] I would like to see extremely harsh sentences for anyone
] who creates or passes on a virus, worm or Trojan horse.
] They ought to be sentenced to at least ten years in
] prison with no chance of parole and a life-long ban on
] using computers. Millions suffer because of these idiots.
] It's time to really put a fright into them.
]
] Damn right he should be punished. Sends out a message to
] all those merry-making nerds.
]
] I think that these morons who send out these viruses
] should receive the same types of penalty as any other
] common thief. This idiot is no different than the thug
] who hides until after dark and breaks into your home and
] steals your belongings. By corrupting or otherwise
] ruining your computer he has cost you financial loss and
] the feeling of being violated and worrying about identity
] theft.
]
] Make an example out of him. Maybe the next punk ass
] script kiddie will think twice if you roast this one. Try
] him under the homeland security act for cyber terrorism -
] unlimited jail in maximum security.

It seems clear to me that this case has almost nothing to do with "sending a message to worm writers" and almost everything to do with providing a spectacle for thousands of computer users like these... As we watch this guy get nailed all of these people feel vindicated and rejoice! They're right, and he is wrong, and he is going down! The system works! I love big brother!

vnunet.com - Blaster B plea angers onlookers

] Turning and turning in the widening gyre
] The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
] Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
] Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
] The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
] The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
] The best lack all convictions, while the worst
] Are full of passionate intensity.

The Second Coming -- W. B. Yeats

] Reason: I've been rereading some of your early
] 90s writings about the digital future, and you
] sounded a lot more optimistic then, with a much more
] "nothing can stop us now" attitude.
]
] Barlow: We all get older and smarter.

On today:

] It’s a perfect set of circumstances to give us the time Yeats
] foretold, with the best having lost all conviction and the worst
] full of passionate intensity.

Reason: John Perry Barlow 2.0: The Thomas Jefferson of cyberspace reinvents his body -- and his politics.

] Jeffrey Lee Parson, 19, of Hopkins, Minnesota, admitted
] "intentionally causing damage to a protected computer"
] before a federal judge in Seattle yesterday as part of a
] plea bargaining arrangement. He faces between 18 to 37
] months in prison for his crime instead of a maximum
] sentence of ten years in jail. Parson may also be ordered
] to pay a fine, which could run into millions of dollars,
] according to Assistant US Attorney Annette Hayes.

He plead down to 37 months and millions in fines? The guy took an active worm, changed its tag (to his name!), and re-released it. This does NOT set an example for "worm writers." Parson didn't write a worm, and the people who did were never caught. Parson put his name in the worm. Any idiot could have caught him. The actual impact that adding his name had on the spread of this worm was zilch.

The only message the government is sending here is that our laws are unjust and our police are incompetent. Once again, the smart people get away scott free but the unlucky and dim get squashed like bugs for no good reason.

Blaster teen pleads guilty

] Bush criticized Kerry's plan to eliminate the tax cuts
] for those making more than $200,000 a year, saying that
] the "the rich in America happen to be the small business
] owners" who put people to work.
]
] Bush also said high taxes on the rich are a failed
] strategy because "the really rich people figure out how
] to dodge taxes anyway."

[ Sweet tapdancing baby chimps. What the fuck?!

Does anyone else feel like they're in fucking Sliders? Pushed through some bullshit portal and ended up in this version of America? Seriously, is that an OK thing to say?

I thought I'd reached outrage overload, but damned if I don't keep finding reserves... great pools of untapped fury, buried deep, accessible only by application of such fathomless inanity as this. -k

p.s. bold mine.]

Bush campaign holds rally in Va.; Dems sense weakness

There were 10x the total number of downloads over the lifetime of the project in a single day.

/. Effect of Stripe Snoop homepage (jpg)

Rattle wrote:
] Maybe this is the year we rollerblade around the con. I mean,
] all hackers can rollerblade after all. From the title, I'm
] thinking Skate or Die reference. Looking at it, I'm thinking
] Tony Hawk PS2 games. None of which has anything to do with
] hacking, and only the most vague connection to the
] techno-apocalypse.

Obviously you were never a skater. Skateboarding is not at all anything like roller blading. Roller Blading is an extension of roller skating, which is something that 12 year old girls do at birthday parties. It started as a way to practice hockey in the summer time, which is about as mainstream as you can get.

Skateboarding is a subculture that, like graffiti, seeks to repurpose the utilitarian urban landscape for a creative, artistic endeavor. Hacking is very similar is its purpose. In fact, Goldstein once wrote that he figured out that hacking was cool when he realized how similar it was to skateboarding.

Skateboarding and hacking both fit into a zone of moral ambiguity. They are neither "good" nor are they clearly "evil." Baby Boomers, on the whole, are very abstract in their thinking and they like moral absolutes. They like things to be either right or wrong. ("With us or against us.") Our generation latched onto things like skateboarding and hacking when we where going though our rebellious stage of personality development because they put us in places that adults had difficultly fitting into their world view. These are subcultures that perfectly exploit a weakness in the dominant Baby Boomer conceptions of how things work. They couldn't support skateboarding, but clearly it was wrong to oppose it as well. Moral ambiguity is not something that Baby Boomers can parse.

I refer you to one of the best links that has ever been posted to this site:

http://www.urbanstructure.com/urbanaction/ps.html
http://www.memestreams.net/thread/bid4869/

] Has the Nashville scene gone skater chick? I kinda think it
] would be cool if it did, but otherwise this does not really
] say "hacker con" in any way.

Its subtle. You missed it. She is rail sliding down a phone cable over a barbed wire fence.

] The main reason the old ones worked was due to the fact they
] featured babes with data ports, buttons, wires coming out of
] them, and even the occasional alcoholic beverage.

Those big breasted, scantily clad (if at all), totally objectified "cyberbabes" that have adorned various forms of hacker art including our conference are a big turn off for most of the women that are in our scene. If you're at a party with 50 guys and 3 girls, the fastest way to get the 3 girls to leave is to tack up a Playboy centerfold. The women in the hacker scene are intelligent and they want to be thought of as contributing to the culture, not as sexual objects. They are (in general) just as uncomfortable hanging out at a screening of "HaXXXor" as you and I would be hanging out at a screening of various films from gaymagix.com...

RE: PhreakNIC Pictures :: PN8 :: hack_or_die_final

] The Quantum Sleeper Unit is a high-level security system
] designed for maximum protection in various hostile
] environments.

This is positively fucked up. Intruders in your home? House burning down? Biological warfare? Red Dawn? Just press a button and your bed becomes a sealed bulletproof coffin complete with entertainment system, rebreather, and optional offensive weapons systems. Sit happy and dry in your little pine box while you watch the cataclysm unfold through your one way view port.

If you really feel like you need this product I suggest that you:
A. Go back on your meds.
B. Just give the mob the money you owe them.
C. Stop watching television.
D. Move to Alaska.
E. All of the above.

Quantum Sleeper

This year's Phreaknic T-shirt art is pretty cool.

PhreakNIC Pictures :: PN8 :: hack_or_die_final

] Funk legend Rick James (search), best known for the 1981
] hit "Super Freak," (search) died Friday, apparently of
] natural causes, police said. He was 56.

FOXNews.com - Foxlife - Singer Rick James Dies at 56