40 Years of Phrack
Firewalls Don't Stop Dragons Podcast
Origins of Phrack and BBS Culture
Skyper explains how BBSs, ware trading and cracking led to Phrack's founding and early community.
Way before the world wide web, computer enthusiasts were sharing information via digital bulletin board systems (BBS). This amounted to attaching a modem to your home computer and allowing other people to dial in from their computers (one at a time) to download “textfiles” and share “warez” – or cracked software applications, often games. This scene gave rise to several electronic “zines” that published articles on hacking and phone phreaking techniques. One of the most popular zines, Phrack, was started in 1985 and is still going strong forty years later. Today we’ll discuss the colorful and storied history of this pioneering zine with two Phrack editors, skyper and TMZ.
Interview Notes
- Phrack magazine: https://phrack.org
- Phrack Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrack
- Hacker Manifesto: https://phrack.org/issues/7/3
- Smashing the Stack for Fun and Profit (Aleph One): https://phrack.org/issues/49/14
- E911 Document Leak: https://phrack.org/issues/24/5
- Texfiles archive: http://www.textfiles.com/
- DEF CON: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW-D1I27E08
- HOPE: https://www.youtube.com/live/7ZeN53mKhbE?t=26726s
- WHY 2025 talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtyzTsOtx4A
- WHYcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwY1q3aEFS0
- Cap’N Crunch whistle: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3193749
Further Info
- My book: https://fdsd.me/book
- My newsletter: https://fdsd.me/newsletter
- Support the mission: https://fdsd.me/support
- Give the gift of privacy and security: https://fdsd.me/coupons
- Get your Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons Merch! https://fdsd.me/merch
Table of Contents
- 0:00:13: Intro
- 0:01:31: Interview setup
- 0:03:13: Lingo definitions
- 0:05:32: How did Phrack Magazine start?
- 0:09:14: How did BBS systems give rise to phone phreaking?
- 0:15:59: How did Phrack compare to other zines?
- 0:19:35: How do you define “hacker”?
- 0:25:10: What goes into making an issue of Phrack?
- 0:30:00: What’s the story behind Phrack’s famous “hacker manifesto”?
- 0:33:32: Why was your E911 article so controversial?
- 0:36:27: What does it mean to “smash the stack”?
- 0:41:41: What are there ethical issues around releasing hacking tools?
- 0:45:46: Is the original hacker ethos still alive today?
- 0:50:18: How has hacking evolved in the last 40 years?
- 0:52:51: How will AI impact hacking?
- 0:54:24: Wrap-up
- 0:56:55: Patron podcast preview
- 0:57:39: Looking ahead
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