It's also about process more than product. A script kiddie is only interested in the end result. The fleeting sense of power or the rush when the FBI busts down their door and questions them and their parents for endless hours. Hacking is about process, a creative process. And you get a neat trick to show everyone at the end of the day but the important thing is what you've picked up along the way. Whether the hack has to do with prime numbers, computer security, music or cars, it doesn't matter. At the end of the day the difference is some people have soul (in terms of being funky, down, with-it, hip) and some don't. The ones who don't are cubicle monkeys at heart and will remain so for the rest of their days.
I think that the people who are taking this even semi-seriously should take the stick out of their ass and try this new k-rad hack I discovered. I call it "a sense of humor." Not the best title but it fits. Perhaps you can try it out, it's like a buffer overflow, there are lots of variations and endless opportunities for enjoyment. I believe in a full disclosure security policy so if I find systems susceptible I'll let the cat out of the bag, PRONTO! gid-foo
Dude, you are so wrong. Hacking chicks is by far the coolest thing any man or woman can set their sights on. It is truly the greatest hack possible by anyone out there. And the most satisfying. You get the long hours of problem solving while performing the hack and the resolution complete with sleepy chemicals that let you have a good rest. A long night of such hacking leads to knowledge that few have. It is only the weak minded that choose to explore systems easily understood. The truly enjoyable hack is the one that requires years of exploration and enjoyment. Prime numbers, distributed computing, and chicks gid-foo
Many many servers have been brought to their knees by this rouge band I see myself as more of a blue than a rouge. Rouge just seems so, oh I don't know, red...
Re:Is this guy on any of the Kook Lists?
on
Time Doesn't Exist
·
· Score: 1
I don't think this guy is a kook at all. From a cursory review of the sci.physics tree on deja.com he appears to be taken seriously. Are any of you actually physicists or merely opinionated. I seriously doubt that the majority of people calling Julian Barbour's reputation into question here are in any way qualified to make that judgement (not speaking specifically about the above AC just calling into question the reputation's of those who are casting aspersions). In the interest of full disclosure I am not a physicist and am in no way qualified to judge this man's ideas.
Well why don't you check out his web page. He seems to have some published work, although not much. Here it is http://www.julianbarbour.com/publications.html
I actually suggest we squelch all such jokes with responses like the previous. No one should be telling time related jokes without bringing into question the perceived nature of time, after reading this article. I think it's way funnier to watch the somewhat bewildered looks on people's faces when your punch line contains the words "Quantum" "Probability Mist" and "Platonia."
The religious argument is quite appropriate here in light of the worldview conflict. Dostoevsky said it best: "If God does not exist, then all things are permissable." You are leaving out the significant aspect of this quote, which is context. All things are permissable is only a small portion of it and in fact is a horrifying thing not freeing. It does not mean that you can do whatever you want but that you cannot be forgiven. There is no one and nothing to say that you mean anything, there is no "Why?," no essential being, there is only existence. And in the face of an alienating universe. Whatever you do, whatever wrongs you commit are yours alone. There is no forgiveness and no one who can understand you. You are utterly and completely alone. That is Dostoevsky's point. But we *know* deep down in our souls and bones, that right and wrong DO exist and all things are not permissable. I know nothing of the sort. I know nothing in fact, or rather all I know is nothing, meaningless. Inherently false. A lie. I have been taught many things throughout my life. Some of which have become part of my "instituted trace" some of which I have managed to elude. None of them are any more or less real than any of the others. I respect your right to believe what you want to believe and you could be right, who am I to say. (Hell, I'm not even an atheist). What I find somewhat irritating is the desire to somehow portray this as a logical or rational progression. That, like simple arithmatic, the existence of God is self-evident. When confronted with the essential absurdity of the situation you have decided to take a leap. There is nothing wrong about this or even embarrassing, faith is a valid response. Good luck to you.
Nietzsche didn't say anything about breeding super men. He was talking about a philosophical man and the extent to which the death of God affects our consciousness. He should never have been equated with Nazism and was massively misunderstood. The superman is the ultimate creation of nihilism and a result of the realization that we are fundamentally alien and alone in an absurd and existential universe (although Nietzsche wouldn't have quite put it that way). Nothing matters, morality and perception is essentially a lie and the superman will be the ultimate extension of this (see D.T. Suzuki for a killer buddhist version of this idea). gid-foo
It seems to me that burning the flag is the ultimate patriotic act I, as an American, can perform. To express my freedom is American and the ultimate expression of that freedom is to burn the symbol of it. I think the people who died defending our nation should be proud that we can openly burn the flag. If you meet the buddha on the road kill him kind of thing.
Or the U.S. where we pay our farmers to place their produce in the silo or dump their milk to keep prices up. It doesn't matter whether you acknowledge suffering or not. gid-foo
Well then it's time for you to do some research. Using one idiot journalists unsubstantiated and entirely biased opinion to base your fears off is well, baseless. You could try reading draft-ietf-ipngwg-addrconf-privacy-00.txt for starters and then go from there. The beauty of the IETF is there is no secret cabal. It's all there to be read. Try checking out the last 3 years worth of IPSEC stuff and the IPng mail list for further info. I'm sure everything is out there. gid-foo
However, by far the most important question I asked was one that you repeatedly brushed off, as if to say, "This does not compute!" It was: "How can you possibly expect me to be credulous enough to trust you?" The answer should be, don't trust anyone. At the end of the day this is the primary reason that open sourced security tools are the only way to go. You can't trust anything that you can't see. You are operating in an entirely hostile environment. There are hundreds if not thousands of companies producing software to be placed on machines in our networks. Much of that software is a potential security risk. Many of it far more malicious in many ways than BO2k (at least cDc is honest, everyone else just produces closed source software with buffer overruns and easy to guess passwords and doesn't tell a soul). Every time you download a security patch for a kernel or OS (whatever that might be) you are trusting someone. I understand that you're trying to speak about ethics. You article came across as a personal attack on the cDc, and lacked an indepth discussion of ethics. It's a far more complex picture than you paint, and probably than you even have time (or words) to cover. It seems to me that you ended up confusing your point and muddying, rather than bringing up an interesting issue. I agree ethics is a valid concern. I am of the opinion that groups like cDc and the l0pht are far more ethical than many of the companies producing commercial security software (with totally bogus claims as to the abilities of said software) or many of the companies producing non-security related but security compromising software.At the end of the day cDc, BugTraq and other full disclosure/security groups are doing a service to the community by bringing security to the forefront. Admins and users alike are made more aware and that can only be a good thing. A few script kiddies hacking into a poorly secured companies intra-net is a small price to pay for more vigorous security in general. gid-foo
The man says it better than me. In addition it seems like Microsoft in fact denies all legal responsibility using the EULA which removes ALL responsibility for any software defects, including bugs which may open your machine to all and sundry. To somehow suggest that corporations are genuinely interested in security is revisionist history. Time and again Microsoft and others have been caught with their pants down. Generally the PR spin is to blame the people who found the security leak instead of looking at their own practice of development to find the problem. Tweety Fish helped Brett make an excellent point, this article is purely and simply an attack on cDc. Brett doesn't like them, there's no journalistic integrity or proof, merely Mr. Glass spreading rumors and making up a bunch of bullshit. Next time try using the facts Brett and maybe keep from slandering people who've done more to earn respect than you son. Until then why don't you attempt to understand the term "security through obscurity" and why it is a bad idea. School will be in back session next def con, maybe you can learn something before then. gid-foo
The discussion is remarkably good. It's nice to not see a bunch of comments on how college curriculum should be more focussed around teaching students "programming" (i.e. syntax) as opposed to theory. The usual "pascal is dead and everyone should learn C so you can get a good job after college." This paper addresses a lot of the teaching methods of computer programming (and teaching in general). The whole idea of "knowledge packets" being passed to these empty vessels (students) waiting to be filled by the all knowing master (teachers) is inane. I think this is an excellent paper as it addresses a lot of the ideas in progressive education and a problematic assumption in, at least the US, about education. For instance learning a computer language isn't overly significant in college, learning how to learn a computer language and how to use think through problems is the whole point. If you can think and learn it doesn't matter what language you know, or what experience you have, you can do anything. Too often it seems like people are into programming to hop on the gravy train and get the bucks when deep down they don't love it. These are the people who are "packers." No passion, no soul just dollar signs in their eyes. Cubicle monkeys. They're the ones who hop on the management track as fast as possible and hopefully disappear from my life. Currently I'm in an excellent engineering team, small company, cool technology. But I just left Lucent and man that was a living hell. Cubicle monkey central. gid-foo
I don't care about video phone crap. What I want is a huge honkin server on the web at home which will respond to queries containing pictures of people with a DB lookup. It can then return info (in quasi-real time) about the person to whom I am speaking. In addition i want to be able to take notes and have them instantly sent back to the server so I can load the pda type device up with more crap. The way I see it is a tiny front end to a massively distributed system would the greatest use for this. Composing music on the PDA and having it dumped back to the server, converted into actual mp3 or someodd format and then streamed back to the PDA. Hello awesome! The coffee shop would be my office. A nice long bike ride and then a picnic out in the middle of no where, do some work and then ride back. I can't wait for the future. g
What the hell is "evolutionary momentum." What other affects can you attribute to this new discovery you've made? In fact I think we're going to have our enlarged frontal lobes shrink and the lizard part will increase in size, it's the "evolutionary slingshot" hypothesis. Excellent, we can be like Lamarck and Darwin!
Why is the attempt to always divide things into binary divisions as opposed to a fuzzy method. There's always this geek vs non-geek crap going around. Well I happen to be obsessed with computers, bicycles and music (upright bass and keyboards along with studio stuff). Now lets find where the square peg is and fit it into the round hole. Hmmm geek or not geek lets see I like reading ETSI/ANSI and ITU protocol specs and implementing them, but I also like picking up hotties and riding my bike many miles. Last night i spend 6 hours laying down a single bass track (over and over again) because I couldn't get it right. That seems a little geeky. What about music people who can spend 5 or 6 hours practicing and then go to work to play music for another 3 or 4 hours. Practice 20-25 hours a week plus work in the industry. The bottom line is geeks come in all lines of work. If you meet someone who's into something hard core, whether it's music, or studio gear, trains, bikes, mathematics (without seeing computers), physics they're a geek. I don't care if they know two shits about computers. And the bottom line is: I enjoy the company of people who are passionate about something and have more than just a single interest. This is just another idiot attempt to explain nothing. The fact of the matter is that people who are functional, enjoying life and self-sufficient don't need to be cured of anything. Trying to label people who don't conform but are perfectly happy and functional as geek/non-geek or autistic/not-autistic is silly. I don't need to be cured, don't need no stinkin label slapped on me and don't want a medical person trying to explain whatever idiosyncracies I may have. gid-foo
We can give a big thank you to the Hearst's for helping to make hemp illegal and moving the paper industry to trees instead of hemp. It was well known that hemp was a far better paper producer and more easily renewable than wood but Randolph had already bought either the paper mills or the lumber yards (I can't remember) and so put all his publishing might (and buying dollars) behind the anti-hemp/pro-wood bunch. gid-foo
There's another good one I've seen about that says "4 or 5 months of development can easily save you 2 or 3 hours in the library." Or something to that affect. Managers and marketing people love it when an engineer uses this as their sig. gid-foo
Hear hear, this is the big problem with code reviews, in my experience. They tend to either be a rubber stamp or a tedious examination of religious principles (i like 2 tab indents, not 4, or your open bracket should be on the next line not following your function declaration, etc). In a best case scenario you actually have engineers reading over your code and looking for problems or bogus assumptions. Too often most "engineers" are mediocre and uninterested in anything but widening their cubicle-monkey asses. Egoless development doesn't just apply to the individual writing the code but to all coders in the shop. On another note, in an Intel style environment where the whole goal is to make yourself appear superior to your colleagues by putting down their ideas and abilities (you're manager won't hire anyone potentially better than them because they are in direct competition with their own engineers) code reviews are merely political tools. In other words, an excellent chance to sink the hatchet into your cubicle mate's back.
While making stuff up is always interesting and demonstrates a good creative spirit in the interest of this discussion why don't you stick to a reasonable definition of militia or "malitia". The defintion is not created by a bunch of assholes in Montana or where ever tagging militia onto their name and then refusing to pay taxes, claiming that an organized non-governmental, excessively violence oriented is guarenteed by the constitution. Not to say that it's not in the constitution I just don't think that definition of militia is all that valid. gid-foo
Slashdot Mirror
(perhaps Reid Fleming went to Boston university...). Actually he's the world's toughest milk man. And he didn't go to any freakin sissy-boy college.
It's also about process more than product. A script kiddie is only interested in the end result. The fleeting sense of power or the rush when the FBI busts down their door and questions them and their parents for endless hours. Hacking is about process, a creative process. And you get a neat trick to show everyone at the end of the day but the important thing is what you've picked up along the way. Whether the hack has to do with prime numbers, computer security, music or cars, it doesn't matter. At the end of the day the difference is some people have soul (in terms of being funky, down, with-it, hip) and some don't. The ones who don't are cubicle monkeys at heart and will remain so for the rest of their days.
I think that the people who are taking this even semi-seriously should take the stick out of their ass and try this new k-rad hack I discovered. I call it "a sense of humor." Not the best title but it fits. Perhaps you can try it out, it's like a buffer overflow, there are lots of variations and endless opportunities for enjoyment. I believe in a full disclosure security policy so if I find systems susceptible I'll let the cat out of the bag, PRONTO! gid-foo
Dude, you are so wrong. Hacking chicks is by far the coolest thing any man or woman can set their sights on. It is truly the greatest hack possible by anyone out there. And the most satisfying. You get the long hours of problem solving while performing the hack and the resolution complete with sleepy chemicals that let you have a good rest. A long night of such hacking leads to knowledge that few have. It is only the weak minded that choose to explore systems easily understood. The truly enjoyable hack is the one that requires years of exploration and enjoyment. Prime numbers, distributed computing, and chicks gid-foo
Many many servers have been brought to their knees by this rouge band I see myself as more of a blue than a rouge. Rouge just seems so, oh I don't know, red...
That hat must taste good about now...
I don't think this guy is a kook at all. From a cursory review of the sci.physics tree on deja.com he appears to be taken seriously. Are any of you actually physicists or merely opinionated. I seriously doubt that the majority of people calling Julian Barbour's reputation into question here are in any way qualified to make that judgement (not speaking specifically about the above AC just calling into question the reputation's of those who are casting aspersions). In the interest of full disclosure I am not a physicist and am in no way qualified to judge this man's ideas.
Well why don't you check out his web page. He seems to have some published work, although not much. Here it is http://www.julianbarbour.com/publications.html
I actually suggest we squelch all such jokes with responses like the previous. No one should be telling time related jokes without bringing into question the perceived nature of time, after reading this article. I think it's way funnier to watch the somewhat bewildered looks on people's faces when your punch line contains the words "Quantum" "Probability Mist" and "Platonia."
The religious argument is quite appropriate here in light of the worldview conflict. Dostoevsky said it best: "If God does not exist, then all things are permissable." You are leaving out the significant aspect of this quote, which is context. All things are permissable is only a small portion of it and in fact is a horrifying thing not freeing. It does not mean that you can do whatever you want but that you cannot be forgiven. There is no one and nothing to say that you mean anything, there is no "Why?," no essential being, there is only existence. And in the face of an alienating universe. Whatever you do, whatever wrongs you commit are yours alone. There is no forgiveness and no one who can understand you. You are utterly and completely alone. That is Dostoevsky's point. But we *know* deep down in our souls and bones, that right and wrong DO exist and all things are not permissable. I know nothing of the sort. I know nothing in fact, or rather all I know is nothing, meaningless. Inherently false. A lie. I have been taught many things throughout my life. Some of which have become part of my "instituted trace" some of which I have managed to elude. None of them are any more or less real than any of the others. I respect your right to believe what you want to believe and you could be right, who am I to say. (Hell, I'm not even an atheist). What I find somewhat irritating is the desire to somehow portray this as a logical or rational progression. That, like simple arithmatic, the existence of God is self-evident. When confronted with the essential absurdity of the situation you have decided to take a leap. There is nothing wrong about this or even embarrassing, faith is a valid response. Good luck to you.
Nietzsche didn't say anything about breeding super men. He was talking about a philosophical man and the extent to which the death of God affects our consciousness. He should never have been equated with Nazism and was massively misunderstood. The superman is the ultimate creation of nihilism and a result of the realization that we are fundamentally alien and alone in an absurd and existential universe (although Nietzsche wouldn't have quite put it that way). Nothing matters, morality and perception is essentially a lie and the superman will be the ultimate extension of this (see D.T. Suzuki for a killer buddhist version of this idea). gid-foo
It seems to me that burning the flag is the ultimate patriotic act I, as an American, can perform. To express my freedom is American and the ultimate expression of that freedom is to burn the symbol of it. I think the people who died defending our nation should be proud that we can openly burn the flag. If you meet the buddha on the road kill him kind of thing.
Or the U.S. where we pay our farmers to place their produce in the silo or dump their milk to keep prices up. It doesn't matter whether you acknowledge suffering or not. gid-foo
Well then it's time for you to do some research. Using one idiot journalists unsubstantiated and entirely biased opinion to base your fears off is well, baseless. You could try reading draft-ietf-ipngwg-addrconf-privacy-00.txt for starters and then go from there. The beauty of the IETF is there is no secret cabal. It's all there to be read. Try checking out the last 3 years worth of IPSEC stuff and the IPng mail list for further info. I'm sure everything is out there. gid-foo
However, by far the most important question I asked was one that you repeatedly brushed off, as if to say, "This does not compute!" It was: "How can you possibly expect me to be credulous enough to trust you?" The answer should be, don't trust anyone. At the end of the day this is the primary reason that open sourced security tools are the only way to go. You can't trust anything that you can't see. You are operating in an entirely hostile environment. There are hundreds if not thousands of companies producing software to be placed on machines in our networks. Much of that software is a potential security risk. Many of it far more malicious in many ways than BO2k (at least cDc is honest, everyone else just produces closed source software with buffer overruns and easy to guess passwords and doesn't tell a soul). Every time you download a security patch for a kernel or OS (whatever that might be) you are trusting someone. I understand that you're trying to speak about ethics. You article came across as a personal attack on the cDc, and lacked an indepth discussion of ethics. It's a far more complex picture than you paint, and probably than you even have time (or words) to cover. It seems to me that you ended up confusing your point and muddying, rather than bringing up an interesting issue. I agree ethics is a valid concern. I am of the opinion that groups like cDc and the l0pht are far more ethical than many of the companies producing commercial security software (with totally bogus claims as to the abilities of said software) or many of the companies producing non-security related but security compromising software.At the end of the day cDc, BugTraq and other full disclosure/security groups are doing a service to the community by bringing security to the forefront. Admins and users alike are made more aware and that can only be a good thing. A few script kiddies hacking into a poorly secured companies intra-net is a small price to pay for more vigorous security in general. gid-foo
The man says it better than me. In addition it seems like Microsoft in fact denies all legal responsibility using the EULA which removes ALL responsibility for any software defects, including bugs which may open your machine to all and sundry. To somehow suggest that corporations are genuinely interested in security is revisionist history. Time and again Microsoft and others have been caught with their pants down. Generally the PR spin is to blame the people who found the security leak instead of looking at their own practice of development to find the problem. Tweety Fish helped Brett make an excellent point, this article is purely and simply an attack on cDc. Brett doesn't like them, there's no journalistic integrity or proof, merely Mr. Glass spreading rumors and making up a bunch of bullshit. Next time try using the facts Brett and maybe keep from slandering people who've done more to earn respect than you son. Until then why don't you attempt to understand the term "security through obscurity" and why it is a bad idea. School will be in back session next def con, maybe you can learn something before then. gid-foo
The discussion is remarkably good. It's nice to not see a bunch of comments on how college curriculum should be more focussed around teaching students "programming" (i.e. syntax) as opposed to theory. The usual "pascal is dead and everyone should learn C so you can get a good job after college." This paper addresses a lot of the teaching methods of computer programming (and teaching in general). The whole idea of "knowledge packets" being passed to these empty vessels (students) waiting to be filled by the all knowing master (teachers) is inane. I think this is an excellent paper as it addresses a lot of the ideas in progressive education and a problematic assumption in, at least the US, about education. For instance learning a computer language isn't overly significant in college, learning how to learn a computer language and how to use think through problems is the whole point. If you can think and learn it doesn't matter what language you know, or what experience you have, you can do anything. Too often it seems like people are into programming to hop on the gravy train and get the bucks when deep down they don't love it. These are the people who are "packers." No passion, no soul just dollar signs in their eyes. Cubicle monkeys. They're the ones who hop on the management track as fast as possible and hopefully disappear from my life. Currently I'm in an excellent engineering team, small company, cool technology. But I just left Lucent and man that was a living hell. Cubicle monkey central. gid-foo
I don't care about video phone crap. What I want is a huge honkin server on the web at home which will respond to queries containing pictures of people with a DB lookup. It can then return info (in quasi-real time) about the person to whom I am speaking. In addition i want to be able to take notes and have them instantly sent back to the server so I can load the pda type device up with more crap. The way I see it is a tiny front end to a massively distributed system would the greatest use for this. Composing music on the PDA and having it dumped back to the server, converted into actual mp3 or someodd format and then streamed back to the PDA. Hello awesome! The coffee shop would be my office. A nice long bike ride and then a picnic out in the middle of no where, do some work and then ride back. I can't wait for the future. g
Damn, that should have got upped a bit. It's funny as hell.
What the hell is "evolutionary momentum." What other affects can you attribute to this new discovery you've made? In fact I think we're going to have our enlarged frontal lobes shrink and the lizard part will increase in size, it's the "evolutionary slingshot" hypothesis. Excellent, we can be like Lamarck and Darwin!
Why is the attempt to always divide things into binary divisions as opposed to a fuzzy method. There's always this geek vs non-geek crap going around. Well I happen to be obsessed with computers, bicycles and music (upright bass and keyboards along with studio stuff). Now lets find where the square peg is and fit it into the round hole. Hmmm geek or not geek lets see I like reading ETSI/ANSI and ITU protocol specs and implementing them, but I also like picking up hotties and riding my bike many miles. Last night i spend 6 hours laying down a single bass track (over and over again) because I couldn't get it right. That seems a little geeky. What about music people who can spend 5 or 6 hours practicing and then go to work to play music for another 3 or 4 hours. Practice 20-25 hours a week plus work in the industry. The bottom line is geeks come in all lines of work. If you meet someone who's into something hard core, whether it's music, or studio gear, trains, bikes, mathematics (without seeing computers), physics they're a geek. I don't care if they know two shits about computers. And the bottom line is: I enjoy the company of people who are passionate about something and have more than just a single interest. This is just another idiot attempt to explain nothing. The fact of the matter is that people who are functional, enjoying life and self-sufficient don't need to be cured of anything. Trying to label people who don't conform but are perfectly happy and functional as geek/non-geek or autistic/not-autistic is silly. I don't need to be cured, don't need no stinkin label slapped on me and don't want a medical person trying to explain whatever idiosyncracies I may have. gid-foo
We can give a big thank you to the Hearst's for helping to make hemp illegal and moving the paper industry to trees instead of hemp. It was well known that hemp was a far better paper producer and more easily renewable than wood but Randolph had already bought either the paper mills or the lumber yards (I can't remember) and so put all his publishing might (and buying dollars) behind the anti-hemp/pro-wood bunch. gid-foo
There's another good one I've seen about that says "4 or 5 months of development can easily save you 2 or 3 hours in the library." Or something to that affect. Managers and marketing people love it when an engineer uses this as their sig. gid-foo
Hear hear, this is the big problem with code reviews, in my experience. They tend to either be a rubber stamp or a tedious examination of religious principles (i like 2 tab indents, not 4, or your open bracket should be on the next line not following your function declaration, etc). In a best case scenario you actually have engineers reading over your code and looking for problems or bogus assumptions. Too often most "engineers" are mediocre and uninterested in anything but widening their cubicle-monkey asses. Egoless development doesn't just apply to the individual writing the code but to all coders in the shop. On another note, in an Intel style environment where the whole goal is to make yourself appear superior to your colleagues by putting down their ideas and abilities (you're manager won't hire anyone potentially better than them because they are in direct competition with their own engineers) code reviews are merely political tools. In other words, an excellent chance to sink the hatchet into your cubicle mate's back.
While making stuff up is always interesting and demonstrates a good creative spirit in the interest of this discussion why don't you stick to a reasonable definition of militia or "malitia". The defintion is not created by a bunch of assholes in Montana or where ever tagging militia onto their name and then refusing to pay taxes, claiming that an organized non-governmental, excessively violence oriented is guarenteed by the constitution. Not to say that it's not in the constitution I just don't think that definition of militia is all that valid. gid-foo