152 lines
8.7 KiB
Plaintext
152 lines
8.7 KiB
Plaintext
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= F.U.C.K. - Fucked Up College Kids - Born Jan. 24th, 1993 - F.U.C.K. =
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Hacker Charity
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The scene sucks, among other reasons, because good hackers have made
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hacking easy for stupid people.
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At some point, it must have been decided that new hackers needed 'help',
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and that it was the duty of older, more experienced hackers to give it out.
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I'm sure that it made sense at the time, but it hasn't worked out. Older
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hackers didn't have any help. Why should younger ones have it any easier?
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The only time we ever really learn anything is when we teach ourselves.
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Regardless, t-files were written. At the time, no harm was done because the
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files were written for a small audience, like the members of a board. The
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information was distributed to deserving people only.
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Learning is a gift, which cannot be fully appreciated until the gift is
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passed on - and I am all for sharing information. I just want to make sure
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that it goes to people who deserve it. The 2600 perversion of this idea is
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utter bullshit, and has hurt the scene worse than anything else. Give a
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piece of valuable information to everyone, and it becomes worthless. Yeah,
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it's free, but it's useless. The 2600 ideology of "we'll try to teach you,
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even if you're hopelessly stupid, nobody is too lame" has flooded the scene
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with people who don't belong here. 2600 serves only to give kids enough
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information to be a danger to themselves.
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One funny thing about t-files is that they are low-security. You would
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think that a security-obsessed scene would keep its secrets secret, but no
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- t-files have no access control.
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The other interesting thing about t-files is that they affect reality. Put
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out a t-file that gets wide distribution and it will actually affect the
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world. Bugs get fixed. Defaults get changed.
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I think that half the reason that younger hackers climb all over the older
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hackers for help is that it is more difficult to learn to hack on your own
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than it was in previous years. It's more difficult because hackers blabbed
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about bugs and stupid defaults, and the flaws were fixed. Many of the easy
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bugs are gone. The lower rungs of the ladder have been removed. It's harder
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to get started.
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And that's another thing: The focus of hacking has changed from playing on
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computers (that's what I always called it before I learned that there were
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'hackers') to security. I never saw security as being the goal; security
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was just something that was in the way of playing on the computer. For me,
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bypassing security has always been secondary. It is the primary focus of
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the scene today.
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The other new stupid idea is that it's our job to uncover security flaws
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and report them. I have no idea where that one came from. Large quantities
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of beer and N2O had something to do with it, I think.
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Daemon9 writes great technical articles. The problem that I have with his
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stuff is that he includes source. I wonder how many people who use his
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tools, could have written the code themselves. Maybe 10%. The rest get to
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play hacker with tools they don't understand. Noted crackhead bitch CM made
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a remark that his actions were analogous to dropping off AK-47s at a
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playground. She had been hitting the pipe pretty hard at that point, I
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imagine. The only thing that D9 does wrong by distributing code is to make
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it easy for stupid people to pretend that they are hackers.
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All an article needs to do is explain an idea or a technique. Leave
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writing the code as an exercise for the reader. If the reader can write the
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code, then they deserve it. If they can't, they need to study more and come
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back to it later. If they never get around to writing the code themselves,
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it's probably best that they don't have whatever it was. If the article is
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deficient in some way, the reader can contact the author and the author can
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decide whether the reader deserves help. This is a more secure system.
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Make it harder for hackers to be hackers and I think that many of the
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problems that plague the scene will go away. Common courtesy will return.
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Hackers will have at least grudging respect for each other.
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If you want to help the scene, make a pledge to stop trying to help the
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hopeless. Don't answer stupid questions. Don't answer if the information
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asked for is publicly available. Don't write "System X Made EZ" articles.
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Don't write articles aimed at beginners. Don't include powerful code in
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your articles. Set up non-net systems of your own. Strictly control access.
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New people: don't ask questions. All the information is out there. Stay
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away from the scene. Study. Write all your own code. Don't use tools you
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couldn't write yourself. Figure, whatever it is, out for yourself. If you
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can't, go on to something else, and come back to the hard stuff later. If
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you never seem to make any progress, get the fuck outta Dodge. Leave us alone.
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I close with a passage written by Herbert Spencer in the 1800s. He was
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actually writing about the hardships of the poor, but it struck me that he
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and I were writing about similar concepts. He says what I mean far more
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eloquently than I ever could:
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Pervading all Nature we may see at work a stern discipline which is a
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little cruel that it may be very kind.... It is much better that the
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ruminant animal, when deprived by age of the vigor which made its existence
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a pleasure, should be killed by some beast of prey, than that it should
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linger out a life made painful by infirmities, and eventually die of
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starvation.... [Beasts of prey] not only remove from... herds individuals
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past their prime, but also weed out the sickly... By the aid of which
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purifying process the race is strengthened and made happier.... It seems
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hard that an unskillfulness which with all his efforts he cannot overcome,
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should entail hunger upon the artisan.... It seems hard that widows and
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orphans should be left to struggle for life or death. Nevertheless, when
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regarded... in connection with the interests of humanity, these fatalities
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are seen to be full of beneficence.
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There are many very amiable people who have not the nerve to look at this
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matter fairly in the face. Disabled as they are by their sympathies with
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present suffering,... they pursue a course which is injudicious, and in the
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end even cruel. We do not consider it true kindness in a mother to gratify
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her child with sweetmeats that are likely to make it ill. We should think
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it a very foolish sort of benevolence which led a surgeon to let his
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patient's disease progress to a fatal issue rather than inflict pain by an
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operation. Similarly, we must call those spurious philanthropists who, to
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prevent present misery, would entail greater misery on future generations.
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That rigorous necessity which, when allowed to operate, becomes so sharp a
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spur to the lazy and so strong a bridle to the random, these paupers'
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friends would repeal, because of the wailings it here and there
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produces.... At first sight these considerations seem conclusive against
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all relief to the poor--... [But] it is only against... injudicious charity
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that the foregoing argument tells. To that charity which may be described
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as helping men to help themselves, it makes no objection.
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brian
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sysp@dimensional.com
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= Questions, Comments, Bitches, Ideas, Rants, Death Threats, Submissions =
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= Mail: jericho@dimensional.com (Mail is welcomed) =
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= FTP.SEKURITY.ORG/pub/zines/fucked.up.college.kids =
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= FTP.DTO.NET /pub/zines/fuck =
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= FTP.ETEXT.ORG/pub/Zines/FUCK =
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= WWW http://www.dimensional.com/~jericho =
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= http://www.reps.net/~krypt/fuck.html =
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= http://www.simunye.com/fuck =
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= http://www.dis.org/se7en/fuck =
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= (c) Copyright. All files copyright by the original author. =
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