![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
CV before CV [3/3]
Oct. 11th, 2013 02:39 pmThis is the last post of my CV before CV series. Here was the previous part.
Fidonet and Internet were like Spectrum and PC for me: I started using Internet in 1997 but kept using Fidonet until 2001, because of a huge cost advantage and unique content in Russian fidonet newsgroups. Internet was very expensive, so I did not have a reliable access until I started my first year in the University. So here comes the hacking part. People usually start hacking when they enter a university. I was an exception - I stopped hacking after I moved to Nizhny to study.
I was never a part of any hacker team, but some of my acquaintances got busted for hacking after I left my home town. When I elevated privileges or obtained access to systems I never changed anything or defaced. I am very proud that I declined all criminal related offers to help with computers I received (not many any way).
Once in 1998 I found a system on my ISP's internal network with an open telnet access. That was a Sparc/Solaris box. My normal internet login and password was sufficient to get a user shell (NIS, lamers!). After exploring the file system, I found an old version of quake 1 SUID binary in /usr/local/quake-1. There were many known exploits for q1 like for example this one. That was really tempting... But I did not hack it. There was a friend watching over my console when I was typing, and after I had a proof the system was exploitable I lied to him that I am not able to proceed.
There were two sides of hacking - getting net access and cracking windows applications. For the latter, I was using a Soft Ice (keywords: Mitino, gorbushka). I thought "I am not a script kiddie, I am 1ee7", but script kiddie I was. I stopped hacking at a right time - the agency got stronger even in our town, and there was free internet in the Uni (limited in the labs and there was a special Internet center - thank you Soros!)
I moved to Nizhny to study at NNSU, Radiophysics faculty. I wanted to study at VMK, but I checked the computer classes and it was much better at RF than at VMK - e.g. RF was using Linux, BSD and OS/2, and VMK was a windoze shop :)
In Nizhny I assembled a 486DX based box with 16M RAM from spare parts I'd collected when helping ppl with fixes/upgrades. I only had to buy a keyboard, a mouse and a CD-ROM drive, and to install dual boot of Slackware Linux and Windows 95. Using that box and internet access in the uni I wrote my first app that I was trying to sell as shareware. A free version is still online, and has my name on it. Weird. I was trying to sell this app for $9.99 and I am still wondering why 1 (one) person had bought it. However this app really helped me to get a full time job at Mera. In 1999 it was a small outsourcing company, doing several telco projects for now defunct Nortel.
The rest is in my real CV - a linkedin profile.
Fidonet and Internet were like Spectrum and PC for me: I started using Internet in 1997 but kept using Fidonet until 2001, because of a huge cost advantage and unique content in Russian fidonet newsgroups. Internet was very expensive, so I did not have a reliable access until I started my first year in the University. So here comes the hacking part. People usually start hacking when they enter a university. I was an exception - I stopped hacking after I moved to Nizhny to study.
I was never a part of any hacker team, but some of my acquaintances got busted for hacking after I left my home town. When I elevated privileges or obtained access to systems I never changed anything or defaced. I am very proud that I declined all criminal related offers to help with computers I received (not many any way).
Once in 1998 I found a system on my ISP's internal network with an open telnet access. That was a Sparc/Solaris box. My normal internet login and password was sufficient to get a user shell (NIS, lamers!). After exploring the file system, I found an old version of quake 1 SUID binary in /usr/local/quake-1. There were many known exploits for q1 like for example this one. That was really tempting... But I did not hack it. There was a friend watching over my console when I was typing, and after I had a proof the system was exploitable I lied to him that I am not able to proceed.
There were two sides of hacking - getting net access and cracking windows applications. For the latter, I was using a Soft Ice (keywords: Mitino, gorbushka). I thought "I am not a script kiddie, I am 1ee7", but script kiddie I was. I stopped hacking at a right time - the agency got stronger even in our town, and there was free internet in the Uni (limited in the labs and there was a special Internet center - thank you Soros!)
I moved to Nizhny to study at NNSU, Radiophysics faculty. I wanted to study at VMK, but I checked the computer classes and it was much better at RF than at VMK - e.g. RF was using Linux, BSD and OS/2, and VMK was a windoze shop :)
In Nizhny I assembled a 486DX based box with 16M RAM from spare parts I'd collected when helping ppl with fixes/upgrades. I only had to buy a keyboard, a mouse and a CD-ROM drive, and to install dual boot of Slackware Linux and Windows 95. Using that box and internet access in the uni I wrote my first app that I was trying to sell as shareware. A free version is still online, and has my name on it. Weird. I was trying to sell this app for $9.99 and I am still wondering why 1 (one) person had bought it. However this app really helped me to get a full time job at Mera. In 1999 it was a small outsourcing company, doing several telco projects for now defunct Nortel.
The rest is in my real CV - a linkedin profile.
