At times I am secretly (actually more openly) jealous of my colleagues in the English department who get to teach literature day in and day out. What a treat.
So I always make sure to sneak at least one fictional story whether short–such as Kurt Vonnegut’s “Unready to Wear” in Welcome to the Monkey House, which is superb or something longer and way more verbose than Vonnegut who is the epitome of sparsity, such as Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (Cryptonomicon is too long).
I have just been informed by Phil Lapsley of one of the only fictional accounts on phone phreakers Loving Little Egypt and I might just make this the fictional account for my hacker class I am teaching next semester. I can never get enough of phreaking and since there is so little on the topic, this can top things off.
Has anyone read it? Any thoughts? Any other fictional accounts on phreakers?
I don’t know about phreakers specifically, but I’d recommend “Bl@ckTo\/\/3r”, a short story posted on the nmap website: http://insecure.org/stc/sti.html .
(And, for more general short stories that your class might find fun and interesting, you might consider In the Beginning was the Command Line.)
Comment by Anonymous — November 18, 2009 @ 11:16 pm
Thanks! And yes In the Beginning was.. is a staple for me, a staple. Love it.
Comment by Biella — November 19, 2009 @ 5:36 am
Have you had a look at The Hacker Crackdown?
Comment by Uli — November 19, 2009 @ 12:17 pm
Also always teach it
usually not the full thing but a good chunk of it.
Comment by Biella — November 19, 2009 @ 1:29 pm