4 ms·

~80/90s hackers aren't really the same thing as most post 00 hackers. A lot of people were in it because they were curious about this new thing and the opportun

by njepa 8y ago

~80/90s hackers aren't really the same thing as most post 00 hackers. A lot of people were in it because they were curious about this new thing and the opportunities to explore something and express themselves. The same way you would in other emerging cultures. Those aren't bad qualities.

brandonmenc 8y ago
> ~80/90s hackers aren't really the same thing as most post 00 hackers. Yeah, no hackers from the 80s and 90s ever had any bad intents. /sarcasm
- dpe82 8y ago
  The meaning of the word has changed somewhat; it was mostly about curiosity and exploration in the 80s/90s. Less of the economy was reliant on computers so there wasn't much crime to commit beyond mere unauthorized access. Heck, "2600: The Hacker Quarterly" could be found on the magazine rack at Barnes & Noble back then.
  - busterarm 8y ago
    And minor celebrities within 2600's culture, namely Emmanuel and Cpt. Crunch used that celebrity to creep on teenaged dudes.
    - flycaliguy 8y ago
      I listened to Off The Hook for years. Is that true about Emmanuel? Dude used to own an old Bell van, super creepy if he was a phreak creep.
  - jandrese 8y ago
    2600 was on the B&N newsracks for many many years. I think most people passed over it as a nerdy nerd thing.
  - tptacek 8y ago
    That is not the meaning of "hacker" that attaches to security hackers and the EFnet #hack scene. (I was a part of that scene as well).
    - njepa 8y ago
      Largely regardless of ones definition of a hacker it was a subculture in the '80s, '90s and even early '00s. Because of the scarcity of information and resources there was motivation to organize, form groups and publish things in a way that you don't have today. A hacker was therefor at the time (regardless of the underlying activity) largely defined as someone who took part in hacker culture. In that sense it was about curiosity and exploration. You are trying to learn things that aren't readily available or necessarily considered worthwhile. Once the Internet became widely available there wasn't the same need for a culture to being able to do that (at least in theory). Who is considered a hacker therefor changes from people engaged in hacker culture to people who for example do information security. You can to some extent go to university, never talk to anyone and come out of there being considered a hacker. While previously being a hacker would be quite distinct from academia (though there would of course be overlap among people). As the point was that you were doing something different from what was already established. Whether that was coding, security or community. I wouldn't personally judge someone who was consider a nefarious hacker when hackers were more of a subculture, as most of the activities would be considered relatively mundane today and there motivations often benign. I would judge someone for running a dark market, distributing malware or even just run an unethical data business today however. As a further tangent, I do think it is curious how most people (myself included) thought that the plot of the movie "Hackers" was a bit ridiculous. But then 20 years later Maersk gets hit by ransomware.
      - tptacek 8y ago
        I come from the same scene Beto O'Rourke comes from (though, not having grown up in Texas or Boston, I only had cDc friends, not "membership" myself). I'm saying: there's the Steven Levy notion of "hackers", about exploration and getting extra slots on time-sharing computers and ordering sweet-and-sour bitter melon, and there's the Markoff and Hafner notion, about breaking into DEC for source code and owning up a sizable portion of the NSFnet Internet. cDc is from the Markoff/Hafner side of "hackerdom". (That's not a moral argument; there were good people among the Markoff/Hafner-type hackers, and holy shit were some of the white hats in the mid-1990s complete pricks).
- koheripbal 8y ago
  > he was hunting for video games that had been “cracked,” or stripped from digital rights protections, so that he could play them for free on his Apple. What a monster!
harrumph 8y ago
> A lot of people were in it because they were curious about this new thing and the opportunities to explore something and express themselves. The same way you would in other emerging cultures. Those aren't bad qualities. Can confirm. For me in the 80s it was about the writing and the friends, some of which I'm lucky to say I still have. Indulging in some phreaking when needed was about the extent of our "misuse" of technology.

by njepa 8y ago

brandonmenc 8y ago

> ~80/90s hackers aren't really the same thing as most post 00 hackers. Yeah, no hackers from the 80s and 90s ever had any bad intents. /sarcasm

dpe82 8y ago
The meaning of the word has changed somewhat; it was mostly about curiosity and exploration in the 80s/90s. Less of the economy was reliant on computers so there wasn't much crime to commit beyond mere unauthorized access. Heck, "2600: The Hacker Quarterly" could be found on the magazine rack at Barnes & Noble back then.
- busterarm 8y ago
  And minor celebrities within 2600's culture, namely Emmanuel and Cpt. Crunch used that celebrity to creep on teenaged dudes.
  - flycaliguy 8y ago
    I listened to Off The Hook for years. Is that true about Emmanuel? Dude used to own an old Bell van, super creepy if he was a phreak creep.
- jandrese 8y ago
  2600 was on the B&N newsracks for many many years. I think most people passed over it as a nerdy nerd thing.
- tptacek 8y ago
  That is not the meaning of "hacker" that attaches to security hackers and the EFnet #hack scene. (I was a part of that scene as well).
  - njepa 8y ago
    Largely regardless of ones definition of a hacker it was a subculture in the '80s, '90s and even early '00s. Because of the scarcity of information and resources there was motivation to organize, form groups and publish things in a way that you don't have today. A hacker was therefor at the time (regardless of the underlying activity) largely defined as someone who took part in hacker culture. In that sense it was about curiosity and exploration. You are trying to learn things that aren't readily available or necessarily considered worthwhile. Once the Internet became widely available there wasn't the same need for a culture to being able to do that (at least in theory). Who is considered a hacker therefor changes from people engaged in hacker culture to people who for example do information security. You can to some extent go to university, never talk to anyone and come out of there being considered a hacker. While previously being a hacker would be quite distinct from academia (though there would of course be overlap among people). As the point was that you were doing something different from what was already established. Whether that was coding, security or community. I wouldn't personally judge someone who was consider a nefarious hacker when hackers were more of a subculture, as most of the activities would be considered relatively mundane today and there motivations often benign. I would judge someone for running a dark market, distributing malware or even just run an unethical data business today however. As a further tangent, I do think it is curious how most people (myself included) thought that the plot of the movie "Hackers" was a bit ridiculous. But then 20 years later Maersk gets hit by ransomware.
    - tptacek 8y ago
      I come from the same scene Beto O'Rourke comes from (though, not having grown up in Texas or Boston, I only had cDc friends, not "membership" myself). I'm saying: there's the Steven Levy notion of "hackers", about exploration and getting extra slots on time-sharing computers and ordering sweet-and-sour bitter melon, and there's the Markoff and Hafner notion, about breaking into DEC for source code and owning up a sizable portion of the NSFnet Internet. cDc is from the Markoff/Hafner side of "hackerdom". (That's not a moral argument; there were good people among the Markoff/Hafner-type hackers, and holy shit were some of the white hats in the mid-1990s complete pricks).
koheripbal 8y ago
> he was hunting for video games that had been “cracked,” or stripped from digital rights protections, so that he could play them for free on his Apple. What a monster!

harrumph 8y ago

> A lot of people were in it because they were curious about this new thing and the opportunities to explore something and express themselves. The same way you would in other emerging cultures. Those aren't bad qualities. Can confirm. For me in the 80s it was about the writing and the friends, some of which I'm lucky to say I still have. Indulging in some phreaking when needed was about the extent of our "misuse" of technology.