jss@rochester.UUCP (01/24/84)
At the University of Rochester, there was an incident of wire
fraud committed by one of my fellow students. An article in the
school newspaper reviewed the events that had taken place.
"Computing items were seized from his room... Among the
the items taken by the F.B.I were a computer, floppy disks,
and a recent copy of 'Newsweek' magazine containing an art-
icle about computers."
Obviously this student will serve five to ten in the state pen. If
only he didn't have that magazine. It went on to list the stakeout
operations and the like and then explained what this kid was actually
doing:
An unidentified student said that [this student] was
involved with a process called computer hacking.
Computer hacking is the programmed dialing of a
specified number of digits until an access number is
found into computerized telephone accounts such as
SPRINT or MCI.
This was all done with a "motem" by the way, "a computer accessory".
Now, is there anyone out there in netland that is a little annoyed
about this slandering of hacking, a decent profession? I would like
to write an editorial but would prefer statements from a group rather
than limit it to just my own.
Slightly perturbed,
Jon S. Stumpf
U. of Rochester
rochester!jss
P.S. Please keep comments on the net.
Thank you in advance.rpw3@fortune.UUCP (01/31/84)
#R:rocheste:-454400:fortune:14500020:000:551
fortune!rpw3 Jan 31 00:44:00 1984
And please, while we're at it, let's not malign "ferrets"! Ferrets are
fine little animals (if a bit bloodthirsty) that track and dig out snakes
and rats and the like. In fact, the phrase "to ferret out" ...
The Stanford and UCLA systems staffs were ferreting when they were closing
in on the {worm? snake? rat?}. Hackers sometimes ferret out buggy code
(and sometimes add more).
Rob Warnock
UUCP: {sri-unix,amd70,hpda,harpo,ihnp4,allegra}!fortune!rpw3
DDD: (415)595-8444
USPS: Fortune Systems Corp, 101 Twin Dolphins Drive, Redwood City, CA 94065saj@iuvax.UUCP (02/15/84)
#R:rocheste:-454400:iuvax:9100003:000:684 iuvax!apratt Jan 25 12:44:00 1984 I'll post to that. Hacking is when you shave 3 milliseconds off a loop which normally only executes once. It's when you agonize for an hour over the relative value of trimming the core requirement or speeding up the algorithm. Hackers don't mess with security (etc.) unless they're writing the program or else they are also worms (ferrets? snakes?). Me, I enjoy an all-night session which results in no change in visual performance of a program, but which makes the code run much cleaner. That's what it's all about! (This is only half joking; I really DO love hacking!) Ever wake up feeling like a null pointer? -- Allan Pratt ...decvax!ihnp4!inuxc!iuvax!apratt