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Devilishcode
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hacking

Dataset card Data Studio Files
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an experience is just a rite of passage for the hacker, but I had no one to
acknowledge the virtue of such actions. I was not recognized, so I became
invisible. I was thrown into Tartarus.
--> 04: Olympus - Finally Being Seen
In my sophomore year in college, I got a job as a software quality tester
for a startup after hearing about an opening from a friend who also recently
got a job there. I thought it would be exciting to be a part of the Web 2.0
boom, but the job ended up being pretty boring. The entire role was to
follow a premade checklist and ensure that everything was functioning as
documented.
The icon is blue. Check.
The icon turns green when clicked. Check.
I thought my technical skills would be useful, but this role required no
skill at all. This job was monotonous, and I quickly began suffering from
the lack of stimulus. Boredom is a very real form of suffering. I
desperately needed something to happen, some randomness, so I began
looking for something to break under the guise of "quality assurance."
Soon, I found something. I would make something happen.
As was common at that time, the front page of the site said that it was in
beta and had a contact form to join the list for the test release.
I wondered if the form sent an email or if the submissions were stored in
a database. What would happen if I sent a flood of requests? Something
would happen, and I would gain some new knowledge of what was going on in
the backend. The anticipation of discovery through a bit of mischief was
the breath of fresh air I needed. Maybe I would get fired, but this role
was already dead to me, so it was worth the risk. On the Friday before I
left work, I placed a stapler on my enter key to continually resubmit the
form over the weekend and turned off my monitor.
When I got back on Monday, my boss learned what I had done and pulled me
aside. He told me that I had overloaded the email server to the point
where it started smoking (I'm not sure if that was literal or not). So, I
now knew that the form did send out emails, which did indeed mean it was
more vulnerable to attacks like the one I just pulled off with a common
office stapler. Strangely, I didn't get fired or even reprimanded. Instead,
my boss started to tell me about how he used to frequent the old BBSs when
he was younger. He was once a hacker from a bygone era and was trying to
tell me that he saw me for who I truly was: a hacker like him. I was seen,
but it was not with the usual malice I encountered in school when I was
younger. I was seen for the qualities that my boss cherished about his
younger self and maybe even for ones that he felt were lost somewhere
along the way.
That recognition was transformative in many ways. Instead of punishment for
my actions, my boss gave me a raise and a new title of "software security
tester." My role within the system was made anew into something that
conformed to who I was instead of being made to conform to something
I wasn't. I was allowed to be myself because I was finally seen for who I
was, and it was seen as good instead of bad. Most importantly, I was
granted the official freedom to create and run my own tests, as opposed to
the liberty that I took for myself. Like Hermes, the thing that I stole
somehow became legitimately recognized as mine.
A job that was inherently lacking creativity was transformed into one of the
most creative periods of my life. It was at this job where I used a Base64
encoder/decoder I created in JavaScript to get into other accounts by
changing the binary in two locations of the cookie. After the developers
updated to use sessions, I worked my way up to creating a special email that
sent me the session information when users opened it. The web app didn't
strip out embedded scripts, so I was able to hijack its functionality to
access the cookie and send it to me in an email. My time there became a
game of cat and mouse with the architects, transcending the original purpose
of simply testing the software. Still, the unintended byproduct of that game
was better software.
Things could have gone drastically different for me, and they did for my
friend who introduced me to the company. Frustrated with the tedium of the
job, my friend also destroyed some equipment by ripping out keys from his
keyboard one day. I was promoted when I destroyed a server, but my friend
ended up getting fired when he destroyed his keyboard. Two seemingly
similar actions stemming from the same place of discontentment but yielding
two completely different outcomes. It's like the story of Cain and Abel,
where both brothers offer up a sacrifice. One is looked upon favorably by
God, while the other is not, and it's not entirely clear why. If anything,
I should have been punished more severely for my more severe transgression,
but I was elevated to be something I wasn't before.
--> 05: The Uncertain Fate of the Trickster
Trickster mythology speaks to the question of how one born into the world
marked as illegitimate, cut off from the good things of society, becomes
legitimate. The answer is that he tricks his way in. He does something that
he was not supposed to do, so he ends up passing through where he was meant
to be excluded. Sometimes, he succeeds. Sometimes, he doesn't. Yet, he is
a trickster because he does what he ought not to do. Often, that trick is
exclusively for his own amusement, seemingly without forethought of the
potential consequences of his actions. He pushes buttons just to see what
will happen. Strangely, that impulsiveness will just as often result in
a gift to the world by stumbling across new wonders never before seen,
driving the culture forward.
The hacker is the modern incarnation of the trickster, finding ways to pass
through boundaries; some meant to keep him in, some meant to keep him out,
and some not meant for him at all. He does not necessarily break the rules;
he just doesn't do what is expected. The hacker is considered a trickster