Hacking

What is here is mainly just notes and scribbles concerning various bits of hacking that I do.

Most of what's in this section is accessible through the menu on the right.


There are also a few things available for download:

  • - an evolutionary algorithm visualiser I made a couple of years ago, which uses Qt,
  • - my .zshrc file, and associated prompt, which somewhat resembles the default bash prompt in many distributions (and for some reason I keep in a separate file), and finally
  • - a replacement html4.css file, which you can put in your .kde/share/apps/khtml/css/ in order to make konqueror play nicely with websites if you use a dark background (I'll probably blog about this at some point). Update; Something seems to have changed in recent versions of konqueror (at least 4.1.3 onwards) and now it seems to be behaving a little better (but still not perfectly). You probably don't need this file any more.


    • So, what's hacking all about anyway? Isn't it to do with breaking into computer networks, stealing data and setting off bombs? Well... no.

    "A Hacker is any person who derives joy from discovering ways to circumvent limitations."
    - Bob Bickford in MicroTimes, December 1986.
    "A hacker is someone who thinks outside the box. It's someone who discards conventional wisdom, and does something else instead. It's someone who looks at the edge and wonders what's beyond. It's someone who sees a set of rules and wonders what happens if you don't follow them. A hacker is someone who experiments with the limitations of systems for intellectual curiosity."
    - Bruce Schneier in Secrets and Lies, September 2006.

    Or read what Eric Raymond wrote about Hacking here. I'm going to finish with a bit of Eric's nice succinctness:

    "The basic difference is this: hackers build things, crackers break them."

    Oh, and by the way, everybody loves Eric Raymond.

    Peace.

    Standing StoneBlocksRosieSkyline above the lakeCourchevelAfricaA Caernarfon street