Spring Issue of 2600 Released - Important News :
[For those who may be unfamiliar: 2600: The Hacker Quarterly "is an American seasonal publication of technical information and articles [...] on a variety of subjects including hacking, telephone switching systems, Internet protocols and services, as well as general news concerning the computer 'underground.'" --Ed.]
It gets worse. Our previous issue (the one still on stands) can't be sold to Barnes and Noble "curbside pickup" customers even though most everything else in their stores can be. Why? It's their "policy" that magazines can't be sold this way and that policy can't be changed despite the current circumstances. It makes no sense at all to us. Our issues are right there in the store yet they can't be sold to customers.
Rather than working out options where we might have a chance at survival, we're being told that we have to figure out what to do with all these issues or pay a penalty for not shipping them. We find ourselves in the middle of a Kafka novel where everything is stacked against the publisher because that's just how it is.
We've seen injustices before where distributors have gone out of business without paying us, sometimes simply changing their name and continuing to make millions while we don't get a dime. But this time it's different. This time what's happening affects all of us, and what we were hoping we'd see was a sense of community where we all supported one another and helped everyone get through this terrible crisis. That most certainly hasn't been the case in the publishing world.
We honestly don't know if we'll be able to publish another issue. We intend to try once we know if there's a plan or any sort of relief we can take advantage of. We haven't seen much encouragement from landlords, banks, and insurance companies who can't help and all insist on getting paid in full and on time. Meanwhile, those entities owing us checks say they can't pay us at all. Something has to give.
The story offers several alternative ways to purchase a copy including by subscription or buying the issue digitally (HTML, PDF, Kindle, and Nook).
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2020, @01:05AM
A real hacker pirates 2600 Magazine, and then doesn't read it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2020, @01:11AM (2 children)
I've been a subscriber for over 15 years - now only receiving the PDF version.
Sign up to keep these guys going, please.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jon3k on Wednesday April 29 2020, @02:46AM (1 child)
Coincidentally enough I actually just signed up for a subscription starting from the last issue. There's something about holding it in your hand and reading it that makes it so special. They are kind of the last thread I remember still carrying on the original hacker ethos from the 80s. Everyone else sold out around the dotcom era. It's really a treasure and we should do whatever we need to so it can keep going.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2020, @07:05AM
There's something about holding it in your hand
I'll let you hold it in your hand if you promise to kiss it.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Barenflimski on Wednesday April 29 2020, @02:36AM (2 children)
The virus lays bare the bullshit that we all deal with on a daily basis. The idea that Barnes and Noble is a community based store is ridiculous. The rules are made in a board room based on insurance rates, lawyer fees, laws they're trying to dodge in various markets, precedents they don't want to set and everyone in management's personal pet projects and friends.
It's nostalgic for me that 2600 even exists. It reminds me of the days we were walking around with tones recorded in our pocket so we could play them into the phone for free long distance. Now a days the phones in our pockets play tones for us and free long distance is included.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday April 29 2020, @11:13AM
in Soviet borderless, phone hacks You!!!
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday April 29 2020, @11:28AM
Didn't have a Captain Crunch whistle, eh?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by PiMuNu on Wednesday April 29 2020, @11:57AM (3 children)
Copyright ownership is a crime. Put the pdf on PirateBay and screw the content producers!
Or does that only apply to hollywood movies?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2020, @02:47PM (1 child)
No thanks, I'll wait 75 years and read the latest hacking news in perfect legal compliance.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday April 29 2020, @04:10PM
Latest hacking news is stuff like Google's project zero
https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]
If project zero didn't already exist for free, I'd pay money to subscribe to it.
On the other hand 2600 stuff is like last quarter or older stuff. Things I read CVEs about months ago, or was on hackaday weeks ago, might show up in 2600 someday.
So that's why I let my subscription lapse, aside from the politics.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday April 29 2020, @04:16PM
Reminds me of the Sesame Street song: One of these things is not like the other
Download something from the pirate bay.
One copyright owner will:
The other copyright owner will:
Please do not even attempt to assign some sort of moral equivalence here.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 3, Flamebait) by VLM on Wednesday April 29 2020, @04:05PM (2 children)
I used to subscribe, but stopped recently due to too much Trump Derangement Syndrome in the issues.
Its pretty funny how leftists are all:
its all community and support and love when they want to take your money, but when talking about politics 50% of the country are time traveling German 1930s Nazis who need to be gassed ASAP because orange man literally hitler bad double plus ungood. I wouldn't want to give them my Nazi Deutschmarks because that would ruin their leftist purity spiral of hate.
The other problem is its a print magazine in 2020. Are they trying to do careful editorial authoritarian type stuff? Are they trying to ship last quarters news? Are they trying to ship short term contemporary textbook for a tech topic? They don't seem to know, and aren't really doing much of a good job of any goal.
Its like their lifestyle hobby to publish a hacking magazine to "fight the man" from 1980, which gets kinda old.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2020, @08:45PM
umm.
first, you do know that political "spectrum" is a horrible multi-dimensional manifold, and not a two dimensional spectrum, right?
There are no left, right or middle in that space, just where you move next from where you are.
And, only decent thing one can do to a politician is to hang it on a streetlamp, party affilation is irrelevant.
Both left and right and center are parasites, the human will to power problem of which the political propaganda you read is but a symptom, is NOT POSSIBLE nor DESIREABLE to solve, because it would take all the fun out of organising, geopolitics and other useless sports genres..
Accept it and move on. Non idiots usually realize this by age of puberty.
second, 2600 is a symbol of a whole lot of things, and dismissing it as "hacking magazine to "fight the man" from 1980" is a mistake, same as dismissing the culture that generated it.
Why? Because of the that counter culture that made it.
Resistance to the consumerism and innovative sabotage of everything electronic is as relevant as it was in the 1980es.
Why are you wasting time and reproducing political wingnut crap here, instead of learning how to do magic with computers?
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Thursday April 30 2020, @02:43AM
Haven't read it since the late 90s. It's sad to hear they lost their minds.