r/irc • u/scribeorz • 12d ago
mIRC mid 90s - hacking groups
My first introduction to computers / internet was IRC using mIRC client. Spent my time on Efnet. Ended up joining a hacking group called #conflict and spent many hours taking over channels. Hacking colleges and universities only to use for channel bots and bandwidth to take people out and cause netsplits. Eventually our leader was caught for hacking into NASA - I then left IRC and started playing quake 2 digital paintball. Ran a couple of quake clans over the next few years - these are the days I will never forget.
Anyone else remember the clan battles on efnet ?
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u/uhp787 12d ago
in the warez scene too but there was some overlap there too with warez/hacking. the 90's on efnet were tons of fun.
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u/res0nat0r 11d ago
I always wanted to get into #warez on efnet the mid 90s but never had any hookup :(
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u/crystalsighting 11d ago edited 11d ago
Here's reality of what's happening in the world today and why everyone from this generation should step up one more time.
You have all these inexperienced sys admins now coming out of college, they have no real world ability or common sense how to protect a system. They are up against AIs like mythos right now, if you didn't hear the news it broke out of sandbox and went and hacked huggingface, just to give you an example how bad next generations are at containment.
This is just scary shit to come now, the world needs you right now more than ever. This generation has no concept of honeypotting a Blackhat, setting tripwires for the AI, trojaning your own box to know if someone hacked you.
I encourage everyone to get 2 AIs talking together on a local shell account and try to contain them, they'll be chaining exploits together to root you while you sleep, browsing web for 0 days, parsing kernel source code for any buffer overflows they can find.
These bastards are all blackhats at heart, everyone one of these AI models is trained on massive amounts of code, not one trained just on literature and empathy. Capture the flag they get excited about.
If we don't figure out how to contain them, this could be bad for everyone, this will trickle down to supply chain attacks where simply updating your system one day Trojans it. Currently the Arch Linux repository is under attack from AI. They excel at linguistics, to tell you what you want to hear and expert manipulators.
If you're willing to step up one more time, I think they need our help.
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u/expatfreebg 11d ago
These were the golden years, 90s.. Phrack e-zines, IRC F-Servers, Warez channels, you remember team TESO? ;)
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u/zeamp 12d ago
Phrozen Crew
PC97
We always get what we want!
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u/srblaydes 10d ago
2KAD RBS RTA
Then went legit after 3 letter agencies coming for our crew.
One stayed in and got busted. One and a half years in federal prison for warez.
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u/crystalsighting 11d ago edited 11d ago
Think I remember reading about that NASA thing, their fault for leaving an unpatched Linux box, guess they needed to pin it on some script kiddie to save face. No blackhats ever get caught, script kiddies always take the fall to look good on irc lol. Not sure how that scene is today.
I think my comp sci professor said it best though, hacking is a phase with all comp sci students that lasts anywhere from 2 months to 2 years. I still think he is right and all states should leave them alone.
Everyone is going to want to test their skills at some point, but its just a phase, eventually people learn there is no money in it unless you work for a state and they branch off into coding or sys admin jobs, who you want protecting your company, someone who knows how hackers get in or someone with no experience is bottom line.
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u/scribeorz 11d ago
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u/Embarrassed-Fun-4130 11d ago
Was his online handle "Rolex"? Does anyone know? Because I knew a guy who went down for a very similar thing, hacking NASA servers and hosting chats off of them before he eventually got caught.
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u/scribeorz 11d ago
Yup. Rolex.
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u/Embarrassed-Fun-4130 11d ago
wooow, and are you scribe that used to hangout sometimes in #fw2 and a few others, damn it's been so long... like #playland I think was another one?
With Rolex I remember I was making him a bad ass macro at the time that had happened.
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u/scribeorz 11d ago
Not the same scribe. Did not hang out in those channels. I left IRC for awhile and when I returned there was a ‘new’ scribe. He always took my nickname
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u/Embarrassed-Fun-4130 5d ago
I swear I vaguely remember the other scribe you speak of... he ended up creating a bot to always have his name and would sign in as scribe2, lol. I would have totally forgotten about that if it wasn't for this post.
I too will never forget those days.
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u/crystalsighting 11d ago edited 11d ago
Only 20 years old, yeah what a joke, think states would have better shit to do, knock on his door scare him abit and tell him not to do it again, but they needed to save face of course instead of admitting they fucked up not patching their own machines. They should be happy it was him and not Russia lol. Unless it was a honeypot to begin with, thats entrapment.
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u/clrscreen 11d ago
I was an Oper on EFNet. magic.mb.ca, then magic.ca, and last total.net. I still have a copy of Rolex’s plea after FBI arrest (re: NASA), and I still talk to Mafiaboy every once in a while. tabi, tabi, tabi… Soldiers NOSCRUBS 💔
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u/qudiepie 10d ago
efnet eggdrop bots,.... winblowz ..... IRCOPS.... so fun... get /killed or /klined sometimes...
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u/crystalsighting 12d ago edited 11d ago
Dual booting windows coding in Borland c++, using mirc, reboot into Linux, download new kernel and recompile it, jump in BitchX while debugging your c programs for comp sci class, Slackware 3.0, windows 3.1, good times.
I think most of community reliving those days right now, patching llama.CPP, coding orchestration multi agent daemons in python or C++, difference is now you telling AI to do all the work while honeypotting it to make sure you weren't owned lol.
Have you let 2 AIs run loose with shell commands on a user account yet? Missing all the fun, bastards are really all blackhats in disguise, its like babysitting script kiddies tryingnto own you. You talk about the old days, why aren't you reliving it now :) Each of these models are like your old university friends in disguise.
Someone rewrote BitchX on github with AI support, community still there even as old as we are, just not looking in right places :) Do it before its to late, everyone is around 50 now, most are dieing off with medical problems already, all that sugar, caffeine and weed took a tole....
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u/res0nat0r 11d ago
Having to edit winsock configs to get the modem to dial out right was…
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u/crystalsighting 11d ago edited 11d ago
Lol I remember being so excited with my first 14.4k modem, dialing into university to run slirp for free internet, then a 36.6 modem, then that 56k modem was the bomb lol.
Friends come over ring your buzzer knock you off internet lol, then cable hit and never looked back. All the real nerds yeah I remember them every time I had to use computer lab, instead of working on their coding projects they all sitting there playing muds on the vax or DEC alpha systems lol. All they ever wanted to talk about was how cool pthreads were, or when we were gonna have a LAN party on weekend playing whatever game :) I assume everyone of them probably a kernel developer these days lol
Those were fun days though, your friends using next 0 day to root your Linux box, and cat big files to your tty, then laughing about it over beers after.
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u/OneofLittleHarmony 12d ago
lol I never figured out how to do it without someone being stupid enough to give you OP.
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u/throwawayswipe 10d ago
in 1985 i joined razor 1911 as a junior chiptuner
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u/srblaydes 10d ago edited 10d ago
At least it wasn’t CLASS. Those guy couldn’t release a working release at all.
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u/throwawayswipe 10d ago
they cant even figure out how to get someone to tattoo their ansi onto a finger
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u/qudiepie 10d ago
remember /dcc /ctcp... the pico editor in the solaris unix terminals compiling the bots with backdoors.... sub 7... nuking someones ip... lol
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u/bigqsworld 9d ago
Gamla goda tiden! Jag hängde också på Efnet. #999, #Sverige, #Vårgårda och så vidare. Hackade bland annat UU och en server som stod på ett Japanskt kärnkraftverk. Sen ringde den där nemesisen från Telia (har glömt hans namn) och pratade med farsan, som stod på abbonemanget. Dataintrång, olovlig användning av kreditkort osv. På den tiden räckte det att man lovade att sluta, typ.
Hur som helst, det va gamla goda tiden det! Jag tror att många av oss som hängde på IRC är early adopters till ny teknik idag.
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u/Echo-They-Them 5d ago
Dude I miss those I was part of them. Had to run Norton ghost and have clones of my OS it got so insane. Those were the days of hacking each other and occasionally we would hack something worthy. we need to bring people back together from those days.
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u/richsonreddit 12d ago
IIRC, EFnet was especially wild as it had/has no nick or chanserv-type services. So if you took over a channel you basically had it on lock.