44 ms·
Is your son a computer hacker? (2001)
- tekromancr 5y agoAh, a classic! I remember reading this as a kid thinking it was sincere and just getting madder and madder as I read
- bidirectional 5y agoThe exact same happened to me! I was terrified this was the type of thing my parents were reading. I think ability to spot satire like this is one of the most stark differences I notice between myself as a child and as an adult.
- drewzero1 5y agoIt was all completely believable until they got to the part about demanding computer books be removed from local bookstores. Even after that I think it still echoed exaggerated versions of the fears of my parents in the late 90s/early 2000s.
- tekromancr 5y agoIt was particularly believable to me because I think it was about the same time that the whole apple computer satanic panic thing was going around... Which in retrospect may have also been satire
- tmnstr85 5y ago15 year old me read this headline as - how to be a hacker - do everything they're warning you about in here
- devenblake 5y ago"how to be a hacker" not to be confused with http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html
- platz 5y agoAll it's missing is the pacifier
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ch4s3 5y agoThe line about "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" slayed me.
- h2odragon 5y agoOne of the finest trolls Adequacy.org produced, and that's not a small pool nor an easy race to call.
- daveslash 5y agoIt needs to be up-voted that this is satire and not a real post from a 2001 concerned parent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adequacy.org#Notable_stories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adequacy.org#Notable_stories
- developer93 5y agoYou don't say?
- anm89 5y agoIt seems like a majority of the comments here are not aware of this.
- 01000010x 5y ago“Linyos Torovoltos” gives a pretty solid clue it was a satirical article :’)
- drewzero1 5y agoNot necessarily. It seems like the kind of misspelling/misunderstanding of a foreign name my parents may have had. They were especially suspicious of anything that sounded remotely Soviet in origin (like Linyus, but Torovoltos is Greek to me). When I learned to buy things online (with my own money) and started ordering gadgets from China my mom was worried the mail carrier would think I was a communist.
- anm89 5y agoThis also struck me as plausible. Many European names have default patterns for being presented by speakers of other European languages. This just looked like the Greek version of his name to me.
- underdeserver 5y agowat
- YesThatTom2 5y agoThe Linux being an illegal operating system is only a slight exaggeration of the FUD being put out by Microsoft at the time. Any time Microsoft publicly talks about their love and support of Linux, someone in the room should point out their multi-pronged, multi-year, highly-funded, campaign to poison the well.
- xroche 5y agoAnd we may remember the "Linux is a cancer" (https://www.theregister.com/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_cancer/ https://www.theregister.com/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_ca...), or more subtly the SCO "suicide attack" attack against open-source: https://www.computerworld.com/article/2563673/update--microsoft-behind--50m-sco-investment.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/2563673/update--micros...
- david-cako 5y agoMicrosoft has been around a long time and they seem to adapt pretty rapidly. I wonder what percentage of the company today was around during Ballmer days, and how the culture has changed over time within the company. Naturally it's going to be driven by the market, but I wonder, are older MS folks moving with the culture shift? Or is it newer hires that are pushing for the open source ethos? As a Mac and Linux user, I really like Microsoft these days. VSCode, WSL, Rust, containers, Surface, .NET Core, all are pretty sweet.
- moksly 5y agoI think a lot of the culture of Microsoft remains the same as it was when Balmer left. As much as it’s fun to laugh at his “developers, developers, developers” sort of thing, his real legacy should probably how Microsoft formed its Business-2-Enterprise strategy under his rule. When AWS first blew up they sort of struggled in European Enterprise because they originally went Google route or automating everything while taking a “our way or the high-way” attitude toward legalisation and localised agreements. This is basically why Azure was capable to fill the void that AWS was struggling to fill. Modern AWS has learned a lot from Kim that though, and are now ahead of Microsoft in many areas. I still can’t get a guarantee that only European citizens working in the EU will be the only people who work on my Azure cloud like I can from Amazon. But as a whole, the sort of setup where I can call Redmond directly when shits hit the fan, and they will even give me hourly updates via phone until the issue has been resolved. That’s a Balmer sort of thing. And so is the financial aspect of how much more sense it makes to chose the Microsoft option once you’re already in bed with them. If anything that last hit has only grown under the new Microsoft. I mean, how can I justify to my political leadership that I need to buy a Microsoft Teams competitor when it’s already included in our office365 setup? I can’t, and this just snowballs over time. I’m not unhappy about this by the way. Through the past many decades Microsoft has been one of our best business partners as far as Tech goes. Which is very likely why AWS has adopted the approach.
- swagtricker 5y agoEven better - you can now troll Bill Gates by reminding him that Linux was both more successful than and outlasted his marriage:)
- Bootvis 5y agoYou would be an asshole though.
- JohnWhigham 5y agoIf you can't stand the heat, you gotta get out of the kitchen
- dangus 5y agoMaybe, but billionaires shouldn’t exist even if they are philanthropic. There’s a reason Bill Gates is a household name and many other innovators are not, and it involves a lot of zeroes. If you are going to be a billionaire, you surrender your life to being on the front page of the tabloids. In my mind the only reason to continue working after making around $10 million is greed. Bill Gates himself cites his busy schedule as a detriment to the marriage. A guy that didn't need to work another day in his life if he didn’t want to since 20+ years ago! Hot take: philanthropy is a tax avoidance scheme, even if it is helpful to the world. Billionaires and millionaires improve their image by getting to choose where their wealth goes, instead of being required to surrender wealth and have it be used the way that the people want through representative government. In reality, you don’t become a billionaire without being ruthless, cut-throat, and a very big asshole. Remember all the stories about Bill Gates yelling at engineers in the 90’s? https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_850292 https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_850292 Bill Gates is just another boss who demanded his employees sacrifice their hours for his wealth.
- endominus 5y agoThe idea that governments spend their money responsibly and according to the wishes of their citizens is... The kindest thing I can say is that it's not a universally held opinion (or even, in my experience, a significant-minority held opinion).
- steveklabnik 5y agoAdequacy.org is just... it's from a different generation of the Internet. As someone who read this close to publication, and was fifteen at the time... what a read, haha.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jugg1es 5y ago"If your son is using Quake, you should make hime understand that this is not acceptable to you. You should ensure all the firearms in your house are carefully locked away, and have trigger locks installed. You should also bring your concerns to the attention of his school." Holy moly!
- cosmodisk 5y agoDad, where did you say your BFG was?
- lmilcin 5y agoAlso hide your nail gun.
- mhh__ 5y agoQuake sounds like Cake, for any Brass Eye fans.
- _joel 5y agoWatch out for the end of level Czech Neck
- sokoloff 5y agoHaving firearms stored safely and appropriately does seem like generally good advice, regardless of whether your child plays Quake.
- dangerbird2 5y agoPlot twist: the article is a stealth PSA about firearm safety
- UnpossibleJim 5y agoBut if he/she is a hacker, surely they know how to pick locks... right?
- icecap12 5y ago
- poxy_ 5y agoAmazing! "If your son has requested a new "processor" from a company called "AMD", this is genuine cause for alarm. AMD is a third-world based company who make inferior, "knock-off" copies of American processor chips. They use child labor extensively in their third world sweatshops, and they deliberately disable the security features that American processor makers, such as Intel, use to prevent hacking. AMD chips are never sold in stores, and you will most likely be told that you have to order them from internet sites. Do not buy this chip! This is one request that you must refuse your son, if you are to have any hope of raising him well. "
- zsmi 5y agoI saw that too and was shocked. I am not the biggest fan of Sunnyvale California but calling it 3rd world seems overly harsh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Micro_Devices#First_twelve_years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Micro_Devices#First_t...
- cosmodisk 5y agoThe first few sentences were okay-ish, but the more I read,the more it sounded just plain absurd,border line controlling behaviour+ lots of silly assumptions. Going back to the topic itself, the vast majority of parents wouldn't even know where to start, not even mentioning if a kid has really became a haxor of sorts. Taking away computers, sending them out to the church,or doing others 'let's fix this quickly the adult way' things unlikely to help. I'm not a hacker but by the time I was 16 I was doing things on computer my parents won't ever comprehend or know how to put an end to it. By the time I'm 18,nobody can say anything to me anymore. The only real solution to this is to build trust in the family in a way that kids would know that no matter how bad they screwed it up, parents won't go after them but will work with them trying to undo it or at least learn from those actions so they won't happen again.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- hueho 5y agoThis is a classic troll text.
- mr-wendel 5y agoOk, so he missed the satire, but I give points for stating some simple truths. Despite being satire, it's an important topic and "trust in the family" (and in your parents in particular) is the keystone issue here. Everything else is secondary.
- cosmodisk 5y agoFair enough, I definitely missed it being a satire: shouldn't have skimmed the content:)
- mr-wendel 5y agoSometimes the best commentary comes from taking satire seriously on accident. I thought your comment was great. Every one of the outrageous behaviors listed have definitely been someone's actual reality, and for some people it was several of those things. Equally outrageous is how often the parents have no clue what awful things their kids are doing. Not the warez, pr0n, turf wars, freaking, hacking, etc. It's the stalking, harassment, and deeply seated psychological issues that are guaranteed to get worse by pulling a power-play and declaring victory. That is going now require extra work to correct. That other stuff is more likely to land your kid a great job/career than destroy opportunities to form relationships.
- moolcool 5y agoCovered by Martin Sargent of TechTV here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkLtXfsPqVQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkLtXfsPqVQ
- aasasd 5y agoYou forget to mention that the coverage was in 2002. Which makes me vaguely curious about the content. Edit: alas it's just a reiteration of the text, pretty much what I would expect from a modern Youtube clip on a channel with a name like ‘TechTV’.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y agoThanks for that link. I have not seen a ScreenSavers clip in many years. I loved that show and watched it with my father. Everyone was in love with Morgan. What a strange, brief time when cable television could have a show dedicated to the internet and computing. I wonder where Leo Laporte is now.
- el_duderino 5y agoLeo Laporte owns and operates a podcast network, TWiT.tv with his wife. https://twit.tv/about/what-is-twit-tv https://twit.tv/about/what-is-twit-tv
- andrewfromx 5y agoAt Mark Zuckerberg's school I remember a story about him getting in trouble for PHP. The school had a zero tolerance drug policy and PHP was confused with PCP.
- Alex3917 5y agoI got banned from our schools computers for installing "hacking tools." I had NetHack in my personal drive. This is after I got in trouble for "plagiarism," for including a hyperlink in an essay.
- Mauricebranagh 5y agoI know some one in Northern Ireland who got into trouble using FTP :-) FTP is common Protestant insult to Catholics.
- ben_w 5y agoIn reverse, I wonder how well known Irish and British slang is in the USA: “Bumming” can mean to obtain or make use of something that belongs to someone else by begging; “fag” can mean cigarette; “for the craic” (“craic” pronounced “crack”) is “for fun”. (And thanks to the very early part of my mother’s Alzheimer’s, I also know that an archaic meaning of “glory hole” is a cupboard for miscellaneous items, and the etymology of the sexual reference is that both are where you put your “junk”).
- asimpletune 5y agoBumming is pretty common here. We don’t say the other word.
- imwillofficial 5y agoThe first time you heard her casual use of glory hole must have been alarming, and later hilarious. (I’m sorry to hear about your mother, my condolences.)
- 5y ago
- cyberpunk 5y agoAhahahaha. I remember (vaguely) pinging AOL's irc servers with hays cmdset commands and as a result my parents getting a letter to the effect that I was a computer criminal and we were on some 'blacklist' forever, fortunately this apparently blacklist didn't seem to be shared between ISPs so I was back causing chaos within days >_< And now here I am, mid thirties, children, and I wonder if I would let my kid play DOOM when he is 8 or 9.. I think I'll let him play the original ones, but the newer games seem to be much more intense (maybe that's just down to the graphics/music?).. Or I just let him play everything.. I dunno, grand theft auto (granted, the top down one) did me no harm when I was around puberty heh...
- mjburgess 5y agoExposure builds resilience. All shielding does is turn people into hysterics who cannot see through the artifice, and assume everyone is duped by it into being murderous zombies.
- kaybe 5y agoI have to say, as a kid, all these games and movies were much more harmless than the news. The news had actual blood on the streets, from real people who had actually died there, real violence, real panic, real bombs and real war. If you shut off the TV, it does not go away, it's taking place somewhere out there, in the real world. A game is a joke in comparison.
- Enginerrrd 5y agoI don't worry about games for those reasons, I worry about them because they're extremely seductive and attention-capturing while producing almost no real benefits or skills. I quit video games cold turkey around the age of 16 after I realized that soo often, I'd find myself sit down to play counterstrike after school, and in a blink of an eye it would be 1AM.
- cyberpunk 5y ago
- bamey 5y ago>If your son has requested a new "processor" from a company called "AMD", this is genuine cause for alarm. AMD is a third-world based company who make inferior, "knock-off" copies of American processor chips. They use child labor extensively in their third world sweatshops, and they deliberately disable the security features that American processor makers, such as Intel, use to prevent hacking. AMD chips are never sold in stores, and you will most likely be told that you have to order them from internet sites. Do not buy this chip! This is one request that you must refuse your son, if you are to have any hope of raising him well. Hahaha. 2001 was pretty good.
- ro_bit 5y agoSo this is what the CPUBenchmark authors wrote before making CPUBenchmark
- exciteabletom 5y agoDid you mean the Intel shill site userbenchmark.com? https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/AMD-Ryzen-9-5900X/Rating/4087 https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/AMD-Ryzen-9-5900X/Rating/4087
- ro_bit 5y agoYup! Misspelled the name
- Teknoman117 5y agoThat was a wild ride.
- jchw 5y agoI was not gonna comment, but wow, they really are not backing down. From their Intel vs AMD value page: > We don't > Put lipstick on pigs for sponsorship fees, our users are our only sponsors. > Care for brands: red, green or blue. PC hardware isn’t a fashion show, performance comes first. > Test at 1440p or 4K: high resolutions are rarely optimal for gaming (refresh rate > size > resolution). > Get fooled by the corporate army of anonymous forum and reddit influencers that prey on first time buyers. Righto. So they don’t shill. And they know how to benchmark and measure the right things; except for the period of time when they accidentally showed AMD topping the charts and then had to adjust their expert benchmark scores. 4K gaming isn’t real; it’s a conspiracy invented by Big GPU and no gamers want it because clearly all gaming graphics is chasing higher FPS. And not only are they not shills, YOU are! What a convincing argument. Others more reputable in the benchmarking scene considered userbenchmarks to be poorly executed to begin with, but wow, they really do not know how to take an L, at all. Of course it is convenient that the cases where AMD processors would succeed at are irrelevant. Now I’m not playing games most of the time so a high framerate in games is hardly important to me. But who would I rather get advice from: Sour grapes userbenchmarks, or literally any other reputable benchmarking site? They inch closer and closer to blatant SEO SPAM every year. I know Intel is not good at PR, but they really ought to pay these people... to stop making them look bad.
- twiclo 5y agoThis constant linking to other things is a bit annoying. I found most of them are older books. I clicked the spanking link to maybe find a book on why you should/shouldn't spank your children and instead got a porn site. Who is this guy?
- genpfault 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adequacy.org#Notable_stories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adequacy.org#Notable_stories
- 2ndbigbang 5y agoThe post is from 2001. The spanking.com domain name was probably owned by someone else at the time and might not have been NSFW. The books are all going to be 20 years old at least.
- WhompingWindows 5y agoWow, amazing satire. Can someone provide some context - what is this website? I tried to go to Front Page but I think we're hugging the site to death.
- _joel 5y agoWhilst it might be, the same traits were being used in active propaganda campaigns by those tech companies invested in killing off Linux (you know who)
- Alex3917 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adequacy.org https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adequacy.org
- aidenn0 5y agoI think the best pithy description of adequacy.org I got was "Graduate school for slashdot trolls"
- rsj_hn 5y agoYes, it was the best of slashdot trolls who decided to form a special club and truly hone their craft. The results were .. amazing.
- spiralx 5y agoAround 2000 Slashdot was the premier tech forum and had a feature where you could have "hidden" comment threads, around which evolved a community of trolls who would compete to craft the most ridiculous and successful trolls and then post them for others to enjoy. My favourite being "The moon - a ridiculous liberal myth". Anyway, at some point someone had the idea to set up our own site which we would position as a deeply serious technology and political opinion site, which was Adequacy.org. Stories were mostly from the editors, who could also post comments only visible to other editors, sadly lost to history. The author of the linked story wasn't one of the original trolls from Slashdot that made up the site's initial editors, they were someone who got the joke and became an editor. And for scale I think I had the second most commented story on the site, and it doesn't come close - and we had to disable commenting after a while due to the site crashing from the load every half-hour or so.... http://archive.is/gWskS http://archive.is/gWskS
- coward76 5y agoIs your son or daughter safe from the Russian menace "Tetris"? Some common symptoms include them attempting to organize their room into well fitting shapes such as neatly fitting boxes. True Hackers use Compuserve or Prodigy.
- aasasd 5y agoYou laugh, but: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect
- aasasd 5y agoAlso, Tetris taught me this: https://media.sketchfab.com/models/c4df0c4fb6904e9e80c13ef8eac5fef8/thumbnails/172a47c1f3924a989947755010dbaf1f/daf3359bb6004e23b6f02ed42d3aaf42.jpeg https://media.sketchfab.com/models/c4df0c4fb6904e9e80c13ef8e...
- geocrasher 5y agoI had this when I played Minecraft a lot. My wife and I (who both played for hours on end almost daily, running servers together) both started the see the world as blocks. It changed our perception quite a bit. It didn't bother us, we thought it was cool. It didn't interfere with anything. We maintained our understanding of reality vs game. Until a creeper blew up our house IRL. That was unusual.
- nsxwolf 5y agoWhen Call of Duty 4 came out, I played it so much I would have vivid dreams almost nightly of playing "paintball" with friends, suddenly realizing we were using real guns and ammo, and we would continue "playing" even after we realized the death and carnage that was resulting.
- FredPret 5y agoThis nearly killed me with Trackmania a few years ago and learning to drive a real car. In Trackmania you had to slam the steering to one side when turning. On a highway... not so much
- josephcsible 5y agoWhat scares me is that I can picture some parents having read this and thinking it was good, serious advice.
- nickstinemates 5y agoI've looked for this off and on for a long time. What a relic. It belongs in a museum. Thank you so much for finding it.
- underseacables 5y agoThis is hilarious!! I met almost all the list criteria and turned out ok.
- atum47 5y ago>does your son use Quake I lost it.
- par 5y agooldie but such a classic
- aasasd 5y agoMy only lament with this is that the link prominently has ‘humor’ in it, so I can't subject unsuspecting friends to the text. Guess I'm off to one of the ‘archive’ sites, with more cryptic urls. Edit: here it is https://archive.is/e0diF https://archive.is/e0diF Or https://web.archive.org/web/20040612092245/http://www.adequacy.org/public/stories/2001.12.2.42056.2147.html https://web.archive.org/web/20040612092245/http://www.adequa...
- redleader55 5y agoIn an age of "post-truth", out of control "political correctness" and all the other daemons, it's hard to read this and even realise it is supposed to be satire.
- bradjohnson 5y agoPlease don't hijack the conversation to whinge about political correctness.
- atoav 5y agoThe internet today is unarguably much less innocent place than it has beennin these times. I don't think it is off topic to reflect on the changes in culture that happened since then. With the masses the internet (like every medium before it) became much more propagandistic and propaganda is the art of supplying people with stories they want to be true, because they express a big lie they tell themselves about their lives. This wasn't different, when the Nazis gave people the Volksempfänger and Germans went to the cinemas to look at the newest reels of Wochenschau and every story told them how they (and they alone) are special people and others (jews, roma, sinti, gays, communists, ...) were to blame for all that was wrong. I don't see why it should be improper or forbidden to reflect on the cultural changes within the internet in a post about an episode about its past — other than political agenda yet again.
- tr1ll10nb1ll 5y agoI'm assuming that this is obviously satire. Looking at some of the comments on HN tho, it makes me feel like it might not be. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
- g00gler 5y agoI thought this was a joke too. I got a kick out of the idea of some high schooler or college freshman’s satire causing a bunch of parents to force their kids to remove flash in 2001 because its a “computer hacking tool”. The other stuff like “you can’t remove Linux without damaging the hard drive” and that you have to send it back to the manufacturer to be replaced just seems so cheeky...
- the_only_law 5y ago> and that you have to send it back to the manufacturer to be replaced just seems so cheeky... This reads to me like some scripted item a jaded customer service representative reads to a computer-illiterate customer complaining about something on their computer, who of course believes it.
- endominus 5y agoI once had a scammer call me, claiming to be from Microsoft support and trying to convince me to install a RAT. When he asked if I was using Windows or Mac, I replied "Linux." He was aghast, saying that was "illegal" and he would be reporting me for breaking the law unless I complied with his directives. Had a good laugh at that one.
- kaybe 5y agoI told him we didn't have a computer. That didn't register at all, he still tried to get me to install something, somehow, despite my insistence.
- jschwartzi 5y ago"Okay, let me toggle the bootloader in. Call me back in about an hour."
- larrydag 5y agoAlternate questionnaire. Does your child have interests outside of sports and video games? Does your child work independently on projects? Does your child look outside the box and solves difficult challenges? Does your child question the status quo and seeks to find answers outside of their domain? If you answered Yes to any of these questions then you are a good parent. Just make sure they aren't doing anything illegal and they will turn out okay.
- johnnythunder 5y agoDid he ask for one of these for his birthday? https://surplus.gov.ab.ca/OA/ItemDetail.aspx?AuctionID=31633 https://surplus.gov.ab.ca/OA/ItemDetail.aspx?AuctionID=31633
- devmor 5y agoOh man, I'm lucky my father never would have believed this stuff. In 2001, I was putting together tens of 486 and 386 based PCs out of a heap of old parts donated by a family friend and the neighbors thought I was some kind of hacker. I fondly remember dad spending his tax refund to buy me a brand new Dell the next year, and coming home from work to find me at the kitchen table with it in parts. He said nothing at first, but from the look in his eyes, it took him about 30-40 seconds to remember that I knew what I was doing already.
- balabaster 5y agoI can't tell if this was legit fear, outright propaganda or satire. Having had a computer in my life since the age of 8, this seems like one hilarious cliche on top of another, the kind of thing you'd expect to see as an ad playing in the background of the 1995 cult classic: Hackers :D
- nsxwolf 5y agoWhen this first appeared I thought I remembered it had been picked up by the mainstream press, but I can't find a mention of it on news search. You can imagine how easily the masses would have accepted this in 2001.
- syshum 5y agoSomething being picked up by the "mainstream press" does not mean it is not satire. There are all kinds of satire and hoaxes that have been reported by the mainstream press as truth and reality...
- nsxwolf 5y agoYes, my point was that especially in 2001, it would have been easy to not have the technical acumen to realize the story was satire, and to write a serious news story about it.
- balabaster 5y agoI recall thinking back then that hackers were mysterious and cool. Fast forward to becoming a computer programmer and spending my life reverse engineering basically everything to be able to do my job and it seems laughable how much fear people have of basically anyone that spends time understanding anything they don't. Look! A witch! :D Also, I guess if you were a girl, you had a free pass, because if this article was anything to go by, hackers could only be boys(?)
- developer93 5y agoI suspect it's also a nod to the prejudice of the father, if he had been real.
- imwillofficial 5y agoCan we get away from the politics and get back to the topic at hand? The dangers of Quake as a hacker training ground for young impressionable minds? Don’t get me started on the potential pitfalls of AMD processors. Related story: I one time almost got our internet shutoff by trying to telnet into various ISP (EarthLink) IPs when I was like 13.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mdbauman 5y agoA true classic, thanks for reminding me of this article. If I remember correctly, the "hacking manuals" section is what inspired my reading for much of middle school. I wonder how many other 12-year-olds turned in a book report on Neuromancer to a horrified teacher because of this post?
- kilboy 5y agoOld Gold. This is what I grew up imagining what all hackers are like.
- ValentineC 5y agoIt's a bit sad how many of the links in the article don't work anymore.
- rishabhd 5y agoI am not sure if it was a satire or an actual article from someone concerned.
- racl101 5y agoNah. My son just listens to a lot of Manson, plays a lot of Quake, and has penchant for stylish trenchcoats. He's a good kid. He would never become a dirty hacker.
- amalcon 5y ago>DOSing involves gaining access to the "command prompt" on other people's machines, and using it to tie up vital internet services. I didn't like most of it, but that bit cracked me right up.
- codeulike 5y ago8. Is your son obsessed with "Lunix"? BSD, Lunix, Debian and Mandrake are all versions of an illegal hacker operation system, invented by a Soviet computer hacker named Linyos Torovoltos, before the Russians lost the Cold War. ... Lunix is extremely dangerous software, and cannot be removed without destroying part of your hard disk surface.
- willis936 5y agowtf I love lunix now
- FridayoLeary 5y agoin Russia, computer programs delete you!
- aasasd 5y agoMeanwhile Windows is all too happy about overwriting any bootloader you may have with its own, if you happen to run its installation or, I think, even some disk-checking programs (don't remember if only `format` did it, or something `chkdsk`-related too).
- young_unixer 5y agoThat's why I keep Linux and Windows in completely different drives and disconnect the one that I'm not using.
- tomc1985 5y agoIf your son can backtrace a firewall through a series of tubes, he's definitely a hacker
- hacdaddy 5y agotracerT for you and me!
- Animats 5y agoAnd they grow up to teach computer hacking classes to sysadmins and law enforcement.[1] [1] https://www.sans.org/cyber-security-courses/hacker-techniques-exploits-incident-handling/ https://www.sans.org/cyber-security-courses/hacker-technique...
- ww520 5y agoI did some phone phreaking when I was a kid. Wrote a Basic program to control the modem to randomly try out local numbers that can call long distance because most of the cool BBS with lots of warez were long distance at that time. It went well for a while. But then one of my parents’ friends called my home and couldn’t get through because my program ran for hours tying up the line. He called the phone company to complain. The phone company investigated and my parents got mad at me, and that’s the end of my phreaking career. I was mad at that friend for snitching.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- throwaway823882 5y agoPlaying Quake doesn't make you a hacker, it makes you rad as fuck. But if they play Rocket Arena, your child is a G.G. Allin-level lunatic.
- grawprog 5y ago>Popular hacker software includes "Comet Cursor", "Bonzi Buddy" and "Flash" OK i have to admit. This made me laugh.
- busymom0 5y ago> If your son has requested a new "processor" from a company called "AMD", this is genuine cause for alarm. AMD is a third-world based company who make inferior, "knock-off" copies of American processor chips. They use child labor extensively in their third world sweatshops, and they deliberately disable the security features that American processor makers, such as Intel, use to prevent hacking. AMD chips are never sold in stores, and you will most likely be told that you have to order them from internet sites. Do not buy this chip! This is one request that you must refuse your son, if you are to have any hope of raising him well. I can’t tell if this post is serious or satire? Was this actually the consensus back in 2001?
- Buttons840 5y agoIn 2001 children soldered each logic gate by hand. /s Just kidding. It's satire. It's supposed to be funny because a chip fab is a very clean environment, not a "sweatshop".
- spiralx 5y agoAMD being dangerous knock-offs was one of the recurring themes we had, and in fact when we closed the site in 2002/3 we changed it to a blank screen with just a message we'd received from an AMD employee threatening to "shut us down" :)
- smabie 5y agoYep. AMD processor? Straight to jail.
- nahuel0x 5y agoA visual 1993 guide: https://imgur.com/a/KhUINw1 https://imgur.com/a/KhUINw1
- annoyingnoob 5y ago> I attend their teen parties with them to ensure no drinking or alcohol is on the premises. I keep a fatherly eye on the CDs they listen to and the shows they watch, the company they keep and the books they read. You could say I'm a model parent. Um, no, not a model parent. Draconian.
- young_unixer 5y agothatsthejoke.tar.gz
- chpmrc 5y agoWait, this is article isn't sarcastic?
- FunnyLookinHat 5y ago"son" Because women can't be hackers, I guess?
- collinvandyck76 5y agowomen are smart enough to hide their tracks
- utf_8x 5y agoIt's a satirical article from 2001, calm down
- lrvick 5y agoIn the early 00s my hyper conservative helicopter parents found my Livejournal where they discovered I was into "hacking" and social activities they didn't approve of. They eventually confronted me and said I must have all internet postings passed through them in the future, or shut it all down. What they didn't realize is the modem PCI card in their desktop was a LAN-over-RJ12 card hooked through the walls directly to my machine where I maintained the always on dialup connection and served it to them. I had a complete MITM on all their internet traffic. After their demands were made, I simply served them fake copies of all my online web presences that revealed final messages that I was closing them down to respect the wishes of my parents. The rest of the world saw the continually updated versions, and I was never caught. Now I work in infosec.
- brutusborn 5y agoThanks for sharing, it made me smile. Makes me feel for parents with a predisposition to anxiety. I recently started telling my parents about all the times I snuck out after dark as a child and they were horrified. This is the (very sophisticated) digital equivalent.
- spacemanmatt 5y agoI escaped out my window a bit, too. But the digital gaslighting we applied to a malicious teacher in the 90s was next-level and I now I'm infosec-adjacent.
- mastrsushi 5y ago"invented by a Soviet computer hacker named Linyos Torovoltos, before the Russians lost the Cold War" That should be a dead giveaway.
- 29athrowaway 5y agoI remember having read this back then. I can't believe 20 years have passed...
- spentu 5y agoNow this brings back some memories. I remember finding this when I was still a teenager and found it funny. I cannot really remember if I thought that this was legit, even it looks like a joke now. It could have been written by an adult, when looking from teenagers point of view. After all, adults had some stupid rules.
- accountofme 5y agoI remember reading this in 2001 ... I swear I read this on theonion.ca...
- spiralx 5y agoHa, I was one of the editors of Adequacy.org back in the day, my "Not Just Harmless Fun" story was the second most commented on the site after this one. My name is even there on the Wikipedia article thanks to the "naked and petrified" guy getting annoyed with us at one point IIRC. http://archive.is/gWskS http://archive.is/gWskS This story got so much traffic it broke the site numerous times and in the end we had to disable commenting entirely, so it's entirely possible it would have had more responses if our server had been able to handle it.
- thinkingemote 5y agoThat's a work of art!
- spiralx 5y agoThanks, I was very happy with it, it had the right balance of being outrageously inflammatory while containing plenty of clues that it was a troll. And the images were the icing on the cake lol.