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Inside the Billion-Dollar Hacker Club

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Re: Inside the Billion-Dollar Hacker Club

#51

Post by Roritharr »

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've been on irc channels for the past 16 years, basically right from my first year online.

I've found my closest friends through irc and we are partnering regularly on business related subjects. Best medium to stay connected. The WhatsApp Groups are what kids these days use from what i hear.

Re: Inside the Billion-Dollar Hacker Club

#52

Post by danielweber »

jmduke wrote: post #30
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…

Can a similar argument be made about the PayPal Mafia? Is there a lot of investment cross-pollination within the members, or is it more just a general sense of "lots of clearly forward-thinking people made lots of money and continue to be forward-thinking/making lots of money", a sort of reverse Seinfeld curse?

If you work backwards, starting with people who have successful exits, you will find occasional intersections on mailing lists or IRC channels or meetups or model railroad clubs.

This doesn't mean that list or whatever caused the success. This is the same problem epidemiologists face when trying to explain cancer clusters.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy

Re: Inside the Billion-Dollar Hacker Club

#53

Post by clamprecht »

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 think the only time I haven't been on IRC since I discovered it in 1991 is the 5 years I spent in prison :)

Re: Inside the Billion-Dollar Hacker Club

#56

Post by swhitt »

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…

Oh great. I have the TetriNET theme song midi stuck in my head now - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j02bbkyuYw#t=6

Re: Inside the Billion-Dollar Hacker Club

#57

Post by rdl »

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…

Napster? IIRC, Plaxo. FB. Zivity had at least 2 #w00w00. Some various FF-affiliated stuff.

Re: Inside the Billion-Dollar Hacker Club

#58

Post by omarrasheed9 »

zboralski wrote: post #47
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..…

#interestingly deep

Re: Inside the Billion-Dollar Hacker Club

#60

Post by rdl »

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'm on IRC, but most of the idling-intensive IRC channel content is not something I'd want in a purely professional setting. Per-project IRC seems mainly on freenode. EFnet is mainly for hate and trolling and lulz.
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