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Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one.
- A.J. Liebling

 

A well known, but overlooked threat to Hackers. Scene Whores.


By: Erik Parker Mind Security

Let me start off with a quick preface to give some explanation as to why I am writing this. First, this is going to seem like a very sexist article, as I will always refer to woman as the scene whores, and use 'she' when speaking about scene whores. The reasoning behind this is, the majority of hackers are men. I did not go out and take a poll or anything, but I feel very safe in saying the majority of hackers are male. This paper may use examples that you might feel were written about you, or your situation, but the reason it seems like this, is because most confrontations with scene whores, are very much alike. I wanted to take Lance Spitzners Papers on "Known your Enemy" and reword them to apply here, as script kiddie and scene whores are very much alike, they just use different common tools.

Now I know what you are thinking, that this article must be a joke, or that I must be writing it out of anger because of something that has happened to me. Well yes I have first hand knowledge of the Scene whores, however I haven't been directly involved with one for a couple of years. This is spawning off of watching other relationships, and seeing many scene whores come and go, that have their reasons. If I had to speculate on why they do it, I would say a majority of them don't realize they are, that it is something in their sub-conscience making them do it. Whether it is for popularity in the "scene", or they think they will learn more by sleeping their way up the hacker ladder. This article is not a joke. They are a real threat. They waste our time, ruin friendships, cause chaos between hackers, and generally ruin periods of our life. A sure sign after being compromised by a scene whore, after they are are done with you, is when you go to talk to friends you have neglected during the period of compromise, and they say "Welcome back, we missed you". However, what has to be figured out, is how to make there never be a period of time like that.

Scene whores can be found in several places. I think a very common one is on IRC. Other places like 2600 meetings, Conventions (Like Defcon), and even meet them through your friends, who may have met them in the above mentioned ways. Some very unlucky guys get scene whores right from the start, when they first turn into it. The scene whore has decided that Hackers look glamorous, or they find out how large your salary is, compared to hers, her current boyfriends, or even her parents combined. We are a rare species I suppose, we are in an age where we wear what we want, we don't necessarily need a college background, we are making 6 digit figures, and setting the rules for our selves. Anyway you look at it, scene whores can look and think that we have power, money, and we are the stereo typed "cool". Some of us are all of the above, and into drugs, and many girls find drugs to be an attractive feature. I don't have a lot of experience with scene whores and drug related things, as I went a different direction and stayed away from most of the drug scene.

There is a very classic approach that is seen in most cases. This is an easy one to see coming, if you do a little history research about the possible scene whore before you get involved. The Ladder approach is what I like to call it. In most cases when dealing with a ladder, you start at the bottom and work your way up. Just like the scene whore does. They try to get networked into the scene by finding someone who knows something, or at the very least, knows someone who knows something. If they are good looking, or partially good looking and easy, they have no problems with this approach. There is one good thing to say about the majority, most of them learn something on the way. If nothing else, they usually learn what the internet is, how to IRC, how to login to NT, and maybe even how to work IRC under a non-windows platform. They will go with bottom rung hacker for a little while, and then once the scene whore has met enough of the hackers friends, or actually gets to be known a little bit, and meets a few people on their own, they find someone more interesting.. Someone who seems smarter, and has more friends, or has been in the media more, or has some noted accomplishments. Usually this person is a friend, or acquaintance of the first hacker. They move on, and this usually destroys the friend with the new target, and the old target, as well as with the scene whore, and the old target. One term scene whores should learn is, be nice to hackers on your way up, because you will be seeing them again on your way up again. Hopefully we can start identifying scene whores quicker, and securing ourselves against them quicker, and put them out of commission.

In the above mentioned method, scene whores can make it up just a few guys, or make it along dozens of people. You can get a good idea of how many people scene whores sleep with by reading the Hacker Sex Chart. You will notice some scene whores with a dozen or more links on there. You will notice some very well known people on that list, and notice even they got sucked into the claws of a scene whore before. Scene whores who sleep around, and think that sex will gain them knowledge find out in the end that they are just worthless whores who had a good time, and probably picked up more diseases than knowledge.

There are other methods.. Or lack thereof, that scene whores use. Some are not in it just to get to the top. Some are in it, just to meet as many people as they can, and have as much "fun" as they can. These are Good looking scene whores, to the nastiest of scene whores. There is always a hacker, or a perhaps a drunk hacker, that will do the nastiest of scene whore. These ones are even worse than the Ladder Climbers, as they usually tend to sleep with more people, have less commitments. Well, this depends. They aren't as bad as the ladder climbers in the way that they don't consume as much of the hackers precious time, and usually don't make people leave their friends. These girls do however tend to breakup more friendships than the ladder climbers, as they cover more ground. The friendships that were strong usually get repaired though, as they quickly realize she was a scene whore. These scene whores are usually detected a lot quicker than others.

Then there are the extremely ignorant scene whores. The ones that make the other types look intelligent. These are the ones who watched the movie 'Hackers', and have only heard about the criminal side of hackers. They want to get into it for the feel of doing something bad. Thinking they will find a group of hackers that can get them millions from a bank, or do something so illegal that it turns them on. You know the types, the types of people who get excited at the thought of doing something naughty. Like having sex in a church during Sunday morning gatherings. These scene whores usually only end up finding stupid web site defacers, who introduce them selves as hackers, when they are really mistaken, and are just script kiddies and crackers. Sometimes these hackers actually do something illegal, and the scene whore finds it very erotic and loves it. A few weeks later the Cracker is arrested, and the scene whore testifies against them, and the cracker gets fined, spends time in jail, or ends up without their computer for years.

Now the hard part is.. To determine which ones aren't scene whores. The ones who have been with other hackers, but are true and honest, and like you for who you are. I can't say the best way to determine this. I think it is easier to just try and detect the scene whores, and eliminate them, than to try and find a way to detect non-scene whores, if that makes any sense to you. There are cases where the non-scene whore had legitimate relationships with other hackers, and it just happens that you are the right person for them. The fact that you are a hacker has nothing to do with it. They aren't out for your money, for your friends, to be in the news papers, or to see you commit crimes on computers.

There is a possibility I am looking at this all wrong, and of course most of this is based off of what I have seen, my thoughts and opinions. There are hackers who like scene whores, because they know it won't last, but it is like an adventure. However the hackers who like the scene whores usually leave time for their friends, and don't get swallowed up by them. However, these hackers help contribute to keeping scene whores around, and eventually the scene whores they let stick around, will end up ruining some other hackers life, or a period of it anyway.

Last, I contemplated doing this article for some time. It is a controversial subject, especially because of what I mentioned in the preface, that it seems biased against woman, and that it generally applies to them, and because of the number of men Vs. the number of woman that are real hackers, and because I have never seen a guy go around and sleep with as many hacker woman as he could, I can't really put the article into that perspective. On another note, just to reiterate what I said in the start, this article is not about you, or anyone you know. It is not about anyone period. It is about the concept of scene whores, why they do it. I would have added in on how to stop them, but the only way to stop them is to identify them, and to control yourself. Think with your head, and not any other part of you. As well, if you do happen to get in with one, get health insurance, because it could do serious damage to your heart.

Thanks to the Proof Readers:
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