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2600 Profiled: "A Print Magazine For Hackers"
HughPickens.com writes: Nicolas Niarchos has a profile of 2600 in The New Yorker that is well worth reading. Some excerpts: "2600 — named for the frequency that allowed early hackers and "phreakers" to gain control of land-line phones — is the photocopier to Snowden's microprocessor. Its articles aren't pasted up on a flashy Web site but, rather, come out in print. The magazine—which started as a three-page leaflet sent out in the mail, and became a digest-sized publication in the late nineteen-eighties — just celebrated its thirtieth anniversary. It still arrives with the turning of the seasons, in brown envelopes just a bit smaller than a 401k mailer."
"There's been now, by any stretch of the imagination, three generations of hackers who have read 2600 magazine," Jason Scott, a historian and Web archivist who recently reorganized a set of 2600's legal files, said. Referring to Goldstein, whose real name is Eric Corley, he continued: "Eric really believes in the power of print, words on paper. It's obvious for him that his heart is in the paper."
"2600 provides an important forum for hackers to discuss the most pressing issues of the day — whether it be surveillance, Internet freedom, or the security of the nation's nuclear weapons—while sharing new code in languages like Python and C.* For example, the most recent issue of the magazine addresses how the hacking community can approach Snowden's disclosures. After lampooning one of the leaked N.S.A. PowerPoint slides ("whoever wrote this clearly didn't know that there are no zombies in '1984' ") and discussing how U.S. government is eroding civil rights, the piece points out the contradictions that everyone in the hacking community currently faces. "Hackers are the ones who reveal the inconvenient truths, point out security holes, and offer solutions," it concludes. "And this is why hackers are the enemy in a world where surveillance and the status quo are the keys to power."
"There's been now, by any stretch of the imagination, three generations of hackers who have read 2600 magazine," Jason Scott, a historian and Web archivist who recently reorganized a set of 2600's legal files, said. Referring to Goldstein, whose real name is Eric Corley, he continued: "Eric really believes in the power of print, words on paper. It's obvious for him that his heart is in the paper."
"2600 provides an important forum for hackers to discuss the most pressing issues of the day — whether it be surveillance, Internet freedom, or the security of the nation's nuclear weapons—while sharing new code in languages like Python and C.* For example, the most recent issue of the magazine addresses how the hacking community can approach Snowden's disclosures. After lampooning one of the leaked N.S.A. PowerPoint slides ("whoever wrote this clearly didn't know that there are no zombies in '1984' ") and discussing how U.S. government is eroding civil rights, the piece points out the contradictions that everyone in the hacking community currently faces. "Hackers are the ones who reveal the inconvenient truths, point out security holes, and offer solutions," it concludes. "And this is why hackers are the enemy in a world where surveillance and the status quo are the keys to power."
At least USPS requires a warrant before they let anyone open your communications. The rest of the world might learn something from that fabled old institution.
"Hackers are the ones who reveal the inconvenient truths, point out security holes, and offer solutions," it concludes. "And this is why hackers are the enemy in a world where surveillance and the status quo are the keys to power."
That is delusional. I find it fascinating that the impression that hackers often have of the government is that they're so over-the-top powerful that they are keeping tabs on and surveilling a vast majority of the populace, while at the same time so utterly incompetent that one low level contractor can walk out the NSA's door with a bunch of files or some delusional Specialist can download a ton of files and send it to Wikileaks. The impression that hackers have of the government is a self-serving fantasy: they are "so powerful" in their massive surveillance, but not as powerful as the hacker who takes him down, so the hacker becomes more powerful in his own selfish image by taking down a more powerful entity.
The truth is the government doesn't give two shits about hackers and information releases in terms of their own power base; there are scandals but no power-enabling conspiracies that keep governments in power. The government cares about what the populace thinks, and the general non-hacker populace thinks hackers are geeks who live in their basements talking about conspiracy theories, or guys who break into their banks and steal their credit card numbers and identities. The government also cares when a hack reveals their intelligence processes so the real bad guys, people who want to cause chaos or kill people like terrorists or foreign agents, now know how to avoid being caught.
Seriously, what tangible benefit has come about from any of these big data leaks? Snowden's release only made it harder for the NSA and CIA to track terrorists as they recently claimed. It damaged the US' diplomatic efforts, and in many cases enabled dictators and bad governments to paint the US as the bad guy and the dictator as the savior from the meddling USA, keeping them in power (see Maduro and Venezuela). Sure, the mass surveillance program of US citizens has stopped, but has that resulted in an improvement of any US citizen's life? Do we have a better, more representative government system? (No.) Has it reduced the growing gap between the rich and the poor? (No.) Has it stopped mass arrests for things people did in their homes? (That never happened so No.) Has anyone been arrested of the crime of warrant-less mass surveillance? (No.) So what tangible benefit, in light of the detriments, has it resulted in? Nothing I can see.
But when I did read it, it was only on occasion, once every couple years. I found the left-wing politics distasteful.
It's just plain amazing, what qualifies as "left wing" these days.
You don't learn to hack, you hack to learn.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
and?
facing long jail sentances for doing what?
We can't even arrest spyware makers, spammers, and companies spying on you, but you can arrest some fucking kids for mucking around an exploring. Arrest is one thing. But given jail sentances on par with murder, for actions that are really no worse than distubing the peace, or disorderly conduct?
How about political activists doing the digital equivilant of an online sit in, facing charges be-fit a drug kingpin.
Lets also compare this to someone like Ray Rice who beat his fucking girlfriend. How much time did he get?
No, a long standing penchant for sticking up for a community being bullied is a good thing.
The box that told the network which coin the payphone received was a red box.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...