Round Table: The Living History of Hacking - Legendary Hackers

A while back I told a few war stories from my preteen years in hacking on another channel, and I was left wanting more. So I’ve gathered several veterans of the old-school Spanish and Catalan scene, people who started tinkering back when getting online for free was the first test and learning to hack came afterwards.

Joining me are Jordi, the most senior of the group, who joined Telefónica in 1987 and went on to be technical coordinator of IRC Hispano, and Óscar Carbó, alias Necronoid, today the founder of microhackers, along with other names from that scene forged in channels like Apòstols, Hispahack or Viejaguardia. We go over X25, blue boxing, 900 numbers, the arrival of Infovía and wardriving with homemade antennas built from a broomstick and a biscuit tin. Out come stories now well past their statute of limitations: how Jordi accidentally took down the entire RIMA network and left Spain without internet for hours, the campaign against the Indonesian government over East Timor, or the Stanford admin who let an intruder stay in exchange for fixing his machine.

We also talk about where all this is heading with ChatGPT, quantum computing and bots that attack and defend on their own, and about why RootedCON has become the yearly excuse to meet up again. For anyone starting out, they agree on the same thing: curiosity, passion, community and, if needed, a certification to find your bearings.