The Hacker Diaries Chapter 2

So guys, I'm back with more summary. Chapter 2 is a completely different story from the one before, and it features two kids, that don't even know each other, go to the different school, and live in the different suburb. One kid, named Joe, lived in Philly, while the other, Aaron lived in Chicago. They both have the same interest, and that is in computers. They both learned how to hack from VCRs. 

Joe's interest sparked when one noght he was starving. He went down and made himself a PBJ, but heard his dad's footsteps. Finding a way to hide it, he slipped it inside a VCR. When he was told to go upstairs to his room, instead he devised a plan to get the sandwich out. There's no denying it, Joe was learning about how the VCR is supposed to work. Aaron, on the other hand, got a VCR from his dad when his dad won a prize. He unplugged it out of the TV and saw the circuits inside. Aaron then studied his Mac 2 computer and found out that they worked the same. 

Joe went to his local radio shack and bought a used TRS-80 for 200 bucks. It had a modem slot and when he got a modem, he surfed Bulletin Board Systems (BBS), some kind of email centers and learnt about phone switching. Joe never thought that phone switching was hacking; he tried to set limits.

Aaron, never cared about limits. His parents had problems and split up. Their last action as a couple was buy his sister a new computer, but was mostly used by Aaron. He also surfed BBSs, with the username Noid, his nickname at school because he was DJ for parties. Aaron went to a BBS server called Revenge, a rich illegal file sharing server. After he shared free files with the group leader, Apocalypse, free, expensive softwares popped up in his inbox. Apocalypse gave him limited time to surf in the server. Revenge hacked tons of things and cracked many softwares, so they are more like a mafia organization than a BBS.

Within 2 years of owning a modem, Joe wrote scripts that kept on switching phones. Joe then taunted local phone services but they did't really care. He knew what he was doing was bad, but he didn't stop; it was fun and easy. It wasn't a game where there weren't any victims. After that, Joe's feelings of wrong or right prevented him from making mistakes in his gang. 

Aaron was trying to figure how to crack an application. It was challenging but hard. You can imagine his frustration if he couldn't connect to Revenge; he surfed IRCs, channels, but it was nowhere to be found. He met Apocalypse and found that it was shut down because of feds. FBI are now on the case. He gave up and started collage. He tried to take part in a different section of hacking.

Joe never quit hacking. He just redefined it and used it for a good reason. He said that if hackers didn't hack for money, what did they hack for? He did legitimate hacks in his university. Aaron was similar like Joe. He redefined hacking and defined hackers as hypocrites. Hackers also don't want their identity and credit card numbers to be stolen so don't do what you don't want people do to you.

If there is unclear information about IRC, go here: http://insidehacking.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-hacker-diaries-confessions-of.html

The Hacker Diaries is a compilation of hacking stories that was written by Dan Verton. All rights and respect go to him.