New subject: One use for an old VAX

6 Feb 1998

...
 First, my apologies.  I didn't mean for my original
message to be sent
public. Sam, this is a big step for you.... ;-)
...
 On Fri, 6 Feb 1998, Daniel A. Seagraves wrote:

  The name hacker has been dragged through the mud
for far too long.
 There's almost no real record of the 1st and 2nd generation hacks.  (1st
 were the hacks at MIT.  2nd were those at Berkeley and elsewhere, who
 adjusted the Hacker Ethic to allow for making money.  3rd are the
 present-day warez loosers.  [They're here for refrence.  Technically, 
Not true.  Read _Hackers_ by Steven Levy.  It embodies the tale of the
first two generations you mentioned and then also goes into the game
hackers of the early 80s on microcomputers.  An excellent book.  I've read
it twice (first in 1988) and may bring it on my next trip to read again. Can you
please get the ISBN for that?
...
 As far as the warez-loozers, well, they are just that,
warez-loozers, and
will be a footnote in some future book. But nothing more.  I dispise them. I've
got a friend, who's brother claims
to know "hackers" who own looser warez sites.  I asked them to get into my
system.  They tried for 2 hours, and they eventually were convinced that I
WAS running Windows 2.0.  ;-)  Now, he knows how to "semi-hack" but hadn't
HEARD of C/C++, and thought that Unix was dead.  He didn't even know about
the "clear" Linux command!!!  Hacking into a NT system is... not un-hard.
...
   they don't
count])  All that survives to the actual public is the image
 of some cybernerd on drugs with wild hair maliciously attacking big
 companies just to be a punk.  My brother hates computers, and he's
 closer to THAT description than I am. 
Heheh.  So true, unfortunately.  The other extreme is the
fat-pud-who-eats-while-he's-hacking stereotype and then the
thick-glasses-total-dweeb-high-pitched-voice-hacker stereotype. And then there's
the nerdy NASA mission-control type revenge guy.
...
   Of course,
I'm still not as good as the 1st-gen guys.  I can't solder
 any good, I have nearly no idea how to wire-wrap or use a slide rule,
 and I can't do number conversion in my head yet.  I'm not very good at
 math.  (I can do it with a calculator, but I tend to drop numbers left
 and right with big variables)  I still have some to go...  ------- 
That's all myth, Daniel (except for the number-conversion-in-the-head,
starting working at it :).  The fact is, you don't NEED to know how to
wire-wrap or use a slide-rule.  They would be impressive skills and might
get you a date some day, but if we still NEEDED to use those tools to this
day then we wouldn't have progressed much in the realm of technology and
that would be very sucky. What are the requirements for being a hacker? ;-)
Tim D. Hotze

Real hackers