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