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Hackers: Under The Hood
jyre writes "ZDNet Australia has a special report that profiles and interviews five hackers over the next five days. Day 1: Raven Alder's page is up now (inludes photos). Day 2 will be Attrion.org creator, Jericho. Day 3: Adrian Lamo. Day 4: Kevin Mitnick and Day 5: L0phtCrack creator, Mudge."
I love attrion.org! It's the best way to start my day, opening the old browser and surfing on over to attrion! First on my list of things to do in the morning!
:)
Mods don't hurt me
Flying Jesus!
The total amount I care about self-proclaimed "H4xx04s?"
0.
This is to be expected from a mainstream publication that intends to present "hacking" in a mainstream light. I say, read at your own risk.
dude, that's her first grade photo.
But are they going to define hacker? Are people going to see this as a bunch of articles about some scum who break into computers, or are they going to see a bunch of articles about people who have an intimate knowledge of computers? Either the meaning of the word hacker needs to change, or another word for the computer savvy needs to be found.
more high profile 'hackers' explaining their driving influences. Raven Alder bashing script kiddies and suggesting that users learn how to use their toys is a good way to start. I wouldn't argue for a second with a girl that is as cute as Bjork and could audit my security.
"Lame" - Galaxar
Mmmmm... L0pht password cracker. *urgh!* "Me use brute force!" *urgh!*
I'm actually surprised there have not been more television biographies on hackers. It seems A&E Biographies, Discovery Channel, Learning Channel etc. would want to tell these stories.
www.reeddavid.com
-1 Perv
You like looking at the IE error page? Weirdo ;P
Everyone should know that it is ATTRITION.org, anyhow (and, at least, the link is correct).
Self-styled 1337 h4x0rs aren't particularly skilled with computers. They just do stupid shit that other more mature computer users won't waste their time on.
If I was a loser I could burgle houses if I chose to. It's not exactly difficult. Even the rich neighborhoods would be easy pickings. I'm sure I could break into many places before I got caught. But I'd still be a loser.
So why are the computerland equivalent of dirty little sneak thieves constantly being feted as heroes and geniuses all the damn time?
I hate movies like 'Hackers' which give zit-faced teenage virgins the idea that they'll get to screw Angelina Jolie if only they could be 1337...
Raven's my coworker. Quite techincally, she rocks. and oh, that tit size comment? ... (a direct quote)
"Fuck you ".
And yes, she's talking about You
da w00t. mtfnpy?
There's nothing at attrion.org. Unless you typo'd the typo back to attrition.org, which is what it's supposed to be...
She looks halfway decent at least
Halfway decent at best, with a few pints of vodka in your stomach.
You obviously haven't ever met any really ugly women. Trust me, they get a lot worse than that. Think Jean Teasdale from The Onion.
That's about the most perfect example of what she's talking about anybody could have come up with...
Yeah alright, they had a defacement archive back in the day, they're dried out now. What have they done since then and really what good was the defacement archive? All it really did was encourage defacements.
The other guys have either shown skill, or created something. And lets shut up about "cracker v.s hacker" BS. Hacking is a SKILL SET, you can define black hat, grey hat, white hat from there if you want. Just because someone breaks the law doesn't mean they aren't a good "hacker" and are suddenly a "cracker".
Also remember not all intruders are "dumb kiddies" there takes skill in a real intrusion even if you are using pre-canned exploits. There is a hacking mindset to getting into places. Its the same mindset used in writing unique code, among other things. Its not all dotslash. Thats like saying U.S Special Forces are 'kiddies' since all they do is a pull a trigger. Wrong.
So tired of these people ranting and raving about 'cracking'. Get your head out of your asses and get off the bandwagon.
Theres one more below it
If you aren't computer-ignorant. But the media are computer-ignorant, and are happy to stay that way.
A few years ago a major New Zealand ISP was "hacked" -- or so the media said. The biggest talkshow host of the time interviewed the alleged "h4x0r" live, and proclaimed him to be a "computer genius". We were all in deadly and imminent danger of being hacked by guys like him he said.
The "hacker" in question was a 13 year old whose friend's older brother worked for the ISP. The older brother had stupidly given his staff login and password to his kid brother, who had, naturally, shared it with his friend, the "genius hacker". This friend then logged in and deleted a bunch of hosted websites. Pretty frikken 1337, huh?
Take the little assholes out and beat them with wet towels, then make them parade naked through the streets. A fit punishment for such computer Uber-Gurus.
wow, this stuff sucks you in like that TV reality crap, doesn't it? Yet strangely, they both leave me with that feeling of "really dont give a rat's ass".
Isnt that blog venting phase already passé?
zack
In her spare time, she downs chai while arguing philosophy with friends. Sorry am I the only one who read this? Hackers don't have friends. Burn her at the stake, she is not one of us!
As you should expect for a -1 moderated comment, the parent's link leads to a shock site (lastmeasure in case you're wondering).
When you click on the link, your information gets added to this page where I guess the trolls get to see who's visited their site.
Now then... surely someone on here can find some interesting and creative things to add to this table. Hint: whatever's on your clipboard when you click on their link ends up in the table. Ditto for referrer links and other information.
Hear recorded Slashdot headlines on your phone! New service beta testing. Just call (248) 434-5508
Hi. It's really nice to know that whatever I can do technically, that it's my cup size that really matters. I'm 28. I do backbone security, incident response, vulnerability assessment, and pen-testing. I work in varying capacities with Nessus, Snort, and the Open Source Vulnerability Database. And fuck you. http://www.oneeyedcrow.net/securitygeekfemme.html
If they were really oh so 1337, nobody would have ever heard of them, and they wouldn't be talking about their escapades either.
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
Well, you're kinda old, but it's been a pretty dry spell. Sweet, I could use it, if you're serious :-)
At least they didn't regress to the "nice boots" comment you're likely to get at the local g0th club-
LosT
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."
don't piss her off or else she'll hack your ass haha
Compaired to the girls you see at your local 2600 shes pretty fly for a white chick, SNORT rocks(no pun).
I have, but I don't consider them women. More like walking vomit.
The above is not specially a troll :
I remember a Slashdot story featuring a list of hackers including Richard Stallman, Eric Raymond, Woz, etc.
According to rms, a Hacker is a "bidouilleur", now, the ones which you mention in this very story are more on "the dark side" (like it or not, Mitnick was convicted because of criminal activities).
So, would you mind specifying which kind of hackers you refer to ?
(Otherwise you'll let people get confused whether a hacker is good or not)
Trolling using another account since 2005.
It's rather sad that 90% of the comments to have come through so far, are about her looks rather than her accomplishments. There's really no easy way to stop sexism is there? The moderators could at least mod these people down.
Feel free to be a self-admitted feminist, but realise that the likes of that group are responsible for banned books in Canada.
Through its decision in the Butler vs. Her Majesty case, the Supreme Court of Canada adopted Catherine MacKinnon's definition of obscenity nearly word for word into Canadian law. This 1992 court decision -- which was vigorously championed by most feminists in Canada and the US -- allows Canadian customs to seize what it judges to be pornography at the border as the material is being imported. In reaching the Butler decision, the Supreme Court acknowledged that it was violating freedom of speech, but it deemed the possible harm that pornography could inflict on women to be of greater legal significance.
Unlike others I generally prefer to keep my opinions of a woman's body to myself. However, I definately can't support any set of ideals that requires mass censorship. I believe that makes me anti-feminist, but moderate.
You, on the other hand, may not be a feminist at all, at least according to that article, although you choose to identify with them.
Pardon me if I came on a bit strong there, but when a select minority-by-choice of people can, at a whim, introduce sweeping censorship laws I get really pissed off.
If you are asking for a change from society's old views of yourself, you might want to avoid clothing yourself in a devil's cloak. In short: Choose a better term than "feminist". I don't believe you are one, and the term carries far too much misandrist baggage for you to be taken seriously.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
In addition to that I dont think that you understand the meaning of sexism, slashdotters will bash both men and woman alike did you see the fat guy in the TRON costume!?
First, in the spirit of full disclosure: I know Raven. I know her well enough to be thoroughly impressed by her and her competency. By "thoroughly impressed" I mean "vaguely intimidated", too, and you know, that's not a bad thing to feel. Gives me an incentive to work that much harder. Competition is good.
Reading this thread so far has led me to dismay. What thread dominates? Something that's so crude that it ought to be beneath our dignity to respond, even to condemn it. A few people have jumped on the trolls, modding them down into oblivion or responding to them.
Here's a question: why? All it's doing is giving the trolls publicity. All it's doing is making people think that gender is an issue, because if it wasn't an issue, why would such a firestorm exist? If it wasn't an issue, why wouldn't the trolls just get modded into oblivion and go ignored, like the GNAA trolls?
If you want to make a statement, if you want to condemn the immature and third-grade behavior of the trolls, if you want to say "look, I for one welcome competent people and I don't give a damn what plumbing they've got", the best response is not to jump on the troll bandwagon and respond to them.
Mod them into oblivion, and let them be forgotten.
They are nothing. For nothing, let there be nothing.
If you want to make a statement, if you want to make a stand, if you want to say "look, I have no clue who this woman is, but frankly I'm appalled by some of the behavior here"... well, hey. Respond to this thread. Mod up responses in this thread. Let's take the publicity away from the trolls and put it to productive use. Let's see if we can't get a few dozen Slashdotters to make a positive stand instead of going around and giving the trolls what they want--furor.
It's really nice to know that whatever I can do technically, that it's my cup size that really matters.
You're getting shocked by immature comments on slashdot? Is this your first time here?by raven_alder (772810)
Oh...I guess it is.
P.S. Proud to be unfairly discriminating on the basis of userid, not cup size.
Sounds like a bad chapter from the Acro-nomicon: The Book of the Semantic...
The semantics arguments are just as tired...
LosT
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."
All feminists don't necessarily agree... just like "hacker" can have a whole bunch of different connotations, so can "feminist". And, like many other minority groups, we are often known by our extremists. I think that makes it all the more important for those of us who *aren't* extremists to use the term rather than abandon it.
For clarity's sake, I am a feminist in the "I believe in equal rights" way, not the "I believe in special treatment" way. I do not believe in or condone banning books. (Indeed, my car has a "Read banned books" sticker on it.) And you can see my take on feminism and porn, as relevant to your linked Foucaultian debate, right on my site. [grin] So, I suspect that we largely agree. Thanks for a thoughtful and intelligent comment. It's refreshing.
Amen, if the labels that are all to often used don't have some sort of built in personal-recursional-definition, we will eventually run out of labels/words/titles all together, for fear of misuse/misunderstanding...
The use of *isms isn't static, it's dynamic- more of a guideline title than a means of defining one's self...I've never met two feminists with even 80% matching world views/belief systems...
LosT
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."
hacker n. [originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe] 1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. 2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming. 3. A person capable of appreciating hack value. 4. A person who is good at programming quickly. 5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work using it or on it; as in `a Unix hacker'. (Definitions 1 through 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.) 6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example. 7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations. 8. [deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information by poking around. Hence `password hacker', `network hacker'. The correct term for this sense is cracker.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
and available here
And don't care what gender the person is. A wannabe guru "h4x0r" is a total fruitbag luser. It's that simple. If he/she was truly skilled, he/she wouldn't be hoping to get publicity from the sucker-media. He/she would be EARNING it with true ability. Hacking is easy. Another poster has already pointed out that hacking/cracking/whateverthefuck is like breaking into houses: any scumbag can do it, but it doesn't change the fact that you are still just a scumbag, no matter how good you are at it, because ANYBODY can break into shit with the help of some cracking-by-numbers VB toolkit.
Supposing I'm the best car thief on the planet. Maybe there's not a vehicle security system in creation that I can't evade. Maybe no car anywhere is safe from me. I'm 1337.
So what? I'M STILL JUST A FUCKING CAR THIEF! A dirty little goodfornothing deadbeat criminal. I have no use to, or value within, society. And somebody who deliberately compromises the security of others is no different. Simple.
Might as well be the most efficient rapist, or the most skilled child-molester, for all that.
I noticed that in the article you gave some suggestions for what people should learn about.. I'm not nearly advanced enough to delve into any of that, though. I'm not as interested right now in security (just because I don't have the knowledge to approach it at the moment) but I am interested in learning more in general.
;) - perhaps because I'm much better with projects than tests, and the classes I took were centered mostly around tests. I'm still interested in learning more about programming and "how things work" in general, however.
I tried studying CS at my university and found it didn't interest me as much as it did when I studied it on my own (hence my becoming a sociology major
Do you have any suggestions for studying on my own? Would it be best to learn one programming language very well and then apply it to others, or is there a better approach? (One of the things I found frustrating in classes was learning a new language in every class I took, when I don't know any language well at all.) What advice can you give someone who would like to learn more, but doesn't do as well in a traditional CS/EECS/etc academic environment - books, good websites, anything? You also said that you were studying "an unrelated field," so I was curious as to how you went about learning more..
(Personally, I know little bits of C, C++, Python, Perl, and Java, but not enough to do anything significant in any of those.. I also have written a few little shell scripts that don't do much. Otherwise, I'm pretty clueless - but I'd really like to increase my knowledge.)
Thank you in advance to Raven and/or anyone else who gives me some advice.
No need for this hate. I'm kinda tired of all the racism that goes on on Slashdot. We never go more than 45 minutes without a racial slur like this. Chill out.
RMS gets ridiculed for his appearance all the time. So what youre saying is that ridiculing a male for his appearance is not sexist, but it is if you laugh at a females appearance.
One word - hypocrite (the same with all feminists)
Admittedly, my only experience working with her was spending three days on the same team as her during last year's capture-the-flag contest at defcon, but it was pretty clear that she's very good at what she does.
The kind of stuff she does is far above and beyond the sort of "easy pickings" you're imagining.
Don't project your own script-kiddyness onto people actually have skills.
Seems like it would have gotten some attention, seeing how hackers are held in a very polar light, depending on the viewer.
This is why I read at -1. lol.
FFS. It's not "sad", it's just representative of the fact that most 'hackers' aren't girls. So fucking what? What do you expect? This ain't some new form of human behaviour that's only just been discovered. Most people on /. are wankers with nothing better to do with their time. Again, so fucking what? WHAT DO YOU FUCKING EXPECT.
/. losers making retard jokes about a girl they've never met. Wow. Amazing.
And just for the record - no, she isn't good looking at all. Again, so fucking what? I'd say the same about you (most likely) if I ever saw your picture. Girls, listen up: just because there aren't many of you in your chosen field, doesn't make you special. Most people are idiots. It shouldn't affect you. I mean come on. This girl in particular has gone to the trouble of putting up a website just to try to compete with and make fun of the 'script kiddies' she keeps ranting about. Sounds like attention or sympathy seeking to me.
If you want respect 'Raven', try doing what you do without making such a scene out of it. I mean what level is she really on. I thought she'd be better than that. Oh and also lose the name Raven (assuming that's a nickname). Is there something wrong or disturbing or embarrasing about your *shock* real name?
This isn't sexism. It's a bunch of
She's dressed all in black, with really cool boots! Everybody knows that only the coolest and most 1337 dress like that! Even if your actual skillz totally suck, if you dress all in black then you must be 1337!
If it's any help, that'd probably be defined as 'liberal feminist' if it helps, though you probably knew that if you know foucault... went to school with a bunch of women's studies majors. By the end of college, we had what was called the 'western accent' (we were in the Western College Program at MU). People in the Western program... spoke... with... great ...deliberation... because... every ... word... had ... meaning. *gah*
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
It's really nice to know that whatever I can do technically, that it's my cup size that really matters.
I sympathise, knowing as I do that women never joke about male bodyparts.
I'm 28.
I'm 38. That doesn't matter either.
I do backbone security, incident response, vulnerability assessment, and pen-testing. I work in varying capacities with Nessus, Snort, and the Open Source Vulnerability Database.
Whoopee. You must be so proud. The rest of us are scratching our heads, and wondering how to open the box our Packard-Bell was just delivered in.
Honey, if you have to tell people how great you are, you're not great.
And fuck you.
No thanks, I married somebody much classier than you. But hey, thanks for the offer!
I tried studying CS at my university and found it didn't interest me as much as it did when I studied it on my own (hence my becoming a sociology major ;) - perhaps because I'm much better with projects than tests, and the classes I took were centered mostly around tests. I'm still interested in learning more about programming and "how things work" in general, however.
Well I tutor in CS subjects at my university, and write a lot of software for my own research into biology and complex systems in general. I was never the best at CS subjects as an undergrad (though I did Ok). It wasn't until I found some applications for what I was learning that it all made sense, and became a lot more fun. I suggest you find something you find interesting (a problem in sociology?) and pick the best language for the job, and learn that language and also the fundamentals (data structures, conditions, parameter passing, software design) as you go. The fundamentals are really the key to switching languages easily, and learning paradigms from other languages (Haskell, Fortran, Prolog, etc) really feeds back into a deeper understanding of the fundamentals.
books, books, books! At least, that's the way I like to learn these things. I found 'Unix Shell Programming' by Kochan & Wood was both a good way to learn shell scripting and programming techniques more generally.
I should point out that I'm in a similar boat, poking my way through programming at my own slow pace, and that I have a very, very long way to go. Nevertheless, I've found that working in one easy(ish) language at a time based on books like the one above or even O'Reilly's 'Learning $Language' series has been very effective. Stick with python is my advice, it's simple, object-oriented (if you want it to be!) and very powerful.
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
-- Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
Very true! Application is the key. A widely acknowledged idea in linguistics is that motivation is the key to learning a new (natural, ie human) language; I suspect that a very similar process goes on with computer languages. Fair enough too, there's only so much 'foo' and 'wibble' that anyone can take. Although, if it's Python, at least the Flying Circus references can keep you amused for a while...
Personally, I found that playing with computational linguistics, natural language processing and the like were the keys to really understanding 'the fundamentals', as it allowed me to connect my degree in linguistics with my self-taught computer skills.
Also, try reading "Goedel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid", by Douglas Hofstadter. It's mind-expanding in many ways.
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
-- Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
But you'll be feeling the wrath shortly. The price we pay...
From this page:
There you have it, pal. She's a female nerd who doesn't want to be treated like a female, only like a nerd. She wants to be one of the guys. Let me spell it out for you: She's probably a lesbian.Okay, so you don't want to specialize at the moment. Fair enough. I am assuming that your wanting to understand "how things work" is programming in general and not security programming/code audit?
In short, find something that you are interested in and take it apart. [grin] You don't necessarily have to follow a structured academic program to become proficient in a field, whether your intent is to make it your hobby or to make it your profession. My academic background is entirely not in CS, and though I have many friends in CS academia, what they do can be very different indeed from what I do day to day. I learned mostly by experimentation and research on things that I was interested in.
So, find something that you like. Look at the source code, if it's available. Try to figure out what does what. Change things around, and see if you can make it better. One of the best ways to learn for many people is by doing. If you don't know what needs doing, volunteer for a project that is already established and is looking for people. Open Source is so helpful this way -- it feeds your resume *and* helps the community.
My first programming language was Perl. I was told by many geeks that this was a bad choice -- it would give me bad habits if I ever wanted to move to a language with a more rigorous structure. They were right, but it was both a good and bad thing. When I started doing C, and in particular when I started poking at kernel code, I had a lot of extra learning to do. But Perl was still a good way for me to start, because when I started programming I wanted to do quick scripting, not kernel hacking, and the flexibility of Perl was great for me.
You're getting shocked by immature comments on slashdot? Is this your first time here?
Did you actually read the article that Raven wrote and linked to? It was quite insightful...
Jericho and Kevin are the only remotely interesting subjects in this list.
Mudge is a fraud, but great at PR and self-promotion.
Mudge and his cronies portrayed themselves (to the U.S. Congress no less) as expert hackers who could crash the internet in 5 minutes if they 'wanted to'. If this statement had any validity (it doesn't) he would be remembered for inventing something better than a hash brute forcing tool (L0phtCrack) that any semi-decent college educated programmer could turn out in less than a day.
His bullshitting didn't go unrewarded. The company L0pht founded got big VC funding during the dot-com stupidity. Stupid reporters like the ZDNet one just perpetuate the myth that these people have any clue at all.
-Signed Angry Old Security Man
Jeez lady, learn how to take a compliment. If I ever read on slashdot how 1337 my H4X0r|n is in the AND how big my chocholate salty balls are(and they are) I'll die a happy freaking mad 1337 H4X0R.(which I obviously is) I think your pretty much a sure thing in the next anual Miss /. pagent.
So anyway, watcha up to this weekend, I know this great sushi bar. And since your a feminist I'll even let you pay.
Far from my first time here, but the first time I bothered to get a login, yes. [grin] I knew someone was going to bust my chops for that.
And no, I wasn't shocked by the immature comments, but I gave the trolls one reply. Why? I'm not interested in an extensive flamewar, but a lot of women just shut up and look uncomfortable when stupid sexist bullshit happens. So, that was my token protest. I'm not intending on feeding them any more, and I doubt I changed any of their minds, but I probably made a few lurking women feel better.
Is she a furry or something?
So ok that was good, and it makes me sad I have no mod points left! The packard bell crack made me laugh but the "classy" thing? D*U*D*E*! talk about spit! karma my man, karma!
What and miss out on the current hair style that david beckham has ???? or the fact that he has (or has not) been doing his pa.
I remember, back when I lived in the DC area several years ago, I went to the wedding of an aquaintence of mine (a friend of my friend Cat). She was this girl who was just learning C and invited me to be part of her CCNA study group. Being in the middle of one the most antisocial periods of my life, I just kind of dropped off the face of the earth (and eventually moved to Seattle). Now I see articles about her on slashdot. Raven, if you remember this long haired, antisocial, larval stage techie named Joe, drop me a message.
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
It's actually kinda spooky - I glanced over the article, saw the picture and thought, "Hey! She looks exactly like my ex-girlfriend!"...
So, I then read the article properly and she sounds almost exactly like my ex... if it weren't for the fact that she's a couple of years older, certainly doesn't sound like she's got a complex about other people potentially being better coders than her (which is why my ex is my ex) and obviously has a different name, I'd almost hazard that she was the same person...
To all those who make comments about tit size and general appearance - a hint... when I was with my ex and people asked how I could "have such a gorgeous chick when I'm a geek" the simple answer is that it's BECAUSE I don't just view her as a "gorgeous chick" - when a woman's got geekish tendencies, there's far more things I find interesting about them than their breast size.
(Posted AC since I post less than once a year so never bothered making one)
Ummmmm..nothing personal but you see this all the time. Online gaming, IRC, ICQ, anything "comp-geeky"....
Look, 99.9% of all the people here are guys yeah? Chicks *generally* don't dig computers or Half-Life so when one does it's a novelty!
Seeing as a hell of a lot of "computer" chix look like they took a tumble out of the Ugly Tree and hit every branch on the way down, then when one appears that is strangely attractive the the feeding frenzy is on for young and old.
I don't mean to rain on your parade but if you didn't have those tits then no-one would give a sh*t what you thought.
Nothing personal.
cheers!
Just thought I'd point out the obvious - people who attempt to access computer systems without unauthorisation are crackers, not hackers.
She has a page with pictures of herself in best (and most cliched) goth-girl poses.
She does nothing that many, many others don't or can't also do.
So why all this attention?
Because she's female?
We should worship the very ground her big, black boots tread, simply because she does tech stuff and is a woman?
Don't give me any of that 'men are sexist pigs' shit.
She might as well have just posed naked with a laptop.
She is one of those girls you see from behind and think she is cute but when she turns around you have to look away really quick.
From the article: Gender is a non-issue... If there's one thing [Raven] hates, it's being type-cast as a "chick hacker".
What a fantastic way to start off an interview: with something the interviewee doesn't consider in any way important! Do these people actually objectively read what they write?
Obligatory Python reference: "And did you write this music in the sheds?"
If it's any consolation (and I'm sure it won't be) he wasn't thinking about whether he should hire you. So no, I'm guessing that your technical skills weren't especially relevant to his thought process.
Apparently she's bisexual. And she has a temper.
So yes, she probably does give good head. But not to you.
It's really nice to know that whatever I can do technically, that it's my cup size that really matters.
Actually for me, its whether you give head or go all the way. Cup size doesn't mean much to me. Being a security geek doesn't give me a boner either...
I don't get why someone that's intelligent would reply to such a post. The article mentioned you're sensitive on the "chick hacker" topic, but is it such a reflex to respond to trolls and ignorant people when there are things more worth your time?
Since you talk about this on your webpage, I'll write my opinions here. It's greatly unfortunate the chauvinism in computer science/engineering and the world in general. And while I'm sure that has impact on women entering the field, I think that's minor compared to other cultural factors.
Rates in grad school are probably a little different from undergrad and this is only one case, but let's look at my school. In the CSE department, only 26 out of 146 students are female (18%). Most statistics I've seen hover around 20% (for graduate and undergraduate engineering in general). Here, 65% of the grad students are foreign. While the US men hold at 38%, only 19% of the female are from the US. While China and India "only" account for 53% of the men, they account for 69% of the women. While China and India's percentages of women are still low (31% and 23%, respectively), it's much better than the rest (10%).
So either many women aren't finding this intersting, they find it too difficult, or there are cultural issues involved (or mixtures). So is the government (and society in general) not taking steps we should be? If so, what are they? The same can be said regarding male teachers.
Kids are already being told to fear math and science and find it difficult and boring, what other social factors need to be addressed to change what's being told to the girls? While chauvinism is a factor (and should be addressed just because it's wrong), I think there are many other issues (many of which I don't know) that need to be addressed before we can see any dent in the percentages. I mean, recent statistics (going on memory from 60 Minutes report) show girls getting better grades than boys in high schools and the majority of students at MSU are girls. So it's beyond just stressing education.
Generalities and stereotypes can be used very negatively, but at the same time, they are often indicative of something and they should be studied and learned from. Some believe they already know or don't care, however, too many people consider the issues too sensitive to even discuss. It's generally accepted that physically, top female athletes in many sports cannot compete with the top men. Our physiologies are different enough that men have the advantage and we know enough to explain much of that.
But what are the reasons for male to female ratios in top chess players and other mental/educational disciplines? Why do certain racial and ethnic groups score much higher than others in SAT and other standardized tests? How come Jews around the world (with a smaller population than my home country of Nepal, around 13 million to 26 million) hold more wealth, influence and power despite being persecuted almost everywhere they go?
However, the main people really "thinking" about these issues are male chauvinists, extreme feminists, racist bigots and anti-semitists/Islamic fundamentalists. That's not a good sign...
Anyhow, good job in the interview and I thought your answers were well said. Good luck on improving computer security and raising awareness of security. And good luck on changing the atmosphere of chauvinism (of course I'll do my part).
In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these. - Paul Harvey
Gotta be at least +4 Insightful!
Just alot of "Security Specialists"
Maybe knowing that she will always be the first promoted, praised and/or publicized simply because she is a woman in "a man's world", and therefore a darling of HR (which is itself the penultimate "woman's world").
I work with women in IT. Some are great. But many are like a lot of the men: mediocre at best. But they are always the ones on the HR and Management radar.
I put ability first. I don't want to work with or for an incompetent, and I don't care if they are male or female, nor do I care how they look.
In today's slash-n-burn corporate attitude towards staffing costs, I can't afford to waste time on flirting any more than I can afford to waste time with clueless co-workers.
If she's good at her job, she's good; if she's not, she gets no consideration from me whatsoever.
Just to give a specific place to start if one is interested about network hacking, or whatever you want to call it:
First, know what is a bit, byte, word, doubleword. What is big-endian and little-endian. What is a stack. How does a processor work in general.
Then, buy "TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 2". Read it through once.
Write a simple pcap based IDS to detect normal half-open portscan (syn-scan).
Now, write improve on your IDS to give no false positives on a server with undefined amount of undefined services.
Use the book you bought as a reference.
At this point, you should understand networks enough not to write bad networking code yourself, and perhaps detect such mistakes from source code.
Most likely you now know more about your chosen programming language too.
And as Raven said. Take stuff apart. Get a disassembler. If you'r on windows, I recommend IDA Pro. It ain't free, but damn its good.
Ps. I have never written any 'sploits nor disclosed vulnerabilities. I see potentially vulnerable code daily, but I have too short attention span myself to actually prove it.
Bot Assisted Blogging
When did women become a minority? Deserve equal rights - yes. Deserve right to be seen for who you are and not what you are - yes. Last I read 51% of the population was female - some minority.
Dudette, never under estimate the importance of allure. A bloke might be involved in technically challenging work too, but seldom is he also appreciated for the size of his saggy-man-breasts.
Didn't she just say she objected to comments about her...oh..."boots"...nm.
We all know hackers are physically unfit males aged 13-19 with pasty faces and no social skills. :o)
Hopefully this whole series will give the "mainstream" a kick in the sternum by challenging their pre-conceptions about 'hackers'. They've certainly picked a great opener.
Nerd ;o)
She looks like an older version of Drew Barrymore.
I wanna see what there gonna write about Lamo and Mitnick.
$>man woman
$>Segmentation fault (core dumped)
So when do we get to see some articles on the people that really do matter?
Why is it that programmers get no love? What about the programmers who have changed/influenced culture within the last decade in gaming, corporate, or home use.
*tear* all people want to do is tear our software down and praise the people that do it *tear*
Resume link in the menu of http://www.oneeyedcrow.net/ is broken, but the one in the body of your About Me page is just dandy. :o)
Anyone got any raven nude jpegs?
The article's author? Who told him they were 1337? Some guy in the street? The Wall St Journal? His subjects? I know which one I'm going with.
In my experience, the less skilled you are, the more you compensate by trying to prove otherwise. And if you really are skill-challenged, the only way to make others think you aren't is to tell them otherwise. And if you tell enough people, the few who know better are lost amidst the hordes who will take you at your word.
None of these people is better than the vast majority of those in the same field, and I suspect they are worse than most. But slap up a website and dazzle a credulous and clueless journalist in search of a story with a good line of hackneyed 1337-sp34k, and you will be proclaimed a Guru.
Interview who?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
They might have gotten a better responce that way.
Again with the stereotypes. Not all CS/Hacker/Technophile women are ugly. I've found it's usually the other way around and that most of them are damn nice looking.
r esume.html
Another example of a "CS/Hacker/techophile" chick:
And her Resume: http://www.plur.net/~rachel/resume/rachel-warren-
Ummm, No. You are confused. The Whacked Mac Archives which was run by the L0pht was run on a Mac SE for a short time. The actuall L0pht website started out on a Sun box originally (Sparc5 I think) before it was moved to a generic Pentium box with a clock crystal from a video card making it run at something like 137.5MHz with OpenBSD.
When the WMA was on an MacSE everything went through a 128K dialup ISDN line. Needless to say the computer was not the bottleneck. The WMA eventually moved to a Mac IIci and then to a Quadra 610 and finally resided on a 6100.
If your looking for a trip down memory lane you can still visit the mothballed WMA just without the files. Two risky to host the files these days not to mention bandwidth costs.
- Space Rogue
Damn image didn't link.
l -v isits-boston/rachel-smiling.jpg
http://www.plur.net/~rachel/pictures/2003/rache
I remember getting into it with a friend of mine back in high school about the fact that there weren't any "real" hackers. His argument (though not so eloquently spoken at the time) was that the term "hacker" was essentially a media creation, and something only used to get ratings. In other words, whenever someone was brought out into the media as a hacker, they instantly and graciously accepted all the attention, therefore making themselves quite the celebrity. At the time of the argument, I disagreed with him. But now, it doesn't seem to be anything less than the truth. I mean, you gotta think of where these people come from. All this attention is what they crave; getting caught to them is all part of the fun. They might profess themselves to be "liberators of information" or whatever the hell they want, but when it comes down to it they love having their face in the spotlight. It's been my belief that the "hackers" are the ones that NEVER get caught; they know sure as hell what they're doing is illegal and they DO NOT want to get nailed for it. The real "hackers" are the ones we'll never hear about. These folks, on the other hand, just see like people dying for attention. They rely on the uniformed, computer un-savy media and viewing public to place them on pedestals as computer geniuses, when in fact all they are doing is exploiting a few security flaws here and there.
--
Is it me, or did it just get fatter in here?
"Excuse me, miss Alder, its the 90's on the phone, and they'd like they're [grin] tags back."
Now, I have a question that is partly in jest and partly in which I would really like to know the answer. If you started programming in Perl, how on earth did you ever stay interested in programming? I'm a "learn by example" when it comes to new languages, but unless I'm sitting next to an O'Reilly book, there isn't an example in the world that makes sense to me.
Did you ever find the "new" slogan for perl - "There's more than one way to do it, but they're all wrong." ??
You don't have to reply, its all good.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
She's into scat. Nothing like being jacked off to brown lube....
But that doesn't make it any less a losing battle. Arguing on the Internet, Special Olympics, driving a point through the thick layer of bone shielding the miniscule forebrain, etc.
But your boots are unspeakably awesome.
-Carolyn
Like Daddy always said: if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit.
She took college classes at age twelve and graduated before normal people even finish high school. She knows OS internals and TCP/IP inside out. She's a clever girl.
Just because some people are script kiddies doesn't mean everyone has to be.
I don't know about any of you... but an intelligent, hot chick, who can kick my ass while drinking chai... that's my kind of woman.
Why worry? Each of us is wearing an unlicensed "nucular" accelerator on his back.
Sig changed for readability by G.W.
Oh and also lose the name Raven (assuming that's a nickname). Is there something wrong or disturbing or embarrasing about your *shock* real name?
That's a very good point, Anonymous.
lame article. flat. non-inspired. they talk about exactly the things she doesn't like people to talk about. and "in her spare time, she downs chai while arguing philosophy with friends." i mean, i guess all of our lives are like this, but why trivialize? anyway, i could've done much better.
All feminists don't necessarily agree... just like "hacker" can have a whole bunch of different connotations, so can "feminist".
Yep. I believe in "equal rights" but I would never call myself a feminist.
I think egalitarian is a much better term to use, and much less likely to come back to haunt you.
The term feminist, is irrevocably assosciated with a social movement that has not always displayed the best behavior.
"A woman reading Playboy feels a little like a Jew reading a Nazi manual." -Gloria Steinem
And, like many other minority groups, we are often known by our extremists.
It's also worth noting that women are NOT a minority group.
I think that makes it all the more important for those of us who *aren't* extremists to use the term rather than abandon it.
I think it would be more important to examine the beliefs of those who created and defined the term and decide if you agree with them. Even the less extreme feminists, like Steinem have opinions that you might not agree with. Like this tidbit:
"I've yet to be on a campus where most women weren't worrying about some aspect of combining marriage, children, and a career. I've yet to find one where many men were worrying about the same thing." -Gloria Steinem
Forgive me if I actually respect a mother who raises her own child.
Life is too short to proofread.
My wife and I were in Butler, PA about 2-3 years ago to consult a doctor. We arrived early, and decided to wander around a bit and grab a bite to eat.
So, we walked by a storefront with a sign on it that said "Attrition". I glanced in the windows, saw a bunch of hardware, and took a few more steps before I realized "Hey... I *know* who that is!" I went back and poped in with my daughter, just to say hi. Gist of the conversation:
What really registered with me was that here was a fairly well-known web site, being run out of Butler, of all places. No need to live in NY, LA, Chicago, Boston, or any of those other urban sprawls... just find a nice town, get yourself a net connection, and you're in business.
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
Last month I had the privelage of watching a small hacking competition as part of a larger defense contractors conference. (Southeastern Software Engineering Conference). The had a small network set up to simulate a corporate network and teams attempting to attack it. The team that did the best was a red team from Northropp Grumman (which someone said won the Defcon capture-the-flag competition though I never looked it up).
The thing is, their strategy seemed to be to map the network, then run pre-packaged attacks appropriate for the specific device, then install a backdoor and repeat launching off of the machine they'd taken. Security experts in all their interviews repeatedly state that it is undesirable to do this, (ie, use previously written code for the bulk of their pen testing/attacks). Is there a disconnect between what security experts say and what they actually do?
(I do want to add that the team that won was very impressive, taking about a box an hour through the 6ish hours the contest was run. There was a very small time frame which might have necessitated the canned attacks. But the network was representative with at least 1 dedicated firewall, IDS, and honeypot and computers running windows, linux, and solaris. All with reasonable patching.)
I do security
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Perl is great for hackers, or for anyone who can use their brain.
For everyone else, there's always Java and VB...
I used to spend some time teaching science to kids in camps. One of my regular little demonstrations was using electrolysis to seperate water into hydrogen and oxygen. The lead in to it all was to go through the old debate as to whether a substance could be infinitely divided, or were they eventually get divided down into an indivisible unit.
These kids were about 13-14 years old and from very poor negihborhoods. One day a girl pointed out that the problem with infinite division was that when you reassembled an infinite number of pieces you would end up with infinitey. I complimented her on that insight and could kick myself to this day for singling her out -- she looked very embarassed, the boys got on her for being a brainiac, and she never returned.
Very depressing to see peer pressure exerting itself in such a negative way.
For Adrian Lamo, the so-called "homeless hacker", there was no turning back after discovering how to make both sides of a 5.25in floppy disk writable at the tender age of eight.
Uh... Who didn't figure that one out the second they saw the notch cut into one side of the floppy? After all "double-sided" is a dead giveaway. It's a pretty logical conclusion to come to, especially since mini-casette record-protect tabs work on the same principle. I guess this makes me and all my friends "hackers", because not only did we figure this out, but we already had modded hardware and programs for breaking copy-protection and copying disks by that age.
...you sure go out of your way to fit into a type. Goth dress, elitist techno-pretentiousness, gee if that doesn't fit the classic mold of "rebellious teen", then I don't know what is.
Oh, you're 28, not eighteen?
Oh, by the way, women are not a "minority". And you're white, so get off your downtrodden high horse.
I'm waiting to launch an illegal nuclear missile.
By Kevin Mitnick :P
I don't really intend this as a flame, but in my experience people who need to ask this question generally are missing the boat.
However, I can make some suggestions that may help. Many people are put off by the rigidity and overhead of compiled languages. You can do some really neat stuff with shell scripts or a language like perl and yes even *gasp* VBScript, regardless of whether or not you use windows or linux.
For some, web languages also do the trick, usually in accordance w/ PHP/ASP and javascript. Open Source programs may also be able to get you interested. Download some small, narrowly focused programs (IE dont start w/ larger programs like KDE or emacs even though they are 'sexier') and check out their source.
If you are not self motivated just out of curiousity, which judging from the fact that you had to post the question I dont think you are, I think you should find an itch to scratch, or do some small easy projects you find interesting. Ive played with XMMS a bit, for example.
Raven went to Virginia Tech :-) Let's go Hokies! Even castrated turkies can be hackers, too. *gobble gooble*
First, a couple disclaimers:
1. Although I am a techie guy, I am not going to ask out, harass or bother you in any way, now, later, or at any time in the future.
2. I know nothing about your appearance or "cup size" or any other such thing, so this post isn't about any of those subjects.
Now, the question:
I've read your rant online, and some of the posts about you, and I totally understand where you're coming from. If someone was making off-color sexual comments about me, I'd be pretty furious too. ESPECIALLY in a technical forum. It's completely inappropriate, and well, a little bizarre besides. I mean, it's not what you would expect to see among professionals.
However, I do have a question: setting aside the insane harassing comments, do you get pissed off when someone asks you out in a tasteful way (I AM NOT ABOUT TO ASK YOU OUT, I DON'T LIVE ANYWHERE NEAR YOU ANYWAY, THIS IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY)?
Because, and this is only presented as a techie geek's point of view, as a geek, well, most women hate virtually everything I do. They think it's, well, GEEKY. And since everything I do is technical (I'm pretty obsessed) I don't really relate to non-technical women either (the disinterest is mutual).
So, if I were to meet a technically savvy woman, it wouldn't be about her appearance or cup size, I'd be smitten by the fact that she's LIKE ME. And, it would be very hard for me to NOT ask her out.
Herein is the conundrum. The only place I would meet a technical girl would be at a technical event. But if I read your articles correctly, so much as asking "Hey, your ideas are kinda cool, wanna get some dinner" would result in a swift kick in the balls, which would kinda ruin the rest of the conference.
So, my question is, is the hostility I'm perceiving reserved for the people who are assholes about it? Or is it directed at any guy who dares take an interest? Seriously.
I would like to sincerely apologize in the name of the entire Slashdot community, most of which sadly consists of people not only utterly infantile but also insultingly unintelligent, as I am sure you have already noticed. I can assure you that even though I personally find you very attractive, I will avoid commenting your undoubtedly exceptional beauty nonetheless, for I am myself hardly sexiest by any stretch of imagination. Let us therefore go straight to the meritum and talk about one thing that really matters, i.e. software.
That is very impressive indeed. It is certainly inspiring to hear that someone of your intelligence, skills and experience chooses to work with free software tools. I would be very interested what is your operating system of choice and what do you think about Debian GNU/Hurd, Keykos, EROS and OpenBSD, as a general operating system design as well as the security implications thereof. I look forward to read more of your texts on Slashdot from now on.
Please don't lower your high standards to match those poor simpletons (or "trolls" if you will) who seem to enjoy shamefully insulting any woman which is much smarter than them. They just sicken me. You will see that surprisingly high percentage of Slashdot users could be described as nothing more but a room-temperature IQ crowd. In fact, it is surprising that those illiterate imbeciles can even write.
The idea that Slashdot is an "elite" of any kind is simply laughable in its naïvete. I can only suggest you to ignore all of those foolish morons, for they don't deserve any of your attention whatsoever. Clicking on the circle next to the username you can mark any user as a friend or foe, and set positive bonus for friends and negative for foes in the People Modifier section of your Comments Preferences page.
Going back on topic, I have one more question: Could you tell us how did you do it that all of your posts are rated as Score:5, Insightful or at least Score:5, Interesting? I find it very intriguing. Have you found a vulnerabilty in the Slashcode itself? Will you disclose it?
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
>Thanks for a thoughtful and intelligent comment. It's refreshing.
:-)
Always happy to provide, and I can see your position on this.
Glad to see you're not the book-burning type, rather quite the opposite.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
The main problem is that feminism has become synonymous with "gender feminism". The idea that men and women are identical in everything except anatomy is pretty fundamentally flawed, and is an unfortunate side-product of blank-slatist thinking. Which leads to thoughtless man-bashing a la Steinem.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
And you've already racked up more karma than I've gotten in 3 years of lurking with the occasional post.
I have found there are just two ways to go.
It all comes down to livin' fast or dyin' slow. -REK, Jr.
This would be a lot more persuasive if you had posted under YOUR real name, you hypocrite.
She won't reply to your e-mailed entreaties, the flowers you send to her office, or the poetry you dedicate to her on your website. Some here have decided that licking her boots might do the trick, but don't count on it. She's just like every other chick who gets her picture on a page someplace: if you ain't rich, you don't have a chance.
Yeah, 'Raven' would probably try to have sex with her.
Half of my post was interesting, and the other half was humourous. It's unfortunate that you couldn't determine which was which.
I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.
How do you know about my poetry? And who said I am not rich?
Wait a minute, is that some kind of a joke? Quite a distasteful one if so...
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
So what does a man who believes in equal rights call himself then? The feminist tag is problematic in itself, as it creates a divide between the genders rather than uniting all people (male, female, transgender) who believe in equal rights regardless of gender.
> Anyone got any raven nude jpegs?
No. Strangely images.google.com/images?q=Raven+Alder don't give any pictures of her, nude or otherwise. I call bulshit. What is her real name?
Here is a better photo, of her at defcon 8, with some nerds.
Oh god, she's fucking hideous. Damn I need glasses.
Ah, these female hackers always look like men when you get close up. They try to cheat by gothing themselves up so much that you can't tell, but you can if you look closely.
Day 2 will be Attrion.org creator, Jericho
Jeriho was at Attrition. Muge was at l0pt.
Fuck you, you ugly goth whore.
I'm sure you're just an AOL n00b that goes into BBW chatrooms and pretends to know about Open Sores (Lunix, not herpes).
You're a fat fucking unattractive cow. I hope you have fun bashing the "conformists" with your goth friends as you smoke cloves and drink absinthe while dancing by yourself at 3am with the rest of the "conformists".
You fucking fat fucking whore. I hope you die and get AIDS you fucking STD ridden twat.
Please, do the real goth thing and go kill yourself.
You make me sick, fuck you, fuck you cow fucking whore fat bitch
You're going into a field traditionally occupied by a bunch of social defectives. Are you surprised?
(I do not exclude myself from being socially retarded, but I like to think I don't run around verbally grabbing asses.)