zf05

I really missed the old phrack magazine. Some of the “loopback” entries in particular are superb examples of technical nous, complete irreverance and deadpan humour. One of my favourites (from phrack 55) appears in my blogroll under “network (in)security”. I am particularly fond of the observation that details of how to exploit old vulnerabilities are “[ As useless as 1950’s porn. ] “. As I said, sorely missed (but now, with issue 66 back in action after over a year since the last release).

It would seem, however, that I have been missing a new kid on the block who follows in phrack’s footsteps. A group called zf0 (zero for owned) appears to publish a ‘zine in the mold of the phrack of old. And their latest release, zf05.txt has been causing something of a stir because it relates details of the compromise of systems owned and/or managed by some high profile and well known personages such as Dan Kaminsky and Kevin Mitnick.

The ‘zine bears reading. The style is unmistakably “underground” and “down with the kids” and it is (unnecessarily in my view) filled with unix-geek listings of bash history files and such like, but its authors still manage to make the sort of pertinent comments that I so loved in phrack.

“It’s the simple stuff that works now, and will continue to work years into the future. Not only is it way easier to dev for simple mistakes, but they are easier to find and are more plentiful.”

How well patched are you?

Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2009/08/02/zf05/