From: Spike Jones (spike66@ibm.net)
Date: Wed Mar 03 1999 - 21:30:44 MST
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
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