Dear Hacker: Letters to the Editor of 2600

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John Wiley & Sons, May 13, 2010 - Computers - 576 pages
Actual letters written to the leading hackers' magazine

For 25 years, 2600: The Hacker Quarterly has given voice to the hacker community in all its manifestations. This collection of letters to the magazine reveals the thoughts and viewpoints of hackers, both white and black hat, as well as hacker wannabes, technophiles, and people concerned about computer security. Insightful and entertaining, the exchanges illustrate 2600's vast readership, from teenage rebels, anarchists, and survivalists to law enforcement, consumer advocates, and worried parents.

Dear Hacker is must reading for technology aficionados, 2600's wide and loyal audience, and anyone seeking entertainment well laced with insight into our society.

Coverage Includes:

  • Question Upon Question
  • Tales from the Retail Front
  • The Challenges of Life as a Hacker
  • Technology
  • The Magic of the Corporate World
  • Our Biggest Fans
  • Behind the Walls
  • A Culture of Rebels
  • Strange Ramblings

For more information and sample letters, check out the companion site at http://lp.wileypub.com/dearhacker/

 

Selected pages

Contents

Question Upon Question
1
Tales from the Retail Front
61
The Challenges of Life as a Hacker
97
Technology
153
The Magic of the Corporate World
209
Our Biggest Fans
269
Behind the Walls
373
A Culture of Rebels
409
Strange Ramblings
507
Index
549
Copyright

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About the author (2010)

Emmanuel Goldstein (emmanuel@goldste.in) has been publishing 2600 Magazine, The Hacker Quarterly, since 1984. He traces his hacker roots to his high school days in the late '70s, when he first played with a distant computer over highspeed, 300-baud phone lines. It didn't take long for him to get into trouble by figuring out how to access something he wasn’t supposed to access. He continued playing with various machines in his college days at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. This resulted in an FBI raid, as he once again gained access to something he really shouldn't have. It was in the midst of all this excitement that he cofounded 2600 Magazine, an outlet for hacker stories and tutorials from all over the world. The rapid growth and success of the magazine was both shocking and scary to Goldstein, who to this day has never taken a course in computers. Since 1988, he has also hosted Off The Hook, a hacker-themed technology talk show on WBAI 99.5 FM in New York City. In addition to making the hacker documentary Freedom Downtime, Goldstein hosts the Hackers On Planet Earth (HOPE) conferences in New York City every two years, drawing thousands of hackers from all over the world.

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