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After 20 Years, Phrack's Final Issue Looms

Posted by timothy on from the don't-renew-your-subscription dept.

akahige writes "According to BBC News, the legendary phreaking/hacker magazine is set to close up shop after the publication of its forthcoming issue, no. 63 (which will be hardbound in commemoration). The editorial staff is stepping down, and no one has expressed an interest in taking up the reins. Bruce Sterling is quoted as saying, 'I'd be surprised to see the thing stay dead. They've got no fixed address and anonymous contributors.' If you've ever wanted to helm a magazine, here's your chance!" (See this earlier story as well.)

7 of 125 comments (clear)

  1. Dupes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    dupe, dupe.

  2. Hacker mag quality decline by spitefowl · · Score: 5, Informative

    I've written a few articles for 2600, which seems to have a brotherly attitude towards Phrack. Though, some people consider 2600 to be Phrack-lite, which I can totally imagine. The quality of articles in both magazines have decreased slightly over the years. More so in 2600 imo. Could that be blamed on authors or just on subject matter? I think with the mass amounts of people that have access to both publications, mixed with the 'leet' people growing up into the professional world where this type of magazine may be frowned upon, leads to stale articles and "How to use Kazaa behind a firewall" articles. Either way, there's always a few good informative articles in either magazine, so it's sad to see one go. You could always read one of them, then go to the other for "the other stuff" without getting duplicate info. Now we just have to check out even more independent magazines, like Binrev (http://www.binrev.com/ and radioshows like RFA (http://www.oldskoolphreak.com/).

  3. Re: Help by makomk · · Score: 4, Informative

    A lot of people don't seem to have got the joke

  4. Re:Torrent by tomjen · · Score: 2, Informative

    Not exactly a torrent but:
    for x in $(seq 1 62)
    do
    wget http://www.phrack.org/leecharch.php?p=$x
    done

    --
    Freedom or George Bush
  5. SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE: arrested for $13 documen by putko · · Score: 5, Informative

    Some things never change! FTFA:

    Phrack editor Knight Lightning, aka Craig Neidorf, was arrested, charged with fraud and tried before a grand jury for reprinting most of a confidential document, known as the E911 document, stolen from the Bell South telephone company. Bell South claimed that the confidential E911 document contained sensitive information and put its value at $80,000.

    The case became a cause celebre for the digital underground and Mr Neidorf's defence was organised by the fledgling Electronic Frontier Foundation.

    The case against Mr Neidorf collapsed when it was shown that the E911 paper could be ordered by phone from Bell South for only $13.

    --
    http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_s tone_your_children/dt21_18a.html
  6. Re:Torrent by wirah · · Score: 1, Informative

    Bash script. vi get.sh paste those lines into vi exit vi (:wq) chmod a+x get.sh ./get.sh reap the rewards.

  7. Right! And read all about it here by FunWithHeadlines · · Score: 3, Informative
    Indeed, in the courtroom, Bell South was embarrassed when they were forced to admit how they came up with that inflated number. If you would like to read more about this case, Phrack editor Knight Lightning, Phrack and 2600 itself, I strongly recommend The Hacker Crackdown by Bruce Sterling, which you can freely download from the link in whatever format you want.

    It also talks about the famous Steve Jackson Games court case, and lots of good history about the BBS days. It also talks about the first hackers, and believe me it goes far, far back, long before computers existed... Required reqading.