umm, is there anybody here who doesn't know who Mitnick is? well, in that case, his 'the art of deception' is an interesting book on social engineering.
if you're interested in hacker stories there is one a bit less mainstream about Max Butler, 'Kingpin', it's a really great read (more like a criminal thriller than a nerd bio). long story short a very talented but very troubled white/grayhat hacker became a victim of the justice system and later on turned into a blackhat who got to the top of the cc fraud empire. he's currently serving his 13.
yep. here's his article[1] which is basically a TLDR (or teaser) for the book, but I'd recommend people read the book without spoilers, more fun (I didn't know the story details when I bought the book).
"Ghost in the wires", his auto-biography, was also a great read. It was very entertaining, and certainly worth a re-read when I have the time. It reads like a cyberpunk thriller set in the 80's and 90's, except it's not fiction.
You know those old Apple stories on forklore.org? That's how those people felt about you. And soon these tiny details will get lost in the fray.
It's something we humans are good at. Smushing events, things, people, happenings into a ball, condensing it over time into a singular emotive feeling, of happiness, sadness, of acceptance or rejection.
And winners write the history so they have a good head start. And the rest of us, especially now, are just media creators that contribute to the narrative contributing to that binary feeling of happiness or sadness, of acceptance or rejection.
And in a few more cycles most of it won't matter. Not the drama that rise on here, not the bullshit that happens at the parties, not yelling, screaming, not the kindness, nor mercy sometimes.
It won't matter.
As long as that condensed emotion in your heart is agreeable.
Because that's what we are. Humans being fed stories, "real" or "fake" until we die.
I disagree. Everything that happens is relevant. The fact that we forget it is just the mechanism by which we are able to focus on the here and now. Stories and emotions are just the way to extend our useful memories. Our limits as entities don't say much about the nature of the universe. I choose to believe that time might as well be an illusion and our deeds might be considered to live "forever". This is just a guideline to help me lead the life I want.
It was an interesting time. The internet was there but the phone network hadn't faded into obscurity yet, so phreaking was still a thing. 2600, Cult of the Dead Cow, Phreak and many more were fun sources for mischief and information. I can honestly say that they all greatly increased my interest in programming and computers, setting me on my future path for life.
There isn't a lot like that anymore which is a little sad, but I look upon it fondly. The internet had to grow up at some point I guess.
Or politics, advertising/marketing, making new friends, being popular in school etc. It's one of those terms that really doesn't add to the lexicon, rather it vaguely describes a large group of activities while sounding educated.
Unfortunately, as more and more people use terms like these, the definitions become looser and the meaning less evident.
I don't get to finish reading a lot of books, but this one I was able to. Great insights about social engineering and how this - http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/08/apple-amazon-mat-hona... - could have been avoided if people just learned from Kevin's exploits.
I remember painting this on our schools tech room in high school (It was allowed, not vandalism). It's still pretty crazy to think that he was held for years without charges being brought against him, they really wanted to make an example. I'm glad he is free now and doing his own thing.
I wish 2600 was the magazine that it used to be, but I think the internet really caught up with it and made it non factor.
Yes, they sure do, just got the latest issue by mail this week. If I'm not completely mistaken (the magazine is at home) it shows phones that were taken out of business.
They also still have picture prominently featuring '2600' somewhere.
takedown.com, the prosecutor's site documenting the arrest of Kevin Mitnick, was the first web site I ever saw that made use of frames (when viewed in Netscape 3.2 iirc?)
At the time, I thought frames were amazing and started making a bunch of web sites with frames. Oops.
was wondering why this is surfacing now myself ? I think I had just upgraded FreeBSD 2.2.2 to 2.2.3 when I first read about KM.. sigh* slashdot had KM headlining daily no need to relive the pre-google era on HN!
It's definitely relevant now that we've drawn attention to the draconian federal technology statutes. The Mitnick case is the best example of ignorant paranoia corrupting the common law precedent and the slack it's given to the justice bureaucracy. It would be an err to consider their acts morally or legally equivalent though.
I think weev's case is a lot more similar to Aaronsw than Kevin Mitnick's. weev is accused of more or less the same thing as Aaronsw: downloading files off a server, except unlike Aaronsw in weev's case the files were accessible to anyone on the Internet.
Kevin Mitnick, on the other hand, was accused of things like wire fraud and tapping people's phones.
Unlike Aaronsw, both of these guys are kind of assholes.
Wow, the fact that Kevin Mitnick's bio is trending is making me feel old.
I remember working in an IT book shop in Poland when his autobiography came out, and hoping they would send us a signed copy I could buy off my boss :)
Most 'black hat' hackers don't get along with those that started like them but turned into what nowadays we call 'security experts', working for the big companies against hackers.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 92.0 ms ] thread[1] http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-01/ff_max_bu...
I'll add "Ghost in the Wire" to my to-read list :)
* I'm probably still naïve but hopefully a little bit less so
It also never occurred to me that I'm almost 30. :(
Brings a damn tear to my eye seeing hacker culture get remembered by the newbs.
It's something we humans are good at. Smushing events, things, people, happenings into a ball, condensing it over time into a singular emotive feeling, of happiness, sadness, of acceptance or rejection.
And winners write the history so they have a good head start. And the rest of us, especially now, are just media creators that contribute to the narrative contributing to that binary feeling of happiness or sadness, of acceptance or rejection.
And in a few more cycles most of it won't matter. Not the drama that rise on here, not the bullshit that happens at the parties, not yelling, screaming, not the kindness, nor mercy sometimes.
It won't matter.
As long as that condensed emotion in your heart is agreeable.
Because that's what we are. Humans being fed stories, "real" or "fake" until we die.
There isn't a lot like that anymore which is a little sad, but I look upon it fondly. The internet had to grow up at some point I guess.
Unfortunately, as more and more people use terms like these, the definitions become looser and the meaning less evident.
Ah well, thusly does language evolve...
http://www.takedown.com/evidence/transcripts/
Nostalgia.
And does anyone else remember 2600's feature-length film "Freedom Downtime - The Story of Kevin Mitnick" [VIDEO] -- http://archive.org/details/FreedomDowntime-TheStoryOfKevinMi...
I wish 2600 was the magazine that it used to be, but I think the internet really caught up with it and made it non factor.
At the time, I thought frames were amazing and started making a bunch of web sites with frames. Oops.
Kevin Mitnick, on the other hand, was accused of things like wire fraud and tapping people's phones.
Unlike Aaronsw, both of these guys are kind of assholes.