Letters: RX

Better Protection

Dear 2600: The encryption standards currently put into place with respect to electronic communications of various kinds - whether email, Internet, telephone, to name a few - need newer as well as stricter levels.  The current encryption level makes it easier for not only spying, either by various types of bureaucracies, but also just regular individuals who would never think anything less than to perform such an act without even a little hesitation.  The weakened encryption standards, apart from giving us less privacy which could lead to spying, also makes it easier to insert viruses into commercial or even personal networks.  This has risen exponentially when it comes to personal computing just over the past few years, which causes great concern because individuals rely so much on electronic communication from shopping, banking, paying bills, communicating with others via email or social networking, and everything in between.  The commercial and professional networks are an entirely different ball game since they protect that same information, but servers providing vital services such as utilities always need to have the best possible protection in place.  Users of technology, no matter from what group, should push the industry for dramatically raised encryption standards since it affects anyone who uses electronic devices of any kind.  Encryption standards should be at the best possible level currently obtainable which technology allows, not somewhat weakened.       Bill We need to be a lot more emphatic and clear with such messages.  There is nobody who is immune from the risks of poor or no encryption.  As hackers, we have the obligation to demonstrate when sensitive information is open to compromise, even though we will inevitably get the blame as if we're the ones who made it so in the first place.  The alternative is to continue playing this charade where we pretend everything is working properly and we're all protected.  All this does is enable criminals - whether working as themselves, governments, or corporations - to benefit from this collective ignorance.

Electronic Editions

Dear 2600: I have a lifetime subscription to the print edition, but was wondering if there is a way to change it over to the Kindle edition.  If not, no problem, just a thought when I saw that the Kindle version was available on the website.       David We have no way ourselves of doing this with subscriptions because of the way Kindle operates.  We never have access to the subscriber list and there's no option for a lifetime subscription there.  We believe people should continue to hold onto the paper edition as the definitive archive to keep in their libraries, and, if desired, have an electronic edition for the sake of convenience.  You might also be interested in our lifetime digest project, which will eventually get you everything we've ever published in PDF format.  Thanks for your support.

Dear 2600: I notice that you have Google/Kindle versions but why not an iPhone/iPad version? I used to subscribe to the paper version a few years ago but the issues stopped coming after two or three times.       Eden We're more concerned about why your issues stopped coming.  That sort of thing is something we take extremely seriously.  Anyone having this type of problem should contact us immediately at orders@2600.com or +1-631-751-2600.  As for an iPhone/iPad version, we actually do have one, but it isn't available through Apples iTunes store, as we haven't yet developed the prowess needed to jump through their many hoops.  The Kindle version, for example, is readable on iOS devices, iOS being the operating system of Apple consumer electronics, i.e., iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch.  Other third-party apps will also work.

Dear 2600: Would it be possible for you to also make the PDF digest/back issue collections available in (stamped, not burnt) CD-ROM or low-tech hardcover/paperback dead trees, especially for those of us who either have no reliable (or any) way to download them or who simply need a permanent copy?  A CD distribution would also provide a convenient archive, for indefinite future reference or in the event that the downloaded PDF should get deleted/corrupted.  Or the hard drive ends up taking a shit and the most recent backup image is months out of date (can't even tell you how many times I've seen it happen). I, for one, have been wishing the back issues be made available as bound volumes, broken down by year, for quite a long time.  This certainly would be more convenient than having to deal with a couple hundred separate issues and the possibility of losing one or several of them.       Wolverine Bates If we see a bunch more people start asking for this, we'll do everything we can to make it happen.

Sensitive Info

Dear 2600: The brain and hacking.  An out of this world technology!  Never before heard of.  A risk to the power structure! Could be killed for exposing this information.       edsimonlocksmith We doubt anybody would want to kill you for exposing the information you sent us here, except for maybe a few readers who are extremely frustrated that you didn't go into greater detail.  If there is more to tell, please send it our way.  We'll burn the return address.

Dear 2600: So the dog ate the hard drive with the IRS emails?  And dog ate the back up tapes too? Time to call the NSA, they have backup tapes of everybody's emails! Oh, the dog ate the NSA tapes too? How convenient!       Mike & Gary You laugh, but the Utah Data Center may make all of this and more possible.  If they were to market their intense curiosity over our personal correspondences as an actual service for our convenience, they just might have a shot at selling it to the public.  Imagine being able to hear a phone conversation you had with your dear departed grandmother from 20 years ago.  They can make such magic possible.

Dear 2600: I recently left a job working for MU Healthcare, located in Columbia, Missouri. Over the course of my 14 years of working for the place, I submitted many corporate compliance submissions about numerous security problems, but so far much of that has fallen on deaf ears.  Because of that, I feel the need to send you this letter to make more people aware of the problems... which are ongoing, and much of which they are aware of, but refuse to do anything about (at least up until now). For starters, many computers at the place are running Windows XP even though XP is no longer supported.  I think they will eventually transition all of those to newer versions of Windows, but who knows when.  They were still running Windows 95 and 98 on some of the computers up until a few years ago. Many of the computers in the rooms that doctors see patients in have active USB ports that could potentially be used for nefarious activities by someone inclined to take those types of actions.  These are computers that are on the intranet and have access to medical records, etc.  They are in rooms where patients have to sit and wait for doctors to show up - sometimes 30 or more minutes of waiting time.  Lots can be done in those precious minutes.  Almost all of the computers in those clinics have screen savers, but the computers don't lock when the screen savers come on, so access to the computer is only a mouse movement away.  These computers have access to shared departmental drives, and in the past some very confidential documents were sometimes easily accessible in those shared drives by anyone with any intranet access. IDX is one of the main computer systems that holds patient info.  It has logging capabilities.  It would not be hard for someone hit with some social engineering to tum on key logging, which basically saves everything the screen in IDX "sees" to a text log file, and ends up saving a whole day's worth of work filled with confidential info somewhere that someone could access later, email it to who knows whom, or just save it out on a USB thumb drive for easy removal from the building, etc. Outlook is mainly used for emails.  Many departments use special folders to organize emails in the organization.  However, many of those folders are not set up securely, so in some cases someone from the wrong department may access emails from another department as all of this is on shared network drives.  Recently, the organization increased the space allocations on the email system to allow many more years of information to be saved than was previously possible without archiving.  A lot of old archived files are saved in some less-than-secure areas because that was not done in prior years. Excel is used by many managers and middle management staff to study a lot of different things - and those files are saved all over the place in various folders on the network and in email attachments, etc.  Many of those Excel files have confidential patient information on them, and almost all of them do not have passwords. Many, many websites are used by billers to access insurance companies' secure online communications - as a result, many passwords are needed by billing staff, and a lot of those get saved to those insecure Excel files, etc.  Interestingly, a few insurance websites don't require secure logins, just generic info like a patient's name and insurance card number.  Kinda scary when you think about how much identity theft there is out there. Billers have started working from home.  Many of those billers are working at homes that have spouses and children (some full grown live-in children in some cases) in the home when the work is being done, which is potentially a huge amount of HIPPA violations occurring daily.  My guess is many of those at-home workers are using not-so-secure networks based on discussions with some of them before my employment was ended.  Some of these billers are using their spouses and children as technical support when the real tech support is not able to help them, so a whole lot of eyes are seeing confidential patient information almost daily that should not be. Billing office printing rooms often have papers left near the printers overnight - these are typically bills or medical records that were printed in error and should have been shredded, but were not.  They have started doing a rotation to have those papers removed by assigned staff nightly, but many days the staff assigned to that daily chore doesn't get the job done, in part because a good chunk of the time those assigned to that chore are working from home on the day they were assigned to clean out the print room. Medical students follow doctors around from room to room in the hospital and in some clinics.  While that's not too big of a security issue in and of itself, it becomes one when they are out in hallways talking about patient information loud enough for anyone in hearing range a few rooms over to overhear them... that happens a lot. Pagers are used a lot.  If someone knows the numbers to the pagers and uses them at the right time, they could create a lot of havoc. RightFax has started being used a lot, along with PDFCreator to send and receive faxes as electronic documents that can be easily attached to emails and saved on shared drives.  There's potentially a lot of confidential PDF and TIFF files floating around where eyes that should not see them can. Most of the medical records are in Cerner PowerChart, so they are fairly secure.  However, like all computer systems, there are some potential security holes.  Passwords aren't updated as often as they should be, and in some cases the tech support team just lets people keep using the same passwords over and over and over.  Similar problems with password updating happen across the board on all of the various systems that are further upstream that feed in to PowerChart.  A lot of what is done in the nightly jobs is automated and is based on ancient software, so there's a whole lot of information going between various systems, and some of that flow of info may not be nearly as secure as it should be.  They try to keep the servers in secure physical locations, but they are not all that secure sitting in the top floor of what is basically a warehouse. There is Wi-Fi available in many buildings and it has guest access on some devices so anyone can login to it.  This is a nice little thing to have access to as a patient, but it also potentially can become a security problem as far as the intranet goes. There's probably a lot more security holes at the place, but those are just a few that I can remember at the moment.       Jeff What a fantastic security audit!  We hope everyone in a similar environment takes a good hard look at their operations to see if such problems are being replicated.  The information you've revealed is appreciated and will ultimately wind up helping a great many people.  The only ones who would accuse you of making things more insecure with your revelations are those who helped create this environment in the first place by not fixing these obvious problems.  There is no better microcosm to the entire hacker world, as bright and observant individuals constantly try to alert the world to things that don't work right or are completely nonsensical in their implementation.  People get regularly punished for expressing such thoughts and letting others know of the problems, as if they were the ones who made them in the first place!  We see kids kicked out of middle school and employees fired from their jobs just for telling the truth.  We hope, in addition to helping people secure their work environments (especially those that deal with members of the general public), your letter will inspire more people to come for ward and reveal such information, regardless of the threats they may face for doing so.

Dear 2600: GCHQ does surv on US public.  want to access obc systems in self defense due to cyber surv/ data mining by force/ cyber t/ abuse tech as used for cyber sex and the withholding of mag/ dig evidence.       n n This odd mix of a Twitter post and a smuggled Telex dispatch is the sort of thing we suspect we're going to just have to get used to.

Ignorance Campaign

Dear 2600: Howdy from the Facebook 2600 group!  Some web troll has decided to prove himself by "wiping 2600.com off the face of the earth."  Of course he can't do that, so now he's just trying to get your Yahoo! store taken offline. I tried reporting it to Yahoo! Stores but, as I don't have my own store, I can't access their customer service.  You can, and if you also suggest to them that they suspend his ads/store/Yahoo! services for violating the terms of service, it might be good for some lulz.       Facebook Member This is nothing new.  Idiots abound in the world, on the Internet, and even on Facebook. Before we analyze this specific attack, we should point out that the Facebook 2600 group has over 10,000 members, most of whom are intelligent, constructive, and supportive.  We recognize the efforts of those trying to keep things organized and moving in a good direction.  It's no simple task. Concerning what is being attempted here, let's look at a few quotes from the attacker, who apparently is trying to trigger some sort of automated action to close down our store: "I'm not entirely familiar with their particular turn around time or how many complaints exactly need to be sent before it'll trigger.  Some sites are actually largely bot operated up until a certain number of complaints have been received, at which point it then gets sent to an actual human being.  This will be a three month campaign, primarily attacking the main revenue sources of the site by exploiting the fact that the site's store front is breaking the Yahoo! ToS...  To be honest the official 2600 site is pretty much a gawd damn target just waiting to happen...  Somehow I doubt I'm going to be the first person whose gotten it wiped off the face of the net.  Some sites/groups are a lot like cockroaches, no matter how many times you squish them they just keep coming back for more!  ... I like 2600 though, so I'm not going to try and completely destroy it, just topple it over for a little bit I think will be a good enough example." Where do we start?  First off, the assumption that we break the terms of service in any way is just plain wrong.  We're actually one of the highest rated stores anywhere on the Yahoo! system.  That's because we're diligent about every order, we contact customers whenever there's a problem of any sort, and we don't stop until matters are completely resolved.  People also tend to be very happy whenever they receive things from us, so we tend to get really good feedback.  It sounds like this person never even visited our store, let alone tried to order anything. We do get the occasional new person who is shocked that hackers actually have a store on the Internet and amazed that anyone would trust them with (gasp) credit card numbers!  In the 15 years our store has been operating, there hasn't been a single instance of a card number being compromised while in our possession.  The reason for this is because we understand the risks involved and we take the needed precautions.  The many problems you hear about in the papers are because some entity (usually a large one) didn't do this.  Those people who perpetuate the myth that hackers can't be trusted with this kind of thing clearly have little understanding of what hackers are actually all about. We should point out that this trust works both ways.  Sure, we have had attempts by people to make fraudulent purchases using someone else's card.  We have caught each and every attempt over the years and we have the skill and motivation to go a lot further than most merchants in tracking down someone engaged in a ripoff scheme.  That said, the amount of attempts over the years has been negligible.  If we had the ability to rate our customers, they would get the highest possible score.  Their support and encouragement has been phenomenal and basically makes everything we do possible. So the fool behind this attack has little (if any) understanding of the hacker world and we're sure their knowledge of the way our store operates is no better.  Having announced their intentions enables us to keep an eye out for weirdness, as well as to notify the system administrators to also be on the lookout. We're always asking people who claim our main site is objectionable and needs to be taken down to tell us exactly what it is they're so offended by.  We never get an answer.  We ask this of service providers who block access to our website as well.  At best, we're shown that we have earned a classification of "hacking."  Yes, that's the subject matter we focus on in the magazine.  But what is it specifically on our website that triggers the blocking?  We have links to radio shows, cover images, conference talks, and the like.  The actual content of the magazine (which we might be able to understand them objecting to) is not on the website.  So is it because of who we are or what we represent that earns us this blacklisting?  We would at least like to know the real reason.  We've recently heard that even the U.S. Congress is blocked from visiting both our main site and the HOPE X site, where they could access information about our Daniel Ellsberg and Edward Snowden talks. Ignorance abounds - there is nothing new here.  Maybe we just need to start speaking a little louder when we call attention to it.

Dear 2600: I need information on obtaining a subscription for my company.  I am emailing you due to the fact that my organization's web filter will not allow me to get to your website, where I am sure I would be able to find what I need.  My organization would like to purchase two yearly subscriptions, but have no contact information for the transaction (I do have a copy of 2600 but see no helpful info in it about how to subscribe).  I actually have my own personal subscription and just resubscribed, but I do not have the necessary information with me at work. Please respond as soon as possible.       Ben We've already sent the information to this writer but we're printing this to show what lengths people have to go to, simply because somebody has deemed our existence on the Internet to be inappropriate.  If we're going to be labeled as criminals, we want to know what specifically leads these people to that conclusion.  Failing that, any such blocks need to be removed.  We want to know the names of services that continue to label us in this way and we want to make sure we do no business with any organization or company that continues to use such services.  To say we should be blocked because we discuss hacking is absurd as every news site also does this without being blocked. We don't know if this person's issue was missing some pages, but information on how to subscribe can be found in every issue on the staff page and often in other places.

Reader Response

Dear 2600: Re: DeepGeek in 31:1, think old school as in answering service.  I changed the voice mail on my cell phones to forward to my private "answering service."  On Verizon (check "Call Forwarding" on Wikipedia for full info), use *71 plus ten digits to enable conditional forwarding (a.k.a. busy/no answer) to send calls to your special voice mail/message center.  This gives you a chance to see the incoming ID on your cell before the call is forwarded to your special place.  This can be any line that someone answers or just an answering machine that answers as if the caller has reached a message service. Your "service" should always request callers' name and number as well as the name and number called.  Include a statement that all calls are logged and callback to toll-free type numbers are not acceptable.  This procedure will discourage marketing and robo-calls.  On your home phone, let the Caller ID be your guide to/when answering.  Always Google unrecognized numbers.       2kSysOp This is a damn good policy for anyone to follow.  Too often, people just let their phones run their lives by always being available to anyone or anything that calls them.  The result is a population constantly "on call" the way only emergency personnel used to be.  Unless you're particularly lonely or enjoy complete surprises, why not let calls with numbers you don't recognize simply find their way to voice mail like in the above example?  You can always call them back if it turns out to be someone you actually wanted to have a conversation with.  Doing this on a large scale would make telemarketing completely useless.  Choosing not to answer certain calls would also save people from being constantly hounded by work issues when they're not actually at work.  If your job demands that you be on call at all times, then you need to get compensated for that.  Everyone is entitled to their own time and not having that means you're under the control of someone else.  We've gradually allowed this sort of attitude to become acceptable and the result is a nation of stressed out zombies.  As hackers, we love telephones and always have, but we've also always believed that they should be tools of fun, only to be used for drudgery when there's no avoiding it.  As individuals, each of us have the ability to control this technology to meet our specific needs.  It's high time we started to actually use that control.

Dear 2600: Having just read Clutching Jester's "Hacker Perspective" in 31:1, it made me wonder how many 2600 readers also wrote login Trojans when they were at school (at least those who went through after the introduction of computer labs!).  A friend of mine also wrote a Trojan to emulate the Netware login system used in the late-1990s at my school and, while I didn't get caught by it (only because of a tiny mistake that I was attentive enough to spot), a number of other students fell "victim" to this prank.  I also heard a couple of students a few years above me used a much lower tech approach to get the password of the head computer teacher - they swapped the keyboards of two computers next to each other, so when she attempted to log in, her admin password simply came out on the screen of the other computer.  Apparently, it was "spider," which just goes to show how relaxed the password standards were even for system administrators back then!       Malvineous That keyboard swapping trick remains one of our all-time favorites for its simplicity and outright gall.

Dear 2600: All gravy 2600 baby, u need to start leveraging Google+, don't tell me uve gone all Ben Franklin on me and have recused yourselves to the print world only.       Charles Perhaps a more convincing argument for the merits of the digital world could be made in somewhat less of a Twitter dialect?

Dear 2600: I just thoroughly enjoyed Toilet Fixer 555C's excellent article on toilet hacking (31:2) and thought I would throw in a few cents from the peanut gallery. The effectiveness of a toilet flush, as he indicates, comes from the energy of the water being rapidly drained from the tank.  However, increasing the volume of water is not the only way to accomplish this; another way is to increase the height of the water column, thereby increasing its pressure and energy.  The extension of the standpipe accomplished this, but of course it also increases the flush volume. The modified hack is to replace part of the internal volume of the tank with water that isn't flushed, whose sole purpose is to raise the water level in the tank.  This can be accomplished by filling a one or two liter soda bottle to the very top with water, capping it, and either standing it or laying it down in such a way that it doesn't interfere with the mechanism.  Since the bottle is filled with water, it will be dense enough to stay in place and increase the flush effectiveness, potentially while maintaining a mere eight liter flush. Fluid mechanics FTW!       StarckTruth And this is living proof that there's absolutely no subject matter safe from hackers.

Dear 2600: From the "Telecom Informer" column on carrier hotel efficiencies (31:2), I was quite surprised that The Prophet had the temperature of the carrier hotel increased to 130 degrees Fahrenheit.  If you look at the OSHA heat index and work/rest schedules, you will find that at a heat index greater than 115 degrees, there is a 15 minute work/45 minute rest per hour schedule.  I hope the air conditioning savings are greater than having your employees sit around for 75 percent of the time.  They are still allowed to sit in on meetings and read instruction manuals, however they are not allowed to even raise their arms.  If your employees aren't sitting around 75 percent of every hour, then you're just begging for a lawsuit from the inevitable heat injuries and even possible death from heat stroke.  The Prophet wears a very Black Hat indeed.       Kyle

Dear 2600: I picked up your latest edition on a lark recently.  Enjoyable reads, congratulations.  I've often wondered about hackers in general, and if any could survive in the Grand Rapids (Michigan) culture, what they would be like.  Not one myself, just a curious onlooker.  When I passed by your "Hacker Happenings" page, I broke into an ironic grin.  You're booked for a conference at the DeVos Place here in Grand Rapids.  I'm sure there is no other place in this city that would be so happy to host your "happenings."  Sort of like the ants I draw with my cotton balls soaked in sugar and Borax.  For out-of-towners, The DeVos Place is owned by the DeVos family of Amway fame and fortune.  They host all Republican representatives at either home base in Ada (the Amway Grand Plaza), or their latest neighborhood acquisition, The J.W. Marriott.  The family holds the pinnacle seat of the right-wing conservative movement here in the great state of Michigan.  I'm not sure that the people booking events understand what your hobby entails, but I'm certain the family would love to know more.       Deb M.

Dear 2600: Re: Tyler Frisbee's "Hacker Perspective" article in 31:2 - wow.  Thank you for writing that article and sharing your perspective.  Your rapid outlook combined with age makes me extremely excited someone so young is so wise. Applying experiences and skills to daily functions, both new and old, is tricky to explain in response to "how to hack" questions.  So many people think it is a competition with others when really challenging yourself is the most essential thing.  I look forward to you skilling your trade and having fun in the process.  I'd give you more respect and praise, but it would fall short.       pic0o

Dear 2600: The Python program listed in your article "Network Condom" (31:2) needs the last line changed to run on my Pi. Replace the line: ;print str(e) import socket with: print str(e) import socket Now if you only could tell me how to find the port number the program is asking for, it would be a big help.       Allan

Dear 2600: Long time reader, first time writer.  I've read many articles and letters from young hackers, such as the "Hacker Perspective" in 31:2.  But what happens when a hacker grows up?  I consider myself a cyberpunk, not a hacker.  I predate the Internet.  The web grew up and around me.  I explored every nook and cranny.  What does a cyberpunk do who is a master of the web and wants to pull off the ultimate hack?  Run for office - Commissioner of Hollywood, Florida.  Then write a case study.  I had no money and no experience, but the incumbent still spent 14 times more money to win.  (My campaign was two beautiful works of cyber art.  When searching for "Hollywood Commissioner," all links on the first page returned were about me.  Number One is simply not enough.)  I reverse engineered Facebook to programmatically search and send Facebook messages directly to my target audience.  It's been a couple of years since the 2012 election when my name appeared on the ballot with Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.  Now's a good time to show it off.  Check out the case study here: rickvaldez.com/social-search-case-study.pdf       Rick Valdez

Dear 2600: I just subscribed to the paper posted magazine with a one year subscription. I wish I had known that the app version was available instead... perhaps you should offer that first. I subscribed for about ten years... and I wish that counted for something in getting past issues online.       Richard What people should try to remember is that each item we offer is something different.  Subscribing to new issues is different from getting back issues.  Electronic editions are not the same as printed ones.  For everything we put out, a specific amount of work is required and our prices reflect that.  We're always open to suggestions on how to do it differently, but for now, this is what we can manage, based on our costs and logistics.

Dear 2600: You allow text formatting in your letters.  Aren't you worried about a reply-injection style attack?       Alan You make an excellent point.  Here, have a free t-shirt. Editor's Note: We did not write the above reply and now we wonder how man y other replies we didn't write.

Issues

Dear 2600: I've come to the End of my "2600 Path," as you may have deduced by my ever escalating frustrations with the idiocy calling itself "2600 Letters Section" these days, a section which used to be witty and brilliant and responsible, even when caustic or acrid and now seems simply, well, dumb, foolish, n00bile, and powerless.  The same corporate puppet mess I thought 2600 was once designed to fight. I signed on as a "lifetime subscriber" in early 1998, so I have earned back my $260 and a little bit more.  Since you are obviously so greedy that you will not spare a t-shirt or two for your authors these days, I now formally resign my "lifetime subscription."  If you need money that badly to be such consistent dicks about it, for all the world to read, well, it's the least I can do for a publication I used to love so much and took me so very far into worlds I never dreamed I would be a part of. I thought briefly of trying to transfer the subscription to a friend's three-year-old daughter (who could actually use it), but I feel this way is better.  Thank you for valiantly keeping up with my 10-20 (or more?) address changes over the years and for publishing a few of my scribblings.  I may yet submit a few more articles, as clearly the next two generations of hackers that have appeared as I've been aging clearly need all the leadership, guidance, and good neutral advice they can get!       Barrett D. Brown Read the fine print.  There is no getting out of a lifetime subscription.  You will not be rid of us that easily.  You can try moving 20 times, changing your name, even going into witness protection.  Your magazine will be appearing promptly at your doorstep every quarter.  That is the price you pay for paying the price you did back then. As for shirts, we've noticed a sentimental mood in the air recently, so why not revisit that old argument of yours yet again?  We're sure everyone here misses it.  We used to send two shirts for writers of articles.  Before that we sent one.  Before that, none.  Now it's one again.  It's always been based on what we can afford to do.  Times change.  We must all try to cope.

Dear 2600: Hello. USA IS A F*CKING JOKE!  You F*CKING PEOPLE ARE A F*CKING JOKE!  ALL OF YOU ARE NOTHING BUNCH OF FREEMASONS - SKULL AND BONES - OR OTHER F*CKING GOVERMENT CONSPIRACY WHATEVER.  I'M BETTER THAN ALL OF YOU WORTHLESS SHADOW-OPS JOKE!  F*CK YOUR WANNA-BEE BLACK OPS "DO WHAT YOU WANT" IS A F*CKING JOKE!  F*CK ALL YOUR BLACK OPERATIONS GO GET EDWARD SNOWDEN YOURSELF!  I AM PSYCHIC COVERED MORE SANSKRIT BOOKS THAN YOU! I TRANSLATED 4 COPIES OF BHAGAVAD-GITA FROM SANSKRIT.  BEEN THERE - DONE THAT.  "REMOTE VIEWING" - HAHAHA - ITS CALLED ZINC-OXIDE.  F*CK YOUR RATHEON AND S-whatever TECHNOLOGY - ITS SEARL AND SWALLOWBIRD TECHNOLOGY - HAWK-OPS JOKE.  F*CK ALL - BLACK-OPS - SHADOW-OPS - JUST STUPID NAMEBRANDS.  TRY BEING A HUMAN BEING.  PEACE OUT       [none given] You raise many good points but somehow your intro and outro seem strangely out of place compared to the rest of your thesis.

Dear 2600: Please get your site search working.  All it says now is "Search results provided by Google.  Google is not affiliated with 2600." Where appropriate, I would like to reference 2600 articles in Wikipedia.       Alan       Cyber Entomologist We're not sure if there was a problem with our search function when you tried it, but our tests indicate that it was working at press time.  If you're expecting to find articles from the magazine on the website, perhaps that's the problem as they've never been stored there.

Dear 2600: When I woke up on March 14, my eyes were badly burnt, my body was aching, and I had a ringing in my ears.  At that time I started hearing things.  About two weeks later, my head started hurting.  It was a constant burning sensation that lasted for about two months.  Someone keeps asking me to delete my social media website.  My family and friends are also experiencing symptoms of this.  My mother, girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, best friend, and others are complaining of headaches, body burning, and voices or hearing music.  My friend who did the Google Play mobile app for my site has been experiencing leg burning.  I think my eight-year-old is being subjected to this and I'm not sure what to do.  I noticed vague symptoms of this about four years ago, but ever since I did this website, things have gotten much worse.  I'm reluctant to talk to many people about this, because I could labeled as mentally ill.  I need help and I don't know where to turn.  Please help me and my family.  I have enclosed a conversation with me and my ex-girlfriend.  She is the mother of my child.  She talks about how she is feeling a burning sensation in her head.  I have done some research on the Internet and this fits the description of directed energy weapons.  Below is a paragraph I copied from a website pertaining to the subject manner.  It is well known and well documented that microwave and extremely low frequency (ELF) and sonic and electromagnetic frequencies can disorient and disrupt human functioning, causing memory loss and confusion.  These directed energy weapons can cause nausea, ringing in the ears, fatigue, headaches, heart attacks, cancer, strokes, and a variety of other symptoms. Please help us.       David We're not going to get super involved in this since it's really not something we're qualified to figure out.  While services that compete with Facebook and other established social media empires tend to be subjected to some negative energy from those entities, we don't think they're capable of something at this level.  If, indeed, multiple people you know are complaining about similar symptoms, it likely has something to do with a part of your lives that you share, such as a home or a product you're all using.  All kinds of crazy things happen to people who live near or under power lines, for instance.  The important thing is to gather your stories together and compare them before reaching any conclusions or putting forth theories.  Then you should all work together to try and figure out what's going on.  Concerning the fear of being labeled as mentally ill, consider the consequences of actually having a mental issue of some sort and not getting treated for that.  If too many weird things start happening to you and nobody else seems affected or concerned, there is a chance that it could be something inside your head and it would be a big mistake to dismiss that possibility outright.  If you assume by default that there's not a huge conspiracy against you that everyone else is somehow involved in, you can try to think this through logically and reach out to qualified people who can help you figure it all out.  Good luck.

Dear 2600: Is there no refund for lifetime subscriptions?  Had I just signed up for a one year subscription I'd get a refund?  Or are there no refunds given to anyone who subscribes to your magazine?  If no refunds are given at all by your company, it should be printed that no refunds are given for canceling any subscription.  What about a partial refund which might not be the whole amount but would be something in return?  If this is how your company runs, that's not right and it's amazing someone hasn't turned your company in.  Please let me know what my options are as I'm just not happy as something mailed on the 1st (and here it's the 10th) should already be delivered to the customer.       David There are a lot of misassumptions here that seem to be feeding upon themselves.  Of course we'll refund a subscription if it's canceled with time remaining.  Lifetime subscriptions are trickier, since it's harder to figure out what percentage of a lifetime has gone by.  In your case, we can easily just subtract the one year of issues you received from the total and refund that.  Naturally, we'd prefer to avoid such situations, especially when it comes to problems with our issues actually arriving.  Over the past year, we've had to resend every issue to you because you never seemed to get them.  This seems to be a problem with mail on your end, as this kind of problem wasn't occurring with such frequency anywhere else.  Rest assured, we have tried everything within our power to get this resolved to your satisfaction and hope that by the time this is printed, it will have been.

Gratitude

Dear 2600: 2600 still remains technically relevant, but as a huge industry has been built around hacking, it should be said that you are one of the few surviving voices for traditional values in the community.  I don't think you get enough appreciation for this, so thanks.       Potissimum Libertas       Justin It's a bit funny to think of us as "traditional," but that's probably largely accurate when it comes to what we consider hacker values to be.  But unlike many other traditional movements, this one still has a great number of people, old and young, who truly get it and believe in what we stand for.  If anything, we feel it's growing.  One of the biggest inspirations for this is the huge industry you allude to.  When people see the abuses that they're forced to endure at the hands of such entities, whether it be censorship, privacy invasion, global surveillance, unhealthy content control, or outright violations of the law, hacker values of free speech, sharing of content, and spirit of discovery and rebellion suddenly start to hold a lot more value.  Thanks for the kind words.

Dear 2600: I was about 12-years-old when I started to read your magazine.  That was two years ago.  Since then, I've purchased numerous issues (sadly, I've missed a couple), and am currently thinking about purchasing a subscription because it'd be good knowing that the money goes straight to you and that the proceeds will go towards keeping 2600 in business (which, I can imagine, is fairly difficult for magazines in this day and age - not many people read anymore).  I had my fair share of tech-related questions and inquiries before I started reading 2600.  You guys have inspired me to go beyond asking.  I want to learn as much as I can about technology of all sorts from a more inquisitive and hacker-like perspective, and then put those skills to use!  I'm hooked!  It's an addiction for me: I'm always plugged in! Though it probably isn't the way in which most hackers got started, I created an account on HackThisSite.org to learn, at the very least, a little bit of creative problem solving and patience.  I've also started to learn some C++ on my laptop, writing some basic I/O programs.  I'm loving both of those activities, and they are irreplaceable in my life. Where am I trying to go with this?  What I really want to say is: thank you.  Thank you so much for making a magazine that has fueled my newfound obsession with technology, programming, and hacking.  Maybe I'll be the next Bill Gates (LOL, definitely not)!  Bottom line: you guys kick ass, and, once again, thank you!       Red Pill It's great to hear this sort of thing and it's truly what keeps us going.

Distributor Problem

Dear 2600: I have long loved your magazine and the group meetings.  I'd truly hate to see your kick ass establishment go away.  If we were to get some 2600 fans together to start a "Save 2600" site where your rabid fans can funnel dollars to offset the loss, how could we set that up for you? Keep up the good work guys!       Mike Thanks for the support.  But we honestly don't want people to feel compelled to donate to us.  We believe in evolution and if the environment (readers, distributors, conference attendees, etc.) doesn't support our existence, then by rights we shouldn't be around.  If, through this crisis, we get more people subscribing, buying the stuff we produce, and helping to build a better publication by writing good articles, then we'll survive on our own merits, which is really the only way we want to be able to continue existing in the first place.

Dear 2600: I came across your website article ("Source Interlink Closure and Rebranding Puts 2600 in Limbo."  We happen to be involved with this at a distributor level.  We are a national distributor of magazines throughout the USA with global branches in Canada, Australia, and Rome.  We deliver directly to newsstands and subscribers.       S We've gotten many such offers since our latest distributor fled with our money.  To be blunt, we have no guarantee that the same thing won't happen with you and we need to be really careful.  The publishing industry is in real turmoil as it is - this sort of thing is dealing fatal blows to small publishers left and right.  The rules need to be rewritten to protect us and, unfortunately, we are left with little leverage.  We are definitely interested in expanding our presence in stores overseas, particularly in those countries that still have bookstores.  But to do this , we need to not be losing money in the process.  We're open to anything from shipping our publication to reprinting it locally.  We don't intend to just roll over and we doubt that's what our readers want either.

Dear 2600: I'd like to confirm - if we purchase a subscription or a past issue from your website right now, will the money actually make its way to 2600?       Luke Yes, the website has never been a problem.  Subscribing to the paper edition that way is a guarantee that we will get paid.  The electronic editions through Kindle and Google also actually pay us.  (The ZINIO service just hasn't worked out, unfortunately, as they charge us as much as they payout to be available on their system, so we'll be phasing them out if that doesn't improve.)  As far as the paper edition, everything you buy on the stands now will translate into our getting paid, unless another distributor decides to take our money and run.  Let's assume that won't happen again, since leaving issues on the stands definitely doesn't help us.  Thanks for your concerns and support.

Dear 2600: I really hope you guys can raise the money to stay in business. I used to be a subscriber to 2600 in the 1990s.  I still have some of the magazines as well. I've been out of work since 2002, and trying to get off disability.  I am trying to become a writer myself. If you guys do a Kickstarter or Indiegogo project, you can raise some money and give out copies of digests of 2600 or put people's names on a part of your website as a sponsor or whatever.  I am sure I would donate for that to happen and so would a lot of other people. I am spreading your link on social network sites to raise awareness of what The Enthusiast Network (TEN) has done to your company.  I don't want to see 2600 die, but my own income is very limited.  If I could afford it, I'd subscribe to your magazine again or buy a few copies, but you have my moral support until I can afford to do those things. I used to work as a programmer making good money until I had a stroke in June 2001, and then got on short-term disability and was fired as soon as I returned in November 2001.  After that, nobody wanted to hire someone who was sick.  I know the industry is corrupt and I stand up against it.  I remember when they did the same thing to Ashida Kim for his Ninja books. I'm trying my own publishing company (www.kingpublishing.info).  Book sales are low and I only sell on Kindle.  I tried to do a "technology trends" book, but got sick and the trends keep on changing.  If I get a chance to write a new book, I'll add in a link for your company and explain what is going on in part of the books I write to help you out.  I'm micro small, one man, and trying to help indie writers, but I see 2600 as my heroes as I grew up, exposing the truth out there in the tech world. Please don't go down without a fight.  Hackers built the Internet, and corporations are the ones who are ruining it.       Norman G. King       CEO King Publishing Thanks - letters like yours are very inspirational to us.  We're sorry to hear about your plight but offer in turn the same advice - stay strong and don't let up.  Success isn't always measured in terms of sales.  We often hear from people who tell us how something they read once in one of our issues changed their lives (and most always for the better).  That, to us, is worth countless issues sold.

Dear 2600: Heard what Source Interlink did to you - sucks.       Anonymous Yes, it certainly does.  But we're far from the only victims here.  Apart from their own employees, Source (now renamed as The Enthusiast Network (TEN) so people don't associate them with their crimes) has dealt a severe blow to independent publishers throughout the States.  To them it was simply a matter of moving some numbers around, changing some corporate names, and continuing to make a ton of money in other ventures.  The only moral thing to do when deciding that you no longer want to be involved in a particular side of your enterprise is to pay your debts through the profitable side before you shut the doors.  But that's not how the corporate world works.  Everything they did they will get away with legally because they know how to use the system to benefit themselves and screw everyone else.

Dear 2600: I came across your article about Source Interlink's closure and your efforts to get your money.  While I do hope you get your money, I will say at $100,000, you are very low on the list...  Source owed $7 million to Time Inc. at the time of closure... and I'm sure many more from there.  The publishing branch of Source separated itself from the distribution part years ago, probably to protect themselves for this very reason.  While from the outside, it seemed we were the same company, we were not.  Each had separate money, budgets, and CEOs. Due to the financial standing of the company, we did not even receive severance packages... but I wish luck to you.       Former Source Interlink Employee       Angela While what you say concerning the setup of the company is true from a legal and corporate view, the two branches were clearly working in conjunction with one another.  For one thing, Source Interlink Publishing changed its name to The Enthusiast Network the very day that Source Interlink Distribution decided to stop operating.  The IPs for each of the branch's websites went to the exact same place.  You could get from one branch to another on the same phone network.  They were clearly still very closely connected and in coordination with one an other.  This "separation" was merely done so they could get away with this exact scenario, as you correctly surmise.  And you should be twice as pissed off about that as we are, as these are the people you gave your time to, and you were obviously treated very badly in the end.  We'll all get through this one way or another, but we need to take steps to prevent this kind of abuse from happening to others in the future.

Dear 2600: I was very saddened to hear about the recent problems you have been having with your distributor.  It is devastating to hear that this may be the end due to another's mistake. I've been a dedicated reader for a few years, but have forgone the lifetime subscription because I like to know that you are getting something from me for each issue to at least keep the lights on.  I keep my stack of paperbacks nearby as a sign of pride.  Therefore, I can't believe I'm suggesting this: Have you considered going completely digital?  I don't think it would be the same for me, but if I had to choose, it would be simple.  I've seen a few other hacker mags survive this way with smaller readership, so I think it would definitely be possible. Keep up the good fight.       Wolf While this may seem like an obvious solution, it isn't really.  Digital editions offer many conveniences and features, but paper has its own special allure that still exists to this day, albeit in a reduced form, something we believe is a good thing.  A glut of paper publications is a waste on many levels.  Works that are valued and supported by the actual readers are what last.  We like to think that this is the case with our humble publication.  We are doing everything possible to preserve our collection digitally and to do so in a way that will allow such editions to transcend upgrades and new versions of hardware and software.  Still, in the end, we believe paper will survive for centuries, as it has so far for those things worth saving.  We're not so sure the works of Mozart and Shakespeare would have survived for centuries if they were only saved on hard drives and memory sticks.  Invariably, we find that people have difficulty tracking down their first digital photographs from a long forgotten format or letters they wrote on a Mac Plus many years ago.  Albums and physical papers face other risks of disappearing, but it won't be because they become incompatible with our eyes or were erased by a company that took over their physical space.  That said, we would be quite foolish not to put everything that we value into a digital format as well, not just once but many times, to ensure their survival in one form or another through the ages.  So,for as long as there's enough support for it, we'll continue to publish the old fashioned way and also publish in as many digital formats as we can.  We think Benjamin Franklin would agree.

Inquiries

Dear 2600: I am thinking about submitting an article regarding U.S. government financing of encryption software.  Typically, what is the maximum amount of words or characters long an article can be?  Are there any other submission guidelines or requirements for articles?       RT We generally make space for articles that are interesting, so you shouldn't worry about a maximum length.  As long as you have points to make, examples to share, and techniques to use, there's no reason to stop writing.  We'll make it work.  An article that is too long gives us more to work with than one that is too short.  You can find more guidelines under the submission section on the 2600 website, but it's relatively simple.  This publication is largely written by its readers, so we encourage as many people as possible to become a part of the community.

Dear 2600: I'm the lead coach for The Observant Creators, one of our school's three LEGO League teams.  I just noticed our team number (which was assigned entirely sequentially) happens to be 2600.  Which is obviously awesome and we would like to celebrate the heritage we have stumbled into. As I'm sure we'll crush regionals and podium nationals, and land on the front page of The New York Times, I just wanted to check: would you sue us?  Because I'm broke and I'm sure all the other parents are too.  Or is there some way we can make this awesome and nothing else?       Niels It makes about as much sense as a lot of things in the corporate world.  If we had good lawyers and no shame, we could probably make a good case and shut you down, all the while teaching your team a valuable lesson about the way the world really works.  Since we haven't yet devolved to that state, we can only wish you the best and hope that you kick some serious LEGO ass.

Dear 2600: Would it be possible to have this email passed on to the person that's responsible for domain acquisitions in your organization? I own the quite incredible domain name m.ag.  Like New York Magazine with nym.ag, it could be redirected to 2600magazine.com and used on social media to increase sharing and make it easier and faster for mobile users to access your site.  Single-letter domains have been shown to massively increase sharing on social media due to their wow factor and shortness.  This is especially true for mobile users. More and more companies do this now: Amazon (a.co), Microsoft Bing (bi.ng), Overstock (o.co), TIME (ti.me), etc. I have already a handful of interested companies, so I've created an auction on Flippa, which is the largest and most trusted marketplace for buying and selling websites and domains in the world. In case you'll be participating in the auction, could you please just drop me a line?       Filip We're not exactly swimming in cash, but if someone wants to sell us 2600m.ag for a decent price, we might be open to it, although that and many of the other examples cited aren't "single-letter domains," so we're not entirely sure what you're trying to sell us.  We're pretty happy with 2600.com, though, which is just as long and probably easier to remember.  Ironically, the domain name of ours you quoted (2600magazine.com) is one that we forgot we even had.  Perhaps the real problem is that there are too many damn domain names out there in the first place.  Although if the day ever comes when we can get 26.00, that would be rather hard to resist.  And we're still working on 2600.mil and 2600.gov, but we can't really talk about those.

Dear 2600: I really wants to be a hacker...  How can i learn that kind of stuff.  That requires a lot of programming skills i think...  Can you suggest some ways to learn hacking...       Emperor Aslan Well, you're off to a good start.  Using question marks is a sign of weakness as it shows that you don't already know everything.  Not capitalizing "I" when referring to yourself indicates that, while knowing everything, you don't think too highly of yourself.  And, of course, you're an emperor.  We can just award you the title of Hacker assuming you send us the necessary fees.  Oh, and one final test - a true hacker knows to strictly obey instructions and your instructions here are to stop reading anything after this paragraph.  We mean it. For the rest of you, just read through some issues and you'll see what it means to be a hacker.  It's not something that can be taught, only experienced through experimentation and lots of thinking.  Computers and programming lend themselves to this sort of thing, but they are not at all required in order to think and live like a hacker.  When the emperor sends us his check, perhaps we'll build a hacker school that explains this in more detail.

Dear 2600: Please I want to know where I can register and host a domain without being banned or termination of my domain.       Sanusi Monday O. You must have something really incredible on your site if this is your main concern.  Without knowing more details, it's rather difficult to advise you.  But this basic guide may help you to figure out where best to register your domain.  Overly violent material is just fine here in the USA.  For sexual content that might be banned wherever you happen to be, perhaps Russia will turn a blind eye.  Terrorism - well, that depends on who's in power at the moment in the region where you register.  Keep checking back as the rules change frequently.  If your content has anything to do with hacking, then you're completely out of luck as no regime anywhere wants to touch that.

Dear 2600: I was wondering if I can have permission to put the article "Watching the Watchers" (31:2) on my website.  I think it's a great article for those who do not understand what the spirit of hacking is.  It also gives a good introduction on how our privacy is being compromised.  Thanks for your time.  Keep up the great work.       Bast We have no objections provided credit is given to the magazine.  This holds true for other articles as well, provided the authors don't object to being on a particular site.

Dear 2600: Although one is merely a fiction and the other is a reality that exists in the present day, don't you find it funny how people don't seem to find it hard to accept a masked hero who will work outside the law and does what he deems necessary - such as Batman - but when it comes to Anonymous, these masked men (who are also working outside the law and do what they deem necessary) are branded as cowards hiding behind computer screens, terrorists who are a threat to national/international security, and as a bunch of 40-year-old men sitting in their parents' basements trolling on the Internet?  If it's not too much to ask, what are your thoughts on this?  And, do you support the group?  Of course, I do not require an answer; I was simply curious.       Cromwell We support anyone who stands up for what they believe in and isn't afraid to take a stand.  We support the concept of remaining anonymous, as anonymity is not a crime, nor should it ever be considered such.  We cannot say we agree always with any group on all positions or tactics, but we doubt anyone remotely affiliated with Anonymous can either.  What we can say is that the world is a better place with them in it and their being vocal raises attention at critical moments.

Dear 2600: I am a grateful reader of your magazine and I love it.  Now I am planning to register the domain 2600.ch for personal use.  Does this collide with any name or label rights from you?  The only reason why I want to use this name is because "2600" represents ideas I do agree with and is also a spirit which I was looking for a long time (especially references to 1984, I love it).  Thanks in advance for your answer.  Greetings from Switzerland.       Sam We doubt many people will be going to 2600.ch to look for information on our magazine.  The only time this might be an issue to us would be if the site represented itself as part of our company with the intent of misleading people.  Since we doubt that's what you intend to do, we don't see any problem here.  Of course, a link to us is always nice, but not required.

More on Meetings

Dear 2600: We had this regular encounter ongoing in São Paulo, Brazil for some time now called HackHour.  I think I had already sent a message to 2600 a few years ago when the meetings were regular, but we had to stop for this or that reason.  Life happens, sometimes. Anyway, I want you to know that we are starting the regular meetings again, preferably happening on the first Friday of each month, 20:00 hours local time (GMT-3).  For more information (in Portuguese), we have a map and instructions at www.hackhour.com.br and a Facebook group (invite only).  If you guys are in São Paulo, don't be ashamed to come, as many of us speak fluent English and a fresh mind would be very welcome. I know there is this meeting in Belo Horizonte, but it is a thousand kilometers away from São Paulo or Rio, so there's no way to go on a regular basis.  Now we have the meetings back in São Paulo as well. All future meetings will be happening on the first Friday of each month.  I'll keep you posted on the news.  Best regards and hack everything!       Overall This is great to hear and exactly the type of thing that's needed in the community.  We encourage all of our readers to visit meetings especially when traveling to other parts of the world.  Nothing is better than connecting with like-minded individuals in a completely different environment.

HOPE X

(Note:  These letters were sent to our feedback address for HOPE X but we thought they would be of interest to readers.  Since we didn't explicitly tell writers that these comments might be printed, we have omitted names.)

Dear 2600: I'm very excited to attend my first HOPE and see Snowden and Ellsberg. I was working for an NPR affiliate when I was in school so many years ago when the Ellsberg story broke.  He has always been someone I've looked up to for his integrity. Since then, I've done IT in a variety of capacities and have seen, if not everything, then most of it.  I'm extremely tired.  I'm almost 59-years-old and I weep for what has happened in this country over the years. Several years ago, I was the IT director for one of the large construction companies in D.C. when 9/11 took place.  We were responsible for rebuilding "that" side of The Pentagon. The architectural firm responsible for all the CAD drawings for the project posted them on an open FTP server so the subcontractors could download them. All.  The.  CAD.  Drawings.  No.  Encryption.  Nothing. I pointed out to them (and my bosses) that they were handing the building schematics to the world.  (The CAD drawings basically laid out the entire operating system for The Pentagon - a hacker's dream and certainly something the "bad guys" would be interested in using.) I was given the "don't rock the boat" lecture.  I began planning my family's move from the area! We now live in Vermont, where I am the IT director for a small pharmaceutical company.  You know what?  I'm even more depressed by the state of IT - NSA notwithstanding. There is a tremendous amount of pushback when I try to get state legislators/regulators interested in open-source software to resolve some of the ongoing problems I encounter in my dealings with the state.  (The Vermont version of the Obamacare website was/is a disaster beginning with Oracle login security screens that were out-of-the-box templates never made site-specific prior to roll out...) Nobody wants the current narrative to be interrupted.  Instead, the can just keeps getting kicked down the road. Five years ago, the entire Agency of Human Services ground to a halt when its entire network got infected due to unpatched security software.  Millions of dollars wasted since nobody on staff had the expertise to resolve it.  The state hired a "consultant" to fix the problem.  This wasn't too long after the state had moved to SharePoint and out sourced a good percentage of IT support staff. Again, don't rock the boat. So...  I look forward to HOPE in order to recharge my tired batteries.  I've been reading 2600 for decades (!) and have been a lifetime subscriber for several years. To keep my sanity, I run a small consultancy that has some definite limits - I push free and open-source software and tools and will not do gubmint work. And I hope the good people at 2600, and their readers, will continue the good fight as I hope to.  As a dedicated tinfoil hat wearer, I feel vindicated by Snowden.  And Ellsberg.  And the others. We are right.  And we are not going away. Thank you for listening and I hope I can volunteer some time next weekend.       HOPE Writer 1

Dear 2600: "Don't be frustrated."  I guess it's easy for you guys to say that, considering that all the "special people" got to walk right past the lines filling the lobby of the 18th floor and enter the rooms that were closed off to the rest of us regular attendees. This is the third HOPE I've attended.  I had a great time at the last two conferences; it was such a great experience to have finally found a community of people who actually understood the things I was interested in.  I even stayed after the end to help deconstruct the stages and put everything away (and got a cool red t-shirt for doing it).  I know it takes a lot of work to put on a conference like this, but I also know that you know how many tickets you sold, what the maximum occupancy of each room in the conference space is, and that people like me were going to get screwed.  Your emails are evidence of that. I and many other attendees sacrificed a great deal of time and money to attend this conference.  This was actually the hardest one for me to attend so far, but I thought it was going to be worth it.  That I was going to be part of the next cool thing that HOPE was doing.  I pre-registered back in June.  I was excited to see Daniel Ellsberg talk.  Even more excited when the announcement came that Snowden was going to be part of it. Instead, I ended up being rudely shooed away from even trying to huddle in the tiny room next to the first floor escalator in an attempt to view the last of the simulcast screens.  The man on the 18th floor had shouted at me that I could watch the talk on the web.  I didn't have my laptop with me.  If I wanted to watch the main event of the conference from my computer, I could have just stayed home and done that for free. I hope you accomplished whatever you were trying to do this year.       HOPE Writer 2 We know the popularity of the keynote address inconvenienced a bunch of people and we're sorry about that.  We faced some very unique challenges as far as having the threat of a surprise fire inspection right before the Snowden talk that could have shut down the entire event had we not scrambled to meet their stringent requirements and had our attendees not been so helpful to us in understanding what we were facing. While we could have cut down on access to the entire event by selling less tickets, that would have cut off much more content to many more people, the very stuff you refer to as being what was so cool about the last couple of conferences.  There were a handful of talks that required overflow and some others became full, which is simply a fact of life at any popular conference.  There was always plenty of room in the other parts of the conference where different talks and activities were ongoing.  We can never give guarantees that you'll have access to whatever you want at the time you want it.  Fortunately, we were able to provide live streaming of all three speaker tracks, not only to any attendees who were unable to get into a specific room, but also to people anywhere in the entire world who weren't able to attend.  This improvement in bandwidth (we went from a 50 MB to a 10 GB connection in a mere two years) wouldn't have been possible without attendee support.  We also immediately put the Snowden and Ellsberg talks up on YouTube so that everyone could get the chance to see them free of charge. Nobody should have been rude or yelling at you and if we know specifics in such a case, we will take action.  We know that it's necessary to shout in order to be heard by lots of people in cases where announcements need to be made and there isn't a sound system handy.  It was also an intensely stressful time for people handling crowd control at the event, but we want to believe our staff was able to remain cool-headed despite this.  And the only people who were allowed to go past the lines were those either giving the talks, family of the speakers, or HOPE staff who were working the room.  We wouldn't disrespect our attendees by giving anyone else preferential treatment. The real advice we can give here is to never let one or two talks define the entire conference for you.  It's inevitable that you will miss things and sometimes it's unavoidable that you won't get into the things you want to see the most.  Take the top five talks you want to see at a conference and assume that for one reason or another, you won't be able to see them.  If the entire rest of the conference isn't worth the cost of admission to you, then we don't suggest going.  If it is, then you're guaranteed to have a lot of fun, just not necessarily the exact fun you were planning.

Dear 2600: I just wanted to say thanks for streaming the HOPE X conference.  I was very upset that I could not make it this year as I had to work.  I was so surprised to see it was streaming live and it made my weekend.       HOPE Writer 3 This ability wound up being a huge help as it enabled people to see talks from anywhere in the conference area as well as anywhere in the world.  We managed to obtain our ten gigabit Internet connection just days before HOPE began through persistence and support - and it really came in handy.

Dear 2600: Too much selling of fear at HOPE.  The politics were so heavy, there were more anonymous/hacktivism talks than technical talks, more than at any other HOPE.  Speakers preach and attendees try to decide if they hate/fear the government or corporations most.  Because the conference is so big, found staff/volunteers were a bit rude and obnoxious, too busy, showing off, or too tired to care about much.  Speakers were snarky.  It's worth mentioning twice that the selling of fear is in overdrive.  I think it is important not to push your fears on a generation that does not have them. I think HOPE feels like a gathering of White extremists and radicalists in a dirty hotel. This is coming from someone who grew up with 2600 since the age of 14 in 1994 and is now 34 in 2014.  I remember when 2600 was about hackers.  The keynote speakers were Kevin Mitnick and people who told the history of hacking.  You can say that this is about whistle-blowing and privacy, but what occurred during the keynote and Snowden main event was not about whistle-blowing or privacy.  It was pure politics.  I think 2600 has finally plunged into being too political for your average everyday computer/phone hacker.  This is something many people have warned 2600 not to do.       HOPE Writer 4 We take great exception to your characterization of our staff and volunteers.  While exceptions are certainly possible, to label them with this broad brush is incredibly unfair, considering how much time and effort they put in.  We have found nothing beyond an isolated incident or two to justify such broad condemnation.  If there are other examples, we want to hear them. Concerning your thoughts on injecting politics into the discussion, you are certainly not alone in that.  But this is simply something that we, the bulk of our attendees, and our speakers would disagree with.  The numbers speak for themselves.  Yes, we have been "warned" many times not to speak out against powerful entities like governments and corporations.  But it doesn't take very much research to conclude that this is the source of the bulk of problems facing the hacker world - every thing from imprisonment to surveillance to aggressive control of creative content and unfair restrictions on the technologies we use and develop.  It's interesting that this is always labeled as "politics" by those who don't want us to touch these controversies, as if that somehow makes it irrelevant.  It's precisely that attitude that leads to the disconnect with those creating these unfortunate environments through laws and policies.  It's so much more than simple politics; this is everything that will determine what direction we all go in and how our technologies will be accepted and used.  The social aspects are (and always have been) at the heart of the hacker culture. The HOPE conferences have never been security conferences.  There are plenty of those around.  Yes, we have talks on security and all kinds of technical material, but we have talks on a great deal more than that as well.  That's because this is what our audience wants, this is what our prospective speakers are focusing on, and this diversity is what the hacker community is all about.  We don't ask people to agree with any conclusions reached, but we do expect the discussions to be embraced as vital to determining our future and to connecting with so many other communities.

Dear 2600: HOPE was an awesome conference with an amazing keynote speaker!  I was lucky to watch it with everyone else in the packed room.  I really enjoyed the conference and the talks, but I wish there was more space at the talks.  Trying to get a seat at the Steve Rambam talk was very difficult!  I had to sit all the way in the back.  Another very problematic thing was timing.  Talks were ending at different times, making it difficult to go to other immediate talks.  Leaving five minutes to go to another talk was a horrible idea.  If I had to use the bathroom or wanted to get a snack, I wouldn't be able to get a seat in the next talk.  Please fix the timing issue with talks. I really enjoyed the second floor with all of the tables and I was able to get some cool swag.  The Lockpick Village was fun and so was learning how to solder.  The ticket was at a decent price so I could afford it.  Overall, HOPE was a great experience and I will definitely come again!       HOPE Writer 5 We will be encouraging speakers at future events to end a little earlier to allow for an easier time moving to other rooms before the next presentations begin.  We're glad you had fun and we're quite aware of the challenges we're facing ahead with increasing attendance.  We need to do better with accommodating large amounts of people, which means either finding a bigger venue we can afford or cutting the amount of people we let in.  The problem with the latter solution is that even if we cut the number in half, at times there will still be more people who want to see certain talks than can fit into the rooms they're held in.  We'd love to hear some more suggestions on ways we can address these issues, as well as any specific info on alternate venues we might make use of.