448 DEAR HACKER

448 DEAR HACKER

I can tell you this. I run an H/P board here in Maryland (home of the NSA) and can tell you that if I knew that you worked for the feds or even had any contact with them I never would have let you in.

I know that there might be the chance that feds are on my board of 140 users, but I sure don’t know about it. If I did they’d be Gone like The Wind.

I have nothing against you and I’m sure that you’re a pretty cool per- son. It’s just that I’m upset that a person who out and out said that they were a fed is even given the time of day by some dumbass sysop. Maybe one day the 14-year-old sysops might wise up to the facts.

Albatross

Dear 2600:

I recently came into contact with your magazine for the first time (the Summer 1992 issue). Now, I first started programming in 1977 (which

I suppose makes me a hopelessly outdated relic to some people) when the word “hacker” had a very different meaning, and there was no danger in uttering the words, “I am a hacker.”

To my shame, my first thought when I saw 2600 was, “It’s probably full of adolescent rants denigrating those who don’t agree with the authors’ particular points of view, and boasts about their “hacking” abilities, peppered with words like “keul” or “awsum.”

I was quite pleasantly surprised when I found my initial knee-jerk reaction to be almost completely unfounded. 2600 contains quite a bit of interesting reading, written by articulate, intelligent individuals.

I was so impressed that I intend to subscribe. Keep up the good work! JL

Tampa

Lots of people have similar reactions upon meeting their first hacker. e

A C U LT U R E O F R E B E L S

Dear 2600: I’m a Japanese student and new subscriber to 2600. Yesterday, I got

a bunch of back issues and enjoyed every page. Yours is one of the greatest publications I’ve ever read.

I’m a fourth grade student, so I had to find a job, and I got it! From next April, I’ll work for Institute of Research (one of five large think- tanks in Japan) as a researcher. Maybe I can play with some super- computers and other interesting technologies.

In Japan, there are some public phone phreakers. About ten years ago, NTT (Nippon Telephone and Telegram) introduced telephone cards and new public phones which had the capability of using these new cards. Before this, we had only “coin-op” ones which accepted 10 yen and 100 yen coins. The cards were magnetic and prepaid. There were four types: 500 yen, 1000 yen, 3000 yen (with novelty of 20 units), and 5000 yen (with novelty of 40 units). NTT charges 10 yen for a local three minute call (long distance calls cost more). This is considered

a unit. If you have a 3000 card, you can use 320 units; a 5000 card can use 540 units.

Our telephone cards were easily modified by using some magnetic card readers/writers. Some people tried to steal public phones so that they could inspect the structure of them. And some people got arrested. Then many phreakers, poor foreign workers (they used illegal and cheap cards to make phone calls to their home countries), and yakuzas (Japanese mafias) made modifications so that these cards were usable forever (by writing infinite units onto the cards).

About a year ago, NTT decided to stop producing expensive cards (3000 and 5000) due to widespread modified cards and modification methods of the card. Now we have two types only.

Japanese Subscriber We wonder if the modified cards still work and, if so, will they work forever? That’s

an interesting concept. We suspect your definition of fourth grade differs from ours. In fact, we sure hope

it does.