Spudz møtte jeg på H2K konferansen. Han er en av den yngre generasjon hackere, men hans oppfatning av hva en hacker er ligner allikevel mye på oppfatningen til den første generasjon hackere.
Teksting (transkribering) av interjuvet
Who are you?
My name is Spudz, and that’s what everyone calls me, in life as well in [the] centre of all this.
What do you do?
As a profession? I am a DNS and VUM [?] administrator for the mid west’s largest ISP here in the United States.
What kind of experience do you have?
I got my first computer, an IBM PC, when I was seven years old and … the first thing I did was to take it apart and it made my grandparents heart jump out of their ribcage because they had just paid $7.500 [$750] for this thing. So they were miffed and I said, “Hey look, I can put it back together, I promise”. And I did and from that time and until the time I was able to buy my own PC, they never denied me a new PC because they knew that, you know, that was going to be ‘it’ for me and that was all I ever needed.
What kind of computers have you been owning?
I own IBM PC’s, Apple’s, Commodore’s; the Vic, the C-64, the Commodore 128. I owned VAX’s; I owned Next computers, [I’ve] owned all kinds of computers, vintage computers, different kind of operating systems, everything under the sun.
What is your preferred programming language?
I like C++, my preferred operating system is Unix, when I can do the things with it that I need to do, Sometimes however with that I am in an office environment with a lot of Windows users, the only thing I can use is Windows, but I prefer Unix.
Do you consider yourself a hacker?
Oh absolutely! I consider most of the people here in one shape, way or form hackers, because hackers just doesn’t apply to computers, I think it applies to everything. It applies to people who can talk their way out of situations. It applies to people [that can] take two different pieces apart that have nothing to do with one another and make a different piece of equipment out of them. [A] hacker is a person who can make some[thing] work that wasn’t intended to work. You know, these are all hackers, these are all people with this curiosity to go beyond the fault [?], make something happen that shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Make better things out of two absolutely normal things.
Have the image of hackers changed?
I think it [has] always been that way. I think it’s a little better now than it used to be in the early nineties, back in, you know, Operation Sundevil took place. There were a lot of computer seized, a lot of people were fearful, you know. The Secret Service would break you door down and take everything you owned rather than stop to ask some fundamental questions; what are these people really doing here and … I think it has gotten a lot better since then because you haven’t heard of it lately, at least not here in the United States.
Do you know many hackers?
I would say most of my friends are hackers. Hundreds of them, hundreds of people that I know very well or [are] very well acquainted with. Friends and acqainties that are almost all of them are hackers.
How do you communicate?
We would communicate by cell phone, email, personal presence, you know. Gathering at the 2600 meetings every month. IRC, ICQ, you know, any place where I just happen to bump into them, you know, that’s the place to communicate. You know when you got something to say, you get it said.
Different layers of meetings places?
If we have to meet, we always meet in public. I mean, there’s no reason not to, we don’t really have anything to hide. So there’s no reason why we shouldn’t meet in public. When we meet we are not doing anything illegal, so there’s no reason to meet in public. Everything goes back to … there’s no reason not to meet in public, so … and if we cant meet in public, then we meet somewhere else. We’ll meet on IRC for example. Doesn’t happen very often, but it happens.
Are computer criminals hackers?
I would say that I do define them as hackers, yes. I don’t really think that there is a need to differentiate or try to move away from the term hacker because we’re been through that already. It what we are defined as … it explains who we are … uhm, there would be two different shades of hackers, you know, three different shades. White, grey hat and black hat is what they are using know, you know, they’ve thrown in three different shades, and that’s ok I guess. I guess that’s ok. But I don’t like the idea of creating a different word for the term ... for hackers. I don’t like it because then you got confusion at this point everybody knows when you say the word hacker, they know what your are talking about. All I want to do is … I want people to understand that hackers aren’t bad, hackers can work for you and they are no always working against you. And hackers aren’t always sitting behind the computer, hackers are all around you. Hackers are the people who fix your typewriter every day with a piece of bubble gum and a paper clip you know. Its not always going to work, but if you need to get something done, you know, a hacker would come in and do it for you, they will get it done so that you can get your work done today.
DVD trial
You can copy a DVD whether you decrypt it or not. If your ain is to get digital perfect movies out there on the market in mass quantities for, you know, an amazingly low price, you can do that whether you have the program or not. Just make a copy, I mean it’s still encrypted, its still works on all the DVD players. What’s the point of breaking the encryption, there isn’t one because if you are going to play the movie, you are going to play it on a DVD player anyway. So whether or not the cracking is there, is there … is completely irrelevant, you know, whether or not the encryption is there. So … DCESS is completely taken out of the equation at this point. So I think the whole trial is completely nonsensical. I don’t have any idea where the court will have [its legs to?] stand on.
Political or economical incentive?
I don’t really think it’s either. I believe it’s just something for the big companies to do right now, to stick their claim to the digital copyright, [the] Digital Millennium Copyright Act. They are trying to stick their claim, to put their foot in, get an early judgement made so that they can throw they way around any time they wish, whether their rights have been tramped on, or their means of making money is been taken away.
What is the DMCA?
It was passed here in this country to protect people who’ve created things. It says if anything is in digital form, essentially you cant copy it or distribute it or take it unless you’ve paid for it or … reverse engineering, a form of copyright protection, its says all of the these things. However the interpretation lately by companies has made it far more broad than it was intended to be and a lot of the people who pushed this thing through, had a completely different intent for it [than our government?] and they are going “what? Why are you doing this?” They are asking themselves “why are you taking all these people to court, this is never what we intended” So they are using the scope of the bill far broader than it was intended to be.
Has hacking become hacktivism?
I think some of the things they are planning to do one the hacktivism from are great, such as … providing Internet access for the Chinese. Right now they are stifled in where they can go and what they can do with their Internet access. Its almost like they are closed off on a local network rather than a huge global network. They don’t know what’s out there, they have no idea, they haven’t seen the tip of the iceberg yet and what the hacktivists are planning to do is punch some holes in their defences if you will, where they are keeping the Chinese inside and letting them out on that they can see that whole internet, the whole global internet. I think that’s a good thing, I think its time that the Chinese got their eyes open beyond what’s given to them by their government so that they can see what’s really going on out here, and let the citizens of that country decide for themselves whether or not they shall be granted that access and a revolution will occur.
Classical act of hack
I haven’t got a lot of them; I don’t really know any that are really good. A lot of the things that we do in our everyday life are just … elegant things. Something that I consider … I mean this is kind of a hack, but it’s a lot of … a lot of fun, it’s not a hack that most people would think of. That far as I am concerned it was a really cool hack. We were at home and we have cable modem, which is high speed internet access in our country, and we were sitting outside, it was a beautiful night, the stars were out and it was like you know, [would] it be anything better [than] to have a couple of sodas out here and some computers and just sit under the stars and go around the internet and check some stuff out. So went up into the building and dropped a 300 feet network cable out of the window, set up a hub, set up laptops and sat down and started doing our thing and let people come on by and just ask questions and stuff like that. To me, that was hacking, that was it was all about, it was just … getting the information out there and letting people ask questions and letting them know and I had a good time and people got to learn, got to learn whatever what we did. It is important to me and I though this is hacking, right here, this what its all about.
