After 20 Years, Phrack's Final Issue Looms

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.)

Comments

Help

[MarkRose]

I'd take over the magazine, but I'd have no phreaking clue how. Any advice?

Re: Help

[Duke Machesne]

Well, you're going to want to use the left wire on your green box as the right wire on your handset. Dial '0' and then fire off the bat signal.

Re: Help

[makomk]

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

Re:Help

[GraemeDonaldson]

You misspelled "phorking" and "phast".

Practice what they preach?

[drspliff]

Again, SlashDot is prooving that it's no longer at the forefront of IT industry and geek news (as if we didn't know it already).. This story was out last week at the BBC..

The problem with looking for candidates to take over as the editorial team for the magazine is that they really should be 'inactive hackers'.

By this I mean that they should have the theoretical knowledge behind it to validate articles and write their own, but given the background of Phrack you just know that the FBI/CIA/MI5 will be paying a lot of attention to whoever steps up to take the role.

If the new candidate were ever to practice what they preach, you can be assured that they'll be looking for a new Phrack editor faster than you can say 'mandatory 20-year exemplary sentance'.

Re:Dupes

[aussie_a]

Actually, one of the links you included was included in the story, so I'd hardly call it a dupe. It acknowledged that it had been covered before, but the editors obviously felt the BBC article was worth mentioning (I also saw no mention of the offer for someone else to take up the e-zine in the previous articles).

I know calling dupe is a favourite past-time on slashdot, but how about we reserve it for when it is actually a dupe?

Hacker mag quality decline

[spitefowl]

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/).

Re:Hacker mag quality decline

[l0rd]

I would definatley agree with this. The cause of this (and the overal decline of quality in the "hacker" scene) is two things IMHO:

1) People entering the scene are getting dumber. While this could be said in general for the current generation (brainwashed by MTV, the whole No Logo thing etc. etc.), they are also being dumbed down by the computers/OSes they're using.

Windows is all click and play. Because of the internet theres no need to code stuff yourself (and therefore learn from it). Whereas in the old days one would pull out the debugger & hex editor when one wanted to crack a game, you can now just download the crack without problems. This is also true of all of the hacker tools.

Windows not having a standard built in programming enviroment (ala qbasic for dos) doesn't help either. While it can be argues that you can just install linux/bsd and be done with it, even linux is so easy to install these days any moron can do it without delving into how the OS itself works.

2) Like the article says, the learning curve is much higher for beginners. Before you can do something cool you have to learn a lot, essentially catching up with all the security progress that's been had these past couple of decades. It's not like the "good ol days" when you could just dial up/ connect to some system and use some arcane bug that's 2 years old to login.

I personally find this a sad state of affairs. It seems that few people in it for fun any more and only want a career as a "security consultant". :-(

Re:Hacker mag quality decline

[Crayon Kid]

1) People entering the scene are getting dumber. While this could be said in general for the current generation (brainwashed by MTV, the whole No Logo thing etc. etc.), they are also being dumbed down by the computers/OSes they're using.

[...]

2) Like the article says, the learning curve is much higher for beginners. Before you can do something cool you have to learn a lot, essentially catching up with all the security progress that's been had these past couple of decades. It's not like the "good ol days" when you could just dial up/ connect to some system and use some arcane bug that's 2 years old to login.

These reasons have always been there, in spirit if not in form. The dumb people never amount to anything more than script kiddies. And the beginners always have to learn a lot if they want to amount to anything.

It takes a special mix of curiosity, technical enclination and perseverence to make a hacker, regardless if he's hacking his dad's car engine or game protection.

So I'd argue that the reasons you listed lead to there being fewer hackers, not lower quality hackers.

Re:Hacker mag quality decline

[l0rd]

While I definatley agree with you that it takes a special mix of curiosity, technical enclination and perseverence to be technically capable you musn't also forget the gratification factor.

But you have to admit, to do something cool or new is a lot harder now just because a lot has already been done. Almost every vulnerability out there is a buffer overflow.

These days its a lot harder to just scew around with your computer within days of buying it and for example writing a crack in qbasic. You have to put in more effort than say 10 or 20 years ago.

Saying that however, there is now MUCH more information available freely on the internet than in the old days. Anything you want to learn you probably can. The whole thing sorta balances itself out.

BTW I get your point in that you don't call script kiddies hackers, but every since a certian movie about HACKERS came out it became cool and everyone and their mother wanted to do it. Therefore, I think there are a lot more clueless script kiddies out there now then before (or maybe it just feels like it ;-) )

Re:Hacker mag quality decline

[stanmann]

The letters are my favorite part, especially this format

Dear 2600
I w4nt to brake my skewls computer system, I no how to format a hard drive and run a r00tk1t. pls hlp me be 1337.

00bar h4k3r.


Dear klewless n00b
If you really wish to destroy, use an axe. Hacking is about learning and building.

Ed.

laughable

[halgorithm]

Hacker magazines don't die; they get detained by the Department of Homeland Security...

Slashdot should "helm" Phrack..

[inkdesign]

Why can't Shashdot add a "Phrack" section, being that Phrack content is contributed in a similar manor, and keep the party going?

Re:Slashdot should "helm" Phrack..

[sigmoid_balance]

Because comments like "I for one welcome our stack-smashing overlords", do not qualify in a hacker community. Who would be the editors? Come on, I see here complains about the editoring of slashdot as it is ... old news, dupe stories, plus as some of the other posters have said, a strong "hacker" culture is required to be an editor for something like Phrack. Slashdot is going down, quality-wise. I for one will not go for a Phrack which is the same. In my oppinion the parent is hugely overrated. Sorry mate.

Goodbye Phrack

[Afecks]

The editorial staff is stepping down, and no one has expressed an interest in taking up the reins.

Each year the articles get goofier. However, I don't think that was really a bad thing, just not a very good source of technical information.

Luckily there is still the 29A zine. Always a great read but it won't show you how to get free soda.

Re:Torrent

[tomjen]

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

SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE: arrested for $13 documen

[putko]

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.

How about Slashdot?

[LS]

Anyone willing to take over Slashdot? They've been asleep at the wheel for a while here too...

This is really the end!!

[Spez]

Slashdot coverage of the "lasts final issues"

may 30th : Phrack Final, #63
January 22nd : Phrack E-zine comes to an end #63

I hope it's...

[Viraptor]

I hope it's only part of next issue - "messing with media for fun and profit"...

Re:Wouldn't look good on your resume

[kyoorius]

If I was hiring some IT guy, I would first do a search to see if he was reading and posting messages on Slashdot during work hours, such as the guy above.

Re:Dupes

[m50d]

I know calling dupe is a favourite past-time on slashdot, but how about we reserve it for when it is actually a dupe?

You're new here, aren't you?

Right! And read all about it here

[FunWithHeadlines]

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.

Memmories...

[Anonymous Coward]

This post reminds me the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on them. "Give me five bees for a quarter," you'd say.

Now where were we? Oh yeah - the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...

Copy of the final issue

[akad0nric0]

It would be nice if the Phrack editors would make the bound final issue available online for a reasonable fee. I won't be able to get to where it will be available, but would love to have a copy.

Given that the roots of Phrack and the EFF are so closely tied, it would be a great gesture to donate any profits made from online sales to the EFF...

It's sad to see such a historical element of a sub-culture that so influenced me fade away. Here's hoping 2600 can keep it alive.