What was hacking in the 80s REALLY like? I've seen some documentaries about it recently...

What was hacking in the 80s REALLY like? I've seen some documentaries about it recently, and it seems like it was mostly done through linux, but I'm not sure if that's because it was a recreation, or if it was actually the networking tool of choice.

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thesprawl.org/media/simstim/414s.mp4
youtube.com/watch?v=Qo7sWu8iQRM
youtube.com/watch?v=lgVhsQ3NIrY
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Hacking in the 80s was done exclusively with Plan 9 and macs

>80s
>linux

no I think they used mostly iPhones

Wargames was a movie and as such it exaggerated reality a lot. Most of the time, hacking meant breaking the copy protection on your copy of F-15 Strike Eagle.

> seems like it was mostly done through linux

Linux was released in 1991. You're probably seeing command line interfaces and associating it with Linux. All OSs were like that in the 80s.

> What was hacking in the 80s REALLY like
Nobody took security seriously in the decades prior. It just didn't occur to a lot of people that hackers would exist. Big security holes everywhere like inband phone signaling and how to use it being published publicly. Security holes everywhere; but people had to figure them out for themselves. It's not like today where the whole world knows about a security flaw the day it's discovered.

War games is fucking retarded and has NOTHING to do with 80s era hacking. You need to watch Tron to get woke to how computers really used to work.

Steven Levi's "Hackers" is a more realistic look at hacking culture of the time than a silly movie.

>Linux
>'80's
Way to out yourself, you fucking idiot.

...

find old copies of 2600 mag

tron...

In the 80s you could just enter a blank root password and log into any mac

read Ghost in the Wires by Kevin Mitnick

Whistling into phones at the right frequency to get free international calling

this

also as there was no internet, hacking (as in breaking in a computer) was mostly done locally (hacking a mainframe through parallel port).

and launch nuclear missiles

There was no internet but wardialing used to be a thing. Just like in the movie he wardialed a fuckton of numbers until it found a modem listening on one.

thesprawl.org/media/simstim/414s.mp4

The reason I said linux was because the recreation was literally using linux command line tools like ifconfig and ls. Also because I knew that UNIX was invented in the 70s.

Telecom Australia phoned my dad because I was wardialling the whole of Australia, he didn't let me use the computer for months after that

I was there and let me tell...it was a wild ride.

These days when you think of a hacker, you think of some nerdy basement dweller. Back in the 80's, people would literally shit their pants if you told them you were a hacker.

Those aren't "Linux" command line tools
Those tools were originally a part of Unix, which was basically created by AT&T
Then through a series of events that I haven't bothered to look up, a bunch of different people started making clones of it
BSD was one of those
And there were a couple others
Then Stallman said fuck this shit, came up with the idea of Free Software, and made his own clone.
But he needed a kernel.
Linus Torvalds started making the kernel
Now it's GNU/Linux
But that sounds gay so people just call it Linux.

Australia has telephones?

is this bait? linux in the '80s?

he probably means "sp00py command lines that are all linux because ms-dos never existed and neither did any of its predecessors"

lol

If in an online RPG I play there is a 2600 guild; are they posers?

*nix with modems, really easy buffalo overflows everywhere

OP's image has an IMSAI 8080, which was a CP/M machine. That was a distant dream, if you lived in a country where these were not available. The home computer era opened possibilities a little, but our hardware was pretty limited. First modems were typically 300 baud devices, meaning that they were able to transfer 300 bits/s, and you can roughly divide that by 10 to get characters/s, so a line of text every 2 seconds.

And then, even the might IMSAIs, Micrals or Altairs only had a very limited memory capacity (4 KILO bytes was luxury - about 2 sheets of text worth of space).

And the thing looked at in the picture is called a terminal. Proper devices, those days. Every manufacturer had their own. In the end the DEC VT100 kind of survived best - as it is actively emulated quite widely even today. Actually used one a long time ago.

Another interesting piece would have been a paper terminal, or even a teletype (typically just 110 baud, and - believe it or not - completely mechanical input/output device). These were essentially a keyboard and printer combinations. CRT's tended to be expensive back then, but you could afford paper.

Generally there was not much to hack around in the beginning. All you had was what you had on your hands. No manuals, no widespread magazines. No tools either. Oscilloscope? In your dreams! 74LS logic series databook? If you were lucky, yes, but who could have sold you the chips? And how could you have made a voltage regulator?

If things were theoretically possible, you had something like this:
youtube.com/watch?v=Qo7sWu8iQRM

...

Read the Cuckoo's Egg

Thanks for this.

>You're probably seeing command line interfaces and associating it with Linux. All OSs were like that in the 80s.
Not quite all. Macintosh, Amiga, probably others I'm forgetting about; GUI operating systems existed in the 80s.

The 90's were better than the 80's
Rave and Anime
youtube.com/watch?v=lgVhsQ3NIrY

telehack.com

This pic is really comfy

This.

we do and we still use the same copper wiring for internet to this very day

seems like he should've been using one of the home computers of the day like an atari or apple or something rather than the obscure imsai whatever it was.

LINUX is not UNIX.
LINUX literally stands for LINUX Is Not UNIX. The LINUX in this sentence also stands for LINUX is not UNIX.

That could have been possible, but... War Games was released in 1983, when some of these home computers or their predecessors were already available. Apple II, Commodore PET and TRS-80 were introduced in 1977. Atari 400 came into being at 1979. These machines had a couple of limitations in common. They booted right into BASIC, so there was no OS or real file management system. Their display was limited to around 40 characters / line. No adequate mass memory was available and generally a cassette tape drive (C cassettes!) was used. This made them cheap, but that is why David stares at a proper monitor display - to get all the text to fit the screen. It would have been childishly awkward to give him a TV screen to stare at. Not professional looking at all.

IBM 5150 (original PC) was of course released in 1981, but these were prohibitively expensive suckers and would still have been out of reach for home hackers without rich background. Also, the story had to show long hacking background, which was conveniently carried with this theme. The guy had been able to tame a somewhat ancient and rare system into his will. Look at his double floppy drives, for example. Those have to be 8 inch monsters!

By the way, the original IBM PC had a cassette tape interface as well, and could run GW-BASIC straight out from ROM. But that is a different story.

You are won the wrong level. Wargames was wardialing into unix/bbs systems. The only thing running on his home end is basically a terminal emulator.

GNU's Not Unix

What stroke me the most about Mitnick's book was how most of his most spectacular hacks had a social engineering component to them. His ability to deceive and manipulate people was far more important than his technical skills. That's not to say he didn't have them, but they'd be of no use if he was a socially awkward sperg like most of us here on Sup Forums.

well he is a jew

> be me
> friend takes me to visit her friends
> they work at Penguin Books IT
> DEC terminals everywhere
> VAX somewhere in the building
> one of them logs in
> types v-e-r-y-s-l-o-w-l-y
> i quietly observe over his shoulder
> "huh."
> realise i now have access to the machine that prints labels for the warehouse
> i could bring this company TO ITS KNEES

we used hayes 2400 baud modems and dumb terminals. later, PCs running terminal emulator programs.

> fuck RS-232

Kevin Mitnick book (Ghost In The Wires) has a ton of hacking stories. It is rather different than what it would be today. There was a lot of phone hacking, connecting to servers that he wasn't allowed to, and A LOT of calling and just asking for information. I haven't finished, but I recommend it.

nice bait.