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Inside the Billion-Dollar Hacker Club

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Re: Inside the Billion-Dollar Hacker Club

#41

Post by tptacek »

mrspin wrote: post #40
tptacek wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, two of those are vulnerability research teams, and one of them is a social club, but sure, I guess you can use them all in the same sentence. ;)

Re: Inside the Billion-Dollar Hacker Club

#42

Post by zecho »

csl wrote: post #2

As an aside, do anyone here still use IRC regularly? It seems some open source projects have permanent channels, but I don't know how active these are. Haven't really used IRC since the mid-90s, but perhaps it's a good way to connect to other developers? Is there a representative YC channel?

I idle in a few rooms on Freenode and am active in a few more. Some open source projects have excellent rooms, others have useless ones. Depending on your interests, your mileage will vary greatly.

Re: Inside the Billion-Dollar Hacker Club

#44

Post by georgemcbay »

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…

"We were all of us entrepreneurial"

All is a strong word. I was more #hack, but also spent time in #!r00t and the two communities overlapped a bit (tim(al), etc). I was terribly non-entrepreneurial back then. I ported the original iss.c to SunOS and Solaris but distinctly remember telling kewpie that a business around this would never fly. This is one example (of a few quite notable ones) of why people should not take business advice from me.

All that aside, yeah, this smacks of mostly post-hoc fallacy to me as well.

Re: Inside the Billion-Dollar Hacker Club

#45

Post by dsirijus »

csl wrote: post #2

As an aside, do anyone here still use IRC regularly? It seems some open source projects have permanent channels, but I don't know how active these are. Haven't really used IRC since the mid-90s, but perhaps it's a good way to connect to other developers? Is there a representative YC channel?

I have messaged with on IRC with at least 4 people from sibling comments in this very thread, and learned most about technologies I'm using (and much more) exactly there - in IRC.

IRC is awesome.

Re: Inside the Billion-Dollar Hacker Club

#46

Post by niix »

csl wrote: post #2

As an aside, do anyone here still use IRC regularly? It seems some open source projects have permanent channels, but I don't know how active these are. Haven't really used IRC since the mid-90s, but perhaps it's a good way to connect to other developers? Is there a representative YC channel?

Yes.

Re: Inside the Billion-Dollar Hacker Club

#47

Post by zboralski »

msie wrote: post #19

After hearing about WhatsApp's security problems I gather that Jan didn't learn much about security from w00w00.

People may be better off using a notoriously insecure app like WhatsApp and not use it for anything sensitive. I believe that "Secure" products can only give you a false sense of security, an illusion of safety.

Security should be about planning for failure and not about trusting a marketing blurb that says "100% secure". Just look at the Apple gotofail bug, the RSA/NSA fiasco, the Debian fuck up, the ssh crc32 bug...

I'll finish by quoting Theo de Raadt : "You are absolutely deluded, if not stupid, if you think that a worldwide collection of software engineers who can't write operating systems or applications without security holes, can then turn around and suddenly write virtualization layers without security holes." *

* You can replace 'virtualization layers 'with 'secure messaging protocol' or any other piece of code.

Re: Inside the Billion-Dollar Hacker Club

#49

Post by jorgeortiz85 »

dangrossman wrote: post #5

It's weird the way like-minded people somehow all find each other. There are several HN members along with myself who have ended up running bootstrapped SaaS businesses to make their living, who all played the same MUD (the text-based precursor to MMORPGs you could telnet into) in the 1990s/2000s. Creating "zmud triggers" to automate parts of that game was probably some of the earliest programming we all did.

Which MUD were you on?
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