504 DEAR HACKER

504 DEAR HACKER

You’re better off being honest about who you are and seeing if that poses a prob- lem for people down the line. But when posed with such questions, we should make sure they understand how the term is defined. You are likely not a hacker in the mainstream media definition but very definitely a hacker in the creative, individual- istic, freethinking definition. Of course, knowing that may scare your future employ- ers even more.

Dear 2600:

I was banned from this site just because the admin got the bribe from one member and when I questioned him why he banned good members without giving notice and keep the bastard just because they kissed his ass and bribe him with gift card money, he banned me without notice, too, and deleted my thread to erase the evidence.

Do you think that you can hack this site? Cause they’re always proud that they’re well protected and back up frequently.

Let’s see who’s better. Son

Yes, this is exactly the kind of thing we want to get involved in. Thanks for thinking of us.

Dear 2600: For reasons that still escape me, my girlfriend reads Cosmopolitan. In

the November 2009 issue, there was an article about Kim Kardashian that was pointed out to me, and in it there was something that might

be of interest to the hacker community. On page 44, there was a section called “935 Things You Didn’t Know

About Kim — Until Now.” Number One reads as follows: “She claims

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to be an amateur hacker who can break into anyone’s voicemail or email.” Wow. I never knew she was so 31337. The only hacking I thought she did was her acting.

Michael J. Ferris Super hackers reside in the most unusual places. Who’s to say a super celebrity

can’t also have this ability? Perhaps she will accept our invitation to speak at The Next HOPE on her methods. Or maybe you’ll read about them in a future “Hacker Perspective.” The important thing is that none of us anger her because we really don’t know what she’s capable of.

Strange Ramblings

ur final chapter is devoted to one of our more popular types of letter: the kind O that really defies easy description. When you have so many people writing in

for so many different reasons, you’re occasionally going to get those letters that seem

a little...off. Those are the ones that attract a good amount of attention because none of us really knows where they’re going or what they’re going to say next. It’s interesting that we didn’t really start getting these sorts of contributions until

a few years into our publication. I suppose this is what happens when the audience begins to grow. It especially takes off when the magazine in question develops a repu- tation for printing a ton of letters from the readers. People literally write in sometimes just to see their names printed. That means the actual letter becomes incidental to what we’re all about, and oftentimes hilarious in its disconnection.

Rather than ignore this slice of our contributors, we decided quite early on to embrace it. If nothing else, printing such letters serves as a reminder to all of us not to take things too seriously. Humor has always played a significant role in everything we do and I think that’s part of the magic that has allowed us to continue doing what we do for so long. But we’ve walked a fine line with this because we never wanted to ridicule someone who may have been inexperienced or simply confused in how they expressed themselves. So we saved the truly harsh responses for those writers who clearly could take it — the ones who seemed brashly overconfident or cocky and were just begging to be taken down a few notches. Others may have gotten a more gentle form of mockery, usually by way of a simple analysis of their own words. It is our hope that our responses were seen in this humorous vein by these folks. Failing that, if they continued to be as confused and disoriented when reading our reply as they were when they wrote their letter, then how could any harm be done?

Since there is no one way to describe this collection, I think it’s best to just point out some of the basic types of submissions we received here.