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Hacker Culture

Noah Holland

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First, about RedTeam

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What we do

    • Potentially even hosting our own
  • Conferences
  • Meetings
  • Competitions (CTFs)
  • Events/Workshops

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(Briefly) meet the officers

  • Noah (President)
  • Ethan (Vice President)
  • Dane (Treasurer)
    • Absent :(
  • Anika (Secretary)
  • Tyler (CTF Chair)

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What is hacking?

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Original definiton of “hacking”

  • Modern meaning of “Hacker”
    • Person who breaks ciphers and bypasses security was a “Computer Cracker”
      • Didn’t exactly catch on
    • Media cemented “hacker=sketchy guy in black hoodie hacking ur wifiz” to general public
  • Making things that are unrelated work together
  • “Information wants to be free”
    • MIT AI Lab (CSAIL)
    • MIT hackers

From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33356932:

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Some still die on the hill

From https://stallman.org/articles/on-hacking.html:

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Who were these “hackers”?

  • MIT’s Tech Model Railroad Club
    • In the 40’s-60’s
    • Would get together to build model trains and tracks
      • Many of these nerds were involved in the computer programs
    • Lockpicking was a ‘game’ between the members
    • Many of them actually took mail in classes to become certified locksmiths just to get the special tools that were only legally allowed to be sold to locksmiths.
      • MIT bought military grade safe to keep components safe from prying eyes (IE these hackers)
        • Installer forgot to leave the key to the safe
        • One of the hackers this safe was supposed to keep out offered to pick the lock
        • Did so with relative ease
    • Akin to Urbexers
      • Loved to explore
      • Would walk around their campus at night
    • Built upon the idea “information wants to be free”

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What did they do?

  • Aforementioned exploring campus
  • Jargon file
    • “The Hacker’s dictionary”
    • Built by multiple people over the course of 30 years (1973-2003)
      • First versions circulated in MIT AI Lab & Stanford.
      • Now considered “archived”
  • MIT lockpicking guide
    • http://www.capricorn.org/~akira/home/lockpick/mitlg-a4.pdf
    • First circulated internally amongst Tech Model Railroad Club
      • Eventually started spreading like wildfire

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The decline of the MIT hackers

  • MIT cracking down
  • Introduction of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA)
  • Demonization of niche by mainstream media
  • Widespread availability of CCTV cameras limiting undetected access

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The revival of hacking

  • (TCP/IP) Internet becoming common
  • BBS-style discussion boards become common in late 80’s/early 90’s
    • textfiles.com
  • IRC channels in late 90’s/early 2000’s
    • Freenode
    • Rizon
  • Ever-increasing access to information granted many the resources to replicate the antics of the MIT students

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The state of “hackers” today

  • DEF CON
    • Started in 1993
    • Still goes on to this day
    • RedTeam attends!
  • Niche imageboards & forums
    • Continuation of BBS/IRC-style discussion culture
  • Smaller groups still exist
    • Mostly in urbex-circles
      • Closer to culture of MIT’s Tech Model Railroad Club
    • Ham radio operators
      • More akin to MIT AI Lab
      • People who like to tinker with electronics

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Questions?

Come next week to see Alex’s talk on Hacking Wireless Microphones & AI voice cloning!