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Is your son a computer hacker? (2001)

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Re: Is your son a computer hacker? (2001)

#101

Post by asimpletune »

ben_w wrote: post #82
Mauricebranagh wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know some one in Northern Ireland who got into trouble using FTP :-) FTP is common Protestant insult to Catholics.

In reverse, I wonder how well known Irish and British slang is in the USA: “Bumming” can mean to obtain or make use of something that belongs to someone else by begging; “fag” can mean cigarette; “for the craic” (“craic” pronounced “crack”) is “for fun”. (And thanks to the very early part of my mother’s Alzheimer’s, I also know that an archaic meaning of “glory hole” is a cupboard for miscellaneous items, and the ety…

Bumming is pretty common here. We don’t say the other word.

Re: Is your son a computer hacker? (2001)

#102

Post by nsxwolf »

syshum wrote: post #99
nsxwolf wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When this first appeared I thought I remembered it had been picked up by the mainstream press, but I can't find a mention of it on news search. You can imagine how easily the masses would have accepted this in 2001.

Something being picked up by the "mainstream press" does not mean it is not satire. There are all kinds of satire and hoaxes that have been reported by the mainstream press as truth and reality...

Yes, my point was that especially in 2001, it would have been easy to not have the technical acumen to realize the story was satire, and to write a serious news story about it.

Re: Is your son a computer hacker? (2001)

#103

Post by developer93 »

dangus wrote: post #50
derrikcurran wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I come to Hacker News to avoid garbage like this.

People are often surprised at how similar HN is to all other forms of social media. The only thing saving it is the quantity of people who don’t know about it. It is 100% always a waste of time and I’m literally wasting time right now when the other screen in front of me has the thing I should actually be doing.

I look at it as slightly more constructive procrastinating than can be achieved with other social media, in that I actually learn something a lot of the time, even if the things I learn don't immediately improve my life.

Re: Is your son a computer hacker? (2001)

#104

Post by david-cako »

YesThatTom2 wrote: post #7

The Linux being an illegal operating system is only a slight exaggeration of the FUD being put out by Microsoft at the time. Any time Microsoft publicly talks about their love and support of Linux, someone in the room should point out their multi-pronged, multi-year, highly-funded, campaign to poison the well.

Microsoft has been around a long time and they seem to adapt pretty rapidly. I wonder what percentage of the company today was around during Ballmer days, and how the culture has changed over time within the company. Naturally it's going to be driven by the market, but I wonder, are older MS folks moving with the culture shift? Or is it newer hires that are pushing for the open source ethos?

As a Mac and Linux user, I really like Microsoft these days. VSCode, WSL, Rust, containers, Surface, .NET Core, all are pretty sweet.

Re: Is your son a computer hacker? (2001)

#105

Post by developer93 »

endominus wrote: post #53
dangus wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A billionaire is a single unelected person. Only a pure dictatorship is less representative than that. I’d take a flawed government with some semblance of an electoral process and representative taxation over dependence on a benevolent individual. For every Bill Gates there is a Charles Koch.

The other, important, difference being that I am not required to fund the billionaire. If I object to the actions of a billionaire, it's not my money that's being misused.

Most of them are tax avoiding, so yes, they are using your money. Or at least causing your money to be spent on other things than it would if they contributed proportional to their advantage.

Re: Is your son a computer hacker? (2001)

#106

Post by caymanjim »

balabaster wrote: post #92

I can't tell if this was legit fear, outright propaganda or satire. Having had a computer in my life since the age of 8, this seems like one hilarious cliche on top of another, the kind of thing you'd expect to see as an ad playing in the background of the 1995 cult classic: Hackers :D

It's bad satire, making all the obvious jokes and taking itself too seriously. It's a one-liner dragged out to three pages.

Re: Is your son a computer hacker? (2001)

#107

Post by 2ndbigbang »

twiclo wrote: post #28

This constant linking to other things is a bit annoying. I found most of them are older books. I clicked the spanking link to maybe find a book on why you should/shouldn't spank your children and instead got a porn site. Who is this guy?

The post is from 2001. The spanking.com domain name was probably owned by someone else at the time and might not have been NSFW. The books are all going to be 20 years old at least.

Re: Is your son a computer hacker? (2001)

#108

Post by imwillofficial »

Can we get away from the politics and get back to the topic at hand? The dangers of Quake as a hacker training ground for young impressionable minds?

Don’t get me started on the potential pitfalls of AMD processors.

Related story: I one time almost got our internet shutoff by trying to telnet into various ISP (EarthLink) IPs when I was like 13.

Re: Is your son a computer hacker? (2001)

#109

Post by imwillofficial »

ben_w wrote: post #82
Mauricebranagh wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know some one in Northern Ireland who got into trouble using FTP :-) FTP is common Protestant insult to Catholics.

In reverse, I wonder how well known Irish and British slang is in the USA: “Bumming” can mean to obtain or make use of something that belongs to someone else by begging; “fag” can mean cigarette; “for the craic” (“craic” pronounced “crack”) is “for fun”. (And thanks to the very early part of my mother’s Alzheimer’s, I also know that an archaic meaning of “glory hole” is a cupboard for miscellaneous items, and the ety…

The first time you heard her casual use of glory hole must have been alarming, and later hilarious.

(I’m sorry to hear about your mother, my condolences.)

Re: Is your son a computer hacker? (2001)

#110

Post by devenblake »

daveslash wrote: post #75
bamey wrote: post #27

>If your son has requested a new "processor" from a company called "AMD", this is genuine cause for alarm. AMD is a third-world based company who make inferior, "knock-off" copies of American processor chips. They use child labor extensively in their third world sweatshops, and they deliberately disable the security features that American processor makers, such as Intel, use to prevent hacking. AMD chips are never so…

Check out the link "raising him well" -- If this really is from 2001, then I'm quite surprised that link is still valid...

One of those reviews is dated 2005(!!)
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