💾 Archived View for gemini.spam.works › mirrors › textfiles › humor › COMPUTER › crackers.hum captured on 2022-07-17 at 02:20:17.
⬅️ Previous capture (2022-06-12)
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WATCH OUT FOR THEM CRACKERS! Used to be a Cracker was someone from the South. Nowdays, a Cracker is someone who haunts BBSs and loads in buggy programs which zap unsuspecting downloaders' operating systems. Times change. We have dealt with a few nasty Crackers and have developed a few very simple ways of handling them and the results of their 'Arf Arf' programs. * After your computer has blown up, take it back to Crazy Lou's Emporium and tell them it self-destructed. Those salesmen are merely rerouted car salesmen -- they'll never know. Just be sure you sent in your warranty information. * Feint Download. Download only to a capture buffer so you can scrutinize the program before sinking it into your three thousand dollars' worth of PC. * Start a Shooting War. Do your own buggy programs, even if all they do is show Brownian motion onscreen. Describe them in lofty, hi-tech terms so the Crackers themselves will want to try them out. * Embed sections of text from "You Guessed It" in any programs you download before testing them. The inane chatter will act like a roach bomb. * Before you download anything, ask around. Don't ask the obvious questions, just subtle ones like, "Is there a message at the end?" * Get back up on the BBS after having your computer fixed and tell all. That, of course, won't stop Crackers but it'll make you feel better. There's no question this new hobby among Crackers is just the beginning of a reign of compu-terror, but there's another side to the issue. A friend of mine is an accomplished programmer who does work for small clients. He always embeds necessary controls in his work so that, if the client fails to pap0iim on time, he can destroy the program with just a few quick taps on the keyboard. Major software vendors have taken less blatant steps to protect their proprietary rights, as you no doubt know. The question is, how do you thwart compu-terrorists but protect your own rights? One suggestion is to deflect them. Let's get compu-terrorists on our side! Anyone know a key phone number in, say, the Soviet Union, Libya or South Africa?