66 lines
3.5 KiB
Plaintext
66 lines
3.5 KiB
Plaintext
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Archive-name: hackers-faq
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This message is automatically posted once a week to inform new readers
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and remind old readers of what alt.hackers is about. It was last changed
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on 16mar92. If you don't want to see this posting every week, please
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add the subject line to your kill file. Thank you.
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---
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Jef
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Jef Poskanzer jef@netcom.com jef@well.sf.ca.us
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"...Is this a trick question?"
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- - - - - - - - - -
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0) What's a hacker? This is kind of like asking a Zen Buddhist "What is
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Zen?", or asking Louis Armstrong "What is jazz?" There's a pretty good
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attempt at a definition in the jargon file (FTP pit-manager.mit.edu
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pub/jargon/jargon*.ascii.Z) / New Hacker's Dictionary (ISBN 0-262-68069-6).
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However, one thing is crystal clear: hacking is *not* about breaking
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things. There was a period in the '80s when the media used "hacker"
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to mean someone who breaks into computer systems. They were using
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the word incorrectly. Some people who came of age during that period
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believed the media's incorrect definition, applied it to themselves,
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and now think they are some sort of glorious outlaw hacker. These
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people are sadly misguided. Perhaps someday they will figure out what
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hacking is really about. Perhaps reading this newsgroup will help.
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Meanwhile, if one of these people attempts to validate his self-image
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by posting to this newsgroup using the incorrect meaning of "hacker",
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it is probably best to simply ignore him.
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1) What's the newsgroup for? It's for reporting what you have hacked
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on lately. No hack too big or small. Basically the only rule is that
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every posting should have some mention of a hack in it. Discussion and
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requests for assistance are only allowed if you also contribute a
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report of something you did. This one rule is not enforced, but I
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encourage everyone to ignore people who violate it, or if you must,
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remind them of the rule via email instead of via further inappropriate
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postings.
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To cut down on mindless violations of the rule, the group is
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self-moderated - marked as moderated, but with no moderator's address.
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Anyone who can figure out how to approve a message is welcome to post.
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I'm not going to post the (trivial) instructions for actually doing
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it. Note that there are at least four *different* trivial ways,
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so if you try one and it fails don't start whining, start hacking!
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2) Do not post test messages. Do not even post *local* test messages,
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since you stand a good chance of being surprised by what your news
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system thinks is local. Posting a test message without a hack is a
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guaranteed bozo indicator. Do you want your introduction to this group
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to make you look like a bozo? If you don't have a hack to post, wait
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until you do and then work on posting that.
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3) Rutgers. The netnews administrator at Rutgers has set up a
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mail-to-news gateway that defeats the self-moderation of this group.
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What's worse, some other netnews admins have set up the Rutgers gateway
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as the alt.hackers moderation address. The result is that at many
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sites, you can just post a message to this group without any special
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tricks, and naturally most of the messages posted this way are trash.
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I have exchanged email with the Rutgers postmaster about this, and he
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refuses to change anything, and in fact denies that it's a problem.
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Therefore I have started cancelling all alt.hackers messages posted
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through Rutgers. This is not a good solution, but I can't think of
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any better ones. If you can, please write.
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