Watching The Fledglings

It always brings a little tear to your eye and puts a little lump in your throat when you realize that the kids are growing up. Twenty-seven years ago, it was the stuff of science fiction — my science fiction. This weekend, DEF CON, which bills itself as being "the Largest Underground Hacking Convention in the World," is having its 15th annual shindig at the Riviera in Las Vegas.

Clearly, this is some alternative definition of "underground" of which I was previously unaware.

If you're going to DEFCON, The Register has published a little Defcon Survival Guide to help you keep from getting hacked while you're at the hackers convention. Some of the advice falls into the category of "Duh", for example, "In Windows, turn off Client for Microsoft Networks, File and Printer Sharing and NetBIOS over TCP/IP."

(In Windows? Hackers running Windows?! Clearly, this is some alternative definition of "hacker" of which I was previously unaware.)

Others seem worth checking out: for example, I'll probably be giving OpenDNS and NoScript a try. Does anyone else have any experience with either of these?

But all the same: I can only imagine this is how Heinlein and Clarke must have felt, as they watched their 3-cent-a-word fantasies of the 1930s and '40s become the hard realities of the 1960s and '70s.

Aw, (sniff) look at all the little hackers. They're so cute...