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A Peek At Script Kiddie Culture
Brian Bruns writes "NewsForge is covering an article on the Script Kiddie Culture, in an interview with my co-admin Andrew Kirch. It provides insight into a culture that not many people fully understand, or get to see."
Are people looking for some Gibson-esque secret cabal of script kiddies, who are building operating systems at age 8, can speak in hex, and have secret h4X0r access to everywhere?
I think people watch too many movies. Or is defining 'script kiddies' as a culture an attempt to rationalize the level of ignorance we experience when trying to comprehend all of computing technology? Since nobody can be good at everything, is it a mental safety valve to create uber-computer users, who 'get it', who can do 'cool things', who are 'in the know'? Isn't this the same thing as creating Gods to explain otherwise unknown natural phenomena?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
The most amusing implications are:
a) Its a culture.
b) Someone would actually want to see it.
10 years ago I did the script kid thing for a bit (before having a life). Its a bunch of kids who's parents are not really involved in their lives, and have nothing better to do than look for a digital mate by typing "A/S/L?!?!??! and talking about their privates.
I could seriously care less.
From what I understand of script kiddies they mostly do stuff from sheer boredom (what ever happened to the good ole outdoors?) and for the extra pseudo attention they get from it. Surely by attempting to interview and do articles on this 'culture' they are just pandering to the desires of these script kiddies. And rather than helping them to realise that they need to grow up etc, the extra attention is only going to make them have a greater desire to wreak havock with their 'leet skills'
If at first you DON'T succeed, Skydiving is NOT for YOU!!
...the interviewed party sounds like he's making things up as he goes along for greater exposure and interest. There is nothing there that jumps out to me and says "liar", but at the same time, I think that the interviewee might have been, er thinking about this topic too much and might be blowing things out of proportion just a little bit.
Do people on IRC attack conference line services? Oh yes, I've seen it being done several times, and FoF is something of a wheel in this scene. Are said hijacked conference lines used for neferious purposes? I'm sure once in a while, but really they are mostly used for the purposes of socialization... same as has been the case with phreaking the past.
What do people do the first time they phreak? They call a faraway place and talk to someone just because it is neat to talk to someone in England, or Fiji or somewhere far away without cost.
What is the primary use of these phreak'd conference lines? Socialization, a way for people who are geographically distant who have got to know each other on IRC to talk to each other without cost. Believe you me, the content of these conversations is far more likely to contain dreary e/n stuff rather than Plots To Take Over The World.
The intimation that this culture could somehow be for sale to nefarious people and powers is frankly outrageous and hysterical at the very same time.
-- benton.
I'm betting that the kiddies play a role, in much the same way the messenger does for the author of the letter.
And like the messenger, they are more likely to get shot by the good guys when the let a hack loose into the wild.
Could it be that a few black (and possibly white) hatters find that they serve a purpose?
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
Kids do all sorts of anti-social stuff, but, even when they're mostly minding their own business, they get pissed on. I love it how everyone expects *teenagers* to spend their free time caring for puppies and the homeless.
Here in a decent-sized city in the (yay) midwest, the evening activities available to those under eighteen are: bowling, cruising, wandering the streets aimlessly, and, ummm, well that's pretty much it.
Everything in town closes at 9:00. *Public* parks close. There's a constant crackdown on 'cruising' for some reason. There's an 11:00 curfew for everyone under-18.
So, the choices for a kid growing up around here are: 'sit in your room all evening with your computer' or 'break some sort of law'. Apparently, now our fearless leaders have found a way to make 'sitting in your room' against the law as if they would rather these kids be roaming the streets vandalizing cars and buildings. Great.
At least, this way, they are actually learning some things about computers and causing *very* little damage in the process. I think we all need to be a little more realistic: kids cost money and destroy things. The fact that *the internet* isn't a little more kid-proof should be of more concern to everyone than the slightly-less-than-moral decisions made by a bunch of teenagers.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
I know plenty of people here can come up with a long list of things our government wastes money on. Furthermore I'll bet'cha we can get over half those involved in the discussion to agree to the slashing of this or that. What say ye pantheon of knowledge?
Unfortunately...
The liberal voters here will say that the tax cuts for millionaires are what we should get rid of.
The conservative voters will say that services for the poor (welfare, etc) are what we should get rid of.
Neither side will agree with the other.
Twenties Retirement
Maybe it's still too early in the morning for me, but I didn't understand much of what that article said. OK, Kiddies organize in gangs and they hang out on IRC. What else is going on?? What does the 'war' consist of, who controls more machines on the internet? And it's being fought by copy & pasting the lastet Viri, Trojan Horses etc. and spreadng them around? Why can't IRC be secured, after all those years?
Some understandable explanations would be much appreciated...