The Discordant Opposition Journal Issue 7 - File 3
:Hack The Planet - Especially if you're a girl:
by PaRiS
"Information is power, and damnit I know more than you do. Take a pew, learn a trade, rock the world; know the score and don't shut your eyes for a second, you might just miss something." - KJ^ (1993)
A little bitta back ground on me. Bear with it. I'm PaRiS, a member of SOL (ThE SyNdiCaTe Of LoNdoN) and former member of TDA, a group which Discordia's editor Rue was once a member along with most of the in house writers I believe. You might recognise the nick ^The_Paris^ from certain articles and logs that Ruey has shoved in the Zine. Thats my old nick, my new one being |PaRiS|.
I started my "underground" life as what is usually described as a "lame-software-pirate" back in "The Day" (1992). At this point in the development of "information culture" being a pirate was not the same thing as it is today. We used to code elabrate demo's (on such platforms as the Amiga 500, and Atari ST) for our pirate productions, compress the data (like fitting 2 three disk games compressed on a single disk) in short we made the programmers in the Software Houses look stupid. And we got famous for doing it, a pirate disk with enough good stuff on it made in London, would be copied multiple times and more than likely end up on the other side of the country within a few months. Certain Crackers n Packers even had cult followings. It was all mad. And more importantly it was the Piratez who went on (along with the hackers of their time) to become to back bone of the alarmingly important information industry that we all know and hate *wink*.
It was as if Darwin himself was sitting there with a smug grin on his face and a can of beer thinking to himself "Survival of the fittest, look at it go". The whole pirate scene back then reminds me alot of the hacking scene these days, although the hacking scene is so much larger. The point is this: The piratez in the early 90's fucked the Software Houses from behind without mercy and then went on to BE the software houses which the pirates of today find it difficult to better in terms of compression/code and security. Sure they killed off the odd format (such as my beloved Atari ST), but aint that just a further example of the evolution of the whole information culture? This things alive man... I kid u not.
Relate this to the hacking culture of today. The hackers who are fucking the sys ads/governments from behind NOW are more than likley to BE the sys ads (and with any luck) the governments of the future. Sure Hackings phun and thats mainly the point, but look at the evidence of the previous example, those with the supeiriour knowledge and talent won thu in the end: the pirates. Sys ads are finding it hard to keep up with the hackers. One day the hackers WILL take their jobs. Its evolution man, survival of the fittest. Sure there are some class Sys Ads out there. But most of the real talent lies in the hacking corner. An 18 year old hacker who thinks he's out to hack the planet is far more flexable, determined and open to experiment than a 24 year old sys ad who has chosen the information industry as a career. And if hackers share their information like they are supposed to then he will have infinitely more resources available to him that a sys ad. It simple. What does the sys ad really care about the scene anymore? nothin. He gets paid to do it, and in 90% of all cases. He would have "moved on", "Grown up" and Sold Out. There is another message in there too. Check your self brethren, don't EVER end up like that.
Earlier I mentioned the Syndicate of London (my pride and joy) estalished late in 1992 it made it thu the ruff transition of formats (it was a soley Amiga thing when is started) and became far more than the pirate group it set out to be. SOL, for its members and former members became a real source of information sharing, gathering and publication. SOL looks after its own and anyone it likes the look of. It sometimes has a website, sometimes don't, sometiomes has no damn email addy... But it will ALWAYS be back. It lurks. To me this is exactly what "cells" of hackers, Piratez (Whatever), "those of the underground" in general, should be. Its kool and I love it :) *wicked*.
Id just like to give a shout out to all those SOL has lost along the way: Captain_Cake (We miss your Spiderman Impression), Unforgiven (Gone but not forgotten), The^Animal^Child (Your memory lives on in the_animal_child.wav) and last but by no means least Miracle (peace bro, wherever you may be).
One thing that SOL, and myself became fond of over the last 2-3 years, the time we expanded on the net, was IRC. It was FANTASTIC for what we liked to do best. Send out messages, learn new shit, and really get involved (*cough* MESSAGE wannabe's, do pay attention...). We would sit for hours. and hours. and hours. Just picking info up. New wingates here... Hacker "A" has done this... this group is lame cos... etc. Cyber gossip with a point. The members of SOL, some of whom knew nothing of hacking, benefitted an awful lot from this. And as I speak to u now all members of SOL know *something*. No one claims to be 'leet, thats status given not claimed, but people make their own minds up.
One of the other things about IRC is the amount of really weird ppl you meet out there. I mean REALLY weird. Rue has touched upon this in previous issues but man I could tell some stories. Terry Cooksey for a start! If you want a really good laugh then get your B up to www.cooksey.net and read his Zine. The guy is a total fruit loop. I used to have regular slaggin matches with him on IRC, until one day I got really bored with him a put up an anon website saying just how lame he was. It was kool; 400 hits in 3 days b4 Angelfire took it down. Ppl obviously saw my point of view. Cocksey later claimed that the hits were from his legal staff preparing a law suit. SOL later claimed that Cockseys legal staff and indeed wife were infact "Blow up toys". Neither claim has ever been confirmed, or more interestingly denied.
The result of this site was Terry going "Ape shit" and veing K-lined. Good dayz all round then. I met another memorable nutter on line was one night when I was sittin in #vampirepub on DALnet, a lil hobby of mine. (Pulling). Ahem... Anyway this guy called V0rtex01 or something, an unregistered nick coming outta hicks ville USA somewhere according to its IP, he querys me. Now I got op in #vampirepub at this point. Vampirepub is role play chan right, this guy asks me if im a Vampire. I think hes talking In character; so I say "No Im a Demon". He continues this with "Really? My coven and I should worship you!!" at this point my eyebrow raised. Coven is not an expression used in #vampirepubs game...
"Coven?" I ask.
"Yes... There are 10 of us now all of the blood" he tells me.
"Right..."
"We are in Texas, we plan a feast in a month, we will drink each others blood. And yours. Do you wish to come?"
I hesitate. "Erm... are you talking irl?"
"Irl?"
"In real life"
"Yes. Obviously. Would some of the other vampires in this channel join us for our feast"
I get that evil look in my eye, and grin. "No"
"Why not?"
"Because I have just despatched my vampiric slaves to rain down bloody death on you and your illegal outcast vampires. I spit on you."
"Why did you do that???!? We only wish to be one with you!!" he screams.
"I am a 9000 year old demon" I rant "and I command it, thats why, now i want no more to do with you you small creature. Begone and await your certain doom."
"We will run away"
"I doubt it"
At this point a newk him offline, Im getting rather bored with the angle of conversation. It is a good 30 mins before he returns still pleading that I spare his kindred vampires. At which point Im pissing my self with laughter. I kept the whole thing up for hours. Then went off for some food. I never saw V0rtex01 again ;)
Moving on a little from this, as well as the ppl you really hate on IRC there are those whom have exactly the opposite effect. I would like to state to the world in general, especially all the tossers who know not what they speak of that it IS possible to care for at the least, and love at the most, ppl you have only ever met online. Im sick of people saying tis only a computer. Its not. Its someone a million miles away you think your in love with ;). I had a few flings like this and to anyone who is now uttering the worlds "Get a life" I hold my middle finger up and say calmly "Spin on it". Anyone who knows me will agree I do indeed have a life outside IRC, and one which usually revolves around the question "Which yattie [London slang: good looking girl] am I pulling this week?". IRC relationships are just different and in many cases move on to MORE than IRC anyway. Phone callz at first then meeting. So sceptics fuck off, don't knock what you don't understand! (A re-occuring theme when in comes to cynics of the Net).
On an end note to the whole IRC thing Id like to state that IRC drunk is one of the most amusing things I have ever expirienced. 8 cans of beer followed by 6 hours on line is simply gonna be good. I remember one incident with Rue, Firetrack, Kleptic and some of the other old #TDA crew when we were for some reason all on line at 5.50 GMT drunk out of our tiny minds (except possibly Klep). We decided it would be a really good idea to email love lettahs to phrack. Oh how we laughed. Another time I remember writting some dubious sheep poetry ("Ode to flossy") sending it to my m8 Epsilon on ICQ and him pasting it to a channel on IRC by accident; making it look as if he was just coming out with it randomly. Classic.
I live in London. London is an odd place. Its very rigid. There are those individuals who seek to make it less so however. One group such as this is the posse of individuals involved in the hack/phreak scene who used to get together in Kingston Upon Theames whenever they could be arsed. Oh those were funny nights. 1-can-2-birds 42-tents-shamen and his "What do I do with this last can of beer I cant drink it?"
"Throw it away" says Firetrack, ever the brains of the operation; to wit Shamen lobbed the can stright up, it coming back down, narrowly missing his head, moments later only to explode and drench him from the knees up in beer. Shamen fell over next, the other details are "Hazy" at best.
There was also the supermarket Trolly racing, something best left in the records of Kingston City Hospital and the "See how many free calls the operator will give us" competition. True moments of underground phun ;).
However London has its fair share of lamers. In particular a sub-culture who go around calling them selves Cyberpunks. These twats dress for the most part like the knob-ends in Hackerz the movie and think they are cyber "punk"s for doing so. Having to conception of what the word Cyber means. They know shit all about puters and are just trying to be different for the sake of it. Fuck off the lot of you. Copying fashions from a Movie is ALMOST as lame as copying Nicknames from MOVIES. If I had a penny for every Zerok00l Ive taken out ;).
Which brings me somewhat roundaboutly to music (well it don't, but im writting this not you). Music rules. Personally, and thats all this statement is I think cross-projects such as most prodigy stuff and the Spawn Soundtrack and the sounds of the underground, you all prolly disagree, but then again music is a personal thing so who am I to comment? No one.
Im just alternative boy. That is to say I don't dress like all the other twats in London, Ben Sherman designers shirts and Levi 501s. I wear smart cargo pants (how very American Im typing...) and shirts or ports shirts, depending where Im going and how hot it is. Baggy jumpers are also a fav of mine in fashion senses and my sun glasses never leave my side. I don't "do" trashing. I have ppl for that ;). I usually have a bag with various things in it on me. My laptop possibly.
I don't know whether this is your idea of a hacker, or someone involved in the underground. Image is only a small part of the culture. I suppose your stereotypical hacker is one of two descriptions...
Generally Baggy, attitude, misunderstood intelligence, defiant dressing, sunglasses, some form of xtreame sports gear...
or...
Generally unwashed, loner, stupid and socially underskilled, unfashionable clothes, silly skateborer. Glasses.
The difference between these two definitions? The first is prolly by someone involved in the scene, the second by someone who isn't. It would be quite interesting to actually go round and ask a random selection of ppl what they thought hackers looked like. I wonder if my assumption that ppl gets nerds and hackers confussed it correct? I bet it is. Ppl are stupid.
Nerds have computers cos they cant have anyone real.
Hackers have computers cos they don't want anyone real.
Basic generalisation but "Nuff" said. Allow it.
Nerds and hackers do however have the odd bit of common ground; apptitudes with computers and systems in general, a willingness to try stuff out, although the degree of this is usually the difference between a tech nerd and a leet hacker, a NEED to push things past limits, in nerds this is usually system specs, C++ code and in hackers its the firewall of the local government internal netwerk.
An interest in Civil rights in general and Freedom of Speech, publication and thought are also common factors between nerds and hackers... Although again just how far they will take it makes up the difference between the two sub cultures. Which brings forth the theory that hackers are nerdz with class. Both groups have talent, but unlike the nerd hackers have the balls to use it for a reason they believe is right and do it with a certain amount of style. "Go forward in all your beliefs, and prove to me that Im not so mistaken in mine" - Perhaps the most famous information theif in history.
The whole last paragraph goes someway to answer the ultimate question put by the general public to those involved in hacking. "Why hack?" although "Why not" is my usual answer the truth is far deeper. Yes hacking is phun, yes its the "Ultimate game" which changes every time... But its more isnt it? Its about proving you can change things, that you can see things that other ppl have told you you cant see. Its about being BETTER. Its about saying "Screw authority" I CAN beat it, therefore I have a RIGHT to beat it.
It links back to my opening paragraph and the similaritys between the hack culture of today and the pirate culture of the past. Its about the evoulution of the information culture. Mandate: "Information warefare for a better future". The more hackers fuck with our systems the better they will get and the better they get the more hackers will give up; but that kool, cos im talking long term and by this point the hackers who were fucking with the security systems will prolly be designing them! and if they keep to hacker ethics when they "Make it" like that then the world will be a far more "Free" place. However. Its up to those who make it not to sell out. Its a very big However...
You could say that hacking as it stands is an effort to prevent information being witheld from those whom have the ability to obtain it. i.e the hackers. Your average Joe on the street has no right to see inside the FBI database (bad example but Im running on 3 hours sleep) but a hacker who managers to navigate his way inside certainly DOES have a right, he beat a sys ad whose perhaps on $100,000 a year simply because he COULD. He proved he was BETTER than the FBI employee. So fuck'em. Not everyone needs to know everything. But if you can know it, you have a right to. See?
Bringing the whole topic back onto the internet, your average user. Little-Sally who comes on chats in #mirc and checks her email don't need to know shit. Shes not good enough to know anything important. She hasn't earn't the right. But... If she came in the #hackerzlair and ASKED to learn something. She would be taking a step in the right direction, and one day she would have the right to know something important. You see where Im going with this? Most ppl will never NEED to know more. Hackers do. We have a right to KNOW. We have earn't it. People such as ourselves who have gone to such achedemic lengths, hacking is 80% reading, to know more should know more.
Which brings me to perhaps the second most talked about subject in the hacking community, after hackers ethics. How others view hackers. I have mentioned the confussion which occurs with hackers and nerds... and outlined the difference, but its ironic that the public choose to portray us as spotty, glasses wearing nerds who at the same time are a "threat to national security". Isnt that odd?
In truth it all comes down to an age old statment: "People fear what they do not have the capacity to
understand". They don't NEED to know, therefore they wont. So phuck them. They are not important.
Moving away from the deep debate and back to the fringe of hacking ethics I feel that it is important to share information. I mention this here, because hopefully by now I've either pissed you off or got you thinking. Hopefully both. Shareing of information within the hacking community is the key to the continued evolution of the culture. without the sharing elliment we are just creating a facimille of the current problem. Ppl who don't tell those who have a right to know; just like the governments and whoever else "They" are (I've refrained from the "They" thing for ALMOST the whole document!!), so called Hackers who keep *everything* to themselves are just as lame as governments and system admins who do likewise. If you can't tell the hacking world something you have found out, then there was no point hacking in in the first place? Comprede'?
However telling EVERYONE, EVERYTHING would be bad. If you are reading this you should be able to appreciate my point. Telling all the #Mirc or #cyberfriends crew how to Telnet in the national grid or something, would be silly. They don't know enough of the ethics involved to use the information correctly. And to learn. They need to come looking for it. Perhaps then they would waste less time lagging my box with idle bantern ;).
Have you ever sat there and wondered just how much SHITE is on the net? I mean all that "Homepage: Im sally, I like cats... etc etc" what a load of bollox Im sure those who created the net are crying whenever they see a site like that. Funny sites yes. Informative sites YES! Im sally and i like cats sites? WE COULDN'T GIVE A SHIT IF YOU WERE SALLY AND YOU SHAGGED DONKEYS. Its just not IMPORTANT. Its a waste of everything. And the worst thing is that one day Sally will download a click newk, watch Hackerz the Movie and think she is 'leet for a week. Know what I mean? No wonder hackers have such a bad rep...
Downloaded IRC Warscripts also phuck me off. I mean if you cant write it your self you shouldn't have the ability to use it should you? Why not get someone who does know to help you write one? That way they will be using the hacker ethic of information sharing. How things should be. No lame click newks from twats coming in #hackerzlair and screaming "Look how 'leet I am". Lame.
Talking of lame; hello British Telecom. You see BT charge for local calls in the UK. Therefore all other companys in order to keep up with BTs HUGE SICK AMOUNTS OF PROFIT have to do the same. That and the fact they too are greedy bastards. They are blantantly ripping off the public! I mean PAY for local calls?! Americans laugh at me whenever I tell them. And to cap it all they choose to give out free net accounts to "Make up for it". Net accounts in the UK cost £11 a months. My phone bill is £100. BT, you do the math, its no substitude and you know it. I would however pay £30 a month with free calls. But BT cant handle £70 per person being lost, that way they might make less that £100 a second. Which is apparently what they do make. BT, you make me sick. You stand for everything the world hates the British for.
(At this point I calm down and fetch a cup of coffee).
Women. Birds. Chicks. Yattie. Ynaf. Hacking... hmm. Its odd the amount of female hackers there ain't. I mean with women supposedly the more intelligent sex and everything. Or is it they do busy getting chatted up in #cyberfriends? I think it might be.
There are female hackers/underground ppl and I get on my knees to you; ethercat you rock! I have so much respect for gals in the scene. It just strikes me as odd that there are not more. Its as if there are more males interested in Civil Rights! I don't know. I don't want to get into a big debate about this, then get letter bombed by some irate femanist. Someday I hope that someone will prove this entire paragraph wrong. But just think about it...
I'll say one more thing on this subject, male hackers; a girly comes and asks you hacking questions. Answer her. Information sharing for more se... I mean a better future.
Talking of better futures, one where Im at the pub looks like its peering over the horizon. So I shall end this thus (trust); *ahem* Hacking is a subculture based on undeniabley sound social principles; those of free speech, information sharing and earnt respect. It is misunderstood and often slanderd by those who understand nothing of it. People fear and persecute what they fail to grasp. Come the revolution they shall be first up against the wall. Knowledge is power, the net is the largest source of knowledge on the planet and added to this the Net is the only trurly free place on the planet. If you think you live in an entirely free country your wrong. Go get a book of law out. check some of the stupid laws. I garantee they are there. Don't get me wrong, I not an anarchist, anarchy doesn't rule, but not everyone needs to conform (hence the whole if you can you have a right too statement), without rule brakers things would never change. Its called social evolution.
If you can, hack the planet, especially if you are a girl.
--------------------------
PaRiS (The Luckstruck One)
Luckstruck@go.to
http://go.to/luckstruck/
