Sep 16, 2016 11:24 PM
(This post was last modified: Sep 16, 2016 11:27 PM by Emoticon.)
Prepare for (potentially unintelligible) rants, things you might like, things you might not like, and things you might not understand.
I'm sure not even a quarter of the people reading this have a clue who I am, and that's alright. The ones who do, I'm hoping you like(d) me. I was an editor for the HF News under the username "Emoticon" (old username, same account... not multi :P), as well as "Xerucide". I was also a member of the art group "Fly By Night", under music for a time, as well as graphics for a time. I made friends with leaders and members in both groups, some of those friendships have lasted a long time now.
I'll start off by saying I'm not very active on HF anymore, and that's not due to any problem with the site, its members, or its staff; it's due to business in real life. I have a job, a family, and a life outside of the Internet now. When I registered here in 2011, I had none of that. I was a 13-year-old going on 14, about to start high school. When I first joined, things like the "haunter gang" (and a few others) were the best on HF. The shiny chrome userbars of groups were a thing of pride, because if you were something on HF, you were something in the hacking community. That was before the skids arrived... well, sort of at least (that one group that went on a scamming spree wasn't so great).
Nowadays it seems all you have to do to subscribe to the lifestyle of a "hacker" is make a few posts on another forum (leaking site) and download databases of sites which didn't know how to secure their users. In 2011 this was not quite as prevalent. Social engineering was still around, but it wasn't the primary method of the majority of the major attacks on the Internet. We relied on RATs, worms, other forms of malware, hash cracking, and (sometimes) methods of extortion to get passwords. There were almost competitions to make the best RAT, crypter, or spreader. It's still sort of that way, but not quite as much. None of what I said above is anything wrong with HF so much as something sad about the 'evolution' of 'hacking'.
I'll give credit to HackForums that I got into Linux for desktop (was using it for servers before then), and as a result became a much more "happy", "power-user" type. I've been doing system administration for six and a half years, but HF tutorials as well as intelligent HF users really expanded my knowledge of programming and scripting. HF has also taught me HUGE lessons about security; both information security and operational security. I used to exclusively use a 17-character master password (search [email protected] in SPAM db to find it) for EVERYTHING I owned, but the user "Starfall" (who's still a friend of mine, even after he's been closed) took my e-mails, domains, cloudflare, etc. and asked me to stop using "shitty good-for-nothing gay passwords" (I think those are exact words).
The script kiddy revolution here made me really sad, seeing the majority of posts turn from intelligent conversation about exploitation, development, and all the other things HF used to talk about, and become useless 25-character posts about toenail fungus, crystal meth, and booters that hardly even establish a single slow connection to the targets. It's a direct result of the advertisement of how "hacking" can give you "power". People want power, so they turn to hacking, and where's the best place to learn to hack? HackForums.
It also makes me sad to see that HackForums is ridiculed in the hacking community. This is, again, a direct result to the "script kiddy revolution." There are still intelligent members here, and I know quite a few of them personally. I feel that it's unfair to bash a site by judging it by its lowest-quality, least intelligent members. You should judge by the best members, because they're the true "content creators" and leaders that drive the community.
Okay, now that I've given mixed signals about how I currently feel about HF, let's get right down to it. It's not what it once was. That's not Omni's fault, Omni is a wonderful admin (haha I'm brown-nosing in feedback and you can't stop me). There's no way to turn a community that has become polluted by low-quality members, amateurs, and the like into a purely experienced, well-rounded community. If there was, I'm confident that Omni would've done it already. The guy's done wonders in the past, for this community and its users. The way the HF ecosystem has become, you notice that the skids might get an upgrade, they might get some rep by +3'ing as many ub3rs as possible (like they always have, and I'm guilty too) and doing cheap giveaways (thank you again omni for disallowing $0.05 giveaways), but in the intelligent conversations that are started by intelligent members, they either stay silent or embarrass themselves. Spoiler (Click to View)
If all of the script kiddy, amateur members would take the time to learn more about what runs inside of the programs they're ripping, skidding, downloading leaked versions of, begging for, taking credit for creating, or illegally distributing/publishing, maybe there would be a chance to get the community back on its feet. It's not impossible, but it takes an effort from every member.
There are wonderful things about this community that need to be acknowledged. There has been a plague that makes it harder to see and acknowledge the best things this community has to offer. Maybe working together, everyone can strive to get back on your feet and help each other out, rather than bashing each other, attacking each other, and otherwise hating on each other. Also the vices thread is cancer, but it's good that it's got its own little quarantine.
Thanks for reading.
I'm sure not even a quarter of the people reading this have a clue who I am, and that's alright. The ones who do, I'm hoping you like(d) me. I was an editor for the HF News under the username "Emoticon" (old username, same account... not multi :P), as well as "Xerucide". I was also a member of the art group "Fly By Night", under music for a time, as well as graphics for a time. I made friends with leaders and members in both groups, some of those friendships have lasted a long time now.
I'll start off by saying I'm not very active on HF anymore, and that's not due to any problem with the site, its members, or its staff; it's due to business in real life. I have a job, a family, and a life outside of the Internet now. When I registered here in 2011, I had none of that. I was a 13-year-old going on 14, about to start high school. When I first joined, things like the "haunter gang" (and a few others) were the best on HF. The shiny chrome userbars of groups were a thing of pride, because if you were something on HF, you were something in the hacking community. That was before the skids arrived... well, sort of at least (that one group that went on a scamming spree wasn't so great).
Nowadays it seems all you have to do to subscribe to the lifestyle of a "hacker" is make a few posts on another forum (leaking site) and download databases of sites which didn't know how to secure their users. In 2011 this was not quite as prevalent. Social engineering was still around, but it wasn't the primary method of the majority of the major attacks on the Internet. We relied on RATs, worms, other forms of malware, hash cracking, and (sometimes) methods of extortion to get passwords. There were almost competitions to make the best RAT, crypter, or spreader. It's still sort of that way, but not quite as much. None of what I said above is anything wrong with HF so much as something sad about the 'evolution' of 'hacking'.
I'll give credit to HackForums that I got into Linux for desktop (was using it for servers before then), and as a result became a much more "happy", "power-user" type. I've been doing system administration for six and a half years, but HF tutorials as well as intelligent HF users really expanded my knowledge of programming and scripting. HF has also taught me HUGE lessons about security; both information security and operational security. I used to exclusively use a 17-character master password (search [email protected] in SPAM db to find it) for EVERYTHING I owned, but the user "Starfall" (who's still a friend of mine, even after he's been closed) took my e-mails, domains, cloudflare, etc. and asked me to stop using "shitty good-for-nothing gay passwords" (I think those are exact words).
The script kiddy revolution here made me really sad, seeing the majority of posts turn from intelligent conversation about exploitation, development, and all the other things HF used to talk about, and become useless 25-character posts about toenail fungus, crystal meth, and booters that hardly even establish a single slow connection to the targets. It's a direct result of the advertisement of how "hacking" can give you "power". People want power, so they turn to hacking, and where's the best place to learn to hack? HackForums.
It also makes me sad to see that HackForums is ridiculed in the hacking community. This is, again, a direct result to the "script kiddy revolution." There are still intelligent members here, and I know quite a few of them personally. I feel that it's unfair to bash a site by judging it by its lowest-quality, least intelligent members. You should judge by the best members, because they're the true "content creators" and leaders that drive the community.
Okay, now that I've given mixed signals about how I currently feel about HF, let's get right down to it. It's not what it once was. That's not Omni's fault, Omni is a wonderful admin (haha I'm brown-nosing in feedback and you can't stop me). There's no way to turn a community that has become polluted by low-quality members, amateurs, and the like into a purely experienced, well-rounded community. If there was, I'm confident that Omni would've done it already. The guy's done wonders in the past, for this community and its users. The way the HF ecosystem has become, you notice that the skids might get an upgrade, they might get some rep by +3'ing as many ub3rs as possible (like they always have, and I'm guilty too) and doing cheap giveaways (thank you again omni for disallowing $0.05 giveaways), but in the intelligent conversations that are started by intelligent members, they either stay silent or embarrass themselves. Spoiler (Click to View)
If all of the script kiddy, amateur members would take the time to learn more about what runs inside of the programs they're ripping, skidding, downloading leaked versions of, begging for, taking credit for creating, or illegally distributing/publishing, maybe there would be a chance to get the community back on its feet. It's not impossible, but it takes an effort from every member.
There are wonderful things about this community that need to be acknowledged. There has been a plague that makes it harder to see and acknowledge the best things this community has to offer. Maybe working together, everyone can strive to get back on your feet and help each other out, rather than bashing each other, attacking each other, and otherwise hating on each other. Also the vices thread is cancer, but it's good that it's got its own little quarantine.
Thanks for reading.
