Goldstein - The best of 2600: a hacker odyssey

Table of Contents

About the Author

Emmanuel Goldstein (emmanuel@goldste.in) has been publishing 2600 Magazine, The Hacker Quarterly, since 1984. He traces his hacker roots to his high school days in the late 70s, when he first played with a distant computer over high-speed, 300-baud phone lines. It didnt take long for him to get into trouble by figuring out how to access something he wasnt supposed to access. He continued playing with various machines in his college days at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. This resulted in an FBI raid as he once again gained access to something he really shouldnt have. It was in the midst of all of this excitement that he cofounded 2600 Magazine, an outlet for hacker stories and tutorials from all over the world. The rapid growth and success of the magazine was both shocking and scary to Goldstein, who to this day has never taken a course in computers. Since 1988, he has also hosted Off The Hook, a hacker-themed technology talk show on WBAI 99.5 FM in New York City. In addition to making the hacker documentary Freedom Downtime, Goldstein hosts the Hackers On Planet Earth (HOPE) conferences in New York City every two years, drawing thousands of hackers from all over the world.

You can contact 2600 online at www.2600.com or by writing to 2600 Magazine, P.O. Box 752, Middle Island, NY, 11953.

Credits

Executive Editor
Carol Long

Development Editor
Maureen Spears

Production Editor
Elizabeth Ginns Britten

Copy Editors
Kim Cofer
Mildred Sanchez

Editorial Manager
Mary Beth Wakefield

Production Manager
Tim Tate

Vice President and Executive
Group Publisher
Richard Swadley

Vice President and
Executive Publisher
Joseph B. Wikert

Project Coordinator, Cover
Lynsey Stanford

Compositor
Chris Gillespie,
Happenstance Type-O-Rama

Proofreader
Sossity Smith

Indexer
Jack Lewis

Cover Image
Toledano/Stone+/Getty Images

Cover Designer
Michael E. Trent

This is far and away the toughest part of the book to write. How do I sum up in words what so many people have meant over so many years? Ill undoubtedly forget someone, theyll notice, words will be exchanged, and new enemies for life will be formed. Its a painful yet necessary part of the process.

From the beginning there have been people who have been there to encourage me in various endeavors, 2600 included. And there have also been those who have actively sought to discourage me and painstakingly point out the many errors of my ways. I would like to thank each of these groups equally. The former gave me the positive reinforcement that helped convince me that this was all worth it and that it would eventually have a beneficial and lasting effect. The latter gave me the obstinacy and unmitigated wrath to prove them wrong. A positive outlook fueled by anger is really all you need to succeed in this world.

On to specifics. First, I must thank three people who helped me wade through well more than 1,000 articles to sort out the ones that would eventually appear here: Tony Fannin, Mike McTeague, and Kevin Reilly. It was a mountain of material, but I managed to scale it successfully thanks to their help. The many people at Wiley who dealt with our rather unconventional way of piecing together a book deserve particular thanks, especially Carol Long and Maureen Spears. The hard work of my agent, Cameron McClure, made this all come together with remarkable speed and clarity.

My cofounder, Dave Ruderman, deserves special gratitude for coming up with the name 2600which I initially hatedway back in 1983. Those late nights of plotting and scheming are among my most favorite memories on this planet. My good friend Dave Buchwald defies any sort of description. Hes done everything from office management to cover design and is somehow able to come up with new skills overnight like some sort of power computer. Weve also been blessed with some truly talented layout artists over the yearsBen Sherman, Scott Skinner, Terrence McGuckin, and Mark Silverbergall of whom Im honored to call my friends. And without Mary Nixdorf, our office manager, 2600 would last about a day. Her incredible dedication and attention to detail make the whole enterprise function smoothlya feat that people to this day tell me is impossible. Our previous office managers (Pete Kang and Fran Westbrook) also got us through some vital periods of our growth. People like Mike Castleman, Carl Shapiro, Mike Kaegler, Ed Cummings, Rob Nixdorf, Nick Jarecki, Kevin Mitnick, and Mark Abene have always been there to offer encouragement, expertise, and words of advice for all sorts of projects over the years, no matter how crazy they may have actually been.

And some of our projects have been pretty bizarre. And, speaking of bizarre, the magazine covers, T-shirt art, web site work, and various designs for the HOPE conferences, put together by such artists as Frederic Guimont, Holly Kaufman Spruch, Kiratoy, Kerry Zero, Tish Valter, and Affra Gibbs, have been nothing short of eye-opening in every regard.

Oh, yes, the HOPE conferenceshow could I forget? Since 1994, weve been holding hacker conferences in New York City called Hackers On Planet Earth, which have drawn thousands of people from all over the globe to the historic Hotel Pennsylvania. And this has all been made possible by a phenomenal volunteer effort, which would take many more pages than I have to adequately acknowledge. Nothing symbolizes the power of the hacker community more than seeing hundreds of people come together to pull off a feat like this every couple of years, a feat which is, of course, impossible. Having these conferences is indeed a real motivation to keep doing what weve been doing. Its one thing to sit back and write stuff from some remote location; its quite another to actually meet the audience and hear their stories and realize that it all actually matters.

And none of this would have ever been possible (for me, at least) without the creative inspiration that I got from working at a magical place called WUSB, the noncommercial radio station at the college I went to: the State University of New York at Stony Brook. My fondest memories of the station include cohosting the eclectic program The Voice of Long Island with my good friend Mike Yuhas back in the early 80s. That place (both the college and the station) taught me so much about diversity and imagination. I was able to steer all of the creative energy from there to the various projects that I became involved in after graduation. I can honestly say that none of this would have ever happened were it not for that initial inspiration. This also led to my involvement with another magical place: WBAI-FM in New York City, a full-power noncommercial station that reaches four states, accepts no corporate money and basically exists to challenge the status quo. (Do I even have to point out how impossible this is as well?) They gave us an outlet for the hacker perspective on technology and