Wanna have some laughs?

yeni_ceri · Post by **yeni_ceri** » Thu Aug 25, 2011 10:32 am

Ok a few weeks ago I did a pitch on cracked.com (No it is not virus stuff, it is simply the site of the old Cracked magazine the enemy of Mad). If I would get published I would win 50 bucks which is not bad, since I love to write and all...

So I made a pitch... I spoke about the great hacker war, and about Kevin Mitnick and about Vladimir Levin and such...

Here is the answer of one admin:

I think that for this pitch to work, you'll need to narrow down your focus. Instead of listing "the best hackers", you might want to try looking for "hackers who changed the world". That seems like a much more Cracked-worthy premise.
I think this is the way to go. If you can find hackers who have impacted the readers' lives in some way, I want to hear about them. If they're just good at hacking, you're going to lose me because I don't know anything about hacking.

Then I said ok and I changed my angle...

I remade the pitch, the new list included:

Dan Bricklin, Doug Engelbart, Alan Kay, Ray Tomlinson, Tim Berners-Lee, Steve "Slug" Russell, John Carmack and Bell Labs (Unix/C++).

I wanted to do this good... So I contacted Eric S. Raymond and he was the guy who gave me the most names... I even told them in the pitch answer...

Out of nothing, another admin writes me this:

OK how are we defining "hacker" here? I've never heard John Carmack referred to as a hacker. I guess I need you to explain to me what hacking they did (is there a famous system they broke into, were they prosecuted, etc).

If we're expanding the definition of hacker to mean "amateur computer programmer who likes to tinker with computer stuff" then that's not interesting to the reader any more. It only works if we're using the word hacker as it's used in popular culture - a nefarious person who breaks into computer systems. So I guess what I need is a couple of sentences summarizing their hacker exploits, then something summarizing how they used their hacker powers for good.

Following that... IT WAS A FUCKING DOUCHEBAG TELLING ME TO PUT KEVIN MITNICK.

So at this point, I don't know what to write about... They want me to write about hackers, without explaining the hacking (because they don't know nothing about hacking), they must must be badass, they must have been sentenced to prison or something (I guess I can't write about the most badass of all whose names' most people don't even know), they had to create a virus or broke into something and they want them to be the bogeyman that appears on everyones' nightmares... And they want 6 of it... So basically they want the equivalents to Charles Manson, Pinhead, that girl from The Exorcist, Hitler, Belzebub and George W. Bush.

Anyone has ideas? I don't have none...

Is there anyone who find this retarded enough?

GeorgeTI · Post by **GeorgeTI** » Thu Aug 25, 2011 7:22 pm

Well, retarded - yes, hilarious - not so much. Disturbing is more like it. If the admins can't tell the difference between a hacker and a cracker....
It is true that most media can't tell the difference between hackers and crackers, referring to both of them as hackers. Most people (the ones who haven't studied further into the matter) just follow the media. The disturbing thing is that the admins are such people.
Just tell them to search "How to become a hacker" at google, they will probably end reading the now-classic article of Eric Steven Raymond at http://www.pavietnam.net/
At least that should help them understand a few things.

yeni_ceri · Post by **yeni_ceri** » Thu Aug 25, 2011 9:22 pm

What I find more retarded is that at the beginning I gave them EXACTLY what they wanted the most bullshit "hackers" of all time... I gave them Vladimir Levin... The story of Levin is hilarious... Plus he looks a lot like Mad Magazine mascot... At least it is my opinion...

yeni_ceri · Post by **yeni_ceri** » Thu Aug 25, 2011 10:45 pm

Don't get impatient, the editors have a lot to do and no time to do it in, they can't be checking people's pitches for updates every minute of every day. You'll probably have to wait a little while for someone to get back around to you.

I think the general feeling here, although I may be wrong, is that you should talk about hackers in the sense most people understand them and damn the technical definition, which means super intelligent nerds who sit in darkened rooms in front of giant screens, breaking through firewalls for shits and giggles. You need to show that they've changed the world in a recognisable way that you don't need to understand the tech to appreciate, so concrete things with simple effects. I may be wrong, but that's what I understand.

Kevin Mitnick? Vladmir Levin?

CodeX · Post by **CodeX** » Fri Aug 26, 2011 1:17 am

If it's public media style hackers then you don't get much more public media than Kevin Flynn

yeni_ceri · Post by **yeni_ceri** » Fri Aug 26, 2011 3:51 am

Cool CodeX , now give me 5 more because they don't accept pitches with less than 6 examples... Give me them badass because if so I can do Chuck Norris jokes and they loved that shit...

yeni_ceri · Post by **yeni_ceri** » Fri Aug 26, 2011 3:52 am

CodeX you're mean! Come on! I never saw Tron! I thought it was a real hacker! -_-

GeorgeTI · Post by **GeorgeTI** » Fri Aug 26, 2011 6:39 am

If you want media hackers just search the CNN or BBC articles for the word "hacker", you'll get plenty.

yeni_ceri · Post by **yeni_ceri** » Fri Aug 26, 2011 4:36 pm

Should I care about this I would be worried about what the normal person would think... Aw... At least I tried to do the right thing...

GeorgeTI · Post by **GeorgeTI** » Fri Aug 26, 2011 6:49 pm

... but you fell on deaf ears too? Join the club mate, and cheers!

yeni_ceri · Post by **yeni_ceri** » Sat Aug 27, 2011 2:43 am

Btw, I checked and the domains verizon-sucks.me and verizonsucks.me are not registered by verizon (if you verify verizon tries to buy all domains that can harm them, just check the domain verizonsucks.com it is owned by verizon...)

.me extension is a very recent extension and stands for montenegro... Even I have a .me domain and they are cheap... But since I am broke, anyone who wants to give verizon an headache why don't you buy a domain and sell it in the ebay? You could win a few good bucks!

yeni_ceri · Post by **yeni_ceri** » Sat Sep 03, 2011 2:29 pm

It seems they are sane after all...

Also, ThePedant’s feedback is spot on here. What we want you to do is use ‘hackers’ as pop culture understands that term – deviants, reckless youth hacking into secured systems to play juvenile pranks (or even steal, or destroy) – but who actually changed the world (ideally for the better). That’s your surprise factor: Who’d have thought this group, which we think is always so destructive and selfish, is actually changing the world and affecting our reader’s daily lives? If there was a nerd back in the early ‘90s who thought it would be funny to hack into somebody’s webpage and post the internet’s first streaming video (lol! It’ll eat all their bandwidth) and that’s the only reason we have YouTube today, that would be your ideal entry.

Can you help me out with this one? Thank you!

baha'a · Post by **baha'a** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 7:24 am

Don't really know, but would Hackers for charity work?

and I think you can find some interesting guys around Def-Con.

good luck

yeni_ceri · Post by **yeni_ceri** » Wed Dec 28, 2011 9:37 am

Ok I decided to update this topic the "Wanna have some laughs." . I am going to use the "it" because I don't want to reveal the gender.
This time the laugh is all about me. Because of my utterly failure.
So what happens is that have been some very rough months. And being a great fan of penpallng. (I am from a time were people used the internet for penpaling, nowadays we don't see this so much.) I tried to contact a person. I tried to be nice but I failed. I contacted this person 10 times over 6 months (which was very very stupid, but I found impolite "it" were not answering.) It was a plain question of impoliteness. I found this person on a nifty site, and well "it" revealed all the info about "it" there. And everything that was not there, it was on "it" site, with the same nick, with lj and tumblr, fb... So I found impolite to such a person not answering me back. (Aka I was being stubborn.)

So kids, sit down, and listen a lesson about the internet:

"i never use it anymore and even though i think it’s kind of a cool way to meet people to make friends with (that’s how i became friends with josh) there’s this one guy who sent me a few messages i never replied to and then proceeded to send me several long, drawn-out emails begging me to speak to him and then one really upset email calling me UNBELIEVABLY RUDE AND INCONSIDERATE for never responding to him and it kind of creeped me out

also most of the people who send me messages on there either ignore the fact that my profile says i’m in a monogamous relationship and not interested in meeting romantic prospects, or just send me inane messages to the general effect of “whats genderqueer mean”

i might make a new account at some point, since this account wasn’t under my usual handle, because i do think it can be a really nice way to network in your area and i could always use more friends locally

but for now

god

baleting

(plus that account is how i met james and i’m pretty okay with purging everything disposable in my life related to him)"

So kids never send anyone more than 2 emails to anyone. You will just look stupid.

Ps: Because I really don't care I sent a last email. With a comment to that post. With the link too. And I admited myself as a stalker. (Aka I can google, and thrust me this is a valuable skill.)

Geez I am the biggest douche in the world, and I make myself look stupid.

If anything more if this ends in a flamewar I can blacklist "it", plus I sent the email from a hotmail and a google accounts, I can always blacklist anyone....

Edit: On a related note, last night, 4 bots tried to talk with me in the msn at the same time. Bots are not very good penpals.

Edit2: On a posterior note one of the bots tried to talk with me again, changed the password of the msn account just to be safe.

yeni_ceri · Post by **yeni_ceri** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 4:15 pm

Ok I was one month in a crazy house, I think I failed hard with that girl. Decided to bump this topic just to say hi to you all again. Finally things are getting cool for me.