286 DEAR HACKER

286 DEAR HACKER

We absolutely cannot reply personally to subscribers (unless it involves a subscrip- tion matter). We are deluged with all kinds of personal requests through the mail and over the phone that we just don’t have time for. People want us to tell them what kind of computer to buy. They want access codes. They want to talk to a “real hacker.” Our favorites are the people who call our machine, listen to the long detailed message about subscription rates, then leave us a message to call them and tell them how to subscribe!

We don’t mean anything personal by this. But we just can’t reply to each and every question we get. Questions like yours are best answered through the letters sec- tion. Regarding your missing issue, let us know which issue you’re missing and we’ll send it again.

Dear 2600:

I would consider myself a mid-level hacker, now post-adolescence. I remember the “old days” well, especially when manuals of any sort were impossible to obtain. I remember the good ol’ days of RipCo (best in the Midwest), and miss it terribly. I have a little experience hack- ing into Milnet (from an Internet dialup, or local dialup to Milnet), more experience messing with Internet (about two to three years hard hacking), and various UNIX systems.

I’ve been a subscriber to TAP for a while, and even though the newslet- ter is disjunctional (at best), it has the true flavor of an underground publication. Please treat them with a little more respect; they’re really good kids. After reading your publication (on and off) for a number of years, I am disturbed by the administrative trend you seem to be taking. Please, hire more people, and get more personal.

RN Lake Forest, IL

We agree about TAP. But where the hell are they?! We haven’t seen an issue in months! Being administrative is something we’re not often accused of. We’ll have to have a committee look into it.

OUR BIGGEST FANS

Dear 2600: You guys really pissed me off with your Telco News Winter 92-93. What a stupid thing to put in your mag! It’s been well known among

the hackers for years that most security is overlooked and in some areas blatantly ignored. Writing about one particular company’s security weaknesses is a direct slap in the face. As a result, that company will

be highly pissed and most likely take procedures to tighten up security. But you’re defeating the whole purpose of hacking: learning! How much information could have been learned from that one particular system? It’s hard to say. What do you do though instead? “Oh, hey, let’s put it in 2600 so we will show them how stupid they are.” Did you ever think that you might be ruining it for the other hackers out there that are trying to learn about the phone company’s computers? Nah, I don’t suppose that even crossed your mind. The article was lame anyway to those of us who know what’s going on. Most of that bull was information found on the Bell newsletters. Of course the phone company is gonna say that hackers cost them money. They want the general public to keep believing in the same “Hacker Hood” image that Forbes Magazine proudly wrote about. It should be obvious to you that after the 911 incident with Neidorf, the embellishment of things damaged or costing money was pure BS made up to make the hacker look bad, malicious, or anything but the truth. I just lost a lot of respect for 2600 when you printed that. Heh! Not that that matters much anyway. I don’t think you guys ever did any real serious hacking. Otherwise you would be working on some decent projects instead of publishing a magazine that keeps all the security people up to date on what we are doing or things we have uncovered. My main point is: a hacker would never tell an admin what holes to patch if he wanted to continue hacking the system!

So why are you? layden02

First off, we print information that we feel deserves to be shared. We don’t agonize over what the enemy will do with it, whoever that may happen to be. If we did,