Daniel Blanchette

December 1st 2009

Dedicated to Susan Phillips

(1978-2009)

Hackers!!

Book Information

• Hacker Culture by Douglas Adams

• An exploration of literature, movies, music and events relevant to hacker culture

• Good idea but wrong approach

Hackers v.1

• Late 50’s to early 70’s• Concerned with solving computer problems

elegantly• Mostly all found working at University

computer labs funded by ARPA (Now DARPA)

• Made possible the major advancements in computing– Look up the Rosebowl Prank as I have no time to

discuss it. DO IT! I’m talking to YOU! Yeah, YOU!

Phreaking

• Subculture dedicated to the study and exploration of telecommunications network

• The first group of people that can be argued to cause harm to society

• JOYBUBBLES!! and the Captain Crunch Whistle– CAPTAIN CRUNCH!! And Blue boxing

Hacker Code

• Access to Computers and anything that might teach you something about the way the world works should be unlimited and total

• All Information should be free

Hacker Code

• Mistrust Authority - Promote Decentralization• Hackers should be judged by their hacking,

not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race or position

• You can create art and beauty on a computer• Computers can change your life for the better

Sharing Information

• Code made available for everyone

The Altair Basic Incident

• The Homebrew Computer Club, 1975• Dan Sokol gave away copies of Altair Basic• Bill Gates responded by writing an open letter

published in the Homebrew Computer Club’s newsletter equating this philosophy to theiving

Sharing Information

• Code made available for everyone

• Hacker profiles on BBS

• Hacker periodicals– TAP

TAP

• Abbie Hoffman and Al Bell founded the Technical Assistance Party

• Initially served as official Yippie newsletter

• Became a hacker periodical that contained detailed phreaking information and many cues to social engineering

• Later turned into Controversial books (I.e Steal this Book)

Hackers v.2

• Post early 70’s to late 90’s• Came about as a shift between

generations• Hackers are now mostly computer

enthusiasts, mostly composed of teenagers and young adults

• Now shifted away from Major Universities

Hackers v.2

• Uses computer systems made possible by previous hackers

• Hacking done in secret within secret societies– Legion of Doom– Masters of Deception

• Boy Culture has taken over– “Rebels” against authority figures

Hacker Derivitives

• White Hacker: – Uses Hacking in order to find bugs in programs

and fix them. Usually fixes the bug and releases detailed documentation for the fix

• Black Hacker:– Uses Hacking in order to determine bugs, secrets

or any relevant information the Hacker wishes to know. Usually keeps the secret to himself but sometimes releases profiles about his exploits

Hacker Derivatives

• Derivative Hacker:– Uses the discoveries of another hacker, usually a

white or black hacker in order to gain access to systems and or secrets without knowledge of what they are doing.

– Usually causing damage to the system unintentionally

– A Main focus of the media and societies fears

Hacker Derivatives

• Script Kiddies– Uses pre-made executable

programs in order to gain access to a system, usually made by a white or black Hacker. (e.g SATAN)

– Are a sub-culture of Hacker Derivative

– A Major part of media sensalization of Hackers comes from this group (e.g Use of SATAN on the Pentagon’s accounting servers)

Hacker Code

• Mostly same code as before

• Believes that previous hackers have gone against the “code”

• Uses Information secrecy as a weapon

Language

• Language becomes more and more culturally significant for hackers

• Some believe that language is a form of technology and can be hacked in the same way– Plato– Knight Lightning– Mentor

Language

• Computer Lingo becomes standard

• Substitution of letters to form a hacker dialogue (e.g 3l1t3 means elite)

• Creation of derivative words (e.g uber) and use of unusual suffixes

Information

• BBS become more popular and hacker periodicals become synonymous with the rise of a well known handle

• Rise of the amount of technical guides released and even release of manifestos providing philosophies for Hackers (e.g The Hacker Manifesto, The Uni-Bomber Manifesto etc)

• TAP begins to publish more infrequently

PHRACK

• New Periodical released in 1985 by Knight Lightning

• First regularly published periodical to be distributed digitally

• Quickly became a Hacker Phenomenon• Releases Technical guides, cultural news,

significant events, hacker profiles and warnings

• Read by FBI, CIA, Microsoft, Apple– Look up the copyright incident OR ELSE!

PHRACK

• Articles are submitted by every day hackers and an editor selects which article will be published

• Harassed on multiple occasions by government officials– A violation of the First Amendment

Hacker v.3

• Post late 90’s to today

• Not enough time to talk about them so

• HOMEWORK!!