From: magus@drktowr.chi.il.us (Louis Giliberto)
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Distribution: world
Subject: Re: My first nntp hack
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]
Organization: DarkTower Software
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 12:24:22 CST

Ken Weaverling (weave@apache.dtcc.edu) wrote:
: In article <387532.124@nsa.gov> anonymous (root@nsa.gov) writes:
: >obhack: This post, my first nntp hack, fairly trivial but I spent a few
: >hours going through the various ports (and in the process discoved fake mail
: >and ftp) by the way, can anyone tell me what the following ports are for?
: >7, 9, 13, 19, 37, 53, 70, 79, 105, 111? Can't figure those ones out.

: Gesssh, I hope you enjoyed port 19! :-)

: To me, hacking isn't brute force and trail and error.  This is a no-brainer...
: And forging usenet and smtp mail is no big deal either.  If you want to
: impress people, go out, learn a decent programming language, and then 
: code a nifty utility that benefits "the net" and *that* will make you
: well known and admired...

I have to disagree, at least about trial and error.  What he did above
is a classic hacker move - not the smtp and nntp hacking, but the
trial and error.

Are not the best hacks those that teach you a new thing, learned on
your own without manuals?  He had no clue what most of the ports were,
but he started trying them and learned for himself.  A hcak doesn't have
to impress anyone but yourself, and to be a true hack you must learn from
it.

I'd say he learned a lot on his own, even if there were easier ways to
do it.  He is not trying to become "well known and admired".  He is
trying to 1) have a little harmless fun, and 2) learn something about
how TCP/IP ports are set up.

See, when you described writing the OS, the "hack" part of it was not
writing a program -- any yahoo can write a program with 4th generation
languages these days, and OS's are popping up left and right now  --
the impressive part was that you went to the effort to disassemble it
instead of trying to get tech manuals for it.  You took the hard way and
learned something extra along the way.  You probably learned a lot
in fact.

To me the point of hacking is two-fold 1) Most importantly to learn,
and 2) to cross some type of barrier.  If those are done without
hurting anyone or anything, it doesn't matter if the hack is writing
an OS, forging mail, or replacing a fan belt with your wife's nylons.
Doing something to become "well-known and admired" is what the system
crackers do, not hackers.  Hackers do it for themselves.  They don't
print up cool T-shirts and stuff, they just do it -- whether it's to
fix a problem at work or to goof around in USENET.

He saw a problem, he set a goal to get around the problem, and
he did it while learning along the way.  That's a good hack in my book.

ObHack:
None today, sorry.  I'm working on a few though...

-Louis

--
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 Louis J. Giliberto, Jr.   ! magus@drktowr.chi.il.us
   -sysadmin drktowr       !   "I had an account at school, but the
   Chicago, IL  USA        !    quota was 300K - what's the point?
Home of DarkTower Software !    One Madonna .gif and it's over!"
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Newsgroups: alt.hackers