Phrack is an underground ezine written by and for hackers first published November 17, 1985. An underground ezine is a publication without defined periodicity that discusses any subject which the Publisher deems interesting or newsworthy Events 284 - Diocletian is proclaimed emperor by his soldiers Year 1985 ( MCMLXXXV) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link displays 1985 Gregorian calendar) ^[1] The magazine is open for contributions by anyone who desires to publish remarkable works or express original ideas on the topics of interest. It has a wide circulation which includes both hackers and the computer security professionals. ^[2]

Originally covering subjects related to phreaking and telephone system hacking, anarchy and kracking,^[1] the articles also cover a wide range of topics including computer and physical security, hacking, cryptography and international news. Phreaking is a Slang term coined to describe the activity of a Subculture of people who study experiment with or explore telecommunication systems like equipment This article describes how security can be achieved through design and engineering Physical security describes measures that prevent or deter Attackers from accessing a facility resource or information stored on physical media Hack has several meanings in the technology and computer science fields Cryptography (or cryptology; from Greek grc κρυπτός kryptos, "hidden secret" and grc γράφω gráphō, "I write" It is considered both a handbook and a manifesto for hackers. ^[3]

Contents 1 History 1.1 Change of editorial team 2 Content 3 Legal action 4 References 5 External links

History

Phrack, first released on November 17, 1985, takes its name from the words "phreak" and "hack". Events 284 - Diocletian is proclaimed emperor by his soldiers Year 1985 ( MCMLXXXV) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link displays 1985 Gregorian calendar) Phreaking is a Slang term coined to describe the activity of a Subculture of people who study experiment with or explore telecommunication systems like equipment ^[4]. The founding editors of the magazine, known by the pseudonyms "Taran King" and "Knight Lightning", edited most of the first 30 editions. Craig Neidorf (born 1969 aka Knight Lightning, was one of the two founding editors of Phrack Magazine an online text-based ezine that defined the ^[5] Editions were originally released onto the Metal Shop bulletin board system, where Taran King was a sysop,^[1] and widely mirrored by other boards. A Bulletin Board System, or BBS, is a Computer system running software that allows users to connect and login to Sysop (ˈsɪsɒp is short for " System operator " It is a commonly used term for an administrator of a multi-user website such as a Bulletin board system In Computing, a mirror is an exact copy of a Data set On the Internet, a mirror site is an exact copy of another Internet site ^[4]

Change of editorial team

In 2005, it was announced that Phrack was to come to an end, with the 63rd issue as its last. Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. To commemorate Phrack's final appearance, this issue was to be a hardback edition, released simultaneously at the DEF CON and What the Hack conventions on July 29. DEF CON (also written as DEFCON or Defcon) is the world's largest annual Hacker convention held every year in Las Vegas Nevada. What The Hack was an outdoor hacker conference held in Liempde, The Netherlands between the 28th and 31st of July 2005 Events 1014 - Byzantine-Bulgarian Wars: Battle of Kleidion: Byzantine emperor Basil II inflicts a decisive defeat An e-zine version of the release followed on August 1. Events 30 BC - Octavian (later known as Augustus enters Alexandria, Egypt, bringing it under the control of the Roman The European printer for the hardcopies of Phrack to be distributed at DEF CON refused to fulfill the order once they realized that they were printing a Hacking book. Two University of Arizona students filled the gap and printed 200 copies of Phrack in time for the convention. The University of Arizona (also referred to as UA, U of A, or Arizona) is a Land-grant and space-grant public institution

Issue 63 told readers to "expect a new release,"^[6] and on May 27, 2007, issue 64 was released by a new, younger generation of editors referring to themselves as "The Circle of Lost Hackers. Events 927 - Simeon the Great, Tsar of Bulgaria, dies 1120 - Richard III of Capua is anointed Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. " (TCLH). ^[7]. TCLH eventually released issue #65 of Phrack on April 11, 2008.

Content

Phrack issues are released irregularly, and like academic publications issues are grouped into volumes. Each issue comprises a number of Philes: stand-alone text files of very technical or counter-cultural content. Individual Philes are written by many different contributors. These are sometimes edited by the Phrack Staff, who write the introduction and publish the magazine.

Phrack is especially popular due to the general high standard of the releases compared to other underground zines, but has made its reputation from a number of high-quality articles.

• The Mentor's Hacker Manifesto, which has been an inspiration to young hackers since the 1980s, was published in the 7th issue of Phrack. The 1980s was the decade spanning from January 1 1980 to December 31 1989.
• Aleph One's Smashing The Stack For Fun And Profit, published in issue 49, is the "classic paper"^[8] on stack buffer overflows, partly responsible for popularizing the vulnerability. Elias Levy (also known as Aleph One) was the moderator of the Full disclosure vulnerability mailing list Bugtraq from May 14 1996 In software a stack buffer overflow occurs when a program writes to a memory address on the program's Call stack outside of the intended data structure usually ^[9]

Several regular columns are present in most issues of Phrack, such as:

• Prophile - the presentation of a very influential character from the hacking underground.
• Loopback - answers to the most original (or stupid) emails received by the phrack staff.
• Phrack World News - a compilation of reports on the latest counter-culture events.
• International Scene - a compilation of testimonies from hackers all around the world focusing on national and international activities.

Legal action

Main article: Operation Sundevil

An article in the 24th issue relating to the workings of Enhanced 911 emergency response systems played a major part in the Secret Service raids called Operation Sundevil and featured in Bruce Sterling's book The Hacker Crackdown. Operation Sundevil was a 1990 nation-wide United States Secret Service crackdown on "illegal computer hacking activities" Enhanced 9-1-1 or E9-1-1 service is a North American telecommunications based system that automatically associates a physical address with the calling party's telephone Operation Sundevil was a 1990 nation-wide United States Secret Service crackdown on "illegal computer hacking activities" Michael Bruce Sterling (born April 14, 1954) is an American Science fiction author, best known for his novels and his seminal work on the Mirrorshades The Hacker Crackdown Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier (ISBN 0-553-56370-X is a nonfiction book written by Bruce Sterling in 1992 Phrack also showed up in the two part Operation Moon Witch storyline, published in 1992's The Hacker Files by DC Comics, a story based on Operation Sundevil. The Hacker Files is a twelve issue DC Comics mini-series published from August 1992 to July 1993 DC Comics is an American comic book and related media company

References

External links

• Phrack's homepage

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