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PHRACK Final

Posted by Hemos on from the call-for-papers-and-so-much-more dept.

lbolla writes ""...a glorious era comes to an end. #63 will be _our_ last PHRACK RELEASE -- ever... Phrackstaff is pleased to bring you _our_ last ever call for papers for the final release of phrack. We are preparing for a hardcover and ezine release at a major hacker convention near you! We ask everyone to submit a paper. Great care will be taken to ensure that only the best articles make it into PHRACK FINAL.""

15 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. An extra bit for their issue counter... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... and we could have issues up to 127

  2. Re:WTF by incubuz1980 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Use http://www.phrack.org/

    I hate it when you have to use "www".

  3. _their_ last release by SimonShine · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Considering their emphasis in the official announcement, one is likely to think that they expect another body to take over the release, but haven't found any suitable. It is a common pattern to announce the end of something, then to discover this great possibility for a sequel. I have no doubt they're different.

    --
    Take off every 'ZIG' !!
    1. Re:_their_ last release by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      If life is a movie, I hope the Directors Cut doesn't suck as much as the original.

  4. Re:Who? by diente · · Score: 5, Informative

    Man, they made really a lot of big things, "Smashing the stack for fun and profit" in Phrack 49, its maybe the bible for actual Exploits ( BoF ). Or the Fyodor paper for Remote OS Detection.... Those where great times. In fact i dont know a single actual publication that has that professional level. Those people are real security specialist. I'll miss that e-zine

  5. Gone....for the moment by Red+Moose · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Phrack has been on a "final issue ever" several times. There's very little going on these days in it and the main contributors seem to be idiots with very little l33t sk1llz. Gone are the days of VAX hacking, the best techniques for trashing and how to make petrol bombs. These days everyone has open access to all of this information and more with google and basic internet. I wonder what happened to Taran King and Knight Lightning .......

    --

    Acting stupid isn't much fun when there's someone around who knows better

    1. Re:Gone....for the moment by Zocalo · · Score: 5, Interesting
      I wonder what happened to Taran King and Knight Lightning

      "Operation Sundevil", an attempt to crackdown on the Legion of Doom cracking and phreaking group, happened. Craig Neidorf (Knight Lightning), was indicted, subjected to search and seizures by the US Secret Service, brought to a jury trial and finally had all charges dropped by the prosecution. He's kept a pretty low profile ever since, or at least has been a lot more careful with covering his tracks. Taran King appears to have been spooked and dropped out of the scene around the same time, or is also being a lot more careful.

      In any case, there doesn't seem to be much on the pair since the end of the crackdown started by Operation Sundevil in the early 1990's. Perhaps this "final" issue of Phrack should include a "Where are they now?" article on past editors and other once prominent members of the Phrack community. Then again, given the number of convictions that were successful, that's not very likely to make for a very upbeat article about hacking to go out on, is it?

      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
  6. what happened to them? by th0mas.sixbit.org · · Score: 3, Funny

    Two words: burn victims.

    --
    twitter.com/gravitronic
  7. why? phracking is considered terrorism nowadays by t35t0r · · Score: 3, Insightful

    With a list of possible submissions including:

    - hacking
    - phreaking
    - spying
    - carding
    - reverse engineering
    - anarchy
    - conspiracy

    could all get you labeled as a terrorist, charged by the DMCA, and in general land you in GITMO. The homeland security bill and other draconian laws are the reason why this will be the last Phreak ezine. This is because all the good hackers have gone underground (any of these themes remind you of Farenheit 451?).

    It's sad when the free exchange of information, ideas, and determining security exploits outside of anonymity could get you into lots of trouble.

  8. Wow... af 4 months old dupe... by xtracto · · Score: 3, Informative

    No news... I saw it already in that 0-day news site...

    --
    Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
  9. Acetylene Balloon Bomb by ErichTheWebGuy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I've always gotten a kick out of this article in the first issue of PHRACK:

    http://www.phrack.org/show.php?p=1&a=7

    In it, the poster spells out a recipe for an acetylene balloon bomb. Fill up a plastic bag with acetylene, put some rocks in it, put some of those little fun-spans in it, then throw it out the window... Always cracks me up when I think about some fucktard throwing fun-snaps into a bag filled with rocks and acetylene/oxygen...

    Maybe it's because of articles like this that PHRACK is dead.

    --
    bash: rtfm: command not found
    1. Re:Acetylene Balloon Bomb by Husgaard · · Score: 4, Funny
      Maybe it's because of articles like this that PHRACK is dead.
      No PHRACK is alive and asking for submissions.

      It is because of articles like this that PHRACK's readers are dead ;-)

  10. Re:Who? by EZmagz · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I totally agree. Phrack used to be THE e-zine when it came to anything related to computer security and the like. As you mentioned, their buffer overflow in issue 49 is hands-down one of the best explanations of how stack overflows work, and is usually referenced in any current article dealing with the subject.

    One thing that turned me away from Phrack a while back (around Y2K-ish?) was the total lack of editing and their focus on newbish-related topics. Older copies of the e-zine contained a plethora of articles on advanced computer security topics, and were very well-written. Looking through the last few issues of Phrack it's painfully obvious that's not the case anymore. Current articles are geared towards script kiddies and are written in broken english.

    Of course maybe I'm just biased because I fell out of the "underground" scene around the time that the accessability of Phrack-related information became magnitudes easier to obtain and the scarcity factor was lost.

    --

    "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned for SEGA. ..."

  11. Put PHRACK in the schools by zbik · · Score: 3, Insightful
    It's easy to laugh at maladjusted PHRACK kiddies now, but it was partly thanks to its technical articles that I discovered my career path in the early 90's. I was at an age when many young males feel trapped by society and develop an undeniable desire to effect their will on the universe, often through such crude means as vandalism, setting fires, or blowing things up. Through a bundle of floppy disks full of PHRACK text files I became engrossed in learning the inner workings of the telephone infrastructure: trunks, LEC's and other mysteries behind the mundane.

    It was in this way that I came to an understaning that technology is not read-only; not simply a malevolent behemoth controlled by presidents and CEO's to manipulate a passive citizenry; but is in fact waiting to be created and tinkered with by such inquiring minds as my (former) self. Although my initial motives may have been anti-social I have since been able to contribute to society in a way that is, on balance, positive. I hope PHRACK continues to inspire others in the same way.

    That and Steven Levy's Hackers probably saved me from a destiny as an ineffectual philosophy professor or some other brand of malcontent fat-assed intellectual.

  12. Re:People still read phrak? by andreyw · · Score: 3, Informative

    I will second that. The GP just doesn't know what he is talking about. I have no experience with 2600, so I won't say anything about that, but recent Phrack issues are far from "omfg 1337 101".

    http://www.phrack.org/show.php?p=62&a=6
    http://www.phrack.org/show.php?p=62&a=12
    http://www.phrack.org/show.php?p=62&a=13
    http://www.phrack.org/show.php?p=54&a=7

    GP clearly must be kidding.