Hacker Perspective: Pic0o

I am a fan of random things and functional theory.  Much finger time has gone to gaming, forums, BBSes, and the like sides of communication.  Local play and support are the sweetest times for learning and exploration.  Spoken words and facial dialogue are extremely direct and ideal for communication.

"Dorkin' Out" started mostly visually for me, I'd guess when I was nearly ten years old.  I wondered how to record video to Betamax while being able to watch something else (mostly because the recording was not for my eyes at that time).  Mom says I broke lots of things as a kid, but I wonder if that was just "Functional Inquiry."

Local friends and I lived to explore and ask questions.  I stripped the BNC connector off a CB antenna to get a better radio signal.  Dad was pissed.  Around the age of 14, I got my first home computer, a NEC branded Intel i486DX2.  Before this, I had a friend down the street with a Commodore 64.  The guy was very cool and a chill buddy.  We had fun keying code from a book and into a game, among other things.

Hardware-wise, I kept the 486 functional well after having obtained my Pentium II 233 MHz.  That was my last pre-built PC for personal or preferred long term support systems.  I love to build, benchmark, boot, and troubleshoot downtime.  These tendencies are present in non-technical tasks as well.  "How could that happen with less of the downside" would crudely cover my motif.  How can someone seeking a conflict resolution do so without ill effects upon others?

Rambling back to video games, I'd say my best reward was communicating internationally.  When you play competitive team-based first person shooter (1999-2002) Red Faction matches, all is quite serious.  Before all of that, Doom, Wolfenstein, and making DOS boot discs were my specialty in the earlier 1990s.  In the FPS era, I was never great at team deathmatch play.  Capture the flag, get the cut, and bounce is my play style.  Kind of an entertaining truth on my objective management and conflict mitigation.  My main gaming community role?  Forum relations.  Also on occasion, being called a bot.

Once I got out of high school, I knew I was into computers.  But I needed "formal" education to get a degree and a job.  Not being a fan of traditional schooling and spending four years to get a degree, I went to a technical school.  Eighteen months later, I had an associate degree and a bill for the schooling.  In my opinion of the early 2000s, this was the minimum paper certification required to earn a job in I.T. and to obtain the desired "professional work experience."  Granted, I had been doing personal repair work and database migrations for people five years prior to getting a degree.

What did I learn in technical college?  That computer training and certifications are all book driven, designed to make you believe there is only one way to accomplish a goal.  Hacker friends obviously know this is a lie and also a defeatist perspective.  My best takeaway from college?  Friends I met there who also shared my opinions on the class structure who also loved to build and tinker with things.  I paid to meet my crew via schooling.  These are the people who got me started and addicted to building computers.  We made custom water cooling loops, overclocked like bandits, and played Local Area Network (LAN) games versus various international and national gaming clans and individuals.  This was also in the dial-up and Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) days.

The main game of the early 2000s was Red Faction on PC.  A local crew of friends (who met via that tech college) joined into what became known as the Phoolz Like Us (+PLUS+) gaming clan.  We had ladder matches, forum drama, and open recruitment.  If one has never felt the experience of being in an online gaming community, I recommend it.  I feel these communities are just that, a group of people spending time together by choice.  Sure, a troll or two would pop up in-game or on the forums spouting hate and rage.  My rule was: don't feed the trolls.  You could kindly dissect their rage points in reply.  If they were in a game server, you could kill their avatar or kick them for disrupting the game.  Fun comes first in the servers; whine on the forums, if you must.

So far, my point circles around how all of these prior experiences are relevant in dealing with day-to-day events and people.  Thanks to my friends from computer college, I met more people with similar interests and a nature of exploring how something works, what it takes to accomplish a task, along with a love for critical thinking.  I currently try to learn via research and peer feedback.  Manuals are terrible reads, cover to cover.  So I check a new system out first, then create a list of questions for manual lookup and referencing.

Still in my pre-2600 era, it was the year 2000.  Y2K had not shut down Earth, but it did break some double-digit application year clocks.  Having left school and joined the work force, I was in "the real world."  My first job was working with a small financial firm.  It was extremely rural, as were most of their clients.  My I.T. manager inherited the position of authority because he had been an accountant with the company prior.  This job also showed me that the "certified Microsoft professional" tends to be paper-certified "book smart," with zero practical knowledge.

The dude was certified for Windows NT (pre New Technology technology, Windows 2000).  I was vastly more NT proficient and roughly 15 years younger.  (I do have to pause to be fair; I'm sure someone 15 years my junior would make me look like a Windows 8 dunce.)  The guy was kind of an ass.  The job site was a hot dump of a mess.

I had to manage an Access 97 database with hundreds of customer records, keep that kludge of a database running, and, of course, be ignored anytime someone asked why it crashed so much.  Also ignored were any suggestions for migrating the data to a more scalable platform, or normalizing the data on the current platform to run more smoothly.  Sadly, many companies still act like this, many years later.  The finale for that job was when the local Windows Internet Information Services was remotely defaced.  Since it was done by posting a new page to the server, I simply searched the server for file_name.asp and removed the newly added files.

Since the other two people in my department could not figure this out, it was obvious to upper management that I must have defaced the server.  "What The f*ck?!?" was my response.  I think this passively enforced the "Hacker is Bad" stereotype in my head.

At this point in my life, I did not know that television news was primarily a lie.  Nor did I know that most people got I.T. positions merely due to workplace seniority.  Why was I required to pay roughly $28,000 plus interest and 18 years of schooling just to get a shot at a job?  I did learn that being knowledgeable about things made people scornful.  Especially those who just wanted a paycheck and had no passion for their trade.

I left that job for another.  In this job, I only really reported to one person.  Anyone else I spoke to was of my own volition.  This was a larger company and I was still learning about this "real world."  My main role was inventory management and transitioning from one form-based inventory database system to another.

I was still maybe a year from college, so I was merely an "intern" employee.  No benefits, but the constant "work well and we'll give you a position with benefits" carrot was dangling.  O.K., sure.  So I did my job well and wrote a 60-page guide on how to use the new system and how to do my job.  Shortly after completion, I was let go from said employer.  My boss told me I was the highest level intern they ever had.  I guess that was meant to be a compliment, but I was applicable for unemployment, so hurray.

Beyond unemployment, I had a call center job doing phone support for dial-up users.  Most callers were about as kind as YouTube commenters, but a good portion of coworkers were super cool and entertaining.  I would say this is where I started translating technical issues, for the sake of traditional, less inquisitive PC and Macintosh users.

Not too long into this job, I was promoted to the highest level in the office (and country) technical support group.  I debugged issues, wrote knowledge-based articles for Level 1 support, and performed callbacks for advanced support escalations.  Customers were far nicer when you called them up.

Working in the call center taught me a grand lesson.  I will call this "spreadsheet business logic."  Essentially, I view this as the practice of managing a business from a spreadsheet.  It involves ignoring production and customer issues, as it's better to meet metrics and averages than to actually provide good service and customer relations.  You might feel this issue is still very present in today's workforce and business management.  No argument from me on that.

This article is not to be read as a resume, so I'll condense other positions and their relations to knowledge from previous roles.  (Snarky satire included in numbered list.)

1.)  Be careful what you are good at.  How did you fix that?  You must be a criminal.

2.)  Write a guide on how to do your job.  A corporation would surely not use this as a guide to lay you off and replace you with a cheaper employee.

3.)  Do not be too helpful in technical support.  If the product has a defect and customers tend to cancel service upon you finishing support with issue unresolved, you will be seen as the cause for cancellation.  Spreadsheet culture in effect.  Also, keep that call time under ten minutes, no matter how many times the customer has had to call in for that issue.

With three jobs and some experience in "the field," I was able to score a really enjoyable position.  Travel was frequent, per diems for meals and hotels were paid, and there was actually an I.T. budget with newer equipment.

I also worked with smart and enjoyable people.  This had been semi-rare previously.  When I started, I was very unqualified and noted this honestly in the interview.  The hiring manager didn't like me at the time, but his primary assistant thought I was competent enough to figure it out.

Being a computer hobbyist and builder helped too. Within the first few months of being given a position, I became the primary support person for legacy systems and job sites, while learning how to do the same thing on the new system.  My boss and I became friends and I also turned into what I call the "WTF, dude."  If we had a big issue needing more information, either from a user or machine, that was my role.

Thanks to the previous jobs, I already visualized how to relate screenshots and mouse clicks for users over the telephone.  Forum- and support-wise, I was used to calming irate users down, in an effort to get a more clear description of any issues.  I was and am a hardware/software hobbyist, so by the time I was sent to job sites for migrations and new installs, most of my coworkers thought I was a wizard in I.T.

My coworkers are awesome, as this is where I found 2600: The Hacker Quarterly.  I had seen the mag around before, but until I met someone who handed me a copy and wasn't a career criminal (I grew up on Nickelodeon, pardon the television stigma), I was not aware of how badly "hacker" and "hacking" were demonized in the media.

As a result of learning how other tales of my childhood were a lie, I would say finding 2600 was a profound awakening.  I was on my way already, thanks to international forum communications and shattering international stereotypes, but 2600 was huge for me.

After reading an issue (22:1 - Spring 2005), I instantly subscribed.  Finding a store with copies was a pain, so I sent money to have a courier-delivered edition sent to my home.  My friend laughed in concern when I noted my home subscription.  By this time, I was not worried, but already figured I had been "on a list or two."

I got a new job from there, supporting hundreds of users.  International and local folks loved my support.  I have talked to many people (and still do), so I'll have a nice social chat while doing repairs - answering questions as asked, but only elaborating when asked.  Do you want to know how your mechanic replaced your transmission?  O.K., maybe you do, but the average person does not care.  Thus, why you (or the mechanic) were called.

This cool job was bought overnight by its direct competitor.  The severance packages came about 90 days later, but some people were let go the next day, fully paid until severance time in about 90 days.  I worked with another support user so antisocial that multiple users asked me if I had ever heard him speak.  That person won the double-pay period for 180 days, because he was terrible with users and his job.  I was asked to work for 90 days to offer support for the other employees asked to work for 90 days, before being laid off with severance.  So yes, be careful what you are good at.  If you are a poor support employee, you may get extra paid time off.

Sharing information is paramount to me.  For example, reading almost any TechNet article is mostly a waste of time.  If you are having a problem, vague wording and no examples or descriptions on how to accomplish a task sucks.  I'll essentially make a thread on my forums with search keywords, a description of the issue, and what I found to be a resolution.  Thanks to other frustrated users, this often culminates in valid information with references cited.

While I do love to build hardware, I also enjoy some intangible projects.  People, animals, social issues, and well being are some of these things.  I'm a large supporter of perspective, opinions, intuition, and first impressions.  Being quiet and letting others speak are often my most educational and enjoyable conversations.  Do not get me wrong - I'll add to a conversation if I feel there is a relevant point to add, but the perspective of others helps me to be more relevantly informed on any subject matter.

When I read of 2600 writers and readers who are not "computer hackers," I feel they are still part of the same family.  Persons who strive to creatively accomplish a task are typically more effective and radically different (or ingeniously simple) than those who subscribe to the currently defined process.  Essentially, hacking is limitless.

Always explore, ask questions, and ponder what you find relevant and worthy of your time.  Sometimes work too, but cater to your weaknesses to accomplish more things.  Hopefully, your counter skill will increase.

Pic0o is currently attending local security meetups, going to First Friday Philly 2600 meetings, and learning some Python.  He has also been working on some projects with his girlfriend whom he met at the local 2600 meetings.