The Best of 2600, Collector's Edition: A Hacker Odyssey

by Emmanuel Goldstein

In response to popular demand, Emmanuel Goldstein (aka, Eric Corley) presents a spectacular collection of the hacker culture, known as 2600: The Hacker Quarterly, from a firsthand perspective. Offering a behind-the-scenes vantage point, this book provides devoted fans of 2600 a compilation of fascinating—and controversial—articles. Cult author and hacker Emmanuel Goldstein has collected some of the strongest, most interesting, and often provocative articles that chronicle milestone events and technology changes that have occurred over the last 24 years. He divulges author names who were formerly only known as “anonymous” but have agreed to have their identity revealed. The accompanying CD-ROM features the best episodes of Goldstein’s “Off the Hook” radio shows. CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Genres: Nonfiction, Technology, Computers, Programming, Hackers, History, Politics

912 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Jim]

Nearly all of the technical information gathered in this volume is obsolete, but that shouldn't discourage you from checking it out. It's a hefty collection of articles that have run in the legendary hacker zine 2600, and the selections give an excellent feeling of what it's like to be a subscriber to the publication. There's a lot of focus on some of the highlights of the past couple of decades: the great series of articles on the Red Box, the notorious FBI raids and crackdowns that are discussed in Bruce Sterling's book "The Hacker Crackdown", and plenty of Kevin Mitnick and Bernie S. info. An amazing look at the history of an important zine.

[Todd N]

This should be required reading — as history, technical background, whatever — for everyone working in the tech industry. It’s hard to imagine in our current dystopian nightmare of an industry funded by basketball team owners and managed by McKinsey and hedge fund rejects, but this is the original spirit of curiosity and anarchy that is still out there if you look hard enough.

The articles are sort of a greatest hits of the hacker zine 2600. (And I mean “hacker” in the very best sense of the word and “zine” in the very best sense of the word.) They are very conveniently organized by decade starting with the 80s when the only thing to hack was plain old telephone service (POTS), though there is a helpful article on hacking key-coded gates.

It moves on to BBSes, CompuServe, Unix systems, mobile phone systems, traffic light systems (yikes!), etc. It’s an arms race against the cleverest pranksters you’d ever want to hang out with. There’s even a section on what to do if your modem stumbles on to a VAX VMS system that gave me scary flashbacks.

One constant throughout the book is the constant persecution of hackers. It’s a bummer that once a computer is involved the Feds will add a “cyber-“ prefix to the beginning of the crime and a zero to the end of the sentence.

The book is about 10,000 pages long and weighs as much as the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey (hence the name), so you may want to consider the Kindle edition.

[Dan]

This is old school hacker at its best. The culture is all but lost now, but its nice to remember why and how we all started asking questions and getting answers when the systems that we all rely on today were being built.

There's alot of this book that didn't make sense, it was broken into parts, based on technology. The parts that deal with telephony were in section one, computers in section two with small little redirects on social engineering here and there. I'm most happy about the few and poignant references to Mitnick. Nothing flashy, and certainly nothing glamorous, just a story to tell.

The book is long, and there are parts that are, highly technical. But it would be a good read even if I didn't understand those aspects.

[Brently]

The series of stories are short and easy to pick up and complete on a whim. Clever exploits on technologies past are fun to indulge in. These stories aren't sensationalized like you would find on the evening news. Hackers and techies tell about interesting faults and exploits.

[Scott Holstad]

What is there to say? I LIVED for each new issue of 2600 for more years than I can remember. Part culture, part bragging, part tutorial (and excellent at that), this will ALWAYS represent old school hacking to me, the hacker ethos, and it should shame those that take that title and use it for themselves and their criminal idiocies these days. These people are hackers in the original and pure sense of the word - they're fucking criminals! It used to be about getting into places, servers, telephone companies, DECs, where you weren't allowed. For educational purposes and bragging rights. No one freaking hosed any systems (like ransomware today) and, sure, people "stole" info like credit card numbers, but no one used them, unlike thousand or millions going for pennies on the dark web today. Hell, the most famous hacker of them all, allegedly stole some 40K or 40 Million credit card numbers and stashed them on The Well's servers. He went on the run, things and times were desperate. Did he use ANY of those cards, even a penny's worth of use? Hell no! Technically criminal in the old days, but almost never profiting or committing cyber espionage like today. I think many of the old schoolers who lived for 2600, like me, are probably very disappointed to see where things have gone. But this book ... this book is damned essential and I couldn't recommend it more!

[pluton]

OMG what a looooong book. It starts with at&t and original telephones and phreaking — this, as well as the majority of all the articles, is very heavily US-based. Then it goes to cover networking and internets more and more. There is a lot of diverse information, maybe less than half is still relevant, although almost all interesting. As expected, the book is of heavily pro-hacker mentality, trying to explain to readers why hackers (in the original, non-negative sense of the word) do what they do. I think it would be most enjoyable by people who've read the 2600 magazine over the years and wanted to recollect the best stories from them (although only up to 2008).

[Gene Ishchuk]

not the best selection of articles, some of them extremely arrogant and watery, some of them are dated at best;
while I understand it is a collection distilled out of 2600 but man some things were hard to read, specially these 'egalitarian' things to hackers and 'wannabes' like all of them were born with a keyboard glued to their tiny hands.
I couldn't finish it.

[Justin Liew]

I didn't read the entire book, but rather did a pick and choose of a number of interesting articles. Overall a good resource.

[mono]

This was sitting on the shelf for years, then in storage. I ask myself why do I hoard such fantasies & not just pitch it into the bin... my obsessive nature requires me to at least read it first...

Technologies rise and fall, but corporations have never been morale, Plato cries crocodile tears... mostly over my shitty attempts at prose & poetry, but also because his ideal society maybe isn't so great either.

Finished - Nov 5, 2024 from Oct

reminding me of the eternal struggle between companies & individuals. The outlaw cowboy is a deep part of the American Dream. Anything to piss off the Man is good - and at least 2600 held up their values in a court of law.

remember remember even if you wouldn't sell your soul for a dollar _fill_in_the_blank_[google facebook amazon microsoft usa china russia] all will.

should i include where i donate the book? I'm not sure who would appreciate it. I was thinking the public library.

[Jen]

My review grew increasingly more positive throughout this lengthy book, and I'm not sure if it's sad that I was thinking about that instead of the content, or good that I ultimately landed on four stars in the end.

Without an electrical engineering background, the telephone section toward the beginning — including Hertz frequencies, circuits, and making red/blue/black/yellow boxes — was pretty dense. Once the anthology got into computers, however, I started enjoying myself quite a bit more.

Sure, the text does get a bit preachy at times, especially about (cough, cough) Kevin Mitnick and his ensuing trial, as well as hackers unfairly being blamed for the world's technological ills. Overall, though, it was a fun and fascinating read. I'm kind of kicking myself for not having heard of 2600 (the magazine) earlier.

[Charles]

This really is almost a history of Computing and technology as a hobby. The best of 2600 is of course a compilation of articles printed in the magazine 2600. 2600 markets it self as a hacker magazine. Keep in mind that unless your are the media a hacker isn't necessarily a criminal. Read all the definitions and debate under http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker A hacker is a tinker and do-it-yourself'er (forgive the bad definition). The magazines articles are divided by era 1980'S 1990'S, and the 2000's. The book shows over 25 years of progression, history, and innovation in the realm of computers and technology. A fascinating read.

[Mike]

A long and large survey of some of the most interesting stories and articles to be published in "2600: The Hacker Quarterly". I kept the book by my bedside for a few years and slowly made my way through it, enjoying the nostalgic look back into those "earlier, simpler" computer times (which is actually a reason I like to read lots of other history books), but also learning history I'd not known much about, like phone-freaking. I certainly can't recommend this for everyone but if you're at a library it's a pretty fascinating compendium.

[Jon]

Usually I hate glossaries. They're usually simple, insulting, and useless. This book needs one though, given the wide range of time and technical materials. I got it from the library, but due to it being heavily requested and my schedule didn't make it through. I should have paid closer attention to the table of contents before I started and read it non-linearly. I think this book probably should have been a series, not on large tome. At least they should have pulled out the editorials and legal battles into a separate book which I would imagine would be useful to a researcher.

[Markus]

Took me a while to read through, and in the end I skipped a few more boring articles. As a whole, this book offers a nice historic view to hacking on three decades. For myself as a geek, it's a nice summary of many of the issues my fellow nerds have met during this time. The most interesting thing here is the foresight these writers have had since 80s about the rise of surveillance state. They were surely thought to be overly paranoid even after 9/11 attacks, but Snowden leaks have shown us how right they were, at least in principle.

[Vasil Kolev]

The book is a good collection of 25 years of published hacking/phreaking history. The technical level is not that good, and some of the stuff is really laughable, but otherwise it would be a good start for anyone for the basic ideas of computer security, etc.

I actually found very little new stuff for me in there, I found out that I've read the early phreaking stuff a long time ago and everything after 2000 is still fresh enough in my memory.

[Timon Karnezos]

Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of articles about hackers, crackers, phreakers, nerds, geeks, smart people, dumb people, and telephones of all types. A fantastic way of realizing how weird shit was, back in the day, and how much weirder it's gotten.

[W.G.T. Fernando]

A must have book if you have an interest in taking tech to the limit with these hacking habits compiled by Eric Corley (aka Emmanuel Goldstein). Solid stories from 1984, a 888 pages read :)

Should put a detailed review when I get some time

[Dustin]

Lots of history and reference material here. If you're looking for a great overview of the hacking culture from the 80s through the late 00s, here it is. Its great from a historical perspective because you're reading the actual contemporary articles that were published over the years.

[Djiezes]

Minireview at
http://www.donationcoder.com/Forums/b...

[Scuppers]

This is the most wonderful book for hacker-types ever. It's essentially 20 years of 2600 magazine bound as a book. Not to be missed.

[Albert]

Very interesting descriptions of the earlier days of the 'net...

[Jesse]

Good read, all entries from the 2600 magazine. Some are just.. Fascinating.

[Scott von Berg]

entertaining look back at the magazine... likely a pretty niche group, from phones to computers and general hacking too.

[Tim]

About 40% of the content is "hackers are persecuted" outside of that all good.

[Brian]

Well, that took a few years.

[B]

It may be outdated--but variations are rehashed on a regular basis because nothing has changed in the human condition.

[Allan]

Most of the stories were interesting, a good walk-through the history of Computers, Online Society and Hacking

[Jeremy]

Interesting merely for the nostalgia of the 90s hacker culture.

[Robb]

Classic. Must read and understand and live this.