Hacking the Hackers: Taking Over a 2600 Meeting

by "Connecticut2600"

In 1987, a small group of hackers affiliated with 2600 Magazine had their first meeting in New York City.  As the New York meeting grew in popularity, they expanded into other cities.  The Connecticut hacker group IIRG decided in the early 1990s to host one, and that was the start of the CT2600 meetings.  After having the meetings for about a year, they decided to stop hosting them.  The rising stupidity of the younger generation of hackers resulted in a fake bomb threat being called into the meeting location by one of the attendees, resulting in his arrest.  Connecticut had other meeting locations hosted by various other groups over the years, but every meeting attempt to date has ended in failure because the stupidity level of the local hacker scene goes higher and higher as the years drag on.

Fast forward to the last decade.  An old-school hacker decided to start the meetings up again on the Connecticut shoreline.  CT2600 meetings were always held in the center of the state because hackers with a clue on the extreme ends always went to either the New York or Boston meetings, given the lameness of the Connecticut hacker scene at large.  These meetings broke apart when the host was sued for DCMA volations over hosting the DeCSS code, and when it was found out that he was screwing the local scene whores.  The surviving attendees tried to get their act together, but were unsuccessful.  It wasn't until recently that a group managed to get their act together enough to set up a meeting location.

This CT2600 group was a continuing decline of the ones who screwed-up the original 2600 meetings in the state.  It consisted of wannabes, scene whores, and generic criminal types who had a reputation for shitting where they eat, and screwing over their fellow "hackers."  I observed their meetings at Paneria Bread in Newington several times.  They were technically inept, very cliquish, rude, and hostile to newcomers.  When a different group of hackers in the state created a hackerspace, they proceeded to create a website with a similar name to draw potential members away from the other group and to their group.  They were not good ambassadors to the local hacker community, and as a target they were irresistible.

A Gmail account and website "Connecticut2600" was created, and an email was sent to 2600 Magazine in July, 2010 stating that the CT2600 meetings had moved to a new location and website.  It received the usual automated response from 2600.  For two or three months, an email was sent dutifully to 2600 saying how great the new meeting location was.  Sure enough, when the Autumn 2010 issue came out, the "new" meeting location and webpage was listed.  During this time period, the original group of lamers continued meeting at the "old" location, unaware that their meeting was moved.  When they finally did discover the move in November of 2010, what did they do?  The nominal meeting organizer at ctgeeks.org posted up this blog entry: "Due to circumstances beyond my personal control, the location for the meetings has changed to the food court of the Brass City Mall in Waterbury, Connecticut.  Hope to see everyone there this coming first Friday."  This is the response I would expect from a herd animal and not a hacker.







I have not been to a CT2600 meeting, after having seen their stupidity in action way too many times, and decided to do something about it.  2600, at least in this state, continues to attract the absolute worst of the local hacking community.  I think that's because 2600 has since sometime in the 1990s dropped to presenting the lowest common denominator of the hacking community.  This is obvious in the way they conducted no real follow-up with the originator of the email notifying them of the location and website change, or apparently with the party who had started the Newington meeting.  This complacency and lackadaisical attitude allowed them to be taken advantage of by someone who put in a minimal effort at social engineering.

I was hoping that by covertly changing the meeting location it would perhaps give a new generation of hackers a means to meet for a while before having to deal with the human trash that continue to wreck the hacking scene in this state.  It is rather sad that most novice hackers receive their introduction to hacking by way of a rag such as 2600, but I guess you work with what you have.  Being that a few months went by before the switch was noticed by the CT2600/CTGeeks sheep, maybe I was successful.  If you are a hacker and live in Connecticut, avoid the CT2600 meetings and 2600 in general.  Unfortunately, the last decent hacker group in this state maintains a very low, almost covert, profile, and has their own internal problems, but they at least have a web site up and running with good information.  They are the International Information Retrieval Guild (IIRG), and their web site is at www.iirg.org.  Maybe they will start their zine Phantasy again.  If you are looking for a real hacker zine, download GBPPR Zine at www.gbppr.org.  It's free and has real information in it.