A sentimental tour of late 1990s and early 2000s hacking tools • Hacker News Board

Re: A sentimental tour of late 1990s and early 2000s hacking tools

#11

Post by Terr_ » Wed, May 13, 2026, 8:58 PM UTC

Oh man, this is all one solid block of "I remember that!" nostalgia. For example, in the late 90s I volunteered in a DALNet support channel, helping people diagnose and remove exactly those infections. [0]

We had a hard policy of never going "I'll connect to it and remove it for you." Sure, it could be quicker, but it would also be legally problematic, especially if the person seeking help was actually an impersonator.

[0] I admit, I harmlessly pranked one very close friend with a CD-ROM tray that kept moving "on its own". And pointed out some weak passwords to school IT...

Re: A sentimental tour of late 1990s and early 2000s hacking tools

#12

Post by assimpleaspossi » Wed, May 13, 2026, 10:46 PM UTC

geod_of_ix wrote: post #5

rickcarlino wrote: post #3

Your ads are out of control.

Someone's not using uBlock and Reader View :) https://i.imgur.com/v8hUQbM.png

Shouldn't have to.

Re: A sentimental tour of late 1990s and early 2000s hacking tools

#13

Post by nobleach » Wed, May 13, 2026, 10:47 PM UTC

I read Hacking Exposed around that time period. Up until then, my only "hacking" experience was with AOHell and everything that came along with that. It was interesting, but I wasn't really into the idea of trying to use CreditWiz to increase my odds of prison time. (I was a kid, I thought everything would lead to prison). Back Orifice just seemed like a great sysadmin tool!

Re: A sentimental tour of late 1990s and early 2000s hacking tools

#14

Post by schnitzelstoat » Wed, May 13, 2026, 10:54 PM UTC

I remember SubSeven and John The Ripper.

I’m not even sure why I had them as a kid, I never managed to actually use them.

Re: A sentimental tour of late 1990s and early 2000s hacking tools

#15

Post by Hasz » Wed, May 13, 2026, 11:12 PM UTC

Aw man, what about hashcat or LOIC? Maybe a bit too new for this article

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Orbit_Ion_Cannon

Re: A sentimental tour of late 1990s and early 2000s hacking tools

#16

Post by j_walter » Thu, May 14, 2026, 12:09 AM UTC

I loved L0phtCrack...

Re: A sentimental tour of late 1990s and early 2000s hacking tools

#17

Post by user3939382 » Thu, May 14, 2026, 1:03 AM UTC

I hoped to see more coverage of progz and punters. BlackIce. hackers.com used to have a cool section with all of these tools from attrition, cdc. Packetstorm security back in the day. Good times.

Re: A sentimental tour of late 1990s and early 2000s hacking tools

#18

Post by myself248 » Thu, May 14, 2026, 1:27 AM UTC

The best thing when someone sent me a sub7 or BO dropper, was to immediately rename the extension (so I wouldn't accidentally execute it), then open it up in a file viewer and skip to the end. Both programs just appended their configuration variables to the end of the executable file.

Which meant I now knew what port and password the sender was expecting to connect to me with.

However, most of them were skids, and had inadvertently executed their own dropper on their own machine at some point. And I knew their IP from the DCC.

Which meant I now knew what port and password to connect back to them with...

Re: A sentimental tour of late 1990s and early 2000s hacking tools

#19

Post by lacunary » Thu, May 14, 2026, 2:58 AM UTC

Hasz wrote: post #15

Aw man, what about hashcat or LOIC? Maybe a bit too new for this article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Orbit_Ion_Cannon

too new, trinoo, ping -f, synflood, teardrop!

Re: A sentimental tour of late 1990s and early 2000s hacking tools

#20

Post by repple » Thu, May 14, 2026, 3:54 AM UTC

tangentially related, but The Scene was a fun mini series

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC2FCB2871C396459&si=stCC...