so what happened to hacking?

[jason87x 1]

Yea, what happened to hacking scenes and computers and everything like that? The last time I was really into computers was around 2004/2005. Everything was a 32 bit world, 64 bit only beginning to come to the scene, and it certainly wasn't all that important. The debates were Athlon XP vs Intel Pentium 4, people had understood Windows XP and nothing like Vista or 7 was ready to come out. Things seemed static and predictable. Everything was about either a hardcore gaming desktop, or a laptop, mobile things weren't much the rage. The dream was to have an ultimate gaming desktop that also used Linux. The fight was Microsoft vs Linux, Apple still a small player with those overpriced artist boxen. The fights of the RIAA against the user were minimal, they only went after big fish. Gnutella and torrents were still a relevant way to share files. From what everything sounded like, you could hack and not get caught if you knew what you were doing, and covered up tracks enough. Parallelism in CPU design was rare and mostly used in game consoles and in GPU design.

I was in high school then, in my peek of geekiness. I was a stereotypical rebel/goth/punk/cyberpunk/geek/hack whatever anticonformist (in effect a different kind of conformity) I could be, I was in severe depression. I basically read computer stuff all the time and slept, breezing by in honors classes with like a 3.5 gpa (unweighted, weighted it was like 4.5). I went to LAN parties at my friends houses, DII and CounterStrike were the games of choice, and sometimes the original Halo.

I kinda lost interest in computers, college changed everything for me. I lost my way. Here it is 2011 just about, and what happened? Now Apple is the big evil guy and Microsoft the small unimportant underdog. Intel also became rather meh and not that evil sounding. The desktop is basically dead. So is the laptop. Everything is on a phone, and nobody can decide what the phone or computer should look like. This weird touchscreen interface is frightening, and seemed rather inefficient to type up long things like maybe this very post. Of course keyboards on those small things are too small to type up stuff like this too. You can't find high quality music anymore, let alone lossless, the only good way I know to get music is youtube ripping, and the quality is terrible. Torrent is not only obsolete, it's pretty much a guarantee you will get caught if you use it these days. Processing is no longer understandable, textbooks and everyone else throwing around billions of buzzwords all relating to more than one processor at a time "hyper simultaneous multi thread level parallelizable hyper vector superscalar" it sounds like a complete mess. Was SISD not good enough, seriously? This parallel stuff seems to be creeping up everywhere too, when I was just beginning to fully understand a regular processor. I guess the present and near future is in vector it seems; the past was in scalar.

And even worse, lol, the Utopia game is NOT run by Mehul anymore. Frightening stuff. Also has anyone noticed how it's been over ten years since the release of Diablo II and Blizzard has still not come out with DIII? Are they stuck in a time warp like I am or do they have their developers only work on one game at a time (from what I've heard that IS how they do it)? DII is fun, but not without anyone to play it with.

Add to that the insane creepiness of the government. How I've been hearing about how they're spying on everything. Hacking sounds like you can't do it at all without getting caught; proxies are obsolete, as are any other attempts to anonymize. If you go through the fancy paid services, they still have your info there just begging to be subpoenaed.

And a future taken over by nanobots? Lovely. There will be nowhere you can hide (probably that way already just not dealing with nanobots). RFID chips and a cashless society... yea that sounds fun, looks like they will finally get rid of that darn little weed from mexico and that white powder, not to mention exploit the prison labor of half the population.

I sound like an old geezer who may as well have been stuck in the 1980s, but this brave new world is frightening me. I'm only in my twenties as well, that's the scary part, I'm not technically that old. But my insight into technology seems to be stuck in 2005. I am in Computer Science in college, I'm going to graduate in May, but the material I'm learning at this VERY LOW RATED school (the engineering school is barely there, in a school focusing mostly on biology and the "African American" agenda) is basically stuff that was relevant in 2003 at the latest or really much earlier, with only small introductions into the world of today. Needless to say those introductions were frightening.

Can anyone update me on how people deal with this stuff today and what's happening? How do people hack and not get caught? Does doing anything these days on a computer require special insider social connections to big names inside the government? What happened?

My life once I graduate is going to be like Office Space (in fact I'll be moving to DFW hopefully) lol.

[phaedrus 9]

Your buying into media images of how things are. Underneath the false buzzword covered crap pile people are quietly still using keyboards, on desktop pc's. Microsoft is still more powerful than Apple, even if the buzzmedia doesnt say it quite like that.

The only real change is the sheeple have begun to accept walled gardens as the norm. But people are still smashing through those walls.

As for privacy and anominity. Its still possible. There are some providers based outside the states which do not log or keep records as policy.

And there is tor. And there is nothing to stop you hopping through all of these options and a few proxy's too. This has always been the case.

Anon's are being caught because they do not understand the process. Or maybe they fired LOIC up expecting someone to have considered their anominity. As always the amount of care you expend on this process should be proportional to the amount you need and gauged against the amount you stand to loose.

[lattera 21]

Hacking is very much alive. Take a look at full-disclosure. Take a look at the industry. I would be considered a whitehat hacker--I get paid to hack (legally, of course). I think you just need to know the scene. The scene is much broader these days, encompassing groups of script-kiddies who somehow get their hands on 0days to very talented individuals. You'll find varying degrees of expertise and maturity in all hacking communities. It's definitely hard to pinpoint a definition of hacking. Is it merely finding vulnerabilities and writing exploits? Is it using developed exploits against others for profit or fame? Is it limited to the digital world? I'll leave the definition up to you; but suffice it to say that whatever hacking is, it isn't dead.

[nyphonejacks 32]

The only real change is the sheeple have begun to accept walled gardens as the norm

isn't that how it always was with all of the AOLers back in the day?

as for the OP, i think that you are mistaking computer crimes with hacking... sure hacking can include computer crimes, but it does not have to, nor is that the true meaning of hacking...

i personally believe that hacking is a state of mind, a curiosity as to how things work, or how to get things to do something that it was not intended to do... to explore - to learn...

as far as "hacking" is concerned - i am not much up on programming, or exploiting vulnerabilities, so in that sense i am not a hacker... but as for the thirst for knowledge on how things work, or how i can get things to work how i want them to then i feel that i have a very hacker like mentality...

there has always been a cat and mouse game with those who choose to do illegal activities on line and law enforcement... even things that were once legal may no longer be legal, either by someone abusing a vulnerability that they found, or by large corporations convincing legislators that certain activities should be made illegal... so hacking will always evolve.. and as long as there are people who are interested in learning and exploring outside of the normal boundaries of society then hacking will thrive - the methods will change, but IMO hacking is an attitude and mind set, a thirst for knowledge, perhaps forbidden knowledge...

[jens 0]

Well I think you didn't get todays situation as it really is. For now 32bit are still used on many, if not most, machines and will be supportet for a long time on most 64bit systems for compatibility reasons. Your opinion on the battle AMD vs Intel is also not fully correct. Obviosly Intel is atm superior to AMD in power, but for example AMDs hexacores are very close to the i7 in many cases and not as expensive. Nowadays many people prefer laptops over PCs, but in many situations a mobile device can't simply compete. Tablets and phones aren't more than nice toys to read mails and do simple tasks.

The competition between Windows, Linux and OSX may get interesting. Of course noone will replace Windows in short time, but Linux and OSX grow in numbers and for OSX you can say that they have a very good marketing. I would say that nearly 10% at our University own a Mac and nearly 20% use an iPhone. In comparison to the time 5 years ago that's an incredible increase.

For your arguments against touchscreens: They are not really good as keyboard, but for simpler tasks they are quite easy to use and they combine many funtions in a simple device. If you really want to tipe longer text messages you should stick to buisness phones with real keyboards. Many have them as alternative to touchscreens.

I really can't see why you aren't able to find high quality music. There are countless sources at the internet and if you think torrent is dead you never found a good closed tracker (ok that's quite hard since they are closed, but not impossible).