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I read the Jolly Roger's Cookbook (and many other BBS text files) as a teenager and used it to make thermite with my chemistry teacher in the 10th grade. And re
by psykotic 10y ago
I read the Jolly Roger's Cookbook (and many other BBS text files) as a teenager and used it to make thermite with my chemistry teacher in the 10th grade. And reading Phrack and old virus magazines like 40HEX did more to engender intellectual curiosity than any of my teachers and provided a solid foundation of low-level programming skills. I'm not sure how you'd weigh the net impact on the world of this kind of information being available, but my hunch is that it's overwhelmingly positive. I'm automatically suspicious of this deeply cynical view of human nature where everyone is so easily tempted to evil deeds if presented with forbidden knowledge and the merest opportunity.
- rboyd 10y agoI'm with you. TAC was one of the first books I encountered that described out-of-the-box thinking, tool-building, and the hacker ethos of using a thing beyond its intended purpose (not to mention a healthy distrust of authority). I managed somehow to get through my teenage years without ever throwing a molotov cocktail at a LEO.
- im3w1l 10y agoIt's a numbers game. Let's say 99.9% are good people who would only use the knowledge for wholesome purposes. That still leaves 0.1% to do bad stuff. So if all kids knew how to make viruses, 0.1% of all of those kids would be a lot of virus writers. I'm not saying we should lock the knowledge up. More that your anecdote doesn't really change things.
- sillysaurus3 10y agoBut you made those numbers up.
- im3w1l 10y agoIt doesn't really matter. The important point is that there is a percentage, not the exact value of it.