PhreakNIC 0x0b presentation from Bruce Potter where he rants about the 800 lb. gorillas and talks about the dirty secrets of the security industry.

I've been meaning to watch this...

PhreakNIC 0x0b Day 1 - 09 - Bruce Potter - Down and Dirty on the Security Ind.

Anyway, it’s not really about the dance scene vs. the hacker scene: it’s about two hugely popular hit songs vs. a tiny in-group that can’t be proven to have used the word at all.

There is an interesting conversation going on here about the origins of the word w00t. Basically, the question is, did w00t come into gamer slang via l33t speak, and therefore the hacker scene, or did it come into general usage online because of the 1993 hit song "Whoop, There it is!"

At the core is that there is absolutely no written evidence of use of the word w00t as an exclamation by people in the hacker scene prior to about 1998. There is a use in the hacker scene in 1995, but it is a proper noun (a crew called "w00t'z kidz"). Jason Scott drug up evidence of use on Usenet in 1994, but it was in the context of Magic Cards (D&D is another claimant to the origin of the word). Sans evidence, the verdict must go to "Whoop, There it is!" My memory, and that of several others, is that w00t was used in the hacker scene long before 1998, mostly on IRC. Although I'm not positive that w00t has no relationship to "Whoop, There it is!" I am pretty sure that it was used far earlier than internet archives seem to indicate.

So here is the question; Does anyone out there in MemeStreams land have any mailing list, BBS, or IRC chat logs from before 1998 that include the word w00t, in particular its use as an exclamation? I know some of you are pack rats and have lots of old stuff lying around. Looking for evidence, and not "I recall" or "we used to."

Need your help with w00t

Voters at Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year 2007 poll have chosen "w00t" as 2007's most iconic word. M-W says that the word is a gamer's acronym for "we own the other team," but I'm inclined to think that that's a backronym, a back-formed acronym created to explain a word already in use.

I am simultaneously amazed and annoyed at the misattribution of this word.

w00t is Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year for 2007 - Boing Boing

Search engine Ask.com deployed a new tool today that allows users to purge records of their searches from the Ask.com database. Initially announced in July after talks with the Center for Democracy and Technology, the AskEraser feature was created in response to growing concerns about the privacy implications of search engine data retention.

Ask.com adds new "AskEraser" search privacy feature

NIST has opened a public competition to develop a new cryptographic hash algorithm, which converts a variable length message into a short “message digest” that can be used for digital signatures, message authentication and other applications. The competition is NIST’s response to recent advances in the cryptanalysis of hash functions. The new hash algorithm will be called “SHA-3” and will augment the hash algorithms currently specified in FIPS 180-2, Secure Hash Standard. Entries for the competition must be received by October 31, 2008.

Cryptographic Hash Algorithm Competition

The principal series of operational ciphers of the Imperial Japanese Navy [IJN] from 1939 to 1945, collectively called JN25, used five-digit code groups which were all multiples of three. This is shown to have been a quite unnecessary major flaw with very considerable consequences.

A detailed discussion of the JN-25 and related ciphers.

FLAW IN THE JN25 SERIES OF CIPHERS, THE Cryptologia - Find Articles

Stevens enlisted in the Navy on Dec. 6, 1941, hours before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He later won a bronze star for his service as a cryptographer, after he helped break the code that informed American officials that Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander of the Japanese Navy and architect of the Pearl Harbor attack, was about to travel to the front.

I haven't read this entire interview, but this data point might be of interest to several folks here. Its not clear from this whether he had a scientific or operational role.

Justice John Paul Stevens broke a Japanese Cipher

Germany basically banned all "hacking tools." "Hacking tools" are not defined. This is having a spectacularly destructive impact on computer security research world wide as German resources become unavailable and people are starting to avoid traveling there. (Image from this story.)

Schneier on Security: New German Hacking Law

Its just Chinese malware, what are you afraid of?!

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dict.cc dictionary :: Schwachstelle :: English-German translation