—>realhackhistory.org

Hi new followers 👋, welcome, this account is a weird mix of tangents on #hacking #history and current events involving large, or particularly interesting, hacks, how the media looks at hacking and just what is going on with hacktivism.

Governments have moved the goalposts on internet safety and regulation so far that it has become just a way to enforce the interests of private businesses. “Quad9 must block access to websites that are accused of infringing the copyrights of a sports broadcaster”

Suspicious binaries you’ve downloaded that were written in Go to the polls

I’d love for someone to run the numbers on U.S. hospital, state government and government org breaches before and after the various cuts to CISA, etc.

Yep, when I titled the first chapter in my book “War Machines” I wasn’t being hyperbolic. And even tech workers themselves have long recognized this—for example, take this 1971 pamphlet from the group Computer People for Peace:

Fixed the issue with the DEF CON directory only being visible when using our .onion address. Now debugging our missing updates header. #InfoCon

Whether you call it “ripping” or “remixing”, the BBS scene had a long tradition of adapting and reusing earlier ANSI art. My latest retrocomputing deep dive: breakintochat.com/blog/2026/10... #textmode #ansiart #pixelart #mastoart #retrocomputing #bbs #history #longreads

Mistigram: this jolly screen, showign the latest order-by-mail Halloween accessory -- #Ghost-in-a-box! -- was drawn by @illarterate.bsky.social and placed 2nd in Flash Party's 2023 #teletext compo. It was also included in the spooky MIST1023 artpack collection released three years ago this month!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo7o...

Bluesky has four kinds of users

art, nibble mac, magazine (1987) archive.org/details/nibb...

I filed a FOIA with the FBI earlier this year for all records from Jan 1, 2026 onwards (limited for responsiveness) relating to the Silent ransomware gang, which allegedly sent people to victims' offices to gain physical access to their systems. No records beyond its IC3 flash in May, some withheld.

Is there any interest in me posting short threads of #FOIA requests as I make them, with references?

Digital crimes are always treated like real crimes when it is individuals committing them, corporations are the only ones allowed to skate by.

On the Internet nobody knows you secretly look like Bob Saget

illustration, login, magazine (1987) archive.org/details/logi...

I don’t know when WSB wrote this in the copy I’d sent him, except that it would have been over 28 yrs ago, on July 31, in Lawrence. Leary had encouraged him to read Neuromancer and he’d liked it, which thrilled me. We hadn’t yet met, and wouldn’t for a few yrs.

"I think that 5 years ago people would've understood this, but now people are being deluded by their LLMs telling them they have an exploit when they don't." eliastaylor.com/noexploit/

I was looking for a clean version of this line for years

Linux on the desktop.

By my napkin math, total Bell Labs research expenditures from 1930-1980 were on the order of $50 billion in 2026 dollars. AI companies have spent ~$1 trillion so far: The equivalent of ~20 Bell Labs histories. In its history, Bell Labs researchers discovered the transistor, the solar cell, the laser

These php vulnerabilities breaking infosec industry and computer nerd news containment sure is increasing FUD and doomerism. In the era of generative AI everyone is now looking for any hint that the sky is falling.

I love Anthropic coming out with "only a good guy with a very expensive AI subscription plan can stop a bad guy with a very expensive AI subscription plan" rhetoric. Couldn't sum up the attitude of the whole industry any better if you tried.