhat innacurate) technical information. 2600 is a hacker magazine filled with (somewhat innacurate) technical information. Some hackers may be criminals but they are still hackers.

pfff

[Anonymous Coward]

what a load

summing shit up for the 50th time...

[Anonymous Coward]

*yawn*

good for a newbie but better books out there on the subject.

Re:summing shit up for the 50th time...

[cwells]

i agree!

http://www.biker-needs-a-harley.org/

And The New Hacker's Dictionary is...???

[shoppa]

Flagan says this book "truly marks the entry of the 'hacker' into the realm of academia"

If this is the first, where does The New Hacker's Dictionary come in? Not mainstream enough? It is much more than just the Jargon File.

Re:And The New Hacker's Dictionary is...???

[TheAncientHacker]

I'm not sure ESR's name in BIG BOLD TYPE really qualifies as much more than just the Jargon File.

Re:And The New Hacker's Dictionary is...???

[nomadic]

If this is the first, where does The New Hacker's Dictionary [amazon.com] come in? Not mainstream enough? It is much more than just the Jargon File.

Huh? You're equating "academia" with "mainstream"? They're usually diametrically opposing styles.

The New Hacker's Dictionary is TOO mainstream; why it's enjoyable to read, I wouldn't exactly call it academically rigorous.

Takedown

[FyRE666]

Another decent read, in my view was Takedown - the story of notorious "cracker" Kevin Mitnick. Although the author, Tsutomu Shimomura takes all the credit for doing aboslutely everything, and portrays his team and associates as bumbling idiots, the story about Kevin's life and habits is quite interesting.

Another pretty good story was "The Watchman" which was about Kevin Poulson, the famous Ma Bell phone switch hacker. This guy was a real freak! The ultimate geek, at one stage he had a stolen phone switch taking up most of his living room in his appartment, along with stolen unix terminals etc. He was the guy who kept winning phone competitions by controlling the phone equipment, and sending goths along to pick up the prizes! ;-)

Re:Takedown

[Anonymous Coward]

Shimomura was a front for the NSA, who actually took down Mitnick. Unfortunately, NSA can't admit it did that 'cause it would be illegal for NSA to be 'spying' on fellow Americans. 'nuff said.

Re:Takedown

[Your_Mom]

Another good book is "The Fugitive Game" by John Littman. Highly Recommend this book to anyone who has ever read Takedown, as it provides a more (IMHO) realistic, albeit shorter, view of the arrest of Kevin. The book overall follows Kevin during his time as a fugitive, in which he had telephone conversations with the author. Kevin even says the book is a very accurate portrayal of what really happened. Buy this book, now. :)

Man, I think I am going to have to pull that book off my shelf this weekend and start it again.

Re:Takedown

[Anonymous Coward]

Read Takedown if you're not actually interested in facts...

Re:Takedown

[Anonymous Coward]

I loved the fugitve game it rocked. all the phone convos were great. I've never read takedown but i imagine it would be way bias to shuiomorawthehellhisnameis.

I couldn't put down FG. it was great.

Re:Takedown

[JabberWokky]

Another decent read, in my view was Takedown - the story of notorious "cracker" Kevin Mitnick.

Not the greatest book factually, but far better than the movie, which has Mitnick cracking Shimomura over the head in an alley when in real life they never met each other until one day in court.

Incidently, a great movie is 'Freedom Downtime', the documentary about the 2600 club's organized nationwide protest against the movie Takedown. Sucessful in that it never got a US theatrical release, it also covers a bit of the Free Kevin movement and the harrassment and violence two other hackers have been subjected to. Really nicely done, it literally confronts the newsmen who published incorrect facts about hackers and makes you realize that they knew better - they just wanted a better story.

Good movie - I saw an early version of it at I-Con in Spring 2001, but it's available for sale at 2600.com now.

--
Evan (no references)

now if only people will read it...

[LinuxWoman]

Living in a small town and being able to work command lines has people in total fear of me. People assume that because I can really use a computer I'm some sort of nefarious hacker just waiting for the chance to steal all their financial info.

When are non-geek types going to realize that being a serious computer user, system admin or even a programmer doesn't mean you're ALSO a hacker? When will they start taking a bit of responsibility for securing their systems? Most hackers I've met here are script kiddies who couldn't hack a wet paper bag if the people in the area bothered installing security patches...

Re:now if only people will read it...

[linux_student]

I have to agree with you there, Woman...in the post - win95/AOL world, if you use anything that doesn't require point 'n click (or anything that isn't easily understood) you are "hacking the network"; little do they know that our order management system @ work runs off of WinNT-based telnet (hey, I didn't make that choice)... can I help it that I learned to use DOS when I was 13, instead of trying out for the basketball team? Also, what do we want their financial info for anyways? Last I checked, the room service in county lockup wasn't getting any better than the last time I was there.
LS

Re:now if only people will read it...

[Punk Walrus]

Most hackers I've met here are script kiddies who couldn't hack a wet paper bag

This got me to think about how I would hack a wet paper bag.

Test Subject: Plain small paper bag from a plastic bag of paper bags labeled, simply, "Paper lunch bags." Then I soaked it in water for 2 minutes, shook off the excess water, and laid it down flat.
Software used: I used Red Hat Linux (6.3) and a variety of tools on Windows 2000 (with SP1).

My first attempt was to connect the paper bag to the network. Lacking any RJ11 port, I was forced to assume it was wireless. I placed it on my cable router, in hopes that it would try and boot to DHCP. I waited a long time, but it did not attempt to gain IP access. This would be harder than I thought.

Then I thought maybe it I wrapped the bag around the head of a Cat5 cable, maybe that would work. No luck. It just sat there, inert. I tested the Cat5 cable on a known working system, and found it did not work. I tried another, but while this worked, it did not work on the wet paper bag.

I searched google for "wet paper bag" and "2600 wet paper bag" and Usenet for "wet paper bag." It did not return any useable results, although it appears that quite a lot of people assume script kiddies cannot hack one, either. I checked the TCP/IP manual that came with my Cisco training, and did not find anything that might help. I had no idea what level of the OSI layer would work on a wet paper bag, but I assumed if it was hackable, it would have to at least get to layer 2. So I attached it to an old X.25 serial cable, and tried frame routing, but all I got were device timeouts. Wet paper bags are a LOT more secure than I thought!

After a day of this, I thought I had finally gotten a login prompt, but I found I accidentally was using the IP address of my other LINUX box.

I asked around, and found a script kiddie at the local comic book store. I asked him if he could hack a wet paper bag, but instead of answering, he became angry, and asked me what cable service I used. I didn't think it would help, but I told him everything I knew. Later when I got home, my ZoneAlarm had crashed in what I am guessing was a DOS attack.

So far, I have concluded I cannot hack a wet paper bag, either. I have shown my results to my boss, and soon, "WPB Protocol" will replace OpenBSD as the security standard in all our offices. That gives me only 3 weeks to learn how to program one. I hope there a gcc for it...

Re:now if only people will read it...

[tiny69]

WPB Protocol . . . good April Fool RFC material.

Re:now if only people will read it...

[hbmartin]

Apparently you forgot to connect the power. I suspect that if you had done this, you would realize that this protocol needs a fire hydrant to the same degree that windoze needs ZA.

I just pooped my fucking pants

[Anonymous Coward]

Can anyone help me write a book about it?!!?

There is no distinction

[Anonymous Coward]

I put crackers into my soup. Hackers are the dedicated computer hobbyists. Some of them do legal stuff and some cross over the line. They all are hackers. Go back into the past. Look at the MIT hackers from a few years back. Traditionally hackers aren't going for profit and don't do damage. They just explore and learn. Just like like in any classification of people there are some people that are nice and some that are not so nice. Cracker is a stupid term. Many of your so called crackers are very dedicated hobbyists and if you looked deeper you would find out they are truely hackers by the very definition. Of course most of them are script kiddies, but hey, you gotta start somewhere..

They couldn't hack a wet paper bag...

[fireboy1919]

IIS only runs on PCs. My guess is that this "wet paper bag" architecture you speak of usually runs Apache.

Most hackers I've met here are script kiddies who couldn't hack a [server] if the people in the area bothered installing security patches (i.e. Linux).

Flamebait

[class_A]

(Slashdot readers are no doubt familiar with the fact that Mac OS X is not much more than an "aqualicious" -- and expensive -- wrap of FreeBSD.)

No need for this!

Re:Flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

Agree compeltely!

But then again...

Most people ons slashdot are clueless anyway.....
They think they know...

Because they're clueless

Not light reading...

[mookie-blaylock]

I picked this book up over the summer on a whim. I expected a fairly interesting read that might tend to romanticize the image of hackers in some way.

Not so. The book is actually very dense, and looks at hackers/hacker culture in a more sociological/anthropological context, examining norms and values of the subculture versus traditional society and so forth.

It's interesting and I moved through it fairly quickly, but it's not really light reading. It basically reads like someone's thesis paper or something. And there are enough typos that it just might drive you nuts. But on a four hour flight, I would much rather read this than the thrilling American Airlines magazine.

I am just tired

[ACK!!]

I wish there was a book that did an enertaining job of chronicling the culture surrounding the people that made the IT world what it is today that did not refer to HACKERS, get them mixed up with CRACKERS and did not play exclusively to the culture of personality around Gates and Jobs.

Sure, Gates and Jobs should play a big part in chronicle of history around the progress in the computer industry and software industries, sure. However, what about Bill Joy, Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie?

They played a big part too. It was not in the PC world sure but it impacted Universities and Corporations on a very large scale. What about talking over the rise of Open Source in a way that did not either make it sound like a magical revolution cheering it forward as the only future or making sound like some horrible fifties commie plot? What about going over it in a detached objective fashion while still capturing the personality and excitement people have?

I am still looking for a good history of the Hacker/IT/Computer Revolution that takes in interesting truly balanced approach.

Does anyone have a good example?

________________________________________________ _

Re:I am just tired

[xphase]

I enjoyed 'Nerds 2.0.1: A Brief History of the Internet' by Stephen Segaller.

But YMMV

--xPhase

Re:I am just tired

[Your_Mom]

Also try Where Wizards Stay Up Late. Really thorough explanation of the early days of computer and the origins of ARPANet.

Re:I am just tired

[Anonymous Coward]

If they ever do an Open Source book, please, oh god, please, leave Richard Stallman out of it. Nobody makes a bigger ass out of himself and brings more shame to the open source community than that jackass. Behold, I am St. Gnucious. You fucking retard.

Re:I am just tired

[Anonymous Coward]

A shorter project would be "IT world" trading cards, like baseball cards.
I would have said HACKER but I don't necessarily want CRACKERS on the cards.

They could be actual cardboard cards or XML files or something.

They would have a picture on the front, stats on the back. Things like birthdays, age, books published, software designed or written, or other contribution to IT.

Since ego and recogniton is supposedly a main motivation toward Open Source Software the actual creation and implementation of such cards would be a good contribution to Open Source.

Re:I am just tired

[bwhaley]

Check out Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Stephen Levy. It's a great read and does justice to most of the important players in early personal computing. I only wish there was a hardcover edition.

Just curious...

[Steve G Swine]

basically a fancy term for Kafkaesque travesties of justice

What would the plain term for that be?

Re:Just curious...

[Anonymous Coward]

What wonderfully a wonderfully humorous perception. Thank you. You've made my day. (please mod the parent post up)

Re:Just curious...

[are flagan]

The plain term would simply be anything under the singular heading "Ashcroft." Hope this clarifies. -af

But that would require someone ...

[Anonymous Coward]

to interject that raw food veganism is the only morally acceptable lifestyle.

Hacker culture, eh?

[hyacinthus]

Hm. Hey, all the pages are blank!

hyacinthus (as are the pages of the book's sequel, _Hacker Philosophy_)

Re:Hacker culture, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

This page intentionally left blank.

Hacker "culture"? Oh pulease...

[Viol8]

I get fed up with hearing BS about hacker "culture" , as if hackers are some minority group discriminated against whose additions to global society have yet to be realised. Lets be clear about this, hackers are normally a bunch of kids who's parents are rich enough to afford a PC and who dick around online messing up other peoples computers. (Don't even start me on the hacker/cracker debate , thats playing semantic games. Most people view the word hacker to mean someone who causes trouble so ergo thats what the word means now) To make out that these little brats have some kind of "culture" we should all appreciate and get to understand is pure 100% bullshit and is an insult to real cultures out there.

ESRI on Linux

[geomon]

Since the story on ESRI was rejected, I am asking all Linux scientists who use GIS systems to follow this link to take a survey in support of Linux development.

The Cuckoo's Egg

[fumanchu898]

If you want good books that show what hackers were doing to military installations and whatnot in the mid-80's, try reading 'The Cuckoo's Egg' or 'Masters of Deception'. These books will give you a good look at how Tymnet was more full of holes that Swiss cheese at that point is history. 'The Cuckoo's Egg' is better, but they are both enjoyable, from a hacker's perspective.

Re:The Cuckoo's Egg

[motardo]

"The Cuckoo's Egg" is definitely one of my favorite books, it was one of those books that I could not put down. Great book. "Masters of Deception" is a book that I read in high school, and very thoroughly enjoyed, I'll pick it up again.

more level-headed view of "hackers"

[perfessor multigeek]

It's not comprehensive, but you might want to check out Tracy Kidder's Soul of a New Machine (I'm too lazy at the moment to link to a bookseller) about the creation of Data General and the much-revered VAX line of computers.
BTW, it is my suspicion that years from now, when all the dust settles, folk will conclude that a lot of key development of computers actually took place in industries like trucking (traveling salesman problem anyone?) far from the spotlight, where the techies were just expected to get the job done and not pressed for details.
After all, what was the first major industry to universally computerize?
Can you guess?
That's right, retail stores. Yup. Sam Walton always said that the biggest thing that gave him his edge was his heavy usage of computers for things like logistics and anticipation of demand.
Now given that the other major contenders are accounting/insurance and personnel departments I suspect that for every Steve and Steve working at Atari was a just as influential person who did their seminal work in a polyester shirt in some big conservative company. But since that's not good televison, it ain't gettin' covered any time soon. After all it would be much harder to cast a heartthrob like Noah Wyle in such a role. The best you'ld do is Jack Black or Curtis "Booger"Armstrong.
Off to dig out my original, pre-recall, "Real Genius" poster,
Rustin

Re:more level-headed view of "hackers"

[TheAncientHacker]

Actually it wasn't about the creation of the VAX, it was about the creation of Data General's competitor to Digital Equipment Corporation's (DEC) much revered VAX.

Re:more level-headed view of "hackers"

[perfessor multigeek]

Nope, I suggest that you look again. While Kidder was only personally present for the Data General activities, he spends quite a bit of time on the history of VAXen and the surrounding computing environment.

Re:more level-headed view of "hackers"

[TheAncientHacker]

Only as background to the main point of the book, the development of the "Eagle".

Great idea, poor implementation.

[crazyphilman]

My main problem with this book is that although the subject matter is fascinating, the actual writing is tedious, and follows an extremely dry academic style. I felt like I was reading a graduate-level sociology dissertation. Ho, hum. Material this interesting deserves a much better treatment.

Jeez, getting through the introduction was a chore. I was reminded of the Bataan Death March. The introduction was the worst. It was like an endless academic spiel, just going on, and on, and on, and on (but you get the idea). BREVITY IS THE SOUL OF WIT, MAN! Sigh...

Still...

He means well. And, for an academic audience, the book might be helpful in that it might frame hackers in a more positive, more accurate light.

But, Jesus, does he ramble. I think a much better-written book on hackers is "Hackers" by Steven Levy, which follows the original MIT hackers, and traces up through the microcomputer companies and game developers that came later. I'd like to see Mr. Levy do a followup, taking us from the early nineties to the present. He's a much more animated, interesting writer (no disrespect to the academic style of "hacker culture", it's just a little dry).

review is flamebait ?

[scrutty]

> Slashdot readers are no doubt familiar with the fact that Mac OS X is not much more than an "aqualicious" -- and expensive -- wrap of FreeBSD.

fact ? eh ? If the whole of OS X is not much more than a wrap of FreeBSD then how come the good GNUstep folks are still struggling to complete a workalike after nearly a decade ?

There is a heck of a lot more to OS X than just Darwin you know , just like there is a whole lot more to GNU than just linux.

Re:review is flamebait ?

[davidmccabe]

Yeah, just what I was going to say.

It's called NeXTSTEP! Everything about Mac OS X screams, "I'm a NeXT box painted blue!". Everything about the GUI, right down to the color selection box, is NeXT. NetInfo, defaults, the big great API that is now known as Cocoa that is in ObjC and all of the class names start with 'NS'. And they use a FreeBSD stack. Big deal. People are always talking about how OS X is a FreeBSD, or a UNIX, or whatever they want to call it, but who mentions NeXT?

By the way, let's all tell Apple to undummify the Dock. The NeXT workspace had much more functionality, including that multipal workspaces thing that apearently is WAY to complicated for Apple's customers to understand, the miniwindows that you can move around (OS X sticks them in the Dock too), the appicons that you haven't put anywhere (OS X sticks them in the Dock too), the clip icons (OS X doesn't have one), etc., etc. So in short, Apple just puts anything and everything in the One Grand Unified Dock, instead of having different places for different things.

On an unrelated note, does anyone know of a program that acts like the Dock, that I can use in KDE 3, to replace Kicker? Unfortionatly, the WindowMaker dock is fully integrated into the window manager.

Re:review is flamebait ?

[cokane]

Dude, NeXT is a BSD itself. GNU is to Linux what FreeBSD is to OS X. The entire UNIX userland is from FreeBSD. The kernel is not, though, at least not entirely. It is running some of FreeBSD's code and a lot of NeXT/OSX code on top of the Mach microkernel. Basically NeXT was based on much of the code that was to become Free/Net/OpenBSD.

Re:review is flamebait ?

[davidmccabe]

Yeah. Exactly. But OS X is more then just a stock FreeBSD with a better X11. It is ALSO NeXTSTEP, which is what I was talking about.

Re:review is flamebait ?

[are flagan]

The phrasing might have been too extreme and inaccurate -- the repeated point was that of appropriation becoming proprietary, which is arguably the case, once more, with FreeBSD. (Following the moves that made personal computing a business proposition.) The fact that this trend continues, coupled with the genius of Palladium, makes hacker culture and hacker history highly relevant and certainly useful...

Re:review is flamebait ?

[scrutty]

Not "might have been", rather "was". I understand the point you are making, but the hostile language and use of the word "fact" along with an assertion that blatantly was not one, did your argument no favour. Indeed it irritated me enough to write a response, and presumaby enough moderators agreed with for it to float up to the top and gain your attention.

In the case of OS X the FreeBSD component is used precisely because the license terms allow for a company to take this code and do what they like with it.

Now if you strip away Quartz and the OpenStep runtime you are left with an OS called "Darwin". This OS is freely redistributable and source available , under an OSI approved "open source" licence. I expect the FSF don't like this license much, but then they are not exactly mad keen on the FreeBSD license in the first place, so the point is moot. Now, to me that adds up to a rather generous form of "appropriaton", especially when you consider that Apple are under no obligation to do this at all. Indeed they could well have chosen to close off the low level OS components and hide away the FreeBSD heritage. Instead they use that fact visibly within the marketing campaign for the OS X product.

All of this I consider, makes OS X and its relationship to FreeBSD a terrible example of the case you are trying to argue. When you dress up a central point of some contention in strident language and elaborate it with falsehoods you communicate a certain attitude to a reader like myself. There is a large, and largely well written review, of what sounds like it could be an interesting publication, certainly interesting to a great section of this websites readers. By inserting a snide and untrue assertion at the foot of the opening postulates, you poison the tone of the whole piece. A seed of doubt is sown , and to the reader it is apparent that the author has an agenda alongside the evaluation of the quality of the book on review, not only an agenda but look out! Their words cannot be trusted.

On the whole I think one needs to be careful about allowing self opinion to leak into review cases. If you feel a relevant opinion needs to be presented in order to provide useful context for the reader, then you are correct that often a good idea is to provide example matter to back up your assertion. The examples need to be relevant to the case in question however !

"Repeatedly, individuals and corporations appropriate something free and open and use it to form the basis of some prortietry profit-making system! " you say (and I paraphrase)
"Really ?", says the reader , " I wouldn't put it past those swine, I bet they do., Tell me more."
"Yes!", you continue, "just look at Apple Computer - they are one of the worst for it. "
The reader frowns. "Apple ? The company that gave away full circuit schematics with their gadgets and PCs ? The company that gives away the source code to their commercial grade UNIX system for free ? That doesn't make much sense. You must be one of these slashdot Apple bashers. I thought this was a book review.", he says , and moves quickly on to another article.

Re:review is flamebait ?

[are flagan]

Snide and untrue? Falsehoods? Not relevant? Hmm. Instead of adding Quartz and OpenStep to buff up Darwin, perhaps we should remove the FreeBSD heritage, as you suggest, and see what weighs heavier to actually define OSX (and especially as open source, which is what we are talking about, no)? Of course the license allows for it -- that's how it is intended to grow -- and evey release of OSX will be oh so much more than the low-level OS core, so "generously" left open. But how did FreeBSD actually come about in the first place? And what happened to lowly Watson when Sherlock came of age (3) with 10.2? It's elementary my friend. How could Apple possibly make this potentially crippling-to-the-edge-of-final-bankruptcy shift without getting everyone, customers and third parties inlcuded, onboard sooner rather than too late?

(This final untrustworthy paragraph insertion attests that the above is simply something as misled as my own opinion and bears no relation to proper objective thought or certifiable real events. Always use with caution, and please discard or embrace at will. Agenda permanently attached.)

Small PS: Written on a Mac PowerBook.

Clarified

[carb]

Reading this book cleared my illusion that all /. readers led lives like Zero Cool and Acid Burn from "Hackers", the movie. "Hack the gibson!"

HUH?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hackers are friendly quiche eating Pascal programmers and Mac users, whereas crackers are naughty people who do a lot of hacking So... people who "do a lot of hacking" are NOT called hackers, according to you? Interesting distinction. I guess there's precedent. People who lie, cheat and steal aren't called criminals, they are called politicians...

Almost right.

[Draxinusom]

Huh? If Steven Levy had published an eponymous book it would have been entitled "Steven Levy".

Actually, "eponymous" refers to the giver of the title, e.g. "Romulus was the eponymous founder of Rome." So a book named "Steven Levy" would be eponymously-titled.

Re:Almost right.

[Draxinusom]

I used the word "giver" imprecisely; let me now correct myself. "Eponymous" refers to the subject of the titled work, and thus the book "Steven Levy" would only be eponymously-named if it were about Steven Levy, regardless of who actually wrote it and decided on the title.

Hacker Vs Cracker

[phorm]

And just because you're a hacker doesn't mean you do anything illegal or nefarious. The term also indicates people in certain professions, or who do many forms of intense but not illegal code-hacking on PC's

Who replace my cat-in-bag with a can-of-worms? - phorm

A book that covers the individual hacker

[dr_canak]

and their relationship to the hacker culture and mainstream culture is:

"Underground"

Which is available, in its entirety here:

http://www.underground-book.com/download.php3

What I really liked about this book was the indepth story telling about several hackers, their relationships with other hackers (globally I might add), their relationships with family and other "non-hackers," and their general makeup as people.

After reading this, I felt I had a much better appreciation of the importance that the hacker culture can have for some people. The hacker underground was clearly a place where these kids felt most comfortable, and in some cases provided an important level of social support that they didn't otherwise have access to.

What would Dr. Evil Do?

[PD]

Living in a small town and being able to work command lines has people in total fear of me.

!!!!!!!!

Holy crap man! Don't you see the possiblities here? You can make them all your PERSONAL SLAVES! Get on it right away!

man...

[Anonymous Coward]

I really need to poop. Unfortunately I cannot use a public restroom to do that and it's a 45 minute drive home. Any suggestions from other hackers?

Re:man...

[cwells]

i tend to use the trash can in my office. good luck!

http://www.biker-needs-a-harley.org/

tag :)

[longhairedgnome]

nt sorry everyone just useless post so i can read this later when i'm not drunk and going to class

Also funny because...

[Interrobang]

...most hackers have traditionally been found in, on, or near large, well-computerized research universities.

In fact, that person sitting next to you in class could be a hacker! Your prof could be a hacker! Your friendly school janitor could be a hacker!

(Are you now, or have you ever been a hacker?)

Heh...

Academicians have been talking about hackers for a long time. (I seem to recall writing a paper on the subject for a grad school class, and doing some reading up for it, anyway.) Maybe people just didn't notice until now.

Draper Didn't Discover the Crunch Whistle

[Anonymous Coward]

...I can't believe people still think Captain Crunch (John Draper) discovered that the whistles inside Captain Crunch Cereal were able to emit roughly 2600hz tones. It was actually a group of blind phone phreaks who Draper hung with. This is known, has been known a long time, and even Draper has admitted as such in a number of interviews (after he's gotten older, after his supply of young hackers has essentially been assured based on his "reputation").

Please, don't perpetuate a falsehood. And no, you really don't want any "stretching exercises".

Re:Draper Didn't Discover the Crunch Whistle

[Anonymous Coward]

You speak from experience?

Re:Draper Didn't Discover the Crunch Whistle

[Anonymous Coward]

To bad draper chases around 16 year olds at conventions like h2k2. I use to have respect for em.

tools for thought

[Anonymous Coward]

You can read Howard Rheingold's "Tools For Thought" online or buy it from MIT Press. I think Bill Gates is mentioned only once.

Hmmm

[teslatug]

This reads like a transcript for that TLC program about hackers:
Hackers: Computer Outlaws

Quiche-eating Pascal ... "Real Programmers Don't"

[Helen O'Boyle]

[ There are many variations of this. Here is one, which is shorter than others but has more of the feel of the "original" I remember from way back when... source: http://www.cirr.com/~barkley/jokes/realprog.html ]

Real Programmers...

Don't eat quiche. Real programmers don't even know how to spell quiche. They like Twinkies, Coke, and palate-scorching Szechwan food.

Don't write applications programs. They program right down to the bare metal. Applications programs are for dullards who can't do systems programming.

Don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand and even harder to modify.

Don't draw flowcharts. Flowcharts are, after all, the illiterate's form of documentation. Cavemen drew flowcharts; look how much it did for them.

Don't use COBOL. COBOL is for wimpy applications programmers.

Don't use FORTRAN. FORTRAN is for wimpy engineers who wear white socks, pipe stress freaks, and crystallography weenies. They get excited over finite state analysis and nuclear reactor simulations.

Don't use LOGO. In fact programmers use LOGO after puberty.

Don't use APL unless the whole program can be written on one line.

Don't use LISP. Only effeminate programmers use more parentheses than actual code.

Don't use Pascal, BLISS, ADA, or any of those sissy-pinko computer science languages. Strong typing is a crutch for people with weak memories.

Never work 9 to 5. If any are around at 9 a.m. it's because they were up all night.

Don't play tennis or any other sport that requires a change of clothes. Mountain climbing is OK, though, and real programmers often wear climbing boots to work in case a mountain should suddenly spring up in the middle of the machine room.

Don't like the team programming concept. Unless, of course, they are the Chief Programmer.

Have no use for managers. Managers are a necessary evil. They are for dealing with personnel bozos, bean counters, senior planners, and other mental defectives.

Don't drive around in clapped out mavericks. They prefer BMW's, Lincolns, or pick-up trucks with floor shifts. Fast motorcycles are highly regarded.

Like vending machine popcorn. Coders pop it in the microwave oven. Real programmers use the heat given off by the CPU. They can tell what job is running just by listening to the rate the corn is popping.

Know every nuance of every instruction and use them all in every real program. Puppy architects won't allow execute instructions to address another execute as the target instruction. Real programmers despise such petty restrictions.

Don't bring brown bag lunches to work. If the vending machine sells it, they eat it. If the vending machine doesn't sell it, they don't eat it. Vending machines don't sell quiche.

What ever happened to Xanadu?

[Gerry Gleason]

In a way, I think one of the best books to explore hackerdom from the inside is _Computer_Lib/Dream_Machines_ by Ted Nelson. I wish my original copy in the large format hadn't disappeared in a move or something. Probably somewhat of a collector's item now.

Kind of ironic that the Microsoft Press reprinted it more recently, although that copy of mine doesn't have a very good binding and is falling apart.

Lol, you called your shot Babe! (as in Ruth)

[BoomerSooner]

I'm impressed with the called shot of Flamebait. However it might not have been flamebait had you backed up your post. Realistically I don't see anything wrong with the description of Darwin. #1 it is aqualicious (I'm assuming this as a good adjective) and it damn sure is expensive (I have 3 mac's and they are worth every penny). So if you had commented as to why that was an incorrect description maybe you wouldn't have had to call your own shot.

Just my thoughts.....

Re:Takedown --- @Large

[rpg25]

I thought @Large was quite interesting. It does a good job of debunking the "genius geek hero," too, showing the cracker as pretty pathetic, but also showing how much damage he could achieve. Good antidote to too much William Gibson (I love the stuff, but it's no more real than Raymond Chandler's about real private eyes).