Letters: lores
Random Bits
Dear 2600:
Love your great magazine. In college, I was a very conservative law and order type of guy. Since then, I've developed a serious interest in computers which led me to your magazine. I'd been reading it for about a year when the NSA scandal broke. I must admit that I look at things very differently now. I've long thought that hackers played a role in the evolution of better software. Now I see them playing a role in keeping the government honest. Take the case of Ed Snowden. Thanks to his leaks, I now know that we are well on our way to being completely screwed when it comes to privacy. I have become more pessimistic than ever about the future as far as privacy is concerned. Technology (the kind that invades privacy) is everywhere in our day to day world, and data from disparate sources will soon be linked together in real time. It seems that the younger generation doesn't care at all about privacy as they willingly spill all the details of their lives on Facebook for the world to see. The most recent poll numbers tell us that the NSA's domestic spying program is no big deal to many people. I just don't understand why more people are not outraged over it. The other day I took my morning jog and the following vision of the future started to take shape in my mind. I hope it is just a paranoid waking nightmare, but I felt compelled to share it with your readers.
Future scenario: a man walks down a public street and is scanned by facial recognition software and biometric readings are taken. The person seems anxious, angry perhaps. His heart rate is elevated. This is where our benevolent and all-powerful government enters the scene. Over the years, it has perfected its data collection to include real time electronic and biometric data integrated together so that no data is looked at in isolation. This suspicious person activates the monitoring software programmed to look for terrorists and other dangerous people (of course, all of this is done to keep us safe from terrorists). His facial profile is matched to a name and SS number in a government database. Now, the government knows that Mr. John Smith is upset this morning on his way to work. Time to do more digging. Does Mr. Smith own a firearm? Check the database. Better read his email to see if there is incriminating correspondence. Has he seen a shrink lately? Better check his medical record database. Check his Twitter and text messages too while you're at it. Has he had any unusual financial activity lately? Maybe he is in financial trouble or has been put on the payroll of a terrorist organization. We (your friendly government) will check that too. Now we check the correspondence of his wife and associates as well. Ah, it seems he is only upset because his wife caught him having an affair with a young woman in his office. Of course, we knew that months ago when she emailed her friends about it. Old news. Time to move on to the next suspicious looking person on the street.
I fear we will soon be told such action doesn't violate the Constitution because it is an old document written before email and computers. If the founders had known about terrorists and the Internet, they surely would not have written the Fourth Amendment without some exceptions for government snoops. And besides, as the Supreme Court will soon tell us - if you have nothing to hide, then you shouldn't mind government spying. Remember folks, freedom is seldom lost all at once, but bit by bit over the course of years.
Feel safer yet?
I don't.
Jim L
While this is undoubtedly a scenario that many in power would relish, we can take some comfort in the fact that the NSA story has not receded and, in fact, has gained much traction since it first broke this summer. While polls were quite disturbing at first, indicating that most people didn't really care if their privacy was being invaded since they had "nothing to hide," that initial lack of concern seems to be transitioning into indignation and a desire to learn how to keep our private lives private. Even politicians seem to be getting the message, slowly voting to look into NSA violations after blindly accepting them. But we should not be fooled - those in power knew exactly what they were doing when they sold our freedom down the river and changed the rules so that all of these violations would be "legal." They should not be trusted again. Nor should we be doing anything at all to help make this easy for those who see our privacy and secure communications as some sort of a threat.
Dear 2600:
The Pirate Bay and its affiliates are now blocked by all Internet service providers in Ireland. The court case was not defended. The European legislation requires the judge to recognize legitimate users' rights when putting in place such an injunction. Did anyone argue that Creative Commons material would lose an easy method of distribution? No.
Not that it can be proven, but it seems Ireland is hosting PRISM data under the umbrella of large U.S. corporations.
On the Snowden case, the Irish judiciary refused the U.S. deportation request, as they did not include the timeframe for the alleged crime.
Free Gary McKinnon
Garry WynneYou have the Irish Recorded Music Association to thank for blocking The Pirate Bay. But it's easily bypassed by using a web proxy or a mirror site, at least for now. But simply bypassing this idiocy isn't a solution - the idiocy itself must be defeated. As for your other points, Ireland's connections to the NSA PRISM program may not be provable at the moment, but that can change if someone with the access and a conscience decides to reveal the truth. We should consider how much has been revealed over the past few years by courageous people and feel optimistic that there are so many others out there who will do the right thing at the right time. And as for the Irish refusal to grant an arrest warrant for Snowden in July, this is widely seen as a technicality which the United States could easily fix. There are very few governments actually willing to stand up to the intimidating powers that are involved here.
Dear 2600:
After years of wasting time playing high school sports because others wanted me to do so, after years of living in a household where the computer was seen by parents as evil because it distracted their offspring from the precious high school sports (you know, one of the things that don't have weight in the real world), I spent two months with my cousin in his Brooklyn apartment. He's a system admin for a company I choose not to name. Needless to say, my eyes have been opened to something I truly have interest in, and care for: computers. Is this enlightenment? Is the feeling of true awe, and a desire to learn as much as you can in what seems to be not enough hours in the day, what you folks at 2600 felt when you first discovered computers? Or "hacking?" My only regret is that, now, I am 19-years-old, and have just finished my first year of university. I am changing my major to computer science. It sucks to know there are people out there who have been familiar with the world of hacking since age 13-14. They've got an edge I'll never have. Anyways - hope you guys at 2600, and the entire reader base, immensely enjoy and make use of the rest of 2013. I sure as hell will.
lord.underdog
Yes, you nailed it as far as that magical feeling so many of us feel. But try not to think of it as a competition. There are people of all ages who are into this in one way or another. The time you've spent in other worlds isn't wasted time, but a window you've had into other perspectives that you can now bring here. Also, while majoring in computer science may be exactly what you need to excel and get what you want, it's not a requirement by any stretch. We know of many people who are hugely into hacking but have no technical training at all. All that matters is that you approach it in a way that's comfortable to you. There will always be people who do it differently and/or better. But nobody will be able to do it exactly like you.
Dear 2600:
I have an interesting story and I am after advice in regards to whether it would make a good article. This happened recently - two weeks ago. I still don't know if I did the right thing...
To cut a long story short, I found an exploit in a live industry-regulated real money poker site. The exploit allowed me to download all players' hand history as well as see the last hands they mucked. It was bad JSON calls and I wrote a Python script to make the requests and such I required. Obviously, with this information, one could do a great deal of evil things and really profit... I thought, wow, this is my big break. Anyway, I didn't wanna be evil and there is no fun in cheating, so, really wanting to do the right thing, I decided to email them the exploit and hope they would... I don't know, offer me a job... or give me some money or something.
Anyway, I got an email back saying it was unreal and marvelous. They held an entire meeting to show their developers how something so simple could be such a bad mistake blah blah blah. They finished the letter giving me a 50 dollar no deposit bonus as thanks. This is a poker site with real money, regulated. This would have destroyed them. I mean, sure, they could have given me nothing, but for something so big, something of such great magnitude, I got $50. I could have played the poker on this site for years and years, fleecing every player and making a killing literally seeing their cards and the way they played. I could have loaded all of the data into software to analyze each player. I chose to do the right thing and that's my thanks?
I'm still in shock, to be honest. I thought this one was my big break. Obviously, I will write something up with full source and what they did wrong, etc. This was just a short explanation of what happened.
Scott
First, there's no such thing as your one "big break" if you have talent and ability, so you need to not think of this as a lost opportunity. More importantly, you have no way of knowing how someone will respond to a good deed. Returning a lost dog, performing CPR, or holding a door can all result in no thanks at all or something truly tremendous. You can't perform such acts with any expectation or you're doing them for the wrong reason and you'd also be a pretty shitty individual. So yeah, you probably saved their asses and they should have been more grateful. Perhaps they were scared you would really take advantage of them. In fact, some companies are so paranoid that they come after people who reveal such problems as if they were the ones who caused them! Our pages are often filled with such stories. We hope you continue to be honest and don't let this situation make you bitter or jaded. In the end, you're probably better off not working for them, as they don't seem to recognize the true value of talented people. We look forward to your article and have no doubt you'll find many more interesting exploits in the future if you keep looking for them.
Dear 2600:
I work for a large web host provider and we have been migrating shared servers to Provo, Utah. It just all seemed a bit coincidental that news about the NSA started buzzing at the same time, so I did some searching. I discovered that the NSA had already invested a good chunk of time and money to build a data center in Utah. Another coincidence I find peculiar is that about 50 percent of the customers being migrated have complained of lower performance issues, even though this is "newer" hardware. Countless traceroute screenshots have flooded our support requests and there is sufficient evidence to say there are more hops between the customer and their migrated server. I just wondered if anyone else has reported similar experiences.
bob
If you truly believe traffic is being routed elsewhere, you can look at each of the hops in your traceroute for any smoking guns. But don't assume that just because your company is sticking servers in the same state as the NSA that there's any connection, online or off. Lower performance with new hardware is surprisingly common.
Dear 2600:
What would happen if someone wrote a Trojan that, instead of taking control of your machine to add to a botnet, simulated the Internet traffic of someone the government might want to keep an eye on. Such a Trojan could potentially flood the NSA with so much dummy information that they might just give up on trying to make sense of it since it would seem like everyone in America is up to no good.
Pete
The trick would be making it unique and random enough so it couldn't be easily identified as "that Trojan." This technique has been used in the past against totalitarian regimes to bog them down with erroneous data. No doubt it will be a strong tactic to use to confuse and annoy surveillance proponents in the future.
Dear 2600:
A national radio program called Radiolab did a segment on Joe Engressia (a.k.a. Joybubbles) and how he discovered 2600 hertz. It also touches on the rest of the early phreaking community and follows his life story even after he quit Ma Bell. The link to the story is www.radiolab.org/2012/feb/20/long-distance. My local NPR station is doing summer reruns, though, so judging by the URL, you folks may have already heard about it. If you haven't, though, it's well worth a listen.
Nate Brown
Dear 2600:
I just listened to the podcast of Off The Hook for Wednesday, August 21st, 2013 regarding the sentencing of Bradley Manning.
I am utterly disgusted to find that the U.S. government treats its own citizens who tell the truth no better than it treats "enemies" in other countries.
More Americans should be outraged at this behavior. I don't mean to be patronizing, but I feel so sorry for the American people because they are put in the same blame basket as their government. The American government is their own worst enemy. They have either chosen or created their own "enemies" in this day and age by their bullying, strong-arming, and abuse of persons in other countries and the other countries as a whole. I can see this behavior is going to come back around in a very bad way unless Americans force their government to change their demeanor towards others and indeed their own.
Thank you for your time.
Neural Nut
That's basically what it comes down to - the people need to confront their leaders on these issues. If they don't - or they feel that they can't - then its the same as giving their enthusiastic approval and, before you know it, the concept of "normal" has changed.
Contributions
Dear 2600:
I've been an avid reader since the 1980s, and in the mid-1990s, I started making electronic music. I still do - check out distancetojupiter.bandcamp.com. During the interval of time between October 1999 and May 2000, I composed two tracks. There's a slightly weird history for both, which I'll get to in a moment. They were performed live using a Roland MC-505 groovebox and recorded straight to MiniDisc. The tracks were never released as part of any of my Distance to Jupiter albums, mostly, because they're pretty long and meandering (there was a lot of pot smoke in the room at the time, and well, that's what happens). I was listening to Off The Hook a few months ago and liked how you had these long electronic musical intros prior to the all the talky bits, and it reminded me of these two tracks - especially Hacker Ethos which was inspired directly by 2600. So I spent hours searching my audio archives for these tracks, and dusted them off. I put a quick coat of mastering on them today and I present them here. If you like them, feel free to chop/edit/mangle for Off The Hook or just enjoy, or simply trash 'em. If you prefer the latter, let me first ask that you take a listen to the intro to Channel 144 which contains a long sample of Morse code which I found, back in 1999, on DISH Network's channel 144 (WQ35 13013443 860 585 2289 ESPN2). There was a really weird test pattern on screen at the time, and this endlessly repeating bit of code. I sampled it using a BOSS SP-202 sampler. This channel later vanished, but thinking back to those days when DISH Network was actually kind of interesting (and you could find really bizarre things on the higher-numbered channels), I've realized I'm still curious to learn what this was all about.
I may attend a 2600 meeting in Phoenix to see if anyone there knows Morse code or try to learn it myself. Anyway, these tracks form a hacker-themed pair, so I thought I'd relate the history and present Hacker Ethos as a potential intro for an Off The Hook; it was directly inspired by reading 2600, as I said. Note that I'm not reserving rights on these tracks, and I'm releasing them under Attribution-Share Alike CC BY-SA (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0).
The track Hacker Ethos has two flavors, AIF and WAV. Same goes for Channel 144. I provide both formats because I know sometimes people have preferences.
Distance to Jupiter - Hacker_Ethos
Distance to Jupiter - Channel 144
Take care, and keep up the amazing work. I love 2600!
In order to ensure that everyone gets to hear these great compositions, we're printing the direct links here. We also encourage readers to check out your other material. Above all, we want to thank you for thinking of us and for being creative - and especially for doing both at the same time.
Dear 2600:
I'm mailing you to offer our services, pro bono, in the field of illustration, design, and image making. Although I love the look of 2600, I'm thinking that it could be even more powerful - more up to date and layered without losing the brutality of the design you have had for a long time. If this in any way sounds interesting, get in touch and let's discuss further. We would love to make you a proposal for a redesign!
Rasmus & Hanna
We assume you're talking about the printed issues and not the website. Sometimes its hard to tell when we get email. We're open to specific ideas and this goes for all of our readers (and website visitors). We're always looking to change things up a bit and to improve on what we've already got. Thanks for the generosity.
Dear 2600:
I see cool art and images in the magazine and I don't know if you have a recommended way to send them in. I took a photo of a building in Barcelona, Spain recently that went crazy with the cameras, like an art project or something. When I snapped the picture, my first thought was "I have to send this in to 2600."
I uploaded it to Dropbox here: dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/52597040/DSC_1196.jpg
You are welcome to use the image any way you like. I'm a lifetime subscriber and I already have several 2600 shirts, so I don't really need anything in return.
Enjoy.
Tom
We don't want to get into the habit of printing Dropbox links, but this image deserves to be shared far and wide. There are literally hundreds of "cameras" on that building and we'd sure like to know more about it. As for how to send us images to print, you can email us at articles@2600.com with any hacker-related or 2600-ish images. Payphone photos, as always, should be sent to payphones@2600.com.
Dear 2600:
I'm not sure what your submission policy is re: multiple publication, but I'm assuming it's lax so I'll just give you a link to a piece on my personal website that I think might interest your readers.
Jesse
And our auto-responder quickly dispelled that assumption.
Dear 2600:
Amusingly, your auto-response does enumerate your policy on duplicate publication, and it's not compatible with what I've done, so feel free to count my submission out. I send this email as a note that you might want to put that policy on your website somewhere that I can find it.
Jesse
Point taken and we will update that part of our website accordingly. Hopefully, you'll send us an article in the future.
Dear 2600:
Knowledgeable colleagues tell me that my article "Extra-Legal Harassment" has been published in the Spring 2013 issue of the magazine. Yay! I wrote that back when I was a political prisoner of the Feds in a facility in Beaumont, Texas, and I've been wondering what to do with it if you didn't find it to be useful for 2600.
With Snowden now being perhaps the ultimate example of what I discussed in the article, it's a timely topic and I hope it can help other activists be prepared in the event they are targeted by corrupt law enforcement as a result of their efforts to encourage a better future for us all. With the rule of law largely in tatters in this country - I was recently lectured by a federal judge abut my (vocal and unchanging) unwillingness to follow the "spirit" of the law so I understand this quite well - it's imperative that activists be prepared for the full suite of tools used by the police state to cripple its opponents.
I've been working on some writing relating to tactical tools available to protect against illegal and unconstitutional NSA dragnet surveillance - if it's of possible interest, and the writing comes together well, I'll submit the result for consideration. If it sucks when I'm done drafting it, I won't waste your time.
Oh, and I've had the same aforementioned federal judge quote verbatim from my The Last HOPE presentation, twice, in open court - is that some sort of record? He is quite obsessively interested in my assertion (paraphrasing, as I don't have the transcript handy) that "learning how to work around the rules, instead of breaking them, is both safer and far more fun. Which, I dunno, I always thought was a rather boring statement of objective fact. But in the United Stasi of America, "daring" to learn the rules well enough to avoid breaking them is, apparently, reason enough to be imprisoned. There's a dark irony there. More than one, eh?
The world is far stranger than I would have ever imagined.
Dear 2600:
I've been reading your wonderful magazine since 2010 and it has been worth every penny. I usually don't have a chance to use much of the information that it contains, but it has been a great force directing me toward my current career path and choices, so many thanks for the years of publication.
I find myself with a great deal more free time on my hands lately and, as I've looked for valuable causes to donate my time to, I keep coming back to 2600. Are there any significant opportunities for volunteers or interns to work for 2600? How can I get involved, and what skills would be needed for this?
follow_the_lea
There are all sorts of things that pop up from to time where we can use some help on one project or another. Usually, we'll mention it on our website (www.2600.com). One recurring project that needs lots of volunteers is the HOPE conference, which takes place every two years (in July of even numbered years). For that, we need help in everything from security to buildup to overall coordination and a whole lot more. Again, you'll see detailed mention of this on our website as it gets closer.
Special Requests
Dear 2600:
I am writing to request that someone review an article I wrote for Baseline Magazine www.baselinemag.com; Baseline is an online and print magazine based like 2600 - it is in New York, New York.
To view the article just click on the attached link.
WS
Yeah, that's not going to work for us. For one thing, we require that writers actually send us material, not give us a link to it. For another, we don't print material that's already been printed in another publication or put online. Our readers would crucify us if we did. That said, we do hope you send us an original article in the future.
Dear 2600:
Dear sir, I kindly reference to can you teach me trick of hacking.
Please reply whatever your answer.
Omi
Every damn day we get a request like this. This is one of the lucky ones that we'll actually print. And our answer is basically the same as always: there is no "trick" involved nor is this something you can learn in a classroom. You have to go out and experiment on your own. By all means, read as much material as you can get your hands on to see what others have been up to. (That includes this publication.) But nothing can substitute for your own personal experience, one which we hope you share with other curious individuals. And if you come up completely empty with no ideas of your own and you feel the only way for you to learn is to have someone else telling you everything, odds are you're not actually a hacker yourself, but simply someone who is interested in what hackers do. We refer to that as the rest of the world.
Dear 2600:
Been reading the current 2600 The Hacker Quarterly. Brings back some great memories from the past. Hopefully this also awakens my mind and lets the learning flow.
Accept the invitation to view the full post: https://plus.google.com/_/notifications...
Google+ makes sharing on the web more like sharing in real life. Learn more: www.google.com/+/learnmore
Name Deleted to Avoid Intense Embarrassment
And then there's the Google Plus spam we've been getting lately. We're not signing up to any services, accepting invitations, or giving out even the tiniest bit of personal info in order to simply read submissions. So we ask that readers not try to pull us into whatever scheme you've pledged allegiance to and to simply send an email to letters@2600.com or, if you're truly old school, an actual letter to 2600 Letters, PO Box 99, Middle Island, NY 11953 USA.
Dear 2600:
Have you guys decided on a new theme for the next calendar? Could a book theme be done? It would be an adventure to find some of the great hacker texts, such as first editions. Also, you could embed an anti-DRM message during a significant period of submission to this injustice, which very few people have thought about in depth.
zenlunatic
Good ideas, but the 2014 calendar is already out with photos of payphones as the theme this time. You can get more info elsewhere in the magazine or through our website.
Dear 2600:
I am in Denver, Colorado and I need to contact the U.N. or MI5. I am a prince of England - Prince Nicholas Bailey. The citizens are in serious need of outside help. My cell [redacted] is being forwarded. Most of the Internet is being rerouted to McLean, Virginia or Texas.
I have been trying to get word out for sometime now. It's mostly by Twitter or Facebook. Avoid the FBI at all costs.
Please help.
P.S. There is A homeless gang here pretending to be hackers. They are mostly junkies.
Asylum seeker
Prince Nicholas
Denver, Colorado USAIt shouldn't be very hard to contact the U.N. or MI5, especially using Twitter and Facebook, but we wouldn't be surprised if they already knew about you. As for the homeless gang of pretend hackers, there has to be a really good book in there somewhere. We suggest capturing as much of the dialogue as you can on a notepad. Unless these are actually Hollywood screenwriters already trying to do the same thing.
Continuations
Dear 2600:
This is my fifth or so letter to 2600 over two years about the same thing and you have yet to actually address the issue except after my first letter when you agreed with me completely and changed your policies correctly... then later changed them right back to the "wrong-headed" way they were before I alerted you to your error and you fixed it. All your subsequent "answers" to my same query did not actually address my point at all. I assume different people may answer different letters each quarter, so maybe that is part of the problem.
Your best answer was "... We don't see why what was fair in the past wouldn't be considered fair today." Since my point of contention is that 2600 authors do not get the same payment they used to get, while photographers get more payment. That is my point and question: why don't 2600 authors get the same payment as they used to???
Your last response was "we're always open to new ideas and to discussing different approaches, but we don't seem to be making any progress explaining things here, so we'll just have to disagree."
Did you even read my letter? Your response indicates you did not, or that you could not understand my clear English.
"My idea" is neither "mine" (it was 2600 policy for years) nor is it "new" (2600 policy again). And what exactly are we "disagreeing" about??? You have not addressed my concern at all, therefore we have nothing to "agree to disagree" about!
So: I'll try to make this very simple for you, since you keep misunderstanding.
1.) 2600 used to pay authors a certain amount of swag, the same amount for many years.
2.) One day 2600 started offering swag to photographers. On that day, the amount of swag paid to writers went down.
3.) I wrote a letter pointing out the oddity of photographers getting more payment than authors in a primarily text magazine.
4.) 2600 responded that I was totally correct and, like the 2600 I've known and loved for years, changed the author payment back to the original swag amount.
5.) Some time later, without notice, the author payment was changed back to beneath photographer payment.
6.) Since that time, I have valiantly tried to remedy this, but every time I write about it, I get some nonsensical response from you.
Now: Do you think 2600 authors deserve less swag than photographers and if so: why?
If, like me, you value writing more than photos; why not change your policy back to the way it used to be? Writing takes more effort than snapping a picture; it's that simple, folks.
That all being said (yet again!): what are we "agreeing to disagree" about? Does 2600 think pictures are more valuable to the magazine than writing? Yes, I disagree. Does continually changing the subject (as you have been doing) and consistently refusing to answer my simple question help me or 2600 in any way? No, it's just a waste of both our and the readers' time. If you will not answer my question, then why even print my letter at all?
The 2600 letters column has a long history of snarky responses to stupid letters, but ignoring an intelligent, well-researched, valid, correct, and polite letter from a lifetime subscriber and seven time author? That's pretty shitty.
So man up and face the facts: writers used to be paid more. Photographers used to be paid nothing. Photographers get paid more than writers, which was remedied once already by 2600, then silently reversed. My questions on this subject have since been misinterpreted, misread, misunderstood, or deliberately ignored. Does 2600 now value pictures more than words and if so (as it does appear, since they are paid more), why does 2600 value pictures more than words (and don't say "a picture's worth a thousand words" - I already used that cliche in my first letter on this topic. Concerned with the apparent raging "bureaucratism" encroaching on 2600.
To start on a positive note, your letter has set a new record for use of italics. And now to address (again) your concerns: All we can say is what we've always maintained - we do the best we can as far as compensating contributors. If we had a huge budget and lots of ads, we could afford to do more. We know that those who submit articles or photos here aren't doing it solely for the subscriptions or shirts (the "payment" you refer to), but because they want to help make a better magazine. At least, we hope that's the case since the attitude you repeatedly express here isn't what we're all about. Nor are your facts accurate. We offer the same items for writers and photographers and have for some time (one year's subscription, a year of back issues, or one of our shirts for each printed submission). It really couldn't be simpler. We offered different things in the past and reserve the right to offer different things in the future, based on what we can afford to do, the total number of printed submissions, what people are happy with, etc. We can nitpick this to death and claim injustice because articles are all different lengths and other such minutiae. We can seriously take you up on your offer to debate whether it takes more effort to be a writer or a photographer. There are very few activities on the planet which would be more of an exercise in futility. We hope you realize this now or sometime in the future and that, if we're wrong, our readers will tell us in droves.
Dear 2600:
Okay, the planet is maybe going to implode, but I gotta say that "The Prophet" is wrong, wrong, and wrong some more, about the bit rate of a GSM channel.
It is true that on the backbone circuit-switched (non-VoIP) network, voice is transmitted at rates of 32-64 kbps. But all digital cellular radio interfaces compress voice down to about eight kbps or less. Obviously, this increases the capacity of cellular systems by a factor of eight. Or, put it this way, if they stopped compressing voice tomorrow, the capacity of GSM and other cellular systems would drop by a factor of eight... and the planet probably would implode.
His statement that, "Before compression on the air interface (which can vary depending on the codec used) GSM channels are 64 kbps PCM" is nonsensical (can I say "total crap" in 2600?). It is nonsense because, before compression, it's not a GSM channel. Even if 64 kbps PCM is delivered to the RF circuitry, it's still what goes out over the air that is the GSM channel. And, although it is true that codecs vary in bit rate slightly, they don't vary very much. The highest bit rate voice coder that I am aware of for cellular was 13 kbps, and I don't believe that is used anymore. Sometimes codecs run at lower bit rates during periods of silence as a further optimization, but not higher.
"The Prophet" can easily end this debate, and the risk of the planet exploding, by remaining silent, which I will take as a sign of an admission that, for once in his life, he's wrong. That doesn't mean I don't love him.
D1vr0c
We can think of very few people who would accept that kind of an offer to end a debate. The Prophet is not one of them. Here's his response:
"I am always happy with a robust engineering debate but have no interest in further participating in it. We are splitting hairs that have already been split at this point. We'll have to start splitting my pubic hairs soon if this continues and I'm guessing nobody wants that."
If this doesn't put an end to the discussion, we're out of ideas.
Critiques
Dear 2600:
For a magazine about hacking and technology, your website is pitiful. When viewing stores that carry 2600 in Colorado, a list of cities pulls up three different entries for "Colorado sprin," "Colrdo springs," and "Co springs." (www.2600.com/magazine/2600locations/us/co.html) I can only assume these are the attempts of a monkey with carpal tunnel trying to type the city "Colorado Springs" before giving up and going back to sniffing another monkey's bum.
Also, one of the stores listed has not been in existence for years, and some newer bookstores that carry 2600 are not included. If maintaining the website is difficult, perhaps turning the 2600 website into a community-editable Wiki format would be more efficient. Just a thought.
Grace
You may have noticed by now that we've just redesigned our site, something we've been working on for a number of years. We owe it all to one dedicated reader, who devoted countless days to migrating, converting, and creating content. The effort, however, continues. Now we have a lot more flexibility to do more, as well as vastly increased space for content. (For example, we now can host all of our radio programs at 128 kbps instead of 16 kbps.)
The listing of stores you refer to is ancient and was not put together by us. The carpal tunnel afflicted monkey worked for one of our distributors and we merely took that data and posted it. We've recently obtained a much newer list and hope to have it in a much prettier format (with maps and everything) by the time this issue is out. But the data will certainly be outdated as soon as it goes online. Getting the info from our distributors often takes quite a bit of cajoling for reasons we don't understand. Add to that the fact that bookstores keep going out of business and aren't being replaced and you see what we're up against. In the United Kingdom, for instance, we were a very popular magazine on newsstands but now can't be found at all because the stores and distributors have gone under and those running things now think there's no market for us. Its living proof that publishers are the first casualty of the publishing industry.
We're very open to the idea of doing something more Wiki-based, but this also takes quite a bit of coordination and time, something so many of us are in short supply of. We'll listen to any ideas people have.
Dear 2600:
I've really enjoyed getting your magazine on my Kindle for the past few years. I'm sad to say that I had to cancel my subscription today. My subscription through Amazon expired this week because of a credit card number change. I resubscribed this afternoon, but noticed that I had lost access to all my back issues.
According to the Amazon rep that I chatted with: "...with regards to past issues with your subscription. You no longer have or access on the past issues due to the cancellation of the subscription when the card used lapsed, John. However what we may do is to refund you for the past issues."
It's sort of a ridiculous policy to remove the issues that you've already paid for from your account. I have yet to have a magazine come over to my house and take back any paper copies of a magazine after my subscription lapses.
Is there any way to (legitimately) get a DRM-free electronic version of 2600? If so, I'd definitely be interested in subscribing. I'd be really happy with a MOBI file or an EPUB emailed out every quarter.
John
We have indeed added additional options for electronic versions since your letter came in, so you can explore those by going to our website. But to address your specific concern regarding Amazon, what you cite is simply not an acceptable policy. We've made that very clear to Amazon, as have many of our readers. As we're pretty high up on Amazon's magazine list (thanks, readers), they tend to listen. So they wish for us to tell you that, by default, up to seven back issues should always be viewable in the section titled "Periodicals: Back Issues." After that, they wind up in an archive. Readers can always elect the "Keep This Issue" option to hold onto it indefinitely. It's possible the rep you talked to somehow didn't understand this. We are more than happy to print an article that provides additional methods of keeping or transferring items you've bought if somebody writes it. Having such an article available on the Kindle would be a very valuable service for so many of our readers - and for Kindle users in general.
Dear 2600:
I notice that the Summer 2013 issue features the article "Perfect Encryption - Old Style" by Cliff. This is the exact same, word-for-word article that I also read in the Winter 2011-2012 issue, by the same author! Was this a fluke or is it a normal practice that I've never noticed until now? I'm not going to ask for a ten cent refund, although I do prefer paying for new content.
iacode
We're surprised we weren't deluged with complaints after making this horrible mistake, which only appeared in our paper issues. It resulted from two articles having the same file name in different directories and software that made some very bad assumptions. By the time we realized what had happened, the issues had already been printed. The electronic issues weren't affected, nor will this error show up in the Hacker Digest, Volume 30. What we did to rectify this and not rob our readers of two pages was to get rid of our house ad and staff box for the Autumn issue and replace that with the article that should have run in the Summer issue. We've also changed our file naming scheme so that such a thing will be caught a lot quicker if it ever happens again. But our next spectacular error will no doubt be something none of us anticipates.
Info Needed
Dear 2600:
I've been into matter-mixing rather than hacking for the last few years, but I was interested in seeing the hacker perspective on bitcoin. Have there been any articles on this topic released in the last few years?
Jack
You will find articles on the subject in this issue and we hope to see way more as this evolves.
Dear 2600:
I was wondering if there was a way to see what has been written about the Obama administration regarding loss of privacy. I remember a few years ago when I read alt.2600, there were quite a few editorials about how Bush was taking away our right to privacy. It seemed as if every magazine I picked up was complaining about Bush. But since Obama became president, I haven't seen much written about him. I wonder if now with the Snowden revelation, something will be written up about him.
nick
We think that you should have no problem finding an article or two on this subject. But we're a bit unclear as to whether you're referring to us or USENET newsgroup (alt.2600), which is quite a bit different. When we began publishing, Ronald Reagan was president. From that point until now, we have never honestly believed an administration had our right to privacy in mind as anything other than a threat to their agenda. We don't see that changing, so being vigilant is always going to be important.
Dear 2600:
If I access your website, are you going to hack my PC? I have a webcam, can you see me? Inquiring minds need to know!
james
And by now you do indeed know. (The images go live if we don't get the check by November.)
Dear 2600:
Will there be a HOPE conference this year/summer?
Stephen
Lucky for you, no, or you would have missed it. HOPE X will take place in July of 2014 in New York City. You saw it here first.
Dear 2600:
I have two problems. It's not something like discovering a zero-day and sharing it around (I wish I had one). This problem hits closer to home. I am currently studying for the A+ exam, but every time I sit down to study, I always hold back because the book is so extensive, and I fear that I will lose what I learned previously as I press forward to new chapters. I take notes, but it never seems to be enough.
Every time I take practice tests, the engine will tell me where I need more work and where I am strong. But sometimes the results vary. Sometimes where I once was strong I am now weak. I feel like I am trying to play catch-up with myself and will never take the exam because of this vicious loop I am in.
My second problem is I have taken this test once before in the past and failed. Since then, I haven't returned to take the exam. I am afraid of failing again. I try to block that moment in my life out, but every time I sit to study, it haunts me.
I love computers and want to be an expert PC technician one day, but I can't if these problems pose a constant roadblock for me.
I know you normally deal with the more mechanical and programmatic aspects of computers and so on, but can you also handle a psychological issue like mine? I will appreciate any kind of advice you can offer.
Thanks and keep up the good work.
Chaoticpoison
You are far from the only person facing this. Please don't torture yourself with expectations that could be out of reach, completely unimportant in the bigger picture, or both. Certifications are all fine and good for people who value these things, but there are many out there who don't. In fact, we're pretty sure there are places where listing them on a resume can actually work against you. The people who push these things will tell you there's no way you can succeed without them. That's a huge load of crap. If you truly love computers, you can find a way to work with them and to be good at what you do. Not everyone can succeed in the exam-taking environment, including many of the most talented people out there. That's nothing to be ashamed of - it just means your talents lie in a different area. The world of technology is so huge that you can define your own success with a little creativity and perseverance. That's pretty much how we got to do what we do.
Dear 2600:
I was wondering how many articles do you guys consider for each edition of The Hacker Quarterly? Am I really that good to get two in a row?
Andrew
We generally don't consider the author's name when we look at an article so you likely did a good enough job to be published twice. Three times if you count this letter.
Dear 2600:
I know I probably shouldn't be asking, but I really don't think it's a big deal. I am doing some research for writing and trying to find out how the companies go about securing payphones, where the locks get made, and how one can go about unlocking one?
Joe
Why on Earth would you think you shouldn't be asking something? You should hear some of the questions that get asked around here. Anyway, if you look online for an article by Matt Blaze entitled "Notes on Western Electric (Bell System) Coin Telephone Locks," we suspect many of your questions will be answered. And, of course, if anyone wants to write more on the subject for us, that would make us really happy.
Dear 2600:
Is there a recommended range for word/character counts? I'm assuming there's a max of some kind - can you tell me what it is (i.e., no more than 1500 words)? I've considered writing articles for 2600 for a long time, off and on, but I've always gone back to the length thing in my mind and then ended up getting sidetracked.
Also, I know how if it's been published elsewhere, it can't be published in 2600... but I have another question. What if I wrote an article and attached a link (e.g. the article is the very basic version of my topic, to conform to text limitations and then the URL is an expanded version) but with the catch that the link is not activated until the article has been published? Would that be acceptable to do?
To be clear, you wouldn't need to click the link to understand anything, it wouldn't be required in any way (as that'd defeat the purpose of hard copies, forcing those readers to get to a computer/Internet). Instead, it'd just be additional/more detailed coverage of the topic. It would contain the original article text as well but, again, it wouldn't be published/accessible until after the article had been printed in 2600.
adam
Don't let the length thing be an issue that keeps you from writing. Articles that are too short are more of a problem than articles that are too long. You can easily write several thousand words if you wanted to and, if the subject and presentation were interesting, we would be happy to print it. If it's a bit too wordy, that's what editors are for.
What you propose for links is certainly something we can do. We just want to avoid a situation where readers feel compelled to visit the website in order to understand the article. Pointers to further information are always welcomed and encouraged.
Meeting News
Dear 2600:
I showed up for the last Philadelphia meeting, but I'm not sure there was one. I believe I showed up at the correct time and place (5:00 pm, first Friday of the month, 30th Street Station, southeast food court near mini post office).
There was no obvious group of people that appeared like they were conversing about technology or the magazine, no "2600 Meeting" sign, no one reading the latest 2600 issue. I sat at a table for a while with my issue open, thinking someone else might see it and know what I was there for. After an hour, I left. This was my first time trying to attend a meeting, so I'm not sure if I was looking for the wrong signals, or if past meetings were empty as well.
Do you know if this meeting is still active? Has the location or time changed?
Curious in Philly
Last we heard, this was an active meeting. Often, people don't show up for an hour or two after the start time. Of course, making that initial contact can sometimes be tricky, especially if people aren't congregating where the listing says they're supposed to be. It's always a good idea to walk around a bit in case that happens. If we get more such reports or don't hear anything from attendees, we'll have to delist the meeting.
Dear 2600:
I already read the guidelines for the meeting and I don't have a problem with it - only with the day. I want to start a meeting in Costa Mesa, California. My problem is that I was going to start it on the first Monday of every month with the same schedule as the other meetings. It won't be possible for me and other people that are interested to do it on Fridays. I don't know if this is doable. Just give me your opinion; any recommendations would be appreciated.
Congratulation for your magazine. It teached that you don't have to forget the cool hackers from the 1980s just because there is a lot of new technology. One thing I've learned in martial arts is that you never forget your basics and the root of what you're learning makes you better in the long run. This makes you humble and turns you into a better person and a better hacker - to hack to help others, not to hurt others. But I also know that not all is good. Like the ying and yang symbol, bad can't exist without good and good without evil. This is only my opinion and what I learn from hacking.
Thanks again and keep up with this great magazine.
Jorge
Thanks for the kind words and an interesting analogy. As for the meeting day, we've tried in the past to accommodate people who wanted to meet on different days, but we have yet to hear an idea that can work without confusing everyone and taking up an awful lot of space in our meeting listings. There is no one "other" day that would work for everyone, nor is there even a week that would. So we'd wind up with some meetings being on a second Tuesday, first Monday, last Saturday, etc. And even after doing that, there would be people in each of those places for which that particular day wouldn't work, leading to more contention and debate. This is why having one day a month world-wide continues to work and make sense overall. We hope you're able to somehow make this work.
Dear 2600:
Over the last five years, I have randomly tried to find people at the Orlando meetings. Lately, you list Fashion Square Mall. Prior to that, it was the Florida Mall. Even with arriving 15 minutes prior to the 5 pm allotted time, no one ever shows up. And I've tried "pretending I am reading 2600" and also having my laptop popped open.
No one. True, what does a hacker look like? Grizzly? Fat and balding? Acne child? Who knows!
Since these locations are a good one hour from where I live, how about we change the location to within 15 minutes? Not sure how people can object if no one ever shows up.
Jerrold
We're also not sure what the advantage of having a meeting closer to your house would be if nobody shows up. Read on for further info on this particular meeting.
Dear 2600:
I attend the Titusville meeting now, but I would ask that you keep the listing for Orlando. I still maintain the website for Orlando, and hopefully the University of Central Florida kids will get together.
Richard Cheshire
Phreak & HackerAs evidenced by the previous letter, that simply hasn't been happening. Keeping a meeting listing up in the hopes that someone will show up simply isn't good enough. We'll wait one more issue to see if the situation changes, otherwise it will become meeting history.
Dear 2600:
I live in the Hawley Wallenpaupack area and I wanted to join 2600 meetings, but the closest one is in Allentown which is an hour away. I have tried to contact them many times and no one ever responds. The next closest meeting is three hours away. I was wondering if I should just start my own meeting.
Brandon
Starting your own meeting when there's one already in the area defeats the entire purpose of the meetings, which is to get together with people who share common interests in a particular region. The best way for you to make contact with these people is to simply show up at a meeting! Since its only once a month, it shouldn't be impossible to figure out a way to get there.
Dear 2600:
I was interested in starting a meeting in Syracuse, New York. Do you have any special requirements that I need to adhere to?
Steve
All of the info you need can be found on our website in the meetings section (under "Events"). Basically, meetings need to be held in public areas, not exclude anyone, and act responsibly. All meetings take place on the first Friday of the month (usually at 5 or 6 pm, and they must contact us at meetings@2600.com with occasional updates as to how the meetings are going.
Feedback
Dear 2600:
Laurels to D.B. LeConte-Spink on his extensive and easy-reading article on the intra-system tactics of surveillance and oppression against the curious-minded community. His specific tactics on social engineering are rarely addressed in the black, gray, and white-hatted circles alike and were a joy to read as well as his defenses against. The "black propaganda" campaigns that are oh-so-common in all worldwide police states are but mere whispers and still ugly truths.
Radagast
Dear 2600:
Re: "Reversing Cisco Type 7 Password Hashes" by mcandre (30:1): Yeah, they are shit. That's because even in the mid-1990s they were only there to prevent shoulder surfing and to provide legacy support for truly ancient kits (even in 1995/96).
When I attended Cisco training courses back then, every course told you to remove them and use Type 5 passwords (no matter what the course was). If you encounter a Type 7, then you have either discovered a collector's piece or something administered by a f*cking idiot.
Pardon my cynicism regarding this as I have been in the network business for way too long and anybody who knows the difference between their ass and their elbow has dealt with the problem. Much of the problem is actually from Cisco customers who insist on using the pointless "shielded" passwords because their network teams are clueless and insist on using configs which were created in the early 1990s.
Yes, I have received complaints about a switch being faulty because it won't accept a config, with the problem being there are no Fast Ethernet (10/100) interfaces anymore - they're Gigabit interfaces (prefixed with Gi instead of Fa), and so the onsite team complains that it's too difficult to configure the "new style" switches.
The situation as I often encounter it:
I work for a multinational IT which (among many other things) builds and administers after other people's networks. We still see Type 7 passwords when we become responsible for a network that has been built by a team that has no clue whatsoever. Often we will see such things as support@mydomain.com in a config (shows that at least one team member can cut and paste from the Internet).
Before handover, we insist that all the Type 7s are replaced with Type 5 passwords as much for our own protection as our future customers (yes, there are servers that use the same admin passwords as the switches and routers). Much of the time, these teams complain that they won't make the change (actual word they should use is "can't"). This is depressing. Sometimes you will get one of their team who is eager to make the change, and you find that he has been trying to make the network resemble something from the mid 1990s, but has been prevented by a manager who things that RIP is still the protocol of choice (and VLANs are something that the devil sent to plague his dreams of flat networks).
The situation as Cisco explained it late last century:
Back in the dim dark days when I first attended Cisco courses (1996), we were told that Type 7 was not an encrypted password, but an obscured password - the sole purpose of Type 7 was to protect the password from shoulder surfing and that it was only used for legacy configurations (CHAP handshakes being on the list of security offending legacy excuses, as I remember).
It was stated that Type 5 was always to be used. This was long before the SANS statement in 2000 that there was an issue.
The reason the Type 7 still haunts us is more due to retarded network teams who don't remove Type 7s and complain when noises are made about removing the POS which are Type 7s. We had a group of engineers on one multinational telco on a course who got upset at the mention of removing support for Type 7 passwords, as there would be too much work to do <sigh>.
Here's an example of what clueless network teams do:
In case you don't know, BGP means Border Gateway Protocol. It is only used on the borders between networks (by normal people) and is incredibly slow to propagate routing changes as it's only supposed to have a very limited number of neighbors to deal with.
They also boasted that their customer solution (what would now be termed a "cloud") was running solely on BGP (hundreds of devices which were allegedly fully meshed). They insisted that there was no potential issue, I can only describe the tutor as being upset and that turned to annoyance when the "network engineers" got increasingly arrogant about their solution being correct.
Come Thursday lunchtime, a phone call stated that a pair of their routers had problems and there were problems with BGP working its routes out. We finally saw the engineers on Friday afternoon when their network had finally converged and their network was mostly operational. It took a full seven hours for routing changes to propagate through the network every time a device went up or down. They later stated that it must be a Cisco issue as they were sure their architecture was perfect.
I would also avoid the use of the term hash. At best, it's a Vigenère (and a poor example), with the start position prepended at the beginning of the "encrypted" value so you know where to start in the ring buffer.
Hell, I even wrote a Z80 assembler password ("decloak") when I was bored in the hotel (alcohol fueled rampages didn't appeal) and that involved working out the initial values.
The recent Type 4 plume of excrement is a different matter though, and is one all of Cisco's own making, but typical of using offshore coders.
Kilby
Dear 2600:
I'd like to express my thanks for including the article "Why You Need a Grimoire" in 27:2. The evolution of my grimoire is an interesting story, and I thought I'd share it.
In 2010, when I first read the article, I had already noticed the transient nature of the Internet (how information could suddenly vanish on a website with no warning). I had printed things out before, made screenshots of websites but, until the Grimoire article, I had not done anything permanent with my notes.
First, I had to get something permanent. I ended up going to Walmart and getting a three-ring Five Star notebook, neon pink (possible bad judgment, but I was going through a neon color phase at that time). I could put about 200 pages of notebook paper in there. For website screenshots and printouts, the notebook also came with a hole punch. It also had a pen and pencil case inside, which was useful for storing writing implements directly with the grimoire. The first printout I put in my book was a cop of the "Why You Need a Grimoire" article (which has always been on page one). I carefully copied all my loose work into the notebook (first edition was in pencil because I wanted it to be easy to erase and rewrite things). This first edition lasted from the summer of 2010 until about the winter. Eventually though, I had eraser marks all over every page, and I realized the need to have something more permanent.
So, for the second edition of the grimoire, I copied everything onto new sheets of paper with a ball point pen. This edition expanded to about 40 college-ruled notebook sheets. The second edition lasted until autumn of 2011 when my wife, innocently looking for some scratch paper, unzipped my grimoire without actually looking inside and removed a bunch of filled sheets of paper. I nearly had a heart attack! I taped a sign on the cover reminding anyone who looked at it that this notebook was mine, and not to remove any pages from it.
I was able to get everything recopied back into my grimoire (I count this rescribing as a separate edition because I reorganized some of the notations and entries, and excised some of the completely out of date material). This was my third edition.
At this point, I was getting some notoriety in my local area as the best person to call if you had a computer problem. Most people, without even realizing it, referred to me by my grimoire, which they had seen me use on occasion. They would recommend me to other people with the words: "Call that nerd with the pink notebook." (I laugh now, still pondering what moved me to get a neon pink grimoire.) Most of that notoriety I owe to the initial 2600 article; I wouldn't have been nearly so good if I hadn't saved all my research and notes in my grimoire. The third edition has lasted the longest.
In fact, I just started on the fourth edition of my grimoire now in the summer of 2013. I discovered that printer paper is slightly thicker than college ruled notebook paper, and does not rip as easily. After several years of flipping pages in my grimoire, my pages were getting worn on the edges and especially around the ring holes. But I had noticed that the printouts I had inserted into the book years ago had not frayed around the ring holes quite so badly (if at all!).
The fourth edition of my grimoire is still packaged in a pink (slightly sunburned, so not quite as neon as before) Five Star notebook. For this edition, I typed all my notes using LibreOffice Writer and I printed them, then used the hole punch that came with my notebook. These printouts make the book the neatest edition I've ever used, with multiple easy-to-read fonts (much easier than handwriting!), and neat margins. I've discovered that using fonts is much more convenient than handwriting because, since I can read smaller fonts, I can put more on each page than I could before when I was writing everything.
I look forward to the future. I wonder how long the fourth edition will last...
Thanks so much for the informative articles you include in 2600! I so very much enjoy reading them, and occasionally copying an article to be preserved in my grimoire.
Sean Murphy
Dear 2600:
In your editorial "The Road To Safety" in 30:2, discussing the Boston Marathon bombings, you state that "having... information gathered and managed by members of society rather than government eyes makes it far less of a threat to our freedom." This is a dubious conclusion to a highly nuanced issue. You ignore the significant threats posed to society by an army of highly-connected Internet vigilantes who take it upon themselves to carry out the duties of professional public servants. Witness the aftermath of the bombings, when a single tweet - claiming that the name "Sunil Tripathi" was heard on the Boston police scanner - led to an eruption of speculation on social media about the innocent Mr. Tripathi and completely unnecessary pain for his family and friends. Thanks to the infinite memory of Google and other archives, online slander will never be forgotten; thanks to a "relevance score" that values retweets, links, and clicks, it will always be at the top of search results about a person, far above the otherwise boring digital record of normal life.
In the end, the desire for fame and Reddit karma by egotistical, Internet-savvy individuals may cause far greater harm to innocent members of society than government programs subservient to laws made by elected members of Congress. We can throw the bums out, but the Internet caucus is unelected and beholden to no one.
As a magazine with historical credibility on the issue, 2600 owes to itself and to its readers a more balanced evaluation of the threats to our privacy.
t. heride
There is certainly much evil that can be accomplished through mob rule and mass stupidity. In the instance we cited, however, many eyes looking for a specific instance of suspicious behavior on cameras they themselves owned and operated (hence being limited in total content) seems a far better scenario than one set of government eyes looking at everything for us. The Twitter/Reddit incident you refer to clearly showed the difference in value between journalists doing actual research and a large number of uninformed people spreading misinformation. This is a threat of an entirely different nature. There are definite risks everywhere, but the risks of a surveillance state are among the worst.
Dear 2600:
This letter is in response to Tim's letter in 30:2, in which he proposes producing audiobook versions of the magazine. I would be interested in participating as a narrator. I have done previous voiceover/voice acting work, I am familiar with technical vocabulary and terminology used in the magazine, and I have a pleasant (female) speaking voice.
Jax
If this project moves forward, we will certainly be in touch.
Dear 2600:
I just wanted to say that 2600 is an epic magazine. It seems that nowadays the hacking and phreaking community - phreaking mostly - has almost died a little, at least in the sense that "hacking" is now "what prepackaged software can I download to hack a Facebook account?" except for a few forums. But 2600 does the best job of preserving hacking culture. This seems strange considering I'm rather young, but just my thoughts. What I'm most concerned about in the community however is phreaking. It seems that many on the net consider phreaking to be dead and/or worthless, and it's hard to find any good material on modern day phreaking, a field which I was interested in taking part in after some hacking endeavors. 2600 breaks away from the monotonous trend of disappointment I find when exploring the "hacker community" on the net. Just my thoughts.
Keep up the good work, 2600!
Blank Electron
Consider that much of today's telephony wouldn't be around were it not for phreaking and the people who decided to explore the phone system, manipulate it, and eventually come up with something better. There's no reason that has to stop, simply because the landscape is virtually unrecognizable. Phreaking was always about bypassing restrictions and exploring forbidden territory. In today's cell phone crazed society, there are tons of restrictions and lots of hidden areas to explore. If anything, it's the fact that there are so many different systems to mess with that makes it more difficult to define than when it was just Ma Bell. But being difficult is nowhere near being impossible. The world of telephony has come to an interesting place. Let's work together and use the values of phreaking to take it somewhere else.
Dear 2600:
Re: Cortland letter, 30:2, they have been selling the Cap'n Crunch Bosun whistle on eBay. Lately, many of these have been for sale with the prices varying from $17 to $45 for the auctions. I looked last night and one was for sale for $70, but this is an anomaly. You can search under "captain crunch whistle" and "cap'n crunch whistle". I hope you are able to find what you are looking for.
Charles Parker, II
Dear 2600:
I'm not entirely sure where this question should be directed, so I'm taking a shot in the dark...
A little over a decade ago, I was introduced to 2600 by a good friend. My very first issue was Spring 2002. Since then, I've been a fairly regular reader, picking up copies at my local Barnes & Noble. I've always been curious about back issues, particularly from the first few years, but never followed through on that curiosity. Then, a couple of days ago, I was delighted to discover the digital digests, Volumes 1 and 2. I was like a kid in a candy store - and I truly hope you continue with the digitizing of each year's issues! But I digress; back to my question...
In the description for the digests, it is stated, "This is not just a scan of some old back issues. We've literally gone through every article and every piece of data and arranged them in a brand new book form, divided into articles, news stories, letters, and data." My question is this: is it possible for 2600 to actually do that - scan old back issues so readers that delight in text formatting and the printed page might get a glimpse of the actual physical copy that represents the origin of a beloved and treasured source of information and ideas?
Surely I can't be the only reader that would be interested in such a thing. Something to think about.
RJC
The PDF versions are just that - a scan of the printed pages. What's different is that they've been arranged so that each year reads like a book with letters being in one section, columns in another, etc. The Kindle version also is in this format. We could just scan the issues and stick those online, but we want to also OCR them and have them be accurate so that the text can be searchable. The quality of type on those early issues along with the quality of existing OCR software makes that very difficult, which is why it takes time and money to pull this whole project off. We're always looking for new ideas and for easier ways to accomplish these things, so please keep writing in with suggestions.
Dear 2600:
Re: Shea Silverman's Raspberry Pi article, although this was a good first look at this "gaining popularity" device, there is a warning that should have been added. The power supply for this device cannot be more then 1 Amp max. For some reason, it will destroy the processor!
For more information on this, see Ron Hackett's article in the August 2013 Nuts and Volts magazine for a full explanation.
pixter
On Privacy
Dear 2600:
I became a Google product user, not by choice, but because it was easy to use. I used sdf.lonestar.org as a base for a decade maybe before doing the terrible switch. I had my first account there during the second half of the 1990s. I was trusting the admin, the system was working perfectly, the community was great, it was O.K. Then - things changed a bit.
Around 2005, I went back to school. I was trying to keep going with tcsh shell and Mutt email, but it was not easy. I was receiving many emails with massive attachments, at an increasing rate with all of the Microsoft Office formats - *.pptx, *.docx, *.xlsx, or whatever. It went pretty fast with Mutt, save this and that, SCP all the files on my box, edit everything, save, SCP upload + Mutt + attach + send and voilà. But I realized that the average non-tech-savvy students were doing the same thing much faster than me, with multiple gigabytes of storage in the cloud from any computers while I had only a couple of hundred megabytes and was kinda restricted in the computers I was able to use to do that.
Then Google. It was a great alternative to Microsoft at the time, the not so bad guys who were doing many things right. When Yahoo! Mail and MSN offered 100 megabyte mail accounts, Gmail provided two gigabytes. They had plenty of apps, calendars, meetings, searches, integrated online storage, engines, small non-obstructive ads, etc. It worked perfectly for the higher education world in my eyes.
In addition, in 2009 or 2010, I bought a Google Nexus One phone with everything integrated - contacts and stuff. It was easy to integrate, but I knew where this was going. I refused to use Facebook for that reason (no Mark Z., you don't need the contacts on my phone and no, you don't need my phone number). iOS, I just cannot stand this shit. About each year after, there was a new TOS from Google that we had to accept or stop using their products. A kind of erosion of our privacy, like the centralization of all the services under one username. I guess I was able to cope with it, but it still stink years after.
For my research, I am required to go for several months in remote places on desert islands almost alone where there is no Internet at all, only an Iridium data/voice link (which is pretty costly). I left in May 2013 and was back at the end of July, and heard the leak from Edward Snowden. Then things escalated quickly - and I was pissed at many things. I think it is the straw that broke the camel's back. I want to get rid of Google from my options. I want my privacy back.
I feel like I'm in a kind of trap - I don't know where to start. And I knew it back in 2006 when I moved everything that it would be that way.
And still, I know no one in the couple of hundred email contacts I have who would be able to send me an encrypted email or who would be able to decrypt one I send them... Heck, I know no one who owns a PGP/GPG key. I feel like the road will be long. Now what?
Let's get to work.
flax0r
