CNet's "Top 10 Hacks" 100
tdrury writes "CNET has a story describing the "top 10 hacks" (sic) of all time. Good bathroom material - if you can surf from your bathroom. " Mentions the Morris worm and a few other clever ones. And several quite unclever ones (like the Jurassic Park/Pond PR stunt).
... (Score:4)
The greatest hack of all time may be that we're all laughing at you instead of with you and you don't even realize it yet. It's not "just" about hacking websites... it's about exploring the System. The system isn't just the online world you see, it's your reality. The media has had nearly unlimited power to shape our collective reality until now. Until now. Now the community is redefining what reality is, and exposing alot of facts that most would rather see buried.
Perhaps geeks are more paranoid than most because they know how far information manipulation can go... and infact see it on a daily basis. "Mistrust authority. Promote decentralization." Subversive? Us? Nah.
--
Re:Hacker != Cracker (oh yes it is! etc.) (Score:3)
Ah yes; nothing like a good bit of linguistic autocracy. Language is a slippery beast; it doesn't have a spec. document and changes every time somebody uses it (actually, I think all European languages except English have some kind of official governing body to decide on `correctness', but for whom are they keeping their language `correct'?). Did you know that `gay' used to be a word without any connotations of homosexuality? No? Well, you do now. Why not start using it in its original sense more often? Because you don't care, because it's been absorbed into common usage now, because heck the word sounds better than homosexual and less offensive than so many other terms...
:-) ).
Or what about the word `album'; I mean, you only have to look here [mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de] to see that rather than being anything to do with music it derives from the Latin word for white (at a guess because the tablets used for keeping Roman public records were white, which were engraved on, hence the word came to mean anything engraved upon, e.g. those funny vinyl discs on which the first `albums' were pressed).
So why not let the term `hacker' go rather than trying to `correct' the `ignorance' of the masses? You could say instead (with equal accuracy) that the term `cracker' was denoted nothing but a cheese-oriented biscuit until a computer programmer or two got tired of being associated with the wrong sort of people and agreed on a the clumsy term to denote them from The Other.
Try thinking about language as a tool of control and identification rather than communication next time you correct somebody else's use of it. You might end up noticing what you're really saying.
PS-- I sent a rant like this to Mr. Raymond after reading his definition of `hacker' in his jargon file. Got ignored, for one reason or another.
PPS-- Homework for next time: In light of the above, discuss the term `free software' (but not on Slashdot please
Re:hacking root = root directory? (Score:1)
hey now, careful... wouldn't want slashdot getting sued 'n stuff cuz you mentioned "... for dummies" in a post...
doh! now i did it myself!
Re:Thompson back door (Score:1)
My vote on Thompsons login hack as the number one computerhack in history.
What's the second best hack?
Re:Hacker != Cracker (Score:1)
Re:Zippy-i-fier lives! (Score:2)
Most intelligent hack of all time (Score:5)
[...] Ken Thompson's 1983 Turing Award lecture to the ACM admitted the existence of a back door in early Unix versions that may have qualified as the most fiendishly clever security hack of all time. In this scheme, the C compiler contained code that would recognize when the `login' command was being recompiled and insert some code recognizing a password chosen by Thompson, giving him entry to the system whether or not an account had been created for him.
Normally such a back door could be removed by removing it from the source code for the compiler and recompiling the compiler. But to recompile the compiler, you have to use the compiler -- so Thompson also arranged that the compiler would recognize when it was compiling a version of itself, and insert into the recompiled compiler the code to insert into the recompiled `login' the code to allow Thompson entry -- and, of course, the code to recognize itself and do the whole thing again the next time around! And having done this once, he was then able to recompile the compiler from the original sources; the hack perpetuated itself invisibly, leaving the back door in place and active but with no trace in the sources. [...]
A detailed description of the hack by Ken Thompson himself can be found here [acm.org].
Re:Slashdot list of best hacks. (Score:1)
Best hack of all time: the connection of the first two IMPs together and the first letters transmitted over the ARPAnet ("l", "o", "g"). Read all about that one in Where the Wizards Stay Up Late [amazon.com] .
I hate to mention this one, but I do believe that the Allen/Gates Altair BASIC hack was pretty good. Developed on a simulator it worked the first time on the real platform.
CNet are wrong -- the Zippy Filter is UP! UP! UP! (Score:1)
Look what it did to a story on the front-page of slashdot:
Roberth Edberg writes "The Swedish birthday congratulationlist for Linus Torvalds (creator of Linux) is increasing every minute. How do you explain Wayne Newton's POWER over millions? It's th' MOUSTACHE... Have you ever noticed th' way it radiates SINCERITY, HONESTY & WARMTH? It's a MOUSTACHE you want to take HOME and introduce to NANCY SINATRA! Will he have an world record in individual birthday congratulations? Even the Swedish Linux World site, made news about it. Wow! Look!! A stray meatball!! Let's interview it! Why not follow the example and make lists for your own country?" Linus Torvalds turned 30 yesterday, October 28, 1999. Happy (belated) birthday, Linus!
rOD.
--
Re:Zippy-i-fier lives! (Score:1)
Hey, thanks for posting that. I thought we might as well use it to do the obvious [metahtml.com]:
Should read: (Score:1)
Because the best of them, only a few people are aware of.
Re:Hacker != Cracker (oh yes it is! etc.) (Score:1)
you have made an otherwise dull friday so much better by that comment
Zippy isn't dead (Score:1)
If you're working for a corporation building a marketing website, it's extremely funny stuff. Microsoft has blocked it somehow. Check out some
Book Reviews: The New, New, Thing
Posted by JonKatz on Friday October 29, @09:34AM EDT
from the Seeing-Over-Horizons-in-Silicon-Valley dept.
Michael Lewis' "The New, New Thing" focuses on mythic Silicon Valley entrepeneur (and Netscape founder) Jim Clark to explain how Silicon Valley really works. He is the MELBA-BEING... the ANGEL CAKE... XEROX him... XEROX him -- It's a great read, but the author perhaps admires his ego-maniacal subject a bit too much.
( Read More... | 8741 bytes in body )
Linus Torvalds Turns 30 and the Kudos Roll In
Posted by Roblimo on Friday October 29, @09:12AM EDT
from the never-trust-anyone-over-30 dept.
Roberth Edberg writes "The Swedish birthday congratulationlist for Linus Torvalds (creator of Linux) is increasing every minute. Look! A ladder! Maybe it leads to heaven, or a sandwich! Will he have an world record in individual birthday congratulations? Even the Swedish Linux World site, made news about it. It was a JOKE!! Get it?? I was receiving messages from DAVID LETTERMAN!! YOW!! Why not follow the example and make lists for your own country?" Linus Torvalds turned 30 yesterday, October 28, 1999. Happy (belated) birthday, Linus!
Then do it. (Score:1)
I am still waiting for someone to put it together.
Hurry up.
whahoooooo.. lets go!!! (Score:1)
Kevin mitnick cant hack (Score:1)
Re:From the Article (Score:1)
Re:No mention of the MIT hacks! (Score:1)
"Your codebooks were here. ~ J Random Hacker"
--
Also... (Score:1)
--
The good and the bad (Score:1)
But they did use the "word" hacktivist.
Sigh.
paranoid.android
hacking root = root directory? (Score:1)
Apparently 'hacking root' means to 'hack into
the root directory of the server'.
I wonder if they did an altavista search for 'root', and took the first mention they found.
Re:THIRD POST (Score:1)
They should have left the comments and write-ins enabled. Obviously, certain people need a place to spam and joke around at. Segfault was that place, and I saw nothing wrong with it.
But unfortunately, now that Segfault doesn't allow that (which, btw, means I won't be visiting Segfault anymore), they run here.
Re:No mention of the MIT hacks! (Score:2)
The Greatest Hack of All Time (Score:5)
Remember, hacking isn't just with computers. Probably the best piece of hacking/social engineering EVER was Orson Wells with the war of the worlds. Who else can claim that their hack affected MILLIONS of people all over the country?
Oh sure, I hear the naysayers saying that he probably didn't even mean to do it. But to me, that's immaterial. The hack of turning a regular radio show into a national panic is quite a hack, IMHO. It may not have been cool or good, but I would consider it a hack.
So lame it's cool! (Score:1)
Re:Impressively awful (Score:1)
I'm astonished at how a news piece could be so gratuitously wrong.
Heck, I did better than these when I was in school.
(grin. I still remember doing 'dynamic load balancing' of the mini computer by causing people to log themselves off whenever they tried to view the print queue, and harvesting passwords with a fake log in screen.)
CNet = the Deevil (Score:1)
Re:Hacker != Cracker (Score:1)
To correct you, however. The term "hack" came from the 20s, describing newspaper reporters who spent until the early hours of the morning "hacking away" at a typewriter. The term "hack" is an onomatphoea (spelling?
So there
We love you too, C|Net (Score:1)
"Real-world hackers--despite their posturing, bluster, talents, and occasional good intentions--couldn't hope to get within a thousand yards of Meg Ryan."
Unless you're Roblimo, I guess.
[IMO, the people who put a vertical pipe in their name should be considered just as geeky as those who put slashes and dots in their name. (shrug)]
silly people.... (Score:1)
Oh please...
Mind you at least General Public won't know what root is.
How about this top ten: (Score:1)
1) Unix -- Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie
2) C -- Thompson, Ritchie, Brian Kernighan
3) Perl -- Larry Wall
4) Sendmail -- Eric Allman
5) NNTP -- (? Two guys from NC)
6) diff/patch -- Larry Wall
7) Linux kernel -- Linus Torvalds
8) Mosaic httpd client -- NCSA
10) GNU utilities -- FSF/GNU
The above list is what I think of when I think 'hack' -- useful new tools or solutions to problems devloped by small groups or individuals. The web site vandals and other intrusion experts just doen't seem to be on the same level as the folks on *this* list.
Why I love CNET (Score:1)
You just know there are people there who really do have a clue about tech, but must condescend pretty low to get the hits that pay the bills. This was the first time I've seen a hacker/cracker definition in any mainstream media. Yet, most of top 10 are very lame web page defacements that go on a few dozen times a day - you can view them at attrition.org. I'm still trying to piece together why movie URLs are so important. I don't make the assumption that because 100 million people saw that movie that 100 million people saw the defacement. Or cared.
CNET is one of the greatest modern hacks, they way they pile in both geek and goon and show them almost nothing, yet can still maintain a decent rep and pay the bills. Bravo!
"SUBVERSIVE", not "BEST" (Score:2)
Whatever happened to reading for comprehension, people?? The C|NET story ISN'T proporting to list the "10 Best Hacks of all Time" . It's listing the 10 "MOST SUBVERSIVE" hacks (in their NSHO). That's why those inelegant - but politically interesting - hacks are there.
----------------------------------------------
Re:No mention of the MIT hacks! (Score:1)
what aboug gates getting that pie in his FACE !
Interesting disclaimer.... (Score:2)
Eh... That's the first thing I saw when I was reading the article. I stopped after that.. why do they feel the need to "warn" readers that they're not going to talk about "real hacks" (whatever they think that means). Seems a bit over-politically-correct to me.
From the Article (Score:2)
Man, how could they get something so wrong?
now for some content (Score:1)
How many of them work for CNET? (Score:1)
good reading (Score:1)
i take that back (Score:1)
Attrition (Score:1)
-Tim
Worm is only #10 ?? (Score:1)
Anybody remember kipling.com? (Score:2)
Though I appreciate the symbolic value of "Wargames", it's just not a real-life example of the 'Net striking back. My nomination for #1 would be the cracking and slashdotting [slashdot.org] of kipling.com's [kipling.com] "hacker" contest. >:)
They left out beautifulgirls.com (Score:4)
They were a "free porn" ("jumbo shrimp"?) site..all you had to do to get the pr0n was download thier "client"...which actually turned the speaker off of the (l)user's modem, dialed a phone number in Outer Mongolia , and connected to a pop there. Brilliant. beautifulgirls.com split the phone revenue with a northern slobovian phone company, and the people who found $200+ international ld calls on their phone bill were screwed; a court case determined that they were indeed liable for the charges....now _that_ was memorable..btw, i wasn't one of those lusers...
the Zippy-i-fier (Score:1)
sigh.
Lotek---
It almost made it--My (Score:1)
Re:Slashdot list of best hacks. (Score:1)
Re:Worm is only #10 ?? (Score:2)
Learn something new every day... (Score:2)
Re:Most intelligent hack of all time (Score:1)
Yes! I love this one. I was thinking of it while reading the CNet article, and was kind of hoping they'd include it. I guess it's a bit over technical for their target audience tho
dylan_-
--
Re:Slashdot list of best hacks. (Score:1)
On a different note, "best hacks" to me has to do with creative and powerful solutions to computing problems, and it would be pretty cool to see a slashdot-compiled list of the very best of those, too.
hmm... reading slashdot comments is a lot more fun than doing physics problem sets...
Klaas
God Damnit! (Score:2)
This Click here for page one, then click here for page two, and so on is annoying. Is this just a bullshit way to increase the number of hits they get per day and drive up advertsing prices?
LK
Re:Worm is only #10 ?? (Score:2)
Re:The Greatest Hack of All Time (Score:1)
Re:God Damnit! (Score:1)
Re:The Greatest Hack of All Time (Score:1)
Very odd how scared people got. Think people. It sometimes helps.
-cpd
Pigeonhole (Score:1)
Real-world hackers--despite their posturing, bluster, talents, and occasional good intentions--couldn't hope to get within a thousand yards of Meg Ryan. The closest they can aspire to is hacking the In ternet Movie Database.
But the social life of hackers aside...
How nice. Looks like CNET's been taken over by Weekly World News.
Re:Cracker: dry biscuit. (Score:1)
I wasn't objecting to the term as such, only pointing out that its purpose in this context was to divide one group of `hackers' from another (okay my analysis of the word was less than complete). Its problem in this context is that it's an ugly word, and too close to the more familiar `hacker' for most people to bother to listen to, or care for the intended distinction between the terms.
Re:Worm is only #10 ?? (Score:2)
Anyways, I really doubt that a pretty sharp coder would make a mistake like that and not catch it during the testing phase.
Cnet's valiant attempt.. (Score:2)
sporty - with the new jack swing commin' at ya'
Um, what was this supposed to accomplish? (Score:1)
The top 8 web hacks.... (Score:5)
Impressively awful (Score:2)
The special(ly inane) report was advertised as the "10 Craftiest Hacks" and the "10 Most Subversive Hacks", but it's neither. And what's with the slam at Kevin Mitnick on the front page of the article? My understanding is that industrial espionage involves companies spying on each other for competitive advantage, not one man's virtual dumpster diving.
CNET's definition of spoofing is "the interception and jumbling of information from a content-providing Web server before it reaches a person browsing the site...very popular in 1997."
Definitely the borderline lame-assness the Jargon File refers to in its spoof entry [tuxedo.org]. I'm worrying I missed out on that crazy 1997 spoofing fad. Hmm.
I really can't tell whether the article is simply lame or perniciously brain-dead. The tone of the AirTran hack description [cnet.com] is misbegottenly whiny, calling morbid humor "crass" (if you can believe that).
Finally, I bet "Real-world hackers" could get within a thousand yards of Meg Ryan. Especially if they're Real World "hackers." [slashdot.org]
Rooting a server according to c|Net! (Score:2)
The hackers wrote of their own "rooting" exploits (that is, hacking the root directory of a server) at sites including those of Penthouse, Motorola, and an ISP in New Mexico. And those who made it to the end of the page found a statement that more interesting material could be found in the HTML source of the hack.
Root directory of a server... ROFLMAO!
I think that writer needs a crash course in UNIX.
--
Leonid S. Knyshov
Network Administrator
No mention of the MIT hacks! (Score:4)
For my money, the Green Building as a VU meter [mit.edu] is the most impressive, the cop car on the dome [mit.edu] the most humorous.
Anyway, I thought it was sad that true great hacks got no mention.
-B
Morris hack!! (Score:1)
Re:hacking root = root directory? (Score:1)
Probably not, I suspect if you searched for "root" you'd just get a billion porn sites. They probably just looked it up in their "Computer Journalism for Dummies" glossary...
--
Cracker: dry biscuit. (Score:2)
When you say ``I'm a hacker'', some people may think that you break into computers, even though you mean that you like to work on neat programs. When you say ``I'm eating a cracker'', nobody thinks that you are munching on the remains a stereotypical masked guy who blows up metal boxes (or worse, performing some indecency).
Thompson back door (Score:4)
See http://www.acm.org/classics/sep95/ [acm.org]for more details.
Re:teaching us a lesson... or something (Score:3)
No microsoft? (Score:2)
Wrong (Score:1)
All they did was say that some people get all worked up about it. If they thought they were wrong, they wouldn't have used it. Kudos to c|net for not using the incorrect term "cracking" like so many people do.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Slashdot list of best hacks. (Score:5)
Instead of complaining, maybe we could show CNET what a good hack is supposed to look like. What I propose is that we compile a list, that is actually a list of best hacks. Together with some help from Slashdot editors this list could be build and through voting I think we could come up with a list that is a more accurate definition of the word hack.
I vote for Charles Babbage to be on this list. Doing all, that he did, mechanically was and is a great hack.
----------------------