Mr JP,



Can you please either edit down the e-mails found in the mail bag or add more paragraphs to them as my attention span is too short to read such long un-interrupted emails.



Debris@attrition.org



Why does this not surprise me?







I'd like to start off saying how much I love this website. It is where I catch up on all of my computer and computer-related issues in the media. Anyways, I was just wondering... What ever happened to the true hacker, the kind that originated at MIT, the kind that did what he had to do to learn as much as he could. Where did we go wrong, at what point in history did a hacker turn into any single person that can point and click a mouse on some sort of program that somebody else made?



- Mitch B.



Mind you this is just a guess, but I bet it was somewhere around the time when AOL first came out =/







JP,



I don't really know much about computers,but from what I know the internet
was designed for exchange of information within our government and between
universities.I am a Fellow at MIT and frankly I think the internet has been
ruined by all these commercial ventures for which the internet was never
designed-maybe one should be with adequate security just for this purpose.
This all reminds me of William Gibson's book "Neuromancer" published in
1984,in which he describes the matrix(Web) as a' consensual hallucination' in
which there are direct neural connections,and where countermeasures(ice) is
used against an intruder.



I would be interested in any comments

Arthur G. Pfaelzer



Hrm. Never heard of the book "Neuromancer". But, I did see a movie once called "The Matrix". They managed to vanquish evil by harnessing super human powers in the virtual realm. I'm working on doing the same, I'll let you know my progress in a few weeks ;-)







I read about your web site in Time Magazine. I have a 13 yr. old who
has some learning disabilities. He is extremely gifted in science,
mathematics, spatial relationships etc. He has a wonderful computer
teacher that has allowed him to hack into his middle school's system to
find holes in their security. He would like to be a white hat hacker or
a hacker buster. There is no doubt in my mind that this kid would excel
at this. How do I get him the training he needs?



Thank you.

Jane Miller



You're in luck. The security profession seems to be FULL of people with similar problems as your son . I'm sure he'll fit right in with little trouble.







Gentlemen,



I have sent the following letter to the Editor of TIME. The comments apply equally to you, especially because you take such pain to provide definitions of "hacker":



Editor

"What's in a name?" asked the Bard some 400 years ago, somewhat rhetorically. Maybe then it would have made no difference whether the protagonist was called Mr. Montague or Mr. Capulet, but in the present case it matters. In your recent issues you have been using that almost endearing term, "hacker", frequently in connection with their nefarious computer and Internet activities. Even in quotation marks, this is vastly misleading. When someone inflicts senseless damage on the property of another, the appropriate term is "vandal", regardless of his or her technical expertise or political or social motivation. By analogy, I suggest you start using the term "e-vandal" when referring to these people.



Sincerely,

Paul Hoffman



Ok, first they wanted us to call them hackers. Then they wanted us to call them malicious hackers. Then it was crackers. Now it's e-vandal? A rose by any other name............







What a great way to catch those DOS attackers!!
First you profile them, and then you make up a survey
that has certain "fields" that you can compare to the
profile that you came up with. So when they click on
the "fill out survey" hyperlink in the e-mail it will
redirect them to your site and you can log their IP
address, and you also have their zip code if they so
desire to enter it into the survey. Hey I might be
delusional in thinking this way about a simple survey,
but hey what ever works to catch them. Keep up the
good work.



-Socrates



Or it could be that we needed demographic information so that we could sell more targeted advertising to our clients and get higher CPM rates in return. Heh. But hey, whatever floats your boat.







Dear Antionline staff,



I've just finished reading the Social Engineering article at Happyhacker, and gained a deep respect for your maturity. For the past few weeks I've been looking into the hacker subculture, and have been deeply shocked by the overall lack of intelligence.
I've found the occasional group who at least claims to work to further computer security. Generally, as I'm sure you are aware, the Internet is flooded with groups who want to bring "Anarchy" to the world. They don't seem to understand what happens during times of weak government but I'm not going to go into my political theories.
To be honest, I didn't look into all the links supporting the article (Social Engineering at Happyhacker). I plan to at some point, but I've come to respect the information presented at Antionline.



If you have failed to notice this e-mail lacks any real direction or value, other than my own gratification that I expressed my support to your goals. It's about time that someone has decided to show some ability at reasoning and rise above juvenile games.



Sincerely,

Overseer