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You're taking it too literally, I wasn't referring to anyone. I explained the point in my previous post. If your comment reflects sincerely held beliefs that a

You're taking it too literally, I wasn't referring to anyone. I explained the point in my previous post. If your comment reflects sincerely held beliefs that accurately represent the scene as it was, I think it's safe to say you were not a part of it. Your derision of that culture is either out of dishonesty or ignorance.

tptacek 13y ago
You're willing to accuse me of being dishonest or ignorant, so I think you should be willing to be specific about what you're talking about. Which cool kids are you referring to?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- lawnchair_larry 13y ago
  I don't know how to make it more clear that I wasn't actually referring to any specific "cool kids" and that my statement was not intended to be taken literally. Claim: for any given period of the hacker scene, saying it largely amounted to nothing more than things like carding and harassment is false, and this statement would only be made by someone who either: (a) was not exposed, or exposed only to a poor sample, and therefore doesn't understand the culture (ignorance); or (b) was exposed, but intentionally wishes to misrepresent the situation (dishonesty) So I guess the possibilities are either that your statement was ignorant, dishonest, or my claim is wrong and the hacker scene (during whatever time period you intended) was in fact nothing more than dishonorable carders and trolls. If nothing else, you must know that rming a compromised unix box was not the norm.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    No, I know you to be wrong about that. It's also worth remembering that many of the smartest people in the '90s hack scene came from the virus scene. What I don't understand is how someone who was around in the 90s could manage to mythologize a bunch of teenagers using semicolons and pipe filters to pop shells on boxes and dump mail spools. Here's the part where you tell me that you once knew a hacker who never rm'd a box. Why am I meant to care about that? There was zero correlation in the 90s between skill and care for other people's data. Your opening comment was, "sounds like someone wasn't in the cool kids group". Now you've moved the goalposts; turns out you weren't talking about the "cool kids" at all. But it doesn't matter whether we're talking specifics or the broader issue of whether hackers were more or less moral in the 1990s: you're comprehensively wrong. Consider resetting the "tptacek is always full of shit" bit that is obviously stuck in your brain.
- amuntner 13y ago
  tptacek is exactly right. Not to put words in his mouth, but "nothing more than" is your characterization of what he said as opposed to what he actually said. The history tptacek is describing goes back to the 1980s: use your favorite search engine to look for the name "Richard Sanzda" for a poignant example.
  - lawnchair_larry 13y ago
    Do you understand why it's not valid to pick a single anecdote that aligns with your narrative and use it to draw conclusions about a large group of individuals? I'm not mischaracterizing tptacek's comment. Nor am I suggesting that there were no bad actors. tptacek said: "The "hackers" FD's moderator is talking about are the ones I'm talking about.", those being "teenagers breaking into phone switches and harassing people, buying Pantera CDs on stolen credit cards, stealing ESNs from other people's phones to make calls on someone else's bill, and rm'ing Unix boxes". Obviously, this is not who the FD moderator was talking about, making tptacek's comment unfair.
- eruditely 13y ago
  You are dragging your feet so hard here, oh my god it's unbearable.
chris_wot 13y ago
Wow, that was an uninformed comment.

tptacek 13y ago

You're willing to accuse me of being dishonest or ignorant, so I think you should be willing to be specific about what you're talking about. Which cool kids are you referring to?

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
lawnchair_larry 13y ago
I don't know how to make it more clear that I wasn't actually referring to any specific "cool kids" and that my statement was not intended to be taken literally. Claim: for any given period of the hacker scene, saying it largely amounted to nothing more than things like carding and harassment is false, and this statement would only be made by someone who either: (a) was not exposed, or exposed only to a poor sample, and therefore doesn't understand the culture (ignorance); or (b) was exposed, but intentionally wishes to misrepresent the situation (dishonesty) So I guess the possibilities are either that your statement was ignorant, dishonest, or my claim is wrong and the hacker scene (during whatever time period you intended) was in fact nothing more than dishonorable carders and trolls. If nothing else, you must know that rming a compromised unix box was not the norm.
- tptacek 13y ago
  No, I know you to be wrong about that. It's also worth remembering that many of the smartest people in the '90s hack scene came from the virus scene. What I don't understand is how someone who was around in the 90s could manage to mythologize a bunch of teenagers using semicolons and pipe filters to pop shells on boxes and dump mail spools. Here's the part where you tell me that you once knew a hacker who never rm'd a box. Why am I meant to care about that? There was zero correlation in the 90s between skill and care for other people's data. Your opening comment was, "sounds like someone wasn't in the cool kids group". Now you've moved the goalposts; turns out you weren't talking about the "cool kids" at all. But it doesn't matter whether we're talking specifics or the broader issue of whether hackers were more or less moral in the 1990s: you're comprehensively wrong. Consider resetting the "tptacek is always full of shit" bit that is obviously stuck in your brain.
amuntner 13y ago
tptacek is exactly right. Not to put words in his mouth, but "nothing more than" is your characterization of what he said as opposed to what he actually said. The history tptacek is describing goes back to the 1980s: use your favorite search engine to look for the name "Richard Sanzda" for a poignant example.
- lawnchair_larry 13y ago
  Do you understand why it's not valid to pick a single anecdote that aligns with your narrative and use it to draw conclusions about a large group of individuals? I'm not mischaracterizing tptacek's comment. Nor am I suggesting that there were no bad actors. tptacek said: "The "hackers" FD's moderator is talking about are the ones I'm talking about.", those being "teenagers breaking into phone switches and harassing people, buying Pantera CDs on stolen credit cards, stealing ESNs from other people's phones to make calls on someone else's bill, and rm'ing Unix boxes". Obviously, this is not who the FD moderator was talking about, making tptacek's comment unfair.
eruditely 13y ago
You are dragging your feet so hard here, oh my god it's unbearable.

chris_wot 13y ago

Wow, that was an uninformed comment.