Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson
Handles: dmr and
Ken a.k.a.: Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson
Claim to fame: The driving creative force behind Bell Labs'
legendary computer science operating group, Ritchie and Thompson created UNIX in
1969. An elegant, open operating system for minicomputers, UNIX helped users
with general computing, word processing and networking, and soon became a
standard language.
Unusual tools: Plan 9, the next-generation operating system created
as the natural descendant of UNIX by Thompson and Bell Labs colleague Rob Pike.
Little-known fact: Although Ritchie is the author of the popular C
programming language, his favorite language is Alef. Thompson, an amateur pilot,
once traveled to Moscow to fly a MiG-29.
Check out: http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/dmr/ http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/
Tsutomu Shimomura
Tsutomu Shimomura
To state the obvious: Shimomura outhacked and outsmarted Kevin Mitnick, the
nation's most infamous cracker/phreaker, in early 1994. After colleagues at the
San Diego Supercomputing Center informed Shimomura that someone had stolen
hundreds of software programs and files from his work station, the computer
security expert worked on a tip to track the thief through the WELL. A
labyrinthine telco trail eventually led to an apartment complex in Raleigh,
N.C., where FBI agents apprehended Mitnick. (They've had less luck tracking down
Mitnick's alleged Israeli accomplice.)
But that's not all: A consultant to the FBI, Air Force and National Security
Agency, Shimomura is rumored to have engaged in darkside dabblings himself. As
Jon Littman notes, "I've always wondered why he wrote that program to eavesdrop
on cell phone calls. Somehow it doesn't sound like an NSA contract."
check out: http://www.takedown.com/bio/tsutomu.html
Vladimir Levin
Handle:
Unknown a.k.a.: Vladimir Levin
Claim to fame: A graduate of St. Petersburg Tekhnologichesky
University, this mathematician allegedly masterminded the Russian hacker gang
that tricked Citibank's computers into spitting out $10 million. Arrested by
Interpol at Heathrow Airport in 1995.
First encountered a computer: Unknown. Accused of using his office
computer at AO Saturn, a St. Petersburg, Russia, computer firm, to break into
Citibank.
Unusual tools: Along with a computer, computer games and disks,
Russian police confiscated a camcorder, music speakers and a TV set from Levin's
apartment.
Little-known fact: Levin claimed that one of the lawyers assigned
to defend him was actually an FBI agent.
Check out: http://www.spb.su/sppress/141/guilty.html
Johan Helsingius
Handle:
Julf a.k.a.: Johan Helsingius
Claim to fame: Operated the world's most popular anonymous
remailer, called penet.fi, until he closed up shop in September 1996.
Helsingius' troubles started when he was raided in 1995 by the Finnish police
after the Church of Scientology complained that a penet.fi customer was posting
the "church's" secrets on the Net. Helsingius mothballed the remailer after a
Finnish court ruled he must reveal the customer's real e-mail address.
Unusual tools: Ran the world's busiest remailer on a run-of-the
mill 486 with a 200-megabyte harddrive.
Little-known fact: Never felt the need himself to post anonymously.
Check out: Helsingius' personal take on the legal case, at http://www.cyberpass.net/security
John Draper
Handle: Cap'n
Crunch a.k.a.: John Draper
Claim to fame: Figured out how to make free phone calls using a
plastic prize whistle he found in a cereal box. Cap'n Crunch introduced
generations of hackers to the glorious concept of phone "phreaking."
First encountered a computer: As a teenager, trying to convince pay
phones to return his coin and put through his calls.
Unusual tools: The toy whistle from boxes of Cap'n Crunch cereal.
The whistle reproduced the 2600 hertz tone necessary to authorize a call. Used
in conjunction with a bluebox, it allowed users to make free phone calls. (Oscar
Meyer weiner whistles also briefly gained a following among phone phreakers.)
Little-known fact: Honorably discharged from the U.S. Air Force in
1968 after a stint in Vietnam.
Check out: http://www.webcrunchers.com/crunch
Kevin Mitnick
Handle:
Condor a.k.a.: Kevin Mitnick
Claim to fame: The first hacker to have his face immortalized on an
FBI "Most Wanted" poster. His status as a repeat offender -- a teenage hacker
who couldn't grow up -- earned Mitnick the nickname The Lost Boy of Cyberspace.
First encountered a computer: As a teenager. Mitnick couldn't
afford a computer, so he hung out in a Radio Shack store. He used the store's
demo models and modem to dial other computers.
Unusual tools: During the three years he was on the lam, Mitnick
used Internet Relay Chat (IRC) as a message drop and to communicate with his
friends.
Little-known fact: Sentenced to a year in a residential treatment
center, Mitnick enrolled in a 12-step program to rid himself of what a judge
agreed was his "computer addiction." Hey, it's California.
Check out: For an update on Mitnick's travails in jail: http://www.2600.com/kevin
Kevin Poulsen
Handle: Dark
Dante a.k.a.: Kevin Poulsen
Claim to fame: In 1990 Poulsen took over all telephone lines going
into Los Angeles area radio station KIIS-FM, assuring that he would be the 102nd
caller. Poulsen won a Porsche 944 S2 for his efforts.
First encountered a computer: When his parents bought him a TRS-80
(better known as a "Trash-80").
Unusual tools: A set of locksmith tools he used to break into phone
company trailers. He was caught after a friend commemorated the break-ins with
snapshots of Poulsen picking locks.
Little-known fact: Pleaded guilty to breaking into computers to get
the names of undercover businesses operated by the FBI.
Check out: Poulsen's personal take on his legal troubles, at: http://www.catalog.com/kevin/
Linus Torvalds
Linus Torvalds
A true hacker in the classic sense, Linus Torvalds was a computer science
student at the University of Helsinki when he wrote the operating system Linux
(a contraction of "Linus' Minix") in 1991. The software has proven to be
tremendously popular worldwide -- and best of all it's FREE!
Torvalds modestly attributes much of Linux's success to the Net and to
Richard Stallman's GNU: Both have facilitated development of his original kernel
by fostering collaboration among software programmers and developers.
He's humble, he's brilliant, he gave us all access to Unix -- no wonder Linus
Torvalds received more votes than any other nominee.
check out: http://www.au.com/meta/history/interview.html You say
"LIE-nucks," I say "LEE-nukes" ... To learn how Linus says "Linux," check
out: http://wopr.ml.org/~hunt/linus.html
Mark Abene
Handle: Phiber
Optik a.k.a.: Mark Abene
Claim to Fame: As a founding member of the Masters of Deception,
Phiber Optik inspired thousands of teenagers around the country to "study" the
internal workings of our nation's phone system. A federal judge attempted to
"send a message" to other hackers by sentencing Phiber to a year in federal
prison, but the message got garbled: Hundreds of well-wishers attended a
welcome-home party in Abene's honor at an elite Manhattan Club. Soon after, New
York magazine dubbed him one of the city's 100 smartest people.
First encountered a computer: Hanging out in the electronics
department of the A&S department store in Queens, N.Y., where his mother
worked. There he was introduced to the Apple II, the Timex Sinclair and the
Commodore 64. The first computer he owned was a Radio Shack TRS-80 (Trash-80).
Unusual tools: Experimented by dialing patterns on a phone
receiver. Abene used the receiver so frequently that it had to be bandaged with
black electrical tape to keep its guts from falling out.
Little-known fact: Phiber Optik's favorite food: mashed potatoes
from Kentucky Fried Chicken. Not real mashed potatoes. Real ones have lumps in
them.
Check out: http://www.levity.com/julian/phiber.html
Richard
Stallman
Handle: None (nothing to hide!) a.k.a.: Richard
Stallman
Claim to fame: A hacker of the old school, Stallman walked in off
the street and got a job at MIT's Artificial Intelligence Lab in 1971. He was an
undergraduate at Harvard at the time. Disturbed that software was viewed as
private property, Stallman later founded the Free Software Foundation.
First encountered a computer: In 1969, at the IBM New York
Scientific Center. He was 16 years old.
Unusual tools: In the
1980s Stallman left MIT's payroll but continued to work from an office at MIT.
Here he created a new operating system called GNU -- short for GNU's Not
Unix.
Little-known fact: Recipient of a $240,000 MacArthur
Foundation genius grant.
Check out: http://www.undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca/
Robert Morris Handle:
rtm a.k.a.: Robert Morris
Claim to fame: The son of the chief scientist at the National
Computer Security Center -- part of the National Security Agency (NSA) -- this
Cornell University graduate student introduced the word "hacker" into the
vernacular when he accidentally unleashed an Internet worm in 1988. Thousands of
computers were infected and subsequently crashed.
First encountered a computer: At home. Morris' father once brought
home one of the original Enigma cryptographic machines from the NSA. It became a
household conversation piece.
Unusual tools: As a teenager Morris had an account on the Bell
Labs' computer network, where early hacking forays gave him super-user status.
Little-known fact: When the Secret Service raided the home of
Legion of Doom member Erik Bloodaxe in 1990, they found a copy of the source
code for Morris' Internet worm.
Steve Wozniak
Why Woz? Because he exemplifies the young hacker's dream. Just outta college,
the two Steves (Wozniak and Jobs) set to work designing computer games (for
Atari) and building blue boxes (for themselves). Woz builds the Apple I. It has
no keyboard, no case, no sound or graphics, but it is a thing of beauty
nonetheless. The boys shake hands on April Fools' Day 1976, and Apple Computer
is born. The pride of the Homebrew Computer Club, Wozniak trades in his HP
programmable calculator and Jobs sells his VW van to finance production from a
Palo Alto garage.
Now Wozniak's headed back to Apple, where it all began two decades ago. Will
his magic work a second time?
check out: http://www.woz.org:80/pages/staff/steve/steve.html
Clifford Stoll
We'll admit this Berkeley astronomer doesn't qualify as one of the usual
suspects: He thinks the Net amounts to one vast cultural wasteland. But Cliff
Stoll had the brains and persistence to track KGB cracker Markus Hess through
the Ethernet to Hanover, Germany -- then package the feat as a bestselling,
real-life thriller. For many The Cuckoo's Egg was their first introduction to
the hacking underworld. It's still a great read.
So what if its author thinks the Net is a big dose of Silicon snake oil.
check out: http://www.discovery.com/DCO
Douglas Engelbart
Don't know why we missed him the first time out: Among other inventions, Dr.
Engelbart is responsible for hypertext, windows, cross-file editing and the
mouse. There would be no Net hacking without him. Engelbart first thought of
hypermedia while serving as a radar technician during World War II. Seeing
information displayed on a radar screen, he imagined sitting in front of a
similar display, "flying around" in an information space. The engineer pursued
his wild ideas in his own lab at the Stanford Research Institute, and first
demonstrated his hypermedia "oNLine System" (or NLS) and computer mouse to a
stunned audience in 1968.
Holder of more than 20 patents, Engelbart is founder and director of the
Bootstrap Institute, specializing in strategies, technologies and processes for
building high-performance organizations, teams and individuals.
He also likes to make up science-fiction stories for children.
check out: http://beluga.dc.isx.com/bootstrap/final/index.htm
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