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  • Re: Anyone reading anything gripping lately?

    From Kurt Weiske@1:218/700 to August Abolins on Fri Dec 4 07:01:00 2020
    August Abolins wrote to All <=-

    Anyone reading anything gripping lately?

    I'm reading old books I'd never gotten a chance to read. I'm
    currently reading "The Andromeda Evolution", the sequel to "The
    Andromeda Strain". I didn't know there was a sequel until now...

    I'm going to re-read Tracy Kidder's "The Soul of a New Machine" and
    "The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier"
    by Bruce Sterling - both books I've read a long time ago.

    "The Soul of a New Machine" chronicles the team behind the design and
    building of one of Data General's microcomputers and reminded me a
    lot of "Halt and Catch Fire". I noted that Joe McMillan has a copy in
    his bookshelf!

    "The Hacker Crackdown" is an interesting walk down memory lane
    chronicling the late 20th century, the rise of BBSes and electronic
    law, and the rise of digital civil libertarians. It's almost
    refreshing to see what we used to be worried about back then,
    compared to now. :(




    ... Always the first steps
    --- MultiMail/XT v0.52
    * Origin: http://realitycheckbbs.org | tomorrow's retro tech (1:218/700)
  • From Shawn Highfield@1:229/452 to August Abolins on Mon Dec 7 13:17:44 2020
    August Abolins wrote to Shawn Highfield <=-

    I thought we were in the same time zone. It is only about
    8:30a (Sunday) here now.

    I do mail at about 4am EST. Maybe things are messed up with
    my very old dos based BBS software. ;) Today I slept in so
    it's currently 8:15am as I type this on Monday.

    After stripping drm, why don't you leave it in epub? (unless
    the kindle model doesn't support epub?)

    Kindle doens't do epub. I keep the epub in calibre and just
    convert it to mobi and copy onto the kindle.

    I don't have that problem with my drm epub purchases. I can
    "store" the file on Adobe Digital Editions (on the pc) or copy
    them over to the Kobo. There is no process that would
    automatically make those files go away.

    Amazon can take them away from you. Something happened a few
    years back where they lost the rights to sell some books so
    if you didn't have it on your reader backed up it was gone from
    your kindle account. Basically I don't trust Amazon, I like
    their device though.

    I'd never get anything done. :)
    Lately, most of the time it has been hard to motivate and get
    "work" done. The shelves could be half-empty and I'd probably
    feel the same way. I'd rather read a book or watch a film.

    That time of year too.

    Shawn

    ... Hey! Who took the cork off my lunch??!

    --- EzyBlueWave V3.00 01FB001F
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  • From Bob Roberts@1:218/840 to Kurt Weiske on Mon Dec 7 14:13:38 2020
    "The Hacker Crackdown" is an interesting walk down memory lane
    chronicling the late 20th century, the rise of BBSes and electronic
    law, and the rise of digital civil libertarians. It's almost
    refreshing to see what we used to be worried about back then,
    compared to now. :(

    That reminds me of a book called the Cuckoos Egg, by Clifford Stoll. Written by a Unix admin at Lawrence Berkeley Labs that tracked down a hacker in their system and how he did it... back in 1989. Very good and well written....
    --- SBBSecho 3.11-Linux
    * Origin: Halls of Valhalla =-= Happy Holidays (1:218/840)
  • From August Abolins@2:460/58 to Bob Roberts on Tue Dec 8 02:06:11 2020
    24.fidonet_coffeekl@1:218/840 2433df2a
    "The Hacker Crackdown" is an interesting walk down memory lane chronicling the late 20th century, the rise of BBSes and electronic law, and the rise of digital civil libertarians. It's almost refreshing to see what we used to be worried about back then,
    compared to now. :(

    That reminds me of a book called the Cuckoos Egg, by Clifford Stoll. Written by a Unix admin at Lawrence Berkeley Labs that tracked down a hacker in their system and how he did it... back in 1989. Very good and well written....

    The Cuckoo's Egg is a nice fast-paced read. There is a film/documentary by the same name that was produced around that time which is also fun to watch.


    --- tg BBS v0.6.3
    * Origin: Fido by Telegram BBS by Stas Mishchenkov (2:460/58)
  • From Kurt Weiske@1:218/700 to Bob Roberts on Tue Dec 8 07:29:00 2020
    Bob Roberts wrote to Kurt Weiske <=-

    That reminds me of a book called the Cuckoos Egg, by Clifford Stoll. Written by a Unix admin at Lawrence Berkeley Labs that tracked down a hacker in their system and how he did it... back in 1989. Very good
    and well written....

    A very good book - how an accounting anomaly nabbed a hacker group...
    :)




    ... Too weird to live, and too rare to die.
    --- MultiMail/XT v0.52
    * Origin: http://realitycheckbbs.org | tomorrow's retro tech (1:218/700)
  • From August Abolins@2:221/1.58 to Kurt Weiske on Sun Dec 20 21:48:00 2020
    Hello Kurt!

    ** On Friday 04.12.20 - 07:01, Kurt Weiske wrote to August Abolins:

    "The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the
    Electronic Frontier" by Bruce Sterling - both books I've
    read a long time ago.

    [snip]

    "The Hacker Crackdown" is an interesting walk down
    memory lane chronicling the late 20th century, the rise
    of BBSes and electronic law, and the rise of digital
    civil libertarians.

    Both of those remind me of:

    Takedown: The Pursuit and Capture of Kevin Mitnick, America's
    Most Wanted Computer Outlaw--By the Man Who Did It - Tsutomo
    Shimomura (1996)

    It described a lot of the technical tricks that both friend
    and foe utilized.

    Some say that is primarily a tale of an overzealous agent, and
    some false accusations about certain hacks.

    I haven't read the folling..

    The Fugitive Game: Online with Kevin Mitnick - Jonathan Littman
    (1997)

    ..but I hear that it is more balanced than Takedown.


    There is also..

    Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted
    Hacker - Kevin Mitnick, William L Simon, Steve Wozniak (2012)

    It's about the same tale but from Mitnick's pov many years
    later.


    It's almost refreshing to see what we used to be worried
    about back then, compared to now. :(

    Now, it seems we have far more to be worried about! I
    recently got a notice about a class action suit brought
    against the Bank of Montreal (with which I have an account)
    informing me that the bank was indeed breached at some point
    and various details of user accounts were accessed. As
    compensation, the court has ruled that there there will be a
    payout to those affected. There were 4 levels of breach, 1
    being the highest and therefore fetching the highest $'s in
    compensation in the 4-figures. My account was classed in the
    3rd level and fetching a $90 payout. :/




    --
    ../|ug

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