Slashdot Mirror
Fifth HOPE Conference Underway
The Fifth HOPE conference is starting today at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City. If you haven't heard of it, read through their website or see our report on the last conference to get some idea. The lockpicking talk is scheduled for Saturday morning, and Kevin Mitnick, Steve Wozniak, and Jello Biafra will all be speaking. Well worth your time and the $50 admission fee, so if you're in the Big Apple, come on down.
now call the FBI, we have all the h@x||'s in one place, get those terrorists.
If you meet Jen Savage tell her I said "Hi!"
To smack Kevin Mitnick? I know a lot of people that would like the opportunity to pop this attention whore that was trashed the name "Hacker". We could donate the revenue to the EFF to help support the fight for real hackers, not criminal posuer jerks.
Cool, so I don't have to worry about locking myself out of the car if I go :D
man, i wish i could go. kevin m. is like the ruler of the world! MA
Wow i wish I was there instead I am a slave stuck behind this damm keyboard. But when the FBi raids the place for everyone in there being a terrorist and they all end up in jail being held without a trial for supporting terrorist. I am sure HOPE also violates the DMCA in some way or another!!!
They'll have most of the first and second streams recorded and put online so if you can't make it, check back in a week or so and you can listen them.
I knew about this earlier...oh well, maybe next year
What the hell does Jello Biafra have to do with hacking? (Besides another weak attempt to prop up his ever-fading relevancy to anything.) Seems like this guy will do anything to grab for people's attention.
B
"I'm payin' taxes, but what am I buyin'?" -- James Brown
Pennsylvania Six Five Thousand.
Someone care to elaborate on what they stand for and what this conference is all about?
The intro page for them doesnt say much except talking about the upcoming conference and not about who they are..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
google makes him out to be a political activist and country musician. So whats he doing at a tech conference?
...for various things. Whew, those stats are moving up fast...
The Army reading list
I understand you geeks may not be into punk rock. I'm here to help.
Jello Biafra (real name: Eric Boucher; born June 17, 1958, Boulder, Colorado) was the lead singer for the Dead Kennedys, a punk rock band.
Biafra has used absurdist media tactics in the tradition of the Yippies to highlight issues of civil rights, social justice, and anti-corporatism.
In 1979 he ran for mayor of San Francisco using the slogan borrowed from a Jello ad campaign, "There's always room for Jello". His platform included such ridiculous points as forcing businessmen to wear clown suits. He finished fourth out of 10, gaining 3.5% of the vote, and the election was resolved in a runoff that did not involve him. Also in 1979 Jello formed the label alternative tentacles (http://www.alternativetentacles.com/)
Biafra was a swift critic of the Parents Music Resource Center, and has constantly criticised co-founder Tipper Gore.
In 1985, Biafra was brought to trial in San Francisco for distributing "harmful matter" in the Dead Kennedys album Frankenchrist. The jury was deadlocked, the judge declared a mistrial and ordered the charges dropped. The band broke up during the trial, but Biafra has since become a renowned "Spoken Word" artist, and an icon for anti-censorship groups.
He has released several spoken-word albums, including No More Cocoons, and is the lead singer of the band Lard, which has released several albums (The Power of Lard, The Last Temptation of Reid, Pure Chewing Satisfaction, and more).
He coined the slogan "Don't hate the media, become the media". Indymedia and related alternative media often use this line, or the now more apt "Don't hate the media, be the media".
In the year 2000, Biafra was drafted as a candidate for the Green Party presidential nomination, and a few supporters were elected to the party's nominating convention in Denver, Colorado. However, Ralph Nader was overwhelmingly chosen as the party's candidate.
Of note: Biafra was the name of a country which attempted to secede from Nigeria in 1966. After 4 years of fighting, and horrific starvation, Nigeria regained control of the nascent Biafran state. Jello Biafra came up with his name as a combination of a violent civil war and a consumer product.
Jello was featured and has spoken at many of the H.O.P.E. confrences(audio is freely available of these apearances)
(Taken from Wikipedia)
Which dead Kennedy? John, Robert, John Jr., or Ted's liver?
RomSteady - I came, I saw, I tested. GamerTag: RomSteady / http://www.romsteady.net
Who the wants to pay to go to NYC, and get harassed by facist policemen searching for bin Laden in every subway car ?
If I were holding a conference like this, I'd find some depressed mid-western or just rural city that is cheap as shit and as easy as possible to get to. A small college town might do; it would have to be close enough to an airport serviced by Southwestern for cheap flights, that you could run a shuttle van back and forth to get people to it.
For the venue, I would find an empty department store or closed factory that could be rented for a month or a couple of weeks.
Finally, you have to be close to a Motel 6 and within driving distance of cheap-ass RV parks.
With that setup, you could run a slightly longer conference and do some more interesting things. Like a "best mod to bzFlag written in 48 hours" contest. Or whatever.
I guess elite pretenious snobs wouldn't show up, though. Probably no Mitnick or Jello. I wouldn't miss them.
I was wondering why they use Chinese style pictures in their banners? Does that mean something? Or simply "We are at war with Eurasia"?
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
I can't make it, but I want to know more about lockpicking. Can anyone recommend any references? thanks!
done
From http://store.2600.com/2600hacker/
FIFTH HOPE TICKETS
NO LONGER AVAILABLE HERE!
Preregistration has CLOSED.
You can get tickets to the conference at the door.
On the other hand, maybe this is their idea of screening the attendees to weed out the chaff from the uber haxx0rs.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
http://fifthhope.blogspot.com/
We are taking photos at the event and will post asap.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
What i saw in the first fe lines of the main page was a discussion about the conference, not what these people represent..
I wasnt about to go searching for it, if their cause isn't important enough to them to make it 100% obvious....
---- Booth was a patriot ----
But on the other side, I wonder where is now and for them the border of what is allowed and what is not. Is this "hackers" ethics they define something too murky or it is non-existing at all? How do we prevent the "proceedings" about the "Distributed Password Cracking API" from their conference not going to the hands of terrorists whose next attempt will be to log-on to an airtraffic server? So, where is the balance?
And last, I had a look at their schedule - they have a talk "How to talk to the press". Isn't this is the same old rotten smell of socialism (greenpeace)? Next is to teach them how to lay in front of trains...
Jello Biafra (real name: Eric Boucher...
You forgot to mention that after the split up of the Dead Kennedys Jello went on to become a pompus ass. He turned from his ways of telling people to think for themselves to telling people what to think. Not that he's completely wrong but it's really sad to hear what Jello has to say today. Not to mention that he also sued thre ex-members of the Dead Kennedys for touring under the old name. Almost like the Pink Floyd Waters/Gilmour affair. Still, he may have something good to say, atleast he had something good to say at one point.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
for Jello...
Before I read the article, I thought 'Fifth HOPE' was related to that movie 'The Fifth Element'.
HOPE is boasting quite an impressive lineup of folks this year. I hope they offer videos again for the folks who can't make it.
I'm starting to get really disturbed by the politics going on right now.
There's nothing wrong with questioning your government. When you start blindly protesting every single action of the government, I think it's time to take a step back and get a little perspective on things.
I'm starting to think twice about going to HOPE next month. Last time I went (2002) it was *incredibly* political. Jello Biafra gave a talk, and said a bunch of things about the "Bush conspiracy"--stuff that was easily debunked as bullshit on snopes.com--but everyone there just ate it up like it was hard fact. Random people would yell out "Bush sucks!" and everyone would laugh like it was the funniest shit in the world.
I've never seen a better example of herd mentality in my life. This is free thinking?
This was before the war, and before I gave a shit one way or the other about Bush and his policies, and I was probably more than likely to say "fuck Bush" based on what I knew about him at the time... and I still remember looking around and thinking these were a bunch of anarchist-wannabe children (many of whom were well past childhood.)
This was supposed to be a gathering of free-thinking people... individuals. Instead, it was a bunch of scene whores trying to act cool in front of "all the other hackers"... spouting ill-informed mass-media opinions without any actual information to back it up. And then they have the nerve to talk about how fucked up the media is. Hah. I'd feel different if I had seen anything but eagerly nodding heads slack-jawed idiots drinking up the bullshit like it was gospel.
I donno, I'd like to go to HOPE, it'd be fun in some ways... but I just cringe every time I think of the immature shit that Emannuel used to spout on his radio show, and I can only imagine how much more political HOPE will be with the current assault on Bush. Something tells me I won't really enjoy myself too much there.
I bet money that they show Fahrenheit 911 in the screening room and spend endless hours spouting mindless propaganda. And no, I'm not trolling. I'm not even a republican. I just hate people who don't think things through for themselves.
Don't forget that he also stated many times that he was glad the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. He said it was a good thing and that their deaths were worth it because he was convinced that the Cassini space probe (now orbiting Saturn) might have released plutonium into the atmosphere if it had been on board.
Too bad for the families of the astronauts that he was able to seperate his politics from his humanity
I have had the misfortune of working with several members of 2600, including their leader Emmanuel Goldstein (Eric Corley). From my experience with them, they are full of self importance, and, a lot of the times ignorance. For the most part, you do not want to argue with them, because they are so stubborn, and, they feel they are the pinnacle of technical knowlege. Even if you tried arguing that 1+1=2, when they say 1+1=3, there is no way to win.
I could go on and on, however, this probably will be modded into oblivion, so, there really is no point.
The lockpicking talk is scheduled for Saturday morning
The lockpicking talk is given by Matt Blaze. I was lucky to attend his talk at my university. The paper he presented is avalable here.
Not only was his talk educational, it was very entertaining. He actually brough some "tools of trade", and had an interactive demonstration of master key picking. It was fun.
Go ahead, show up. What better way is there to end up on an FBI watch list?
Heh. You summarized my thoughts almost exactly. Jello is funny, but he's overly political and who wants to hear that kind of bullshit anyway once you get a taste of how meaningless political change is? Just gets the heart rate up to no effect.
All the bright eyed and bushy-tailed youth will be educated soon enough as to how pointless it all is.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
/duh
... with any full price purchase of Jello.
The shuttle can barely lift things to LEO, and you expect it to carry payloads that can get out of earth orbit and to saturn? It doesn't add up, makes the guy sound like a whacko.
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
Fahrenheit 9/11 Review
I paid my $6.50 and saw the film. The above is my full review.
----------------
The next conspiracy theory deals with the Bin Laden family. Moore pretends this is new information yet this was revealed long ago. The Bush administration has a relationship with the Bin Laden family. They're very wealthy oil tycoons. But they don't have much of a relationship with their son, Osama. On September 13th they were flown out of the country. What he fails to mention is that the flight restrictions were being lifted on the 13th. The reason they were flown out was because they were being harassed. Moore spends a great deal of time showing old cop films about interrogating witnesses. What Moore fails to consider is that while the Bin Laden family was flown out of the country for their own safety, they were not necessarily out of contact with the White House. In fact he doesn't even ask the question "has the Bush administration talked to them?" He never bothers to find out whether or not the Bush Administration is still in contact with the Bin Laden family. If Bush is trying to protect Osama somehow then it's pretty odd that the first official reports blame him and a war is started against him and his organization within two months. The other important point that Moore doesn't bother to consider is that it was not Bush that authorized the Bin Laden's to leave the country but Richard Clarke. On May 26, 2004 Clarke told The Hill newspaper:
"I take responsibility for it. I don't think it was a mistake, and I'd do it again."
...
"It didn't get any higher than me," he said. "On 9-11, 9-12 and 9-13, many things didn't get any higher than me. I decided it in consultation with the FBI."
http://www.hillnews.com/news/052604/clarke.aspx
I guess we can excuse Moore's ignorance on the issue since Richard Clarke came clean on it most likely after Moore had finished editing his film and history. What Moore also failed to consider is that fact that the Bin Laden family was actually talked to. But that's very inconvenient for Moore since those old cop movie clips provided a bit of humor for his farce.
------------
The FBI did actually talk to the Bin Laden family and then said it was okay to let them leave. Clarke then authorized their flights out. Whether or not the Bush Administration is still in contact with them (very likely) is never considered by Moore. That on top of the fact Moore never bothered to find out who actually let them leave the country or why.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Numerically, when considering floating point values as well as integers, the integer "1" constitutes floating-point values ranging from 0.5 to 1.4. Therefore, if you take the upper-bound range, 1.4, and double it, you get 2.8, which when converted to an integer equals 3.
Damien
Read, observe, understand, laugh.
Nah. The astronauts were intact when they hit the water (probably unconscious, possibly dead), but intact, and yet this mythical, nonexistent plutonium (in a sturdy shielded capsule) would have miraculously disintegrated and somehow, magically covered the whole of florida? Sorry. Ain't gonna happen.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Whatever.
I stopped by today to catch Bruce Schneier's talk on my lunch break, and enjoyed it. I plan to hit Steve Wozniak's keynote, the Retrocomputing panel, and a few of the more esoteric technical talks. I'm not really interested in hearing Jello Biafra's rants - I've heard them before and the similarities in rhetoric and careless disregard of fact to Rush Limbaugh are striking.
Yeah, there's a lot of political theater at HOPE - some of the posturing is really tiresome - but there are also a lot of very smart people. I'm going for the latter.
It's not going to be a Bush love-in, because guess what: the dominant groupthink in the self-declared "hacker" world is anti-authoritarian. I don't remember much love for the government being expressed at hacker conventions back when Clinton was president either - Clipper chip, DMCA, you name it.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
> Sure, if you hold it in Bumfuck, Iowa, it'll be a whole lot cheaper, but what are the attendees going to do between talks or after hours? Watch the corn? Cow tipping?
Good point. If people bring their spouses or children, they might want to do something else during the day...
I can think of something easier to access in the rural midwest than big cities: Nature. I know server room dwellers might not appreciate it but I can imagine horse riding, canoe trips, whitewater rafting, water skiing, hiking/biking trails, camping, cave exploring (spleunking), rock climbing, hang gliding, hot air balloon trips, etc.
Funny, I just happened to look them up the other day and found out about the legal mess. Its a really sad situation for everyone involved, and my opinion of all of them is much lower as a result. Its hard to separate the facts when all of the info I can find online is he-said-she-said. More info on the A.T. website and the 'official' band website.
My guess is Jello has gone off the deep end while the rest of the band grew up, got haircuts and just wants to get rich making music. Both of which are a sad endings to a truly great band.
http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
It would have been worse if the mission after the Challenger had exploded as it had plutonium onboard which would have taken out the entire state of Florida not just the shuttle. Which would you prefer: half a dozen people dead or an entire state obliterated in the blink of an eye?
Man, thats a hard question. Maybe if you changed it to a different state?
For a second there I though that they were talking about this HOPE. Let's see...the beach, girls in Bikinis, or Nerd-fest 2004. Tough call :-P
This is a depressing post to read. I'm supposed to be there now but after they tried rebooting the plane they still couldn't get it work and they had to cancel the flight. I'll at least be able to get there tonight and attend sessions Saturday and Sunday.
Please also recall that the other members of the DKs sued Jello for failure to pay back royalties and won. Because of this case Alternative Tenticles can no longer distribute the DKs albums and I think Cleopatra is the new distributor. For such an anti-corporate, class warrier he sure had no problem screwing his former band-mates out of money. ............Kill your idols indeed.....
My guess is Jello has gone off the deep end while the rest of the band grew up, got haircuts and just wants to get rich making music.
I think you're right about Jello, but as far as getting rich playing old DK songs? I find it hard to think that they may make enough from that to get rich. What I think is that the 'new' DKs is more a result of bad solo projects and the attempt to make a living as a musician. I'm sure they make rent but I doubt they're going to retire from the funds.
...and I'd be very surprised to find that any member makes more than 4 digits (legally) from album royalties. Let's face facts, the band is old. I loved them in the day and I love them now but I wonder if new punks really have the ties with bands like DKs, Black Flag or Minor Threat. I don't see many new punks embracing the old. I know I don't seek out new punk bands.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
I don't participate in the types of activities that these individuals will be droning on about. I don't make money in those areas. They are not part of my core business. I pay others to worry about security. It is FAR from being worth $50 to me. Keep your subjective statements about what subjective material is worth to yourself.
> Who the wants to pay to go to NYC, and get harassed by facist policemen searching for bin Laden in every subway car?
How about an Native American reservation then? Finding one with a casino might fulfill the need for a nightlife that others have mentioned.
> If I were holding a conference like this, I'd find some depressed mid-western or just rural city that is cheap as shit and as easy as possible to get to.
I think you're on to something. People are complaining about nothing to do, but consider The Burning Man. It's in the middle of the desert, for crying out loud! In the midwest, your spouses and kids could explore nature while you're hacking away: horse rides, biking/hiking trails, camping, fishing, etc.
> A small college town might do; it would have to be close enough to an airport serviced by Southwestern for cheap flights, that you could run a shuttle van back and forth to get people to it.
Don't forget about Amtrak or Greyhound either!
I can think of several college towns that might fit the bill: Urbana-Champaign, IL; Columbia, MO; and Lawrence, KS. I know all three have live music scenes. The computer science program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is considered top-rate. They also have a spiffy new building to show off.
Seeing as I had been looking forward to this con for a few months now, but recent events have turned my bankroll into mush so I'm stuck 600 miles away trying to ignore it. Mitnick is just banner candy now, but to shake hands and exchange intellect with the king of all geeks, The Woz.. would have been a fascinating moment.
Screw Dubya, Steve Wozniak for president!
-Billco, Fnarg.com
1 + 1 = 3
:)
As 1 -> approaches 1.5
Totally f-ing awesome. I wonder how many people took up the "kiss for a dollar" offer from that chick standing by the merchandise tables. It seemed that all of the girls were taken, but the ones that were there (and there were many more than I expected!) were exquisitely hawt and listening in on their conversations, I could tell they were hardcore.
/. commented that 2600 was too damn political and anti-Bush. I agree that it was anti-Bush, but it's because Bush is in the White House today. The next HOPE will either be more virulently anti-Bush OR it will be decidedly anti-Kerry. So if you skipped today, please, just relax and come on down and spend Saturday/Sunday w/ us. Guarantee you walk away knowing more than before you got there.
Keven Mitnick was there and it was awesome. The room was jam packed, look at the photos and realize that from the middle of the room, Kevin on the video screen was a single pixel speck that we could kinda sorta barely make out. Took him 10 years to get there, but he finally made it and got a standing ovation for it. Here's what I learned: Kevin Mitnick was able to literally outrun the Feds. How? Stair Master! It was so inspirational that I'm gonna pwn the gym every goddamned day from now til the day I die.
Here's something the rest of you may be interested in: Open Source Intelligence. When the populace is educated, the govt. can't pull the wool over the people's eyes. Robert Steele took a good long look at how badly the CIA got pwn3d, put together his extensive personal experience in govt. service, examined at the way Denmark, England, and Sweden conduct their intelligence gathering and decided that the OSS model was the best. Check it out, it's fascinating, even if the guy behind me during the Capt. Crunch presentation on spam enumerated evidence that Steele's presentation was a carefully set up recruitment effort for the Feds.
And who got owned? Some fucker owned my cell phone, but that's what I get for being a goddamned llama. Also, Bruce Schneier seemed unaware that TIPS hasn't really been eliminated... But unlike me, he's pretty goddamned cool, so I'm sure he'll get up to speed fairly quickly. One of the guys sitting next to me commented (and I agreed) that Schneier's panel was the best all day.
Another poster here on
[o]_O
Hackers On Planet Earth
Mind Booster Noori
There are more than a few comments here bashing the conference. Look, it's not perfect, but if you think you can do better, please do. As with all communities, there's some posing, sure, that's unavoidable. But when you listen to people involved in things like Prometheus Radio you can see it's more about sharing knowledge and experience. As far as Mitnick, you know, it's no secret he's a fan of himself. What do you expect? But, he held the crowd's attention, he speaks well, is funny and has insight about what he went through. It's not like 2600 put Wil Wheaton up there for God's sake. It's a good time with some good shared info, with a conscience, it is worth the $50 bucks.
Oh, it said "underway"... darn.
Umm... isn't it "underweigh"?
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
thanks. I happened to be wearing my Alternative Tentacles T-shirt. :)
Revolutions are never about freedom or justice. They're about who's going to be top dog. -- Kilgore Trout
I just hate people who don't think things through for themselves.
How much longer do we have to hear this tired mantra from everyone responding to someone else's opinion? It's an infuriatingly MEANINGLESS statement. Just b/c you agree with someone with a strong opinion doesn't mean you don't think for yourself; whether on the left, right or elsewhere.
The thrust seems to be if anyone agrees with anyone else, they haven't thought for themselves. People listen to like minded opinions to gain info, discover ideas, strengthen their own thought process etc. Sure, thre are plenty of sheeple out there, uncritical of anything thats dumped in front of them by any authority figure; but how you can tell that about a bunch of people just b/c they listen to Jello Biafra or Dubya, I have no idea.
Another fine product brought to you by the folks at Unstable Solutions(TM).
Some of us did go the culture route by supporting women in the arts.
I also did a study on mini-theater technology.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL