4 ms·

An Oral History of the L0pht (2018)

130 points by whiteyford 5y ago

dang 5y ago
Discussed a bit at the time (of the article): ‘We Got to Be Cool About This‘: An Oral History of the LØpht, Part 1 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17133416 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17133416 - May 2018 (30 comments)
tyingq 5y ago
"VAX machines, and whatever other hardware they could get their hands on." I was in high school in the New England area in the 80's. DEC donated a ton of great equipment to public schools, including pretty large VAX machines, terminals, printers, etc. From what I recall, it was driven a lot by a DEC exec named Russ Gullotti. It was pretty unusual at the time to be able to take Fortran, PASCAL, C, VMS, etc, classes in high school. I think this contributed quite a lot to the hacker vibe in the Massachusetts and New Hampshire areas.
david_sanchez 5y ago
The hackers of the day fought for the freedom of speech and the ability to express yourself without government control. Now? Those same people fight for pseudo diversity (IE: no males or white people), control of our speech through big tech companies, and the ability to express yourself, as long as it agrees with the current liberal narrative. All others are banned, crushed, and silenced. I've lost a lot of respect for this group as a whole. Most were actually radical authoritarians, disguised as freedom fighters because their side didn't have any power. I have a lifetime subscription to 2600 and I've been reading it since the early 90s. The editors will routinely talk directly about their fight for freedom, but when it comes to something against the current narrative or when a Democrat is in power, they seem to let most civil liberty violations slide or just won't acknowledge it.
- phaemon 5y ago
  Vouching for this because I want to argue against it. We never stood for your sad racist ignorant crap. We believed in a better world of educated people. Fuck off with your shitty fascist bullshit. 2600
  - socceroos 5y ago
    What's the racist part your referring to?
    - bitwize 5y ago
      Top-level post was repeating some dogwhistle talking points, including insinuating that the editorship of 2600 or the hacker community of which they are a part have an agenda against white people and that freedom of expression is somehow being curtailed for toxic and hateful elements of society, and that that's a bad thing. Scratch a person who repeats these talking points and you will, invariably, find a racist.
      - tshanmu 5y ago
        That's a bit of a jump in inference. The GP was talking about expressing views contrary to the current narratives....
        bitwize 5y ago
        Again, this is dogwhistle for "I want to show my racist ass in public with no consequences". Nonracists don't fulminate about "the current narratives" or "pseudo-diversity".
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
ArtWomb 5y ago
>>> Half the L0pht worked at BBN at one point or another An Oral History of BBN will perhaps never be recorded, alas. Lost to an era when esoteric technical knowledge was passed down from master to acolyte, and forever buried in layers of defense industry secrecy ;) Bolt, Beranek and Newman Inc., A Case History of Transition http://web.mit.edu/6.933/www/Fall2001/BBN.pdf http://web.mit.edu/6.933/www/Fall2001/BBN.pdf
- walrus01 5y ago
  Some of the people who had 'enable' on the routers of AS1 in the mid to late 1990s are very much out there running senior network engineering things at some big ISPs and companies to this day. You might be surprised.
xs 5y ago
You would think you could listen to an oral history right? Looks like it might be better titled "a written history".
dave_sullivan 5y ago
I was in middle school when I found the l0pht archives, a bunch of text from BBSs and stuff posted on the internet in the 90s. I remember this thing I read about the future of nanotechnology blew my mind so much that I printed it out and brought it to school to show my science teacher, she thought I was crazy and should focus on my grades. Whatever.

130 points by whiteyford 5y ago

dang 5y ago

Discussed a bit at the time (of the article): ‘We Got to Be Cool About This‘: An Oral History of the LØpht, Part 1 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17133416 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17133416 - May 2018 (30 comments)

tyingq 5y ago

"VAX machines, and whatever other hardware they could get their hands on." I was in high school in the New England area in the 80's. DEC donated a ton of great equipment to public schools, including pretty large VAX machines, terminals, printers, etc. From what I recall, it was driven a lot by a DEC exec named Russ Gullotti. It was pretty unusual at the time to be able to take Fortran, PASCAL, C, VMS, etc, classes in high school. I think this contributed quite a lot to the hacker vibe in the Massachusetts and New Hampshire areas.

david_sanchez 5y ago

The hackers of the day fought for the freedom of speech and the ability to express yourself without government control. Now? Those same people fight for pseudo diversity (IE: no males or white people), control of our speech through big tech companies, and the ability to express yourself, as long as it agrees with the current liberal narrative. All others are banned, crushed, and silenced. I've lost a lot of respect for this group as a whole. Most were actually radical authoritarians, disguised as freedom fighters because their side didn't have any power. I have a lifetime subscription to 2600 and I've been reading it since the early 90s. The editors will routinely talk directly about their fight for freedom, but when it comes to something against the current narrative or when a Democrat is in power, they seem to let most civil liberty violations slide or just won't acknowledge it.

phaemon 5y ago
Vouching for this because I want to argue against it. We never stood for your sad racist ignorant crap. We believed in a better world of educated people. Fuck off with your shitty fascist bullshit. 2600
- socceroos 5y ago
  What's the racist part your referring to?
  - bitwize 5y ago
    Top-level post was repeating some dogwhistle talking points, including insinuating that the editorship of 2600 or the hacker community of which they are a part have an agenda against white people and that freedom of expression is somehow being curtailed for toxic and hateful elements of society, and that that's a bad thing. Scratch a person who repeats these talking points and you will, invariably, find a racist.
    - tshanmu 5y ago
      That's a bit of a jump in inference. The GP was talking about expressing views contrary to the current narratives....
      - bitwize 5y ago
        Again, this is dogwhistle for "I want to show my racist ass in public with no consequences". Nonracists don't fulminate about "the current narratives" or "pseudo-diversity".
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

ArtWomb 5y ago

>>> Half the L0pht worked at BBN at one point or another An Oral History of BBN will perhaps never be recorded, alas. Lost to an era when esoteric technical knowledge was passed down from master to acolyte, and forever buried in layers of defense industry secrecy ;) Bolt, Beranek and Newman Inc., A Case History of Transition http://web.mit.edu/6.933/www/Fall2001/BBN.pdf http://web.mit.edu/6.933/www/Fall2001/BBN.pdf

walrus01 5y ago
Some of the people who had 'enable' on the routers of AS1 in the mid to late 1990s are very much out there running senior network engineering things at some big ISPs and companies to this day. You might be surprised.

xs 5y ago

You would think you could listen to an oral history right? Looks like it might be better titled "a written history".

dave_sullivan 5y ago

I was in middle school when I found the l0pht archives, a bunch of text from BBSs and stuff posted on the internet in the 90s. I remember this thing I read about the future of nanotechnology blew my mind so much that I printed it out and brought it to school to show my science teacher, she thought I was crazy and should focus on my grades. Whatever.