Phrack

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Phrack is an underground ezine made by and for hackers that has been around since November 17, 1985. The magazine is open for contributions by anyone. Topics of interest are security, hacking, phreaking, anarchism, cryptography, spying, radio broadcasting, coding, conspiracy, and world news.

The original editors of Phrack were hackers with the handles Taran King and Knight Lightning, and it was originally published on the Metal Shop BBS. It was the first electronically distributed magazine[citation needed].

Phrack is especially popular due to the general high standard of the releases compared to other underground zines, articles such as Aleph1's 'Smashing The Stack For Fun And Profit' and The Mentor's 'Hacker Manifesto'.

The popular Hacker Manifesto, an inspiration to young hackers since the 1980s, was published in the 7th issue of Phrack. An article in the 24th issue relating to the workings of Enhanced 911 emergency response systems played a major part in the Secret Service raids called Operation Sundevil and featured in Bruce Sterling's book The Hacker Crackdown.

In 2005, it was announced that Phrack was to come to an end, with the 63rd issue as its last. To commemorate Phrack's final appearance, this issue was to be a hardback edition, released simultaneously at the DEF CON and What the Hack conventions on July 29. An e-zine version of the release followed on August 1. The European printer for the hardcopy of Phrack refused to fulfill the order once they realized that they were printing a Hacking book, but got a printer for the What the Hack convention anyway. Two University of Arizona students filled the gap and printed 200 copies of Phrack in time for DEF CON.

The Phrack staff announced in their latest #63 release that the magazine will continue to run, with a new, younger generation of hackers.

There are two different Phrack websites online at the moment: phrack.org houses the original, official magazine. A renegade site run by the Phrack High Council is located at phrack.ru. The new phrack staff managed to unify the multiple spirits of the underground scene and has kept credibility in the whole hacking community by releasing hacking information of an excellent technical level.

Many people are now looking forward to the rebirth of the magazine that will probably occur sometime during 2006. Quoting the introduction of the last Phrack issue: "As long as there is technology, there will be hackers. As long as there are hackers, there will be PHRACK magazine. We look forward to the next 20 years."

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