I've been following "the scene" for nearly 20 years now. It's not smaller or less influential, it's just different. It feels A LOT more dangerous now to be out there doing anything that might be construed as hacking. All of the crazy prosecutions, the "war on terror", and the NSA? Are you kidding? The stakes are way higher now. Sure there have always been dangers but not like now. It's no wonder that people are hiding from the surveillance state. I know this post has a tin foil hat feel but it just seems a lot harder to trust that other end of the wire now. Anon has had every bit as much influence on the wider world as any group I can remember.
I think if anything it's more like the 80s, but with more cash. You have to watch your ass more now, but there's more monetary incentive on top of the thrill of scoring some ingenious root. Of course anonymous has had a big influence; they're the biggest cyber-griefing collective in history. But to me it seems like you can still do whatever you want and not worry as long as you don't hit any .govs or extort/embarrass big corporations.
Remember that historically almost all of the people who get caught get ratted out by their friends. If you work by yourself, or at least just don't tell your friends too many details and don't be an arrogant loud-mouth to strangers, there's very little the feds can do. The sheer waterfall of data they have to sift through just to find your weird custom backdoor makes it impossible to investigate every attack. As long as it doesn't effect their bottom line, who cares?
(Also, seriously, the NSA? They have nothing to do with domestic hackers. They'd maybe use you as a pawn to draw out foreign islamic hackers or something, but then throw you to the FBI to get Mitnick'd in prison)
It's not "tin foil hat", it is circumspection based on public reports about what the NSA, etc., does. But I am with you. There is shit we used to do in the 80's that I would never even dream about doing today.
Other than something like blue box, what would be one such thing? If anything things are away too tame now. I think of is something like CarShark that isn't publicly released.
Most states have local ordinances against dumpster diving and cops have been known to arrest and fine people since they assume people are trying to get information for identity theft.
Back in the day, hacking university systems was generally frowned upon, but never really punished. Today, it's a federal offense to tamper with university systems. See Aaron Schwartz case.
Back when analog cell phones were out, you could program your Motorola cell phone to be a scanner and pick up conversations people were having in your area. Safe harmless fun. You could also clone your analog phone as well because of a loop hole in FCC laws. Now, it's still possible to do on GSM systems, but you run the risk of getting caught and cloning GSM devices is federal offense with hefty jail sentences attached.
Back in the day, you could hack your cable box so you could get all the premium channels for free. Cable companies half heartedly tried to track down people who used them, but it was pretty low on their radar. Try that today and within hours, the feds will most likely be on your doorstep asking why you were tampering with private property and the cable company will most likely file a lawsuit against you.
Times have changed man. The 80's and 90's were like the last frontier, until the feds jumped in and started creating laws to really hamper people from pushing the boundaries. Hacking went from really fun, and having inside knowledge to everything you considered doing you had to think about the possibility of doing hard time and dealing with prosecutors with a hard on to convict hackers and send them to jail for long periods of time.
I guess I'll play devils advocate. All of the things you mention should have been (or were) illegal at the time, but the technology was ahead of the law.
you could program your Motorola cell phone to be a scanner and pick up conversations people were having in your area. Safe harmless fun.
Maybe for some people it was harmless fun, but what about the people who did this as a form of espionage? Or any criminal?
Back in the day, you could hack your cable box so you could get all the premium channels for free.
Illegal then, but now the technology and laws have caught up so that finding the people that do this is trivial.
The 80's and 90's were like the last frontier, until the feds jumped in and started creating laws to really hamper people from pushing the boundaries.
Curious why you think this is. Do you think people really aren't pushing the boundaries today like they did back then?
>>> Curious why you think this is. Do you think people really aren't pushing the boundaries today like they did back then?
Not at all. The law hasn't just caught up, it's like a boot on the throat of the people trying to push existing technologies to new places and uses.
Just take GeoHot. Guy jailbreaks the PS3 and all hell breaks loose. Sony says they're going to patch the way he broke into the system. Then GeoHot says he's writing firmware to go around that. Then Sony sues him, then Sony wanted all the users who watched his videos on YouTube. Then Sony finally settled out of court after he agreed not to hack any more Sony products.
All this because he wanted to run some custom software on his PS3.
There are definitely people out there seriously pushing the hacking boundaries, but my point was the consequences have gotten way out of hand. When I hacked the university email system in 97', I got my network privileges revoked for a year. What do you think the punishment would be nowadays?
You're just not able to hack for fun anymore since anything you do could be construed as a crime, and a serious one at that. Even a guy using his neighbors wireless service is now a federal crime.
Another factor is that if you do get into illegal hacking, you're jumping in a pool that now contains a lot less kids who are learning and explorers and a lot more real criminals. Hacking (sense 2, the illegal-stuff sense) is a lot darker and more money-driven these days.
Comments
I've been following "the scene" for nearly 20 years now. It's not smaller or less influential, it's just different. It feels A LOT more dangerous now to be out there doing anything that might be construed as hacking. All of the crazy prosecutions, the "war on terror", and the NSA? Are you kidding? The stakes are way higher now. Sure there have always been dangers but not like now. It's no wonder that people are hiding from the surveillance state. I know this post has a tin foil hat feel but it just seems a lot harder to trust that other end of the wire now. Anon has had every bit as much influence on the wider world as any group I can remember.
I think if anything it's more like the 80s, but with more cash. You have to watch your ass more now, but there's more monetary incentive on top of the thrill of scoring some ingenious root. Of course anonymous has had a big influence; they're the biggest cyber-griefing collective in history. But to me it seems like you can still do whatever you want and not worry as long as you don't hit any .govs or extort/embarrass big corporations.
Remember that historically almost all of the people who get caught get ratted out by their friends. If you work by yourself, or at least just don't tell your friends too many details and don't be an arrogant loud-mouth to strangers, there's very little the feds can do. The sheer waterfall of data they have to sift through just to find your weird custom backdoor makes it impossible to investigate every attack. As long as it doesn't effect their bottom line, who cares?
(Also, seriously, the NSA? They have nothing to do with domestic hackers. They'd maybe use you as a pawn to draw out foreign islamic hackers or something, but then throw you to the FBI to get Mitnick'd in prison)
It's not "tin foil hat", it is circumspection based on public reports about what the NSA, etc., does. But I am with you. There is shit we used to do in the 80's that I would never even dream about doing today.
Other than something like blue box, what would be one such thing? If anything things are away too tame now. I think of is something like CarShark that isn't publicly released.
Most states have local ordinances against dumpster diving and cops have been known to arrest and fine people since they assume people are trying to get information for identity theft.
Back in the day, hacking university systems was generally frowned upon, but never really punished. Today, it's a federal offense to tamper with university systems. See Aaron Schwartz case.
Back when analog cell phones were out, you could program your Motorola cell phone to be a scanner and pick up conversations people were having in your area. Safe harmless fun. You could also clone your analog phone as well because of a loop hole in FCC laws. Now, it's still possible to do on GSM systems, but you run the risk of getting caught and cloning GSM devices is federal offense with hefty jail sentences attached.
Back in the day, you could hack your cable box so you could get all the premium channels for free. Cable companies half heartedly tried to track down people who used them, but it was pretty low on their radar. Try that today and within hours, the feds will most likely be on your doorstep asking why you were tampering with private property and the cable company will most likely file a lawsuit against you.
Times have changed man. The 80's and 90's were like the last frontier, until the feds jumped in and started creating laws to really hamper people from pushing the boundaries. Hacking went from really fun, and having inside knowledge to everything you considered doing you had to think about the possibility of doing hard time and dealing with prosecutors with a hard on to convict hackers and send them to jail for long periods of time.
I guess I'll play devils advocate. All of the things you mention should have been (or were) illegal at the time, but the technology was ahead of the law.
Maybe for some people it was harmless fun, but what about the people who did this as a form of espionage? Or any criminal?
Illegal then, but now the technology and laws have caught up so that finding the people that do this is trivial.
Curious why you think this is. Do you think people really aren't pushing the boundaries today like they did back then?
Not at all. The law hasn't just caught up, it's like a boot on the throat of the people trying to push existing technologies to new places and uses.
Just take GeoHot. Guy jailbreaks the PS3 and all hell breaks loose. Sony says they're going to patch the way he broke into the system. Then GeoHot says he's writing firmware to go around that. Then Sony sues him, then Sony wanted all the users who watched his videos on YouTube. Then Sony finally settled out of court after he agreed not to hack any more Sony products.
All this because he wanted to run some custom software on his PS3.
There are definitely people out there seriously pushing the hacking boundaries, but my point was the consequences have gotten way out of hand. When I hacked the university email system in 97', I got my network privileges revoked for a year. What do you think the punishment would be nowadays?
You're just not able to hack for fun anymore since anything you do could be construed as a crime, and a serious one at that. Even a guy using his neighbors wireless service is now a federal crime.
Another factor is that if you do get into illegal hacking, you're jumping in a pool that now contains a lot less kids who are learning and explorers and a lot more real criminals. Hacking (sense 2, the illegal-stuff sense) is a lot darker and more money-driven these days.