hella big site

everyone had a different view of the scene: Like the Chaos Club, the Cyberpunks are less hung up on getting hold of the latest technology and more interested in educating the public and spreading information. Invited to participate in the Santarcangelo Arts Festival, held in Rimini last Summer, they organised lectures on virtual reality and multi- media, flying in speakers from Germany and Britain and running an ‘information wall’. This comprised of a wall of old TVs playing feeds whichwere processed by an Amiga video editing system and mixed raw footage of thefestival events, computer graphics and the Cyberpunks’ own videos. Therewere also plans to set up a pirate TV station and broadcast in a narrow 2kmband towards Rimini. Unfortunately, after technical problems and concernvoiced by members of the Mutoid Waste Company (also present at the festival)that the material transmitted might be X rated, this had to be called off.Whilst groups in Europe seem to be gradually evolving into artful campaignersand consciousness-raising pranksters, the majority of US hackers haveremained simple tech freaks. However, things may be changing. US hackerculture has been going through a crisis in the last two years. In a full-blown moral panic, they have been systematically hunted down by the SecretService and have become the focus for hysteria reminiscent of the red scaresof the ’50s. (A time magazine cover from 1988 talked about “The Invasion OfThe Data Snatchers”.) Things began to happen, Shit hit teh fan shall we say… in January 1990 as the Secret Service began to arrest members of The Legion Of Doom and other knowledgeable hackers. LOD, MOD, Napalm, Excess, G0Dz, Chaos+, Acid, Telco1 were some of the most celebrated US hacker groups,on suspicion of having entered the computer systems of the Bell Southcompany. Although in many cases no charges were filed, electronic equipmentand discs were confiscated. things came to a head with “Operation Sun Devil”in May 1990, which involved 28 raids in 14 days; 42 computers and 23,000discs were confiscated, many of which have never been returned. Governmentagents carried out dawn raids on teenage bedrooms across the US, confiscatingcalculators and answerphones. All quite comical. Except things began to getmore serious. Raids became like precision strikes on terrorists and teenagersfound themselves threatened with jail sentences for accessing computersystems with no password, copying files or just being vaguelymischievous. Their offence might have been no more than the electronicequivalent of walking on the grass or breaking and entering, but thepunishment they faced was ten times more severe. FBR Wardialer In addition, the authorities began to target and close down electronicbulletin boards. In the States, there are now boards for every obsessiongoing, every hobby, belief, vice or fagc. So many that regulation of the kindof information being circulated is increasingly difficult. For that reason,it has been argued that the powers that be don’t like the idea of boardsper se. Although a lot of the information that is circulated on some of themore underground boards (how to build bombs, or mix kitchen sink soap for example) is available elsewhere, they feel spooked by the thougth that it can be accessed by anyone with a computer. -They feel particularly spooked by the idea of hacker bulletin boards, and have begun to charge people merely for allowing ‘dangerous information’ to pass through their systems. Hacked Voice-Mail & listed codez. Posted on the Hack boards wHo had special access acker reaction to all this has been varied. After receiving prison sentences for their activities, the majority of the Legion Of Doom have decided to golegit and have set up as Comsec Data Security Corporation, a computerprotection consultancy. Others have taken a campaigning stance reminiscentof the Europeans. The East Coast hacker quarterly 2600, Phrack, Opeum, Sgt News, Black Files, Commodore SEQ Files. 2600 which publishedhardcore hacking info on phreaking and accessing computer networks, has triedto highlight the hypocrisy of the hacker busts. “An individual cannot takea big credit checking corporation like TRW to court because they collectpersonal data on them without his or her permission,” 2600 editor EmmanuelGoldstein comments. “But TRW could claim its privacy was violated if a hackerfigures out how to access their system.” Whats wrong with this picture…Other organisations have been set up to raise concern about civil liberties and freedom of speech, the most high profile being the Blue Boxing, Electronic Frontier Foundation, which was set up by Mitch Kapor, a millionaire software pioneer, along with other big cheeses from the computer industry (including Steve Wozniak of Apple, an ex-phone phreaker), as a direct response to anti-hacking hysteria. A self-confessed hacker/software pirate in the ’70s, Kapor is worried that the current panic may lead to the formation of restrictive regulations which may hamper the development of cyberspace in thefuture. However he isn’t in favour of legalising hacking. He thinks hackersshould still be punished. Although the EFF has had some success in its moves to end Secret Serviceexcesses, not all hackers are happy with the way it draws a line between theold ’60s hackers and modern computer intruders. “There are a lot ofsimilarities between these 15-year-olds who are playing around in corporatecomputers and the 40-year-olds who played around with phones and are nowwriting software somewhere,” comments Emmanuel Goldstein. “They may be legit now, but they weren’t always legitimate”. Goldstein is also sceptical of the ‘cyberpunk’ tag which hackers appropriated from the fiction of William Gibson and Bruce Stierling, dismissing it as a fashion thing. Whilst it may have helped to give hackers a sense of identity, the image of leather-cladanti-social rebels backfired when the authorities started to take itseriosly. Something which places original cyberpunk writers like Bruce Sterling in a tricky position. “I’ve had law enforcement people tell me that if they see acopy of (William Gibson’s) Neuromancer in a kid’s bedroom when they’re doinga raid, they know he’s bad, he’s gone,” he observes. “There are people whouse the word ‘cyberpunk’ as a synonym for computer criminal now. There’slittle that we can do about it really.” Except write a book, somethingSterling decided to do when anti-hacker hysteria reached his home town ofAustin, Texas. The Chicago Computer Fraud and Abuse Task Force seizedhardware and software from a texas SF publisher and made statements to thelocal press that cyberpunks were dangerous. “Being quite well-known as acyberpunk myself, I thought I’d better find out what was going on”. Theresults of his investigations will be published as  The Hacker Crackdown inOctober in the US. As an outsider, Sterling offers a refreshingly sceptical perspective on the scene. Of the  5,000 or so hackers currently practicing in the States, he says the majority are just mischievous teens, electronic joyriders who are more curious than malicious. Most of them don’t hack beyond the age of 22. They get bored and get a life outside of cyberspace. He laughs off the idea thathackers might be seen as radicals. “The idea that these are like fresh-facedidealistic genius kids who are linked arm-in-arm to deal a telling blow tothe establishment is just bullshit. They all hate each other’s guts. Theyturn each other in at the drop of a hat.” Far from being proto-political rebels, he argues that young US hackers are actually political footballs, part of a larger game which is about the future and management of cyberspace. Thats why the rich software entrepreneurs of the Electronic Frontier Foundation have become involved. “The EFF and their civil liberties fellow travellers are an interest group like any other. They shouldn’t be shrouded in this air of ‘Oh they’re old ’60s people, look how idealistic and non-materialistic they are. These guys are pretty sharp operators who’ve made a lot of money in the computer industry, and would now like to get their mouse gripping mitts on some lever of political power thatis consonant with the amount of money they have and the influence they wieldin the business world”. A cynic might argue that the EFF aren’t just concerned with the  freedom of speech. They really want to make sure that in the heat of hacker hysteria, a set of excessive laws don’t get passed which might restrict their business operations in the future. This kind of thing is only to be expected, since as Sterling says, the electronic community is expanding daily. In the rush to go digital, hackers may even find themselves sidelined. “Every aspect ofsociety is moving into electronic networking and that includes hippies,criminals, lawyers, politicians, bikers, knitting societies, even cops. Copshave their own bulletin boards now. There are hacker cops(bad). All thesesubcultures and sub-groups are moving in, and in a while what was once calledhacker culture may get swamped by other kinds of electronic bohemia.” US hackers may have acted as the pioneers of the new electroniclandscape. But like the real pioneers who first explored the American West,they may find it difficult to find a foothold in the new communities theyhelped to create. The simple thing is to go in to business for the peoplethey formerly thought of as the enemy. Alternatively they could band togetherin informal vaguely politicised pressure groups like the Europeans. But theyneed to update their act. Otherwise they could even wind up a dyingbreed. “In the end the thing about American hackers that’ll kill them off isthat they’re  dilettantes,” Sterling concludes.

“They’re not getting any money for this. They’re doing it for free, because it’s like a cool subculture do.  They’re doing it for power and knowledge. But anything these jerk-offs can do for power and knowledge, a real operator can do for a lotof money.” -MORE>> Mad Hatter and The Inter Circle. Wired Article. 
Newsgroups, NewsBIN, EFNet, Hacking AOLl, Underworld Story Released >>MORE 

ill be in touch. were also working on a book/movie too.
let us know if you want to collaborate.

zzzz
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The HUMBLE Guys core members are from FBR, (c=64 Crack/Import)… Back in the BBS era when single line 1200/2400 baud modems & $7.00 a minute LD charges effected release times, File size was a serious issue & programmers wrote good code that was ultra-packed. Everything was original vs. today where the same game engine + different gfx = $new. Teh true “Elite” was 1,200 -1,500 talented users & “Optical Illusion” thats listed above went live in 1989 by Optik Freeze & was an official FBR site. Eric survived the whole “Not So Humble Babe” (Amy from 313 areacode, NOT the Amy from 615 areacode/Candyman’s wife) credit card fraud problems. I did not know Eric was busted in 2004, We have not talked for over 20 years.

***Note 2 self: Do not place BBS #’s on Intro/Crack screens…

If anyone wants more reading on this topic search “Bruce Sterling” it’s a free book with an online audio version by “Cory D” in Google. I think Jason Scott has a copy on Textfiles.org.

Search: Roy/SAC, Radman/ACID.org, Defacto2.org,CMDB.org or C64.org and you will find everything related c64. ***Use VICE Emulator and see all cracktros/intros on your PC.

Wiki has a full page related to THG and our little creation called .NFO files.

Candyman (Dave Frances) FBR/THG passed away (Heart Attack).

Thank you:
  EFF.org – Multi Resource.
   ChillingEffects.com – Legal Resource.
    TorrentFreak.com – Information Resource.

We all spill milk, it’s how you clean it up that counts.