194 DEAR HACKER

194 DEAR HACKER

technical side of what happened to me and my machine, giving me

a sense of freedom from that ghost that occasionally haunts in the Coke-induced buzz-haze of the wee morning hours. Understanding, if not in whole, then in part (for after all, who can understand the lunatic ranting of those who just need help) can help rebuild and make

a new person of you, as it did me. So without further ado—I realize of course, this was a long-winded way to say it—thank you. Thank you very much. I shall look forward to future issues.

Made in DNA You really do understand what it’s about. It would have been easy to blame hack-

ers for creating the program or for explaining how it works as so many do. You chose to listen instead, and to learn.

Dear 2600: In the letters section of your Spring 1999 issue (16:1), the editorial

response to the question concerning the Y2K bug was mostly dismis- sive. I do agree that the “threat” of this bug has been blown out of proportion, however the very media frenzy that is creating this scare can be used to great effect by a knowledgeable hacker.

First, even though many systems are Y2K compliant, the media has most people expecting problems. If files (such as log files, etc.) mysteri- ously change or vanish on January 1, 2000, most people will credit this to Y2K, be thankful that it wasn’t worse, and not look any further.

Second, there will be some systems affected by the bug (most likely legacy systems and older versions of some software). Searching through revision histories of software packages often reveal at what point a particular software company “fixed” any Y2K bugs. Systems running prior versions of software may suffer some problems on Y2K. (The usefulness of this depends entirely on the software, system, and the specific effects of the bug on the software.)

I would also like to add a small tidbit of information relating to the “Adventures With Neighborhood Gates” article in your Summer 1999

TECHNOLOGY

issue (16:2). Many models of visitor dial boxes call the resident’s phone. The resident then may choose to let the visitor in, and open the gate by dialing “9” on a touch tone phone. When the resident answers, the dial box mic usually remains active. A tone dialer held up to the mic can usually be used to send the same signal to open the gate. If

a resident wants to give someone access through the gate without the resident being present, they can record the appropriate tone onto the outgoing message of their answering machine. Anyone calling the resi- dent from the gate when the resident is gone will get their answering machine. The machine plays back the recording (which has the tone) and the gate opens.

R.B. Good luck finding an answering machine these days that will allow you to record

a touch tone. With regard to Y2K, we’re going to remain rather dismissive on this one. What many people fail to realize is the fact that these so-called Y2K disasters can occur at any time if computers are involved and adequate backups are not. At least with Y2K, we have a date with doom or, at worst, an approximation. Any com- puter system can fail without warning for reasons that we haven’t thought of yet. Assume that and work within those parameters—we bet you’ll survive just fine.

Dear 2600: I’ve been enjoying the current discussion on school IDs and wish to

contribute my school’s little story. Our faculty wisely decided to make all of us wear necklace badges every day, and, as could be expected, there was widespread resistance. Tweeter, in issue 17:3, mentions his plan to organize a total boycott of the ID system, and I am happy to report that our school’s doing just that rid us of our ID problem. Nowadays, the IDs are only used for admission to pep rallies and wearing them isn’t required. Our school also took the wise step of removing the SSNs from the badges and replacing them with numeric