GENERATION HACK! (Insights from a Hacker Con)

By Matthew G. Devost [[email protected]] piece after piece of computer equipment is hauled up to individual rooms. To be The elevator thinks the hotel lobby is on without Internet connectivity at a hacker the second floor. Confused guests step in conference is a social faux pas and each and out of the hallway trying to make sense room will have more space dedicated to of their dilemma. A hotel security guard computing power than sleep. A tactical ushers the masses towards the stairs frequency is established and for the apologizing for the inconvenience but offers remainder of the weekend hackers will no explanation. A technological glitch? No, communicate significant happenings via the hackers are in town. hand-held radios. Those without radios will at least listen in with scanners and receive Cliques of black-clad twentysomethings conference updates as well as hotel security float in and out of hotel rooms. With the radio traffic. In fact, the hotel security radio exception of a tendency to accessorize their frequency and the D.C. police frequency outfits with electronic gadgets, they look will be monitored twenty-four hours a day nothing alike. There are stereotypical nerds - for the next two days so the conference skinny and frail with glasses and good math attendees won't encounter any surprises grades. There are military looking jocks from local law enforcement. with short hair and athletic bodies, and finally every parent's nightmare: gothic pale Friday afternoon's events begin with a tour skin, black lipstick and multiple facial of the FBI headquarters building in piercings. It's a Marilyn Manson concert downtown Washington, and then it's off to meets Revenge of the Nerds. Welcome to the Pentagon City mall in nearby Virginia Summercon, an annual gathering of hackers for a special 2600 meeting, so named after on the East Coast. their sponsor and central organizer 2600 Magazine: The Hacker Quarterly. In Originally sponsored by a handful of well- existence for over 12 years, 2600 Magazine known hacker groups that operated on an sponsors a series of informal hacker "invitation only" basis, Summercon has meetings the first Friday of every month at established itself as a significant annual various public locales around the world. The hacker event. The conference is now open to Pentagon City mall food court is the venue anyone and is known not for its schedule of for the D.C. area 2600 meetings. The mall speakers, but for its ability to gather enough security guards are kept busy with laser of the right people in the same spot for late pointers strategically zapped at their security night socials and information sharing. Every cameras, but for the most part the gathering year 150-200 hackers gather to have fun, is uneventful. display new toys, and test new technology. "Roadancer," a burly Harley Davidson- The unsuspecting hotel managers at the driving hacker creates a well-respected Georgetown Holiday Inn watch on Friday as presence and he tells the crowd to buy

1/3  1997 – First appeared in Upstart Magazine something to eat and sit down or get thrown some college radio stations. The radio out. The mall security force appreciates the equipment is monitoring the conference interface and though they keep a watchful frequency, hotel security and the D.C. police eye on the crowd they keep their distance. and is capable of crossbanding any of them The activities transition to the hotel together. For example, conference attendees smoothly and well into the night. often share Beavis-and-Butthead-style belches on the hotel security frequency and A typical hacker conference, official occasionally the D.C. police wind up talking Summercon activities start no earlier than with the hotel security staff. noon on Saturday. Hackers are by nature nocturnal animals and the hours of 5 a.m. to Another computer is intercepting and noon are used to counter sleep deprivation. decoding nationwide alphanumeric pager Driven by their passion for understanding messages and displaying them on the screen. technology, hackers become experts on the The screen scrolls fast so a nearby hacker intricate computer systems our society relies pauses it for me. One entry reads "Honey I on for daily convenience and survival. This love you, please come home," while another fact isn't lost entirely on the security experts offers "Can you open for the Fugees in as I count several in the audience feverishly Miami on Tuesday night?" Amazed, but at taking notes during an informal speech on the same time uncomfortable with the Windows NT security holes. As few as six illegality of the activities, I excuse myself years ago this combination of security from the room. experts and hackers would have been unheard of. Today, the communities have When it is finally over, the city is no worse grown closer as significant numbers of for wear and the hacker motive of hackers have successfully migrated into the information propagation has triumphed "professional world." As one hacker notes again. By nature individualistic, the hacker with an evil grin and a hint of sarcasm, "One community has finally recognized its day you'll wake up and realize that we strength in numbers and gained media control the infrastructure and with that will exposure. Widely covered, but rarely come a realization that we aren't all that understood, hackers are reaching out for bad." legitimacy in the digital age as it encompasses the world around them. While Later in the afternoon, I am taken on a tour they still contain a disruptive element in of the conference communications room. their ranks they have moved from most Though I am not a hacker, my age and likely to pillage the global village to most affiliation with several old-school hackers likely to find the newest privacy exposure in grants me the privilege of such a tour. The Netscape Navigator. room is crammed with computers and radio equipment. I am told as many as five people Somewhere along the line, this duality of the slept here the night before, one of them hacker subculture got lost in the shuffle. We curled up between a Sun workstation and a haven't decided if hackers are the explorers tower PC. One computer is hooked up to the of the cyber-frontier or the pirates of the Internet and is connected to several other cyber-seas. Or perhaps, hacking is just a machines in the room. In one corner is radio transition period for a techno-induced communications equipment capable of generation of young men and women trying broadcasting at 100 watts -- stronger than to leave their mark on the world. Maybe

2/3  1997 – First appeared in Upstart Magazine they aren't satisfied with a label of community are mixed, their true message "Generation X" and are trying to prove some emanates from their approach towards their sense of cultural self-worth the only way medium of choice. No matter how they know how: through technology. embedded technology becomes in our Computer security author Winn Schwartau society, it is never fool proof. The human likes to joke in the presence of hackers that mind with the right intellect and ambition "If my generation (boomers) had your can always overcome technology. capabilities (the hackers), the 80s would have never happened." Though the social You can always exploit its flaw of human messages emerging from the hacker design.

3/3  1997 – First appeared in Upstart Magazine