326
submitted 5 months ago by ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world to c/196
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[-] OrnateLuna 171 points 5 months ago

Being a hacker in the early days of computers must have been so fun and accessable

[-] ValenThyme@reddthat.com 97 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

literally ran a basic wardialer in my area code and had guest access to multiple government systems. I felt like matthew broderick would have been so proud.

I never got anywhere but it freaked my parents out they were not proud like i had been expecting at all.

Never actually messed around with anything besides figuring out the no password guest accounts so not really thrilling but it was super easy to get access.

Also when email was first a thing you could just telnet to port 25 on a server and write raw SMTP messages and most servers would just accept them. You would say yes this message is coming from god@heaven.com and it would say sure thing!

[-] InFerNo@lemmy.ml 17 points 5 months ago

That's still true, I was explaining this at work to the sysadmin that they should be careful and they said our email addresses couldn't be spoofed, so I demonstrated it with his address. Spooked him a bit.

[-] scops@reddthat.com 56 points 5 months ago

Leader: "Alright, while he's working on breaking into their system, we'll--"

Hacker: "I'm in."

Leader: "That fast? Did you find some zero-day to exploit?"

Hacker who just tried username "admin", password "password": "Yyyyeeeeeees?"

[-] uriel238 26 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

To this day, database hacks (top 1000 most popular passwords) and reverse hacks (a few popular passwords on a few thousand accounts) still often result in successful penetrations.

The weakest security link is between chair and keyboard.

[-] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 16 points 5 months ago

I mean, technically, that is a zero-day exploit

[-] KISSmyOSFeddit@lemmy.world 47 points 5 months ago

Until your mom grounded you for hogging the phone line.

[-] henfredemars@infosec.pub 24 points 5 months ago

It would’ve been amazing to be part of the culture back in the days of phreaking.

[-] VeryVito@lemmy.ml 17 points 5 months ago

It was fun, indeed. People knew so little about the implications and possibilities of connecting two systems, that even if you didn’t hack anything worthwhile, it was easy to feel like a genius simply by war-dialing into another local nerd’s own Commodore 64.

[-] frankgrimeszz@lemmy.world 8 points 5 months ago

The door was basically left wide open. You could do whatever you wanted with ease.

[-] B1naryB0t@lemmy.dbzer0.com 44 points 5 months ago
[-] Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk 59 points 5 months ago

I’m guessing it was Wargames.

[-] SzethFriendOfNimi@lemmy.world 12 points 5 months ago

Would, you, like, to, play, a, game

[-] Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk 4 points 5 months ago
[-] PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks 1 points 5 months ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

Let's play Global Thermonuclear War.

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

[-] KISSmyOSFeddit@lemmy.world 22 points 5 months ago
[-] Thorry84@feddit.nl 22 points 5 months ago

It was Wargames

[-] Aggravationstation@feddit.uk 13 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom

[-] VeryVito@lemmy.ml 9 points 5 months ago
[-] tacosplease@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago

Was really hoping to see Margot Robbie as the username for this comment

[-] OutsiderInside@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago
[-] Odo@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

That was one of those tiny goofy references I miss from Reddit. They put a Pi symbol at the end of every page (on old reddit at least) as a nod to that movie.

[-] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago
[-] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

When I used to admin an anime shitposting page, I often told people asking about what anime certain characters were from that it's from Darude no Sandstorm, and people were falling for it. Left that page due to massive burnout, and some of the other admins turning fashy.

[-] frankgrimeszz@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago

Oppenheimer

[-] homesnatch@lemm.ee 2 points 5 months ago

Earth Girls Are Easy

[-] gex@lemmy.world 23 points 5 months ago
[-] uriel238 11 points 5 months ago

Wargames is the one that scared President Reagan and created the (still overreaching) CFAA.

That said, at 300 baud, hacking was s . . . . . l . . . . . o . . . . . . . . . . w.

[-] TheControlled@lemmy.world 8 points 5 months ago

I'll take "Movies with poor portrayals of real things that changed the world anyway," for $500, Alex.

[-] crazyCat@sh.itjust.works 11 points 5 months ago
[-] ObamaBinLaden@lemmy.world 10 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Knowing nothing about the source, the one movie I know this isn't about is the Angelina Jolie starrer Hackers

[-] clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 9 points 5 months ago

If any of you are interested in what it was like tracing a hacker back then, I HIGHLY recommend the book The Cuckoo's Egg by Clifford Stohl.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cuckoo's_Egg_(book)

[-] RubberElectrons@lemmy.ml 4 points 5 months ago

Very interesting when I'd read it. Jangling keys across the modem connections.. Brilliant. I hope to be such a capable sysmin

this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2024
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