Hackers Digest

<< -- Hackers and Crackers -- >>

Hacking has been practiced for more than 100 years. In the 1870's teenagers used to twitter with Phone Systems. Below you'll find how busy these hackers were in the past 35 years.

Hackers come with different culture and believes. They can be grouped with a given colour associated to them. There are various reasons why they hack. Most of them are because they are facinated about computers and technology, others hack for fun, money, politics etc.

What is a Hacker?
A hacker is someone who extends the ability of an object into various measures. Back in the 80's video games where played on a TV set where you had a glimmer pointer orbiting in a circular motion and the hacker used to extend (cheat) describing how many different methods can be used in order for him to win the game.

What is a Cracker?
A cracker is someone who breaks into computer systems normally over networks normally for money or by taking the challenge.

<< -- Magic -- >>

What has Magic got to imply with Hacking?
Hacking is exactly like Magic. Magicians perform magic tricks and get your attention to distract you from noticing what is happening from the background view. If you knew the trick already, it will turn it into divulge. Hacking is same thing. You learn a trick of the trade and until you share your hacking skills and exploits with other people, they won't know how you performed the action.

You see various kinds of Magic as with playing cards, cutting a woman into half etc. You know that this can't be true and that there is a trick in some way or another. But because you don't know what the trick is behind the idea, it is called "Magic".

Hackers come in various different colours such as white, black, grey. They can change colour as a chameleon and hide their identity by covering their face with a mask and being disguised.

What is a White Hat Hacker?
A white hat hacker is someone who hacks into computers systems for a positive intention. He works hand in hand with the system adminsitrators trying to fix holes and attach network patches and also installing vendor's updates.

What is a Black Hat Hacker?
A black hat hacker is someone who hacks into computer systems without the intention of the victim. He normally hacks at night and during after work hours to try and hide identity as much as possible. He is the hacker who performs malicious attacks and deface websites with his own will.

What is a Grey Hat Hacker?
A grey hat hacker is someone who can't be recognized whether it's black or white. He tends to change colour according to the circumstances needed.

What is a Script Kiddie?
A Script Kiddie is someone who is unknowledgable about how computers work and they tend to use others people's tools to gain access to a system or deface a website by posting explicit content on it.

What is an Ethical Hacker?
An ethical hacker is someone who hacks into a system for good purposes such as to delve into a system for security holes and threats. These are normally the white hats who want to patch the system and expose bugs and new holes. They will contribute with adminsitrators and guide them on how they can secure these holes and make their environment more safer.

Hackers often hold conferences and a well known one is "DefCon". It is held in Los Angeles, where hackers meet and share ideas and thoughts.

There is also a hackers magazine called "Phrack" and "2600" that can be found on the web for free of charge.

The hacker code is what describes a hacker himself. You can call it the hacker code or the hacker manifesto.

<<-- Hacker Celebreties -->>

Kevin David Mitnick
Mitnick used his ability on a tecnique called "Social Engineering" where he managed to get access to incorporate systems and high firms such as IBM and Nokia. David was keen about Magic so that he spent hours in a Magic shop trying to figure out how tricks were performed. Then later on while in high school he met a friend who was interested in Phone Phreaking. Him and Mitnick
made up and began sharing there ideas together. He was first arrested in 1988 and sent to trail in 1995. He was sentented to at least five years in jail and was harsly treated using his stay there in federal Prison. He couldn't speak to anyone for quite a long time, until his case was notified and withdrew all charges in 2001. Annoucements and shotouts where displayed on billboards
and stickers with the words "FREE KEVIN" while being in custody.

He has publisehed two notorious books "The Art of Deception" and "The Art of Intrusion" which basically talks about Social Engineering and explaining how to manipulate the humans mind.

John Draper
Draper well known as "Caption Crunch" was into Phone Phreaking which is basically playing around with phone lines and telephone networks. He used to make long distance calls for free without being traced such as doing it from an outside pay phone. Long time ago telephone systems used to work in a more different way than today. If you wanted to phone someone, you had to call the telephone provider first and then they will direct your call to the desired party at the other end. A freqency of tones where wistled through the line making the call pass through. There were various persons who used to make an exact sound by blowing whisps from their mouth and creating an original tone. The tone used to be a 2600Hz tone.

Later on, a wistle with this tone was given out with every packet of cerial bought as a tribute to the occasion. These types of people such as Draper can minipulate a PBX system and do what they desire such as forwarding telephone calls.

Robert Morris
Morris was known for the Morris worm a computer virus that caused various damages to the computers in 1988. It was intentially programmed to test on UNIX systems. Morris was a student from Bell labs and intentially introduced this virus that first occured in the Phillipines.
The worm damages around 6000 networked systems, jamming Govenment and University Systems. Morris was fined $10,000 and sentenced to three years probation.

That's all for now, until next time,
DarkSolo