Re: Is this "Kooky?"

Spike Jones (spike66@ibm.net)
Wed, 03 Mar 1999 20:30:44 -0800

KPJ wrote:

> [KPJ to spike] "I find your lack of belief disturbing..."
>
> What do _you_ associate the term "hackers" with?

Hackers? Guessing passwords, writing fake log-in screens in order to capture other people's passwords, then putting little surprises in their computer accounts, etc. Im old enough to have been around when computer science was first being offered in my college. My roommate was the system manager (HP3000 then a DEC 11-780). We would be classified as hackers back then, mostly oriented towards pulling gags. For example:

Students back in ~1979, 1980 were not accustomed to the notion of using a computer. Most did not even know how to log on. We rigged a computer terminal as a peekaboo: we could see whatever they typed, then type back etc. We had a glass wall office where we could watch people come in. One evening late, I and two others were in the office when we saw someone come in, a nursing student. The whole school had 8 terminals then. All were empty. She looooooked this way and that, then sat at the peekaboo terminal, which was the only one turned on. Got one! She sat there for quite a while, before typing: Hi. We typed back Hi. We were laughing by this time. Then she typed: Play me some games. We were cracking up. We wrote: OK. What would you like to play?
She bolted from the room! Never saw her again! To this day I can scarcely tell that story without laughing out loud. I visited my former college roommate last summer and we laughed ourselves silly remembering that event. We were hackers. {8^D spike