370 DEAR HACKER

370 DEAR HACKER

what a real 2600 meeting is. I attended 2600 meetings at their source, New York City. First time attending the meetings, I knew I found a place that flowed with never-ending fountains of information. I met friends that till this day I trust my life with. The attendance at the meetings easily made 50 to 90 people. I remembered being invited to dumpster diving, after hacker parties, and late night hacks. This place was Hackerdom to me.

Of course, I moved and could not attend my 2600 meetings. The day came when I returned to visit my oasis. I found something I did not expect: solitude. Ten people attended, maybe less. What happened? What happened to the hacker haven everyone in the world runs to? The 2600 meetings were a place where I, and many others, found their niche in life. It was our home. Today, 2600 is barren. Not taken seriously by the electronic community, not taken serious by its own attendees. “Why?” I kept asking myself. “Why is 2600 so deserted?” My answer is they tore each other apart. Their own drama. Their own cliques.

Today, I’m a respected black hat hacker. I find myself setting up servers with three operating systems, creating electronic devices from scratch. I understand technology and programming fully now. All this wouldn’t have been possible without 2600. If it weren’t for my friends that I had met at 2600, I wouldn’t be here among the living. No, we wouldn’t be a lot of things if it weren’t for 2600. That is why today I write this letter to the readers of 2600. I am writing to you, a loyal hacker to 2600, to make a change. 2600 isn’t what it once was. This organization helped me beyond what I deserved. This organization changed my life.

Attending HOPE was an eye-opener. I accomplished my goal to at- tend and I accomplished my goal to learn more about computers and systems before attending HOPE. I enjoyed the information, but still it wasn’t enough to satisfy me. Hacking is an art. It’s a gift. It’s to be enjoyed and taken seriously. I relate hacking to fire. It’s a gift to possess fire, it’s a gift to know how to wield it, and fire is even to be enjoyed. Fire also needs to be taken seriously. Hacking needs to be taken seri- ously. We need to take it seriously. Too many people call 2600 and HOPE conventions a group of script kiddies, cyberpunks, and n00bs. If you didn’t notice, Wired made its own joke of 2600 in the April

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2008 edition (page 42), saying: “2600 has gotten too commercial.” Yes, I know there will always be such comments and jokes, but what are we doing about it?

Anonymous First off, there’s no reason for all the cloak and dagger techniques to keep your

identity from us. We can take (and we welcome) criticism such as this. What we find more often than not is that the real change takes place in people

who read the magazine. People turn from rebellious kids to people with jobs and then to parents of their own rebellious kids. Readers gain more technical knowl- edge as they grow. All of this changes perspectives. What seemed totally amazing to you five years ago is nothing new today. However, for someone else just com- ing into the scene today, this kind of knowledge is just as exciting. And their fresh perspective of it is what makes more of the magic happen, something the rest of us may have forgotten. Our first letter accusing us of losing our way came in 1985, one year after we started. We’ve heard that the hacker world isn’t what it used to