472 DEAR HACKER

472 DEAR HACKER

because of the $10,000 it cost the state to replace it. This seems like an awfully high price to replace a website, but a serious amount of cash nonetheless. My friend was caught with some Novell hacking files on

a CD that he was distributing to the newbies. He was just trying to make a fair buck, but the school saw it a different way and charged him with the crime of hacking the school website six months ago! He was suspended for ten days! Not that he minds being home and sleeping and hacking more while everyone goes to school, but this is going to be on his record. How many universities do you think will accept him? He knows that it was me, but being a good little hacker, he didn’t tell who the real culprit was. This just shows what the system is coming to. They needed someone to put the blame on, and he was the only one (so they thought) with computer knowledge. This feels very closely related to the Mitnick case and the unfair happenings. Thanks for the opportunity to finally speak out about what has happened.

Xkalibur

You won’t want to thank us after reading this. This moronic behavior of yours is what makes things difficult for the many thousands of non-malicious hackers out there. What you did stepped over a line that most rational people have no difficulty seeing. You destroyed your school’s site and resorted to extortion. Maybe you used hacker abilities to get into their site (although it’s far more likely you simply ran a script) but as soon as you erased their files and held them for ransom, you became a criminal. While it was wrong to suspend your friend for something he didn’t do, you lose the right to be indignant when you help foster the environment of paranoia that so many schools now have. We only hope your letter serves a pur- pose by illustrating to everyone what the hacker world is not about.

Dear 2600:

I have been a fan of your magazine for some time now and am happy to see that Kevin’s finally getting out of the slammer. Anyway, the reason I’m writing to you is because of problems I’ve been getting from my school about your magazine. I took it to school with me to have something to read when I wasn’t busy. Apparently, my teacher saw me reading during a break. She confiscated the magazine and dragged me

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

into the principal’s office ranting and raving about getting me kicked out for reading a simple magazine. It seems the principal shared all of her views on the Internet, so I was suspended from school for two weeks. Now this displeased me greatly. I wanted to do some damage to the school or something to avenge 2600, but I don’t have the neces- sary resources to perform adequate vengeance. So would you do me the favor of putting my school’s web page on the hacked list? Maybe then justice will prevail.

Microkiller Our faith in such cases is lost when people express the desire to be malicious. All

you do is vindicate the actions of the people who work against you. For those who choose not to go that route, get as much documentation as possible and gather evidence that you are being disciplined merely for reading a magazine. That kind of thing is clearly wrong but when the issues are muddied, it becomes impossible to prove that this is what the person is being disciplined for in the first place.

Dear 2600: Hey, you guys will never believe what happened. For my speech class in

school we had to do an informative report on whatever we wanted; so

I decided to do my speech on Kevin. I went the full nine yards on this one to inform the people what had happened and tell them about the downsides of his release in comparison to a normal life. I brought all my issues of 2600, explained the support network, printed flyers and handed them out, and put bumper stickers on two posterboards with pictures of Kevin. It was awesome. My teacher was a little nervous about the whole thing, but went with the flow. Later the next day I found the flyers on lockers and everything... the word had gotten out and it was huge. It spread to the other grade levels and I had seniors coming to me asking me stuff about Kevin. I just wrote to let you know that I have done my part before and after the Kevin saga. Much thanks to your magazine and freekevin.com for all the info I needed to spread the word. By the way, my teacher even asked for a copy of the magazine to learn more about Kevin!