Quite a few things to note... first the term is cracker... in the 1980s a lot of crackers didn't know better but today... keep up with the tech and terminology...

Calling himself a hacker now I'd start to doupt he is up to date... you can't break into computers using 1970/1980 techniques...

Second... the "everybody dose it" addatude is one of arrogence. "Ohh comeon you've done drugs.. everybody dose drugs... don't lie to me"

How do you deal with this addatude?

No everybody dosn't do it...

People obstain from sex... People obstain from crack AFTER getting addicted for life... obstaining from cracking into computers is a great deal easyer... It's not like the geek set ever had much in the area of peer presure.

I've had a handle for a long time... Admittedly I did a phase of cracking but that never went very far... and I did that under the name... get this everyone... dark and sinster name of... Jeffery C McLean... not one of my vareous handles... those were reserved for BBSing etc not for cracking..

Why did I do it.. was it becouse of peer presure? Hardly I accually insulted some of my peers face to face screamming in fits of rage becouse I wouldn't do what they wanted... Once becouse I didn't care about spelling.. annother becouse of my choice of computer and finnaly simply becouse someone wanted to buy my jumpper cables and wouldn't take "NO" for an answer (Not car.. those little electronic jumpper cables you could get at radio shack)

Was it "against the man".. no..

I just found that security procedures were a closely held secret and didn't think that was helthy for me so I cracked expecting to NOT get into anything to see how the systems worked. I was supprised to find out few people took security sereously and event went so far as to turn someones printer on (vea remote) and print out a message... "Your security needs work"

I gave up trying to understand security this way and just asked for help from gray hats...

(I ran a BBS at the time)

But thats all I ever did... I didn't turn my experence into anything..

I still secure my computer with help from gray hats..

In the real world a child molester could make some money teaching parents how to protect children from himself but this is only in selling his knowladage.. he himself will never be allowed near a child...

A theaf may teach how he breaks into homes... A friend of mine did as much for me... but will never be hired as a security guard.

And a cracker can teach how to thwart crackers... but on a high profile team like L0ph... where people like Bill Gates want them to all be branded black hat criminals not gray hat security experts... they can not afford to have a known criminal on the team.

Sorry but such people can get work in the area but they must allways be the companys secret....

Even someone who was never arrested but publicly admits it would have problems...

This very post could prevent me from ever getting a job in the secruity field...

But I'm not intrested.... security is no longer a closely held secret.. I can secure my computer... Companys who find fixing larg security defects more expensive than repressing the knowladage of same would rather such organsiations as this vanish and have security return to being largly a back art of a few clustered elite mage known as security techs.

I'm fine with the idea that this guy might be behind the security of my ISP. I'm happy that thies people can get jobs.

I'm forever miffed that computer crimminals are barred from using computers.

But I still expect security firms to act in there own self intrests...

The founders of thies organisations are most likely victoms of crackers not crackers themselfs.

Sysops who watched in horror as a labor of love for years is distroyed in seconds by some thoughtless cracker.

Most crackers find cracking BBSes to be a lothsum activity of pathetic lossers... But the pathetic losers were prolific losers... with the help of gray hats I repelled some of thies losers..

It's not a matter of punishment... Once cought you have lost all trust... this can never be regained.. thats a life sentence every criminal must face...

For most of us (Obveously myself excluded) it wasn't a matter of luck or skill.. but a matter of having never commited the act at all...

I don't expect L0ph would ever hire me.. or my ilk... anyone who cracked cought or not...

Some secrity companys can afford to look the other way... some can pretend to look the other way when you have no record... but some can not even go that far.

I'm affrade L0ph for all it's image can not take the risk of hiring any admitted criminal... cought or not....

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