realhackhistory

realhackhistory, 4 months ago to random

When I first heard the title of this Paladin Press book I was sure it was about hacking.

realhackhistory, 4 months ago to random

Whitehat hackers when they stray from the corporate path

realhackhistory, 4 months ago to hacking

I need to sit down, read and properly digest "Cyber Thrash", by Julian Dibbell, which was featured in SPIN magazine, Vol. 5, No. 12, in March of 1990.

"Everyone thinks that they're nerds, but these teenage beer- guzzling hackers in their Megadeth t-shirts are the new heroes of the information age."
#hacking #hacker #history

suddenly I was in, gliding down the Main Street of the world's computer networks. I typed in a series of numbers charging the call to a hulking defense contractor somewhere in the Midwest, then I entered the 12-digit network-user address that routed my connection across the Atlantic to a PC in France. The cursor sat panting for a moment, then slid across the screen, spelling out the welcome logo: big block letters D, M, and Z. I entered a handle and dropped on in. It was the usual scene. A chat system capable of taking 25 callers at once, the DMZ was a hangout for hackers and phone phreaks from all over the world. A list of their handles glowed out at me from my monitor, silent and serene, but behind it a phreak hack Casbah seethed. All those handles were passing private messages back and forth, cutting deals, trading the short-lived codes, passwords, and other fetishized bits of information that are the illegal tender of the hacker economy. But I wasn't here to cop. I was here to find the Big Kahuna, and he was nowhere in sight. The list of handles glowed on, losing or adding a name now and then. There was nothing to do but wait. In France! Wait in France for a kid who lived an area code away from me? Things had gotten weird so fast I'd barely noticed. In the beginning it was all as simple as a headline: On October 4, 1989, Grumman Aerospace Corporation, a key supplier of combat aircraft to the Pentagon, sent police to arrest a 15-year-old boy for slipping into the Vax

realhackhistory, 4 months ago to hacking

ICYMI: I wrote a blog about the time a journalist went undercover as a #hacker in 1984, pissed off the entire #hacking scene of the time & wound up on trial on a BBS called Dragonfire while people were passing around his credit card numbers. #History time.
https://realhackhistory.org/2024/01/06/singed-by-dragonfire-newsweek-writer-richard-sandzas-hacker-bbs-teletrial-hackers-reporters/

realhackhistory, 5 months ago to random

2010s corporations had police chase founders of ThePirateBay around the globe for what they claimed was aiding copyright infringement, while corporations now are putting all human culture up until this point into a blender to sell the resulting mush as AI.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-29895123.amp

realhackhistory, 5 months ago to hacking

Managed to track down a CBS news segment on hackers from August of 1985. It covered #hacking credit records via compromised TRW accounts, hackers on ARPANET, #hacker BBSes, a brief interview with Richard Sandza, a Newsweek journalist who was harassed by #hackers because of articles he wrote exposing aspects of the computer underground of 1984 and some brief interview segments with various anonymous hackers.
https://archive.org/details/57-cbs-news-hacking-segment-1985

video/mp4

realhackhistory, 5 months ago to hacking

Wrote about the first time #hacker revenge culture hit the mainstream media, when Richard Sandza wrote a Newsweek article that infuriated the #hacking scene of 1984. I loved researching & writing this story and you'll learn a lot about #history reading it.
#histodons #hackers
https://realhackhistory.org/2024/01/06/singed-by-dragonfire-newsweek-writer-richard-sandzas-hacker-bbs-teletrial-hackers-reporters/

realhackhistory, 5 months ago to random

The devil on my shoulder is my co-pilot.

realhackhistory, 5 months ago to hacking

Stumbled across this article from April 1985 about 2 California teens "who called themselves "Modem Maniac" and "Bonbon Man"" who threatened to dox & attack people from BBSes.

"said things like they were going to post my real name and phone number on every pirate bulletin board in the United States"

"The threats were to tear out lawns, break out windows. Typical juvenile-type things. One of them said, 'Pay or die.' But really, I think it was probably all in jest"
#hacking #hacker #history

realhackhistory, 5 months ago to random

This headline cured my January blues.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/jan/02/x-twitter-stock-falls-elon-musk

realhackhistory, 5 months ago to hacking

Tired from celebrating New Years? Why not check out my venture into minor AI upscaling of video (I know, I know) with episode 5 of Whiz Kids, from 1983. One of my favorite episodes, kids get framed for stealing a million dollars from a bank with #hacking.
https://archive.org/details/tensor-pix-whiz-kids-05-1983

realhackhistory, 5 months ago to random

2024 vibes.

realhackhistory, 5 months ago to hacking

In 1999 NYC there was a theatrical production called Y2K about "a #hacker who goes by the name of Costa Astrakhan and gets his jollies by breaking into the computer files of a successful New York couple."
#hacking #history
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/12/08/arts/theater-review-he-s-mad-he-s-bad-and-he-s-got-their-passwords.html

A cast list from inside the playbill for "Y2K"

realhackhistory, 5 months ago to random

NYE thoughts

realhackhistory, 5 months ago to history

I was just reminded about this whole incident which I must either make a video or blog about.
#hacker #history #cat #Japan
https://www.bitdefender.co.uk/blog/hotforsecurity/hackers-cat-with-virus-collar-arrested-by-japanese-police/

realhackhistory, 5 months ago to hacking

Shameless reminder that I made a little video about #Christmas themed viruses, #malware and phishing campaigns from the late 80’s through to the late 00’s.
#hacking #history
https://youtu.be/4ZPjZFgsCp0?si=cnSkyGss0wVI1EgR

realhackhistory, 5 months ago to hacking

I’m curious to hear about incidents over the years in which journalists got themselves ensnared in #hacking scene drama or legal consequences while chasing a story, writing a book, making a TV special. I am writing a series of blogs on the topic, any ideas for content are greatly appreciated.

For instance, see the attached article on the authors of the Masters of Deception book
#hacker #history #histodons
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,981986,00.html

realhackhistory, 5 months ago to hacking

I am writing a second blog about #hackers and reporters, the incidents over the years where journalists got too close to #hacking stories and became part of their own reporting. This blog is about Newsweek reporter Richard Sandza finding himself on trial for infiltrating #hacker BBSes.
#history #histodons

realhackhistory, 5 months ago to random

This is how I toot.

Dog sitting at a computer screen watching a countdown, the chaos.social mastodon on a smaller screen, then a brief shot of two teenagers donning bad prop VR glasses (footage spliced together from the movie Lawnmower Man 2)

realhackhistory, 5 months ago to random

Jacob Appelbaum should not be welcome at any events that purport to care about the safety of attendees. #37c3
https://www.wired.com/2016/06/tor-developer-jacob-appelbaum-resigns-amid-sex-abuse-claims/

realhackhistory, 5 months ago to random

#DDoSecrets don’t have the benefit of the deep pockets filled with millions some other platforms dedicated to transparency have to hand.

Please help @ddosecrets keep doing their valuable work at a time we desperately need them.
https://donorbox.org/ddosecrets-five-years-later

realhackhistory, 5 months ago to random

Life sentence in a hospital prison? For hacking. In case anyone thought hackers with autism diagnosis got off easy in the UK.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67663128

realhackhistory, 5 months ago to threads

#Threads #Fediverse #Mastodon #Meta

realhackhistory, 5 months ago to hacking

Friend sent me a document that talks about Soviet hacking, which was published in a German hack magazine called "Labor - Magazine for World Processing", issue 3, 1989/90.
#hacking #history #histodons

realhackhistory, 5 months ago to hacking

Found this instance of what is, essentially, anti-Soviet hacktivism by US phreaks back in September of 1986, from the Herald-Journal.
#hacking #history #hackers #phreak