2600 Profiled: "A Print Magazine For Hackers" 71
HughPickens.com writes: Nicolas Niarchos has a profile of 2600 in The New Yorker that is well worth reading. Some excerpts: "2600 — named for the frequency that allowed early hackers and "phreakers" to gain control of land-line phones — is the photocopier to Snowden's microprocessor. Its articles aren't pasted up on a flashy Web site but, rather, come out in print. The magazine—which started as a three-page leaflet sent out in the mail, and became a digest-sized publication in the late nineteen-eighties — just celebrated its thirtieth anniversary. It still arrives with the turning of the seasons, in brown envelopes just a bit smaller than a 401k mailer."
"There's been now, by any stretch of the imagination, three generations of hackers who have read 2600 magazine," Jason Scott, a historian and Web archivist who recently reorganized a set of 2600's legal files, said. Referring to Goldstein, whose real name is Eric Corley, he continued: "Eric really believes in the power of print, words on paper. It's obvious for him that his heart is in the paper."
"2600 provides an important forum for hackers to discuss the most pressing issues of the day — whether it be surveillance, Internet freedom, or the security of the nation's nuclear weapons—while sharing new code in languages like Python and C.* For example, the most recent issue of the magazine addresses how the hacking community can approach Snowden's disclosures. After lampooning one of the leaked N.S.A. PowerPoint slides ("whoever wrote this clearly didn't know that there are no zombies in '1984' ") and discussing how U.S. government is eroding civil rights, the piece points out the contradictions that everyone in the hacking community currently faces. "Hackers are the ones who reveal the inconvenient truths, point out security holes, and offer solutions," it concludes. "And this is why hackers are the enemy in a world where surveillance and the status quo are the keys to power."
"There's been now, by any stretch of the imagination, three generations of hackers who have read 2600 magazine," Jason Scott, a historian and Web archivist who recently reorganized a set of 2600's legal files, said. Referring to Goldstein, whose real name is Eric Corley, he continued: "Eric really believes in the power of print, words on paper. It's obvious for him that his heart is in the paper."
"2600 provides an important forum for hackers to discuss the most pressing issues of the day — whether it be surveillance, Internet freedom, or the security of the nation's nuclear weapons—while sharing new code in languages like Python and C.* For example, the most recent issue of the magazine addresses how the hacking community can approach Snowden's disclosures. After lampooning one of the leaked N.S.A. PowerPoint slides ("whoever wrote this clearly didn't know that there are no zombies in '1984' ") and discussing how U.S. government is eroding civil rights, the piece points out the contradictions that everyone in the hacking community currently faces. "Hackers are the ones who reveal the inconvenient truths, point out security holes, and offer solutions," it concludes. "And this is why hackers are the enemy in a world where surveillance and the status quo are the keys to power."
hackers choose USPS (Score:1)
Re:hackers choose USPS (Score:4, Insightful)
At least USPS requires a warrant before they let anyone open your communications. The rest of the world might learn something from that fabled old institution.
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Except when they send you, and convict you for, bestiality videos you didn't order.
http://books.google.com/books?id=omiOAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA215&lpg=PA215&dq=amateur+action+bbs+postal+inspector&source=bl&ots=KjPtlsFW8L&sig=SvES2Mu6CPp8BFYgyFNr5YU9qbw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=fRZPVPO2Dc23yASo0YDgCg&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=amateur%20action%20bbs%20postal%20inspector&f=false
A review ... (Score:1)
30 years in the making?
the last line of the summary (Score:2)
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2600 has always painted hackers as martyrs. It's kind of their thing. Draper got busted, Mitnick got busted, they get harassed by Feds, therefore "we poor persecuted hackers just want freedom for all." You even see it in the 199x movie Hackers.
The magazine is still interesting as long as you overlook the crazy self-pitying editorials.
Re:the last line of the summary (Score:5, Insightful)
facing long jail sentances for doing what?
We can't even arrest spyware makers, spammers, and companies spying on you, but you can arrest some fucking kids for mucking around an exploring. Arrest is one thing. But given jail sentances on par with murder, for actions that are really no worse than distubing the peace, or disorderly conduct?
How about political activists doing the digital equivilant of an online sit in, facing charges be-fit a drug kingpin.
Lets also compare this to someone like Ray Rice who beat his fucking girlfriend. How much time did he get?
No, a long standing penchant for sticking up for a community being bullied is a good thing.
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Read Phrack instead. 2600 has always been and will always be an ankle-biter magazine. That said, their meet-ups are their biggest contribution to hacker dom. Back in the late 80's and early 90's that was the place to go to meet like minded kids, and get access to all the hacker BBS's.
http://phrack.org/ [phrack.org]
Scale (Score:2)
"It still arrives with the turning of the seasons, in brown envelopes just a bit smaller than a 401k mailer."
Which would be how many Libraries of Congress?
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'
"It still arrives with the turning of the seasons, in brown envelopes just a bit smaller than a 401k mailer."
Which would be how many Libraries of Congress?'
I guess that depends on the size of your 401k
(some of the 1 percenters have pretty big 401k's)
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So... It's a unit of money? Are people putting cash in the mail? Is the 'k' a conversion factor?
A good mag. (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to buy it whenever I came across it - usually in chain bookstores in Toronto. Learned some great stuff and loved the pictures of payphones on the back. Went to one of the listed 2600 meet ups in Toronto once. There was only one other guy there (with an Apple Newton set up with box frequencies - not a blue box, but whatever one allowed you to tell payphones you'd put in certain denominations of change. Anyway, we got bored and dumpster dived behind the Bell Canada headquarters. Didn't find anything decent, but it was fun.
Haven't seen a hard copy of the mag in a while, but I'm in Costa Rica now so that could be why.
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When I was there two years ago, Eric was the man in the van. I tried to explain to my 12 year old nephew who it was that had just given him a 2600 tshirt for free, and who Kevin Mitnick was.
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The box that told the network which coin the payphone received was a red box.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R... [wikipedia.org]
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Maybe I'm paranoid (Score:1)
Maybe I'm paranoid, but I always buy it with cash.
sounds delusional and self-gratifying (Score:1, Insightful)
"Hackers are the ones who reveal the inconvenient truths, point out security holes, and offer solutions," it concludes. "And this is why hackers are the enemy in a world where surveillance and the status quo are the keys to power."
That is delusional. I find it fascinating that the impression that hackers often have of the government is that they're so over-the-top powerful that they are keeping tabs on and surveilling a vast majority of the populace, while at the same time so utterly incompetent that one l
Re:sounds delusional and self-gratifying (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of people are deeply invested in the US national mythology and would not accept that their government was what the rest of the world told them it really was. Constructive dialogue with (most of) those people is now possible.
Progress is, however, very slow.
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2600 has always been about cultivating that hacker mystique. It's a kids magazine plain and simple. I think it's important, because it does give kids who are interested in electronics and communication a place to congregate, but you ain't going to be saving the world reading a magazine.
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Has anyone been arrested of the crime of warrant-less mass surveillance?
Yes! The TLAs and police even have a name for what they need to do when they want to arrest someone but their information has been gotten through their illegal means. Perhaps you have heard the term "Parallel Construction".
So what tangible benefit, in light of the detriments, has it resulted in? Nothing I can see.
It can be hard to see when doing something may help prevent things from getting worse. It is easy to see that the government is abusing power more now than before as it didn't have the ability to record every phone call made before. Preventing this from continuing, or preventing things fr
I don't read it (Score:3)
But when I did read it, it was only on occasion, once every couple years. I found the left-wing politics distasteful.
Besides, all the latest cutting-edge material is on the Internet.
Re:I don't read it (Score:5, Insightful)
But when I did read it, it was only on occasion, once every couple years. I found the left-wing politics distasteful.
It's just plain amazing, what qualifies as "left wing" these days.
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Yep, it's insane. Reagan and Nixon are considered "left-wing" nowadays, or at least their policies are.
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But when I did read it, it was only on occasion, once every couple years. I found the left-wing politics distasteful.
This describes my experiences of the right-wing bias in all media, all the time.
Besides, all the latest cutting-edge material is on the Internet.
All the cutting edge thinking is in peoples heads first.
Hard to find (Score:5, Informative)
After reading 2600 off and on for at least 20 years, it's getting hard to find. Their publisher went insane, B&N doesn't seem to want to carry it. Frustrating.
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I think Microcenter may have stopped carrying it as well. I didn't see it the last couple times I was in there.
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Very possible.
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The printed version is hard to find, but the electronic version (DRM-Free!) is easily available in the B&N Nook Store.
Autumn 2014 [barnesandnoble.com].
Summer 2014 [barnesandnoble.com]
Volume 30 (2013-2014) [barnesandnoble.com].
Yes, it's DRM-free .epub,
Amazon has it as well, though since I don't use Kindles, I don't know if it's DRM-free.
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I guess distribution in "dead tree" form is getting harder and harder: http://hardware.slashdot.org/s... [slashdot.org]
There was another case where a whole issue (like all/most copies) got "lost in the mail" and not only they had to be reprinted but postage had to be paid the second time...
That much about having the "heart in the paper".
Yes, Amazon has it as well for kindle (and all the associated devices, including android kindle app, etc.). I think subscription is (or at least used to be a while ago) really cheap (like
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B&N doesn't seem to want to carry it. Frustrating.
I had a mail subscription when it still took three minutes to download a large GIF from a BBS. That made lots of sense.
I don't get why anybody wants a print version of a blog in 2014, but if you do, why not get it by mail? It's not like B&N (I thought they went bankrupt?) doesn't feed its CCTV and register activity to the NSA anyway (wittingly or not).
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I don't get why anybody wants a print version of a blog in 2014
How many blogs can you go back 30 years on? I've had paper last far longer than any computer.
Corley's radio show . . . (Score:2)
2600 meetings (Score:5, Interesting)
I went to the 2600 meetings in Houston several times in the very late 90s. They were pretty interesting, but the most interesting thing was how we had people taking our photos from a distance. I remember about 8pm in the evening someone dressed in a FedEx uniform taking our photo... We waved to him and tried to get him to come over.. He didn't seem interested. It was a gathering in plain clothes in public with nothing really drawing attention to it being a meeting of any sort.. Just was interesting.. Figure it was just another little star on my profile the government was keeping on me. Paranoid? Well they knew quite a bit about me when they came to knock on my door one time...
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I'll second your "unwanted LEO attention" but we got ours for a pretty good reason. The average meet was around 10 to 15, but at the time attracted mainly young computer enthusiasts - the vast majority hadn't even graduated high school. Even though I was still in my early 20's at the time, I'd taken on the roll of elder statesman and,
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You help your landlady take out her garbage?
As the old saying goes (Score:4, Insightful)
New Yorker: 1984 called (Score:2)
Um. Didn't Esquire or GQ or some glossy magazine of that sort in need of editorial filler profile 2600? Like.... 20 years or so ago?
OK, so maybe the profiled Captain Crunch. Same difference.
I vaguely recall, but the dementia seems to be kicking-in.
2600 cost me my job but taught me a lesson (Score:5, Interesting)
A little more than ten years ago, I submitted an article to 2600. It was a juvenile article that accomplished nothing more than spilling inside information about how to rip off a retail/rental store via telephone. (More precisely, it provided information on how to read and understand a numerical code and act as an insider). I asked 2600 in the submission to choose a pseudonym for me. Stupidly, I sent it from an email box that had my real name listed.
A few weeks later, an editor of 2600 sent me an email back, telling me that my submission was accepted, I would be published in 2600. Although I would not get paid I would get a subscription to it for life (it was only a quarterly, printed on half of an A4 sheet) and a T-shirt.
To my horror, when I saw my article in 2600, they had printed using my email's return name - my real name. Within a month I lost my job. It was my own damn fault and it was a life lesson I still remember to this day. I have no illusions that what I did was anything other than morally and ethically wrong.
Thing is: they never sent me my subscription nor my T-shirt.
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Hackers gonna hack.
Hahaha.
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I've been published a few times in 2600, and they do honour the subscripts. Used a pseudonym of course, not that I was risking my employment or anything like you did.
The magazine can be a bit juvenile sometimes, but there is also some really interesting stuff in it.
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Were you able to find another job or were you hit hard? :( I hate it when I fail. I wished we had time machines to undo our errors.
control phones? (Score:1)
"2600—named for the frequency that allowed early hackers and “phreakers” to gain control of land-line phones—"
yet another factual error by a reporter. was this done as intentionally as his predecessors did on the topic of phreaking?
2600Hz was the trunk idle tone and did not—could not control phones.
Programming languages such as C.*? (Score:2)
I didn't know the New Yorker was cool with regular expressions.
thirty years? (Score:1)