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Inside the Billion-Dollar Hacker Club

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Re: Inside the Billion-Dollar Hacker Club

#31

Post by davidu »

tptacek wrote: post #28

2000 words of post-hoc fallacy about an IRC channel. We're discussing here a group of people who started their careers dead smack in the middle of the dot-com bubble, practically all of them in software/network security, a field that has stayed valuable since its inception. Of course they've done well for themselves. This would be interesting if the denizens of #w00w00 had, say, invested in each other's companies. Bu…

Gotta disagree with you on this one. Lots of folks in w00w00 worked together. In that sense, they did invest in each other (with time and effort, if not cash).

Also, back in the late 90s defcon days, w00w00, CdC, New Hack City, each had an entrepreneurial spirit. w00w00 perhaps more than most. I remember when CdC launched BackOriface, it was just as much a startup launch as anything.

Note: I don't claim to be a member of any.

Re: Inside the Billion-Dollar Hacker Club

#32

Post by jmduke »

danielweber wrote: post #23

> $ 19 billion dollars Great editing standards.

I think this is a minor flaw of an article with much greater ones -- then again, I'm biased, as I make this mistake regularly. (In my defense, it's incredibly easy to pass over without noticing: I didn't even notice it in the article until you pointed it out.)

Re: Inside the Billion-Dollar Hacker Club

#33

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #28

2000 words of post-hoc fallacy about an IRC channel. We're discussing here a group of people who started their careers dead smack in the middle of the dot-com bubble, practically all of them in software/network security, a field that has stayed valuable since its inception. Of course they've done well for themselves. This would be interesting if the denizens of #w00w00 had, say, invested in each other's companies. Bu…

[deleted]

Re: Inside the Billion-Dollar Hacker Club

#34

Post by swang »

Shawn Fanning was part of tons of "crews" on EFNet. Just like anybody else who was on irc at the time.

Before WhatsApp's purchase, the "napster on irc" byline was, #winprog taught him all he knew about winsock programming and without #winprog napster would never have been made.

Now suddenly it's "without #w00w00, napster would never have been made" because this combined with WhatsApp's purchase lets someone write some 1500+ word article about nothing.

I wonder what would have happened if TetriNET ended up selling for millions back in the day, would that have suddenly become the irc hackers made bajillions byline?

And surprise surprise, people who used one of the more technical communications medium back in the 90s end up being technical people when they grew up.

Re: Inside the Billion-Dollar Hacker Club

#35

Post by tptacek »

davidu wrote: post #31
tptacek wrote: post #28

2000 words of post-hoc fallacy about an IRC channel. We're discussing here a group of people who started their careers dead smack in the middle of the dot-com bubble, practically all of them in software/network security, a field that has stayed valuable since its inception. Of course they've done well for themselves. This would be interesting if the denizens of #w00w00 had, say, invested in each other's companies. Bu…

Gotta disagree with you on this one. Lots of folks in w00w00 worked together. In that sense, they did invest in each other (with time and effort, if not cash). Also, back in the late 90s defcon days, w00w00, CdC, New Hack City, each had an entrepreneurial spirit. w00w00 perhaps more than most. I remember when CdC launched BackOriface, it was just as much a startup launch as anything. Note: I don't claim to be a membe…

I was there. I'm friends with several w00w00 people, and worked for 4 years with Dug. I wasn't in w00w00 because I was in a "rival" channel (by the way, it sounds weird to mix TESO and ADM up with IRC channels like #w00w00 and #!r00t and #guild).

We were all of us entrepreneurial, but being in w00w00 didn't get any any support from, say, d0b.

I'll do you one better: #!r00t'ers started a bunch of companies together. Other than WhatsApp (WHICH I ADMIT BLOWS THE CURVE), were there a lot of multiple-w00-person companies?

Re: Inside the Billion-Dollar Hacker Club

#36

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #33
tptacek wrote: post #28

2000 words of post-hoc fallacy about an IRC channel. We're discussing here a group of people who started their careers dead smack in the middle of the dot-com bubble, practically all of them in software/network security, a field that has stayed valuable since its inception. Of course they've done well for themselves. This would be interesting if the denizens of #w00w00 had, say, invested in each other's companies. Bu…

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: Inside the Billion-Dollar Hacker Club

#37

Post by tptacek »

swang wrote: post #34

Shawn Fanning was part of tons of "crews" on EFNet. Just like anybody else who was on irc at the time. Before WhatsApp's purchase, the "napster on irc" byline was, #winprog taught him all he knew about winsock programming and without #winprog napster would never have been made. Now suddenly it's "without #w00w00, napster would never have been made" because this combined with WhatsApp's purchase lets someone write som…

As you can probably tell from upthread, I agree with you. I'll point out a difference between #winprog and #w00w00 though: #w00w00 had the con scene --- #w00w00 people would see each other every year at DefCon and Pumpcon and, later, CanSec. Also, a lot of these people wound up working in the same city (say, Atlanta, or Columbia MD --- I get ISS, Monkey, and w00w00 mixed up).

Re: Inside the Billion-Dollar Hacker Club

#38

Post by tptacek »

atmosx wrote: post #18
mitochondrion wrote: post #4

What if I want to join the modern-day equivalent of this group's beginnings?

Hello, I was in two 'crews' as they used to call them in the early 00s. I'm not sure if you would really want join them . I think I prefer my current networking (twitter, github, blogposting, hacker news, stack overflow, etc.) Back at the time, there was no StartUp culture (where I lived, not talking about Silicon Valley), everything was closed and there was a huge debate over full disclosure (I'm not even sure how i…

Security wasn't an industry before 2002? Huh? Security made millionaires out of half of #!r00t and (I assume) #w00w00 before 2000, mostly due to ISS. It professionalized in the mid-1990s.

Re: Inside the Billion-Dollar Hacker Club

#39

Post by mrspin »

swang wrote: post #34

Shawn Fanning was part of tons of "crews" on EFNet. Just like anybody else who was on irc at the time. Before WhatsApp's purchase, the "napster on irc" byline was, #winprog taught him all he knew about winsock programming and without #winprog napster would never have been made. Now suddenly it's "without #w00w00, napster would never have been made" because this combined with WhatsApp's purchase lets someone write som…

Except others in w00w00 ended up working at Napster and one is practically a co-founder.

Re: Inside the Billion-Dollar Hacker Club

#40

Post by mrspin »

tptacek wrote: post #35
davidu wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gotta disagree with you on this one. Lots of folks in w00w00 worked together. In that sense, they did invest in each other (with time and effort, if not cash). Also, back in the late 90s defcon days, w00w00, CdC, New Hack City, each had an entrepreneurial spirit. w00w00 perhaps more than most. I remember when CdC launched BackOriface, it was just as much a startup launch as anything. Note: I don't claim to be a membe…

I was there. I'm friends with several w00w00 people, and worked for 4 years with Dug. I wasn't in w00w00 because I was in a "rival" channel (by the way, it sounds weird to mix TESO and ADM up with IRC channels like #w00w00 and #!r00t and #guild). We were all of us entrepreneurial, but being in w00w00 didn't get any any support from, say, d0b. I'll do you one better: #!r00t'ers started a bunch of companies together. O…

I wrote the article and, yes, I probably conflated TESO and ADM with w00w00 on one level, though I did a ton of research and those other hacker groups were routinely mentioned in comparison.

"Gotta disagree with you on this one. Lots of folks in w00w00 worked together. In that sense, they did invest in each other (with time and effort, if not cash)." -- that's correct and a good way of putting it.

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