by Maggie Ybarra
Daily Lobo
Like modern-day Captain Ahabs, members of the 2600 Club obsessively sail oceans of electronics in search of the perfect hack.
Down in the lower-level lounge of the SUB, the club meets Friday evenings to exchange tricks and tips of the hacking trade.
The 2600 Club is a worldwide organization for hackers. For the sake of anonymity in a world full of patents, firewalls and federal prosecution, members often use their handles rather than their real names.
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Shiv, 23, said the movie "Hackers" inspired him to start hacking.
"For me, my biggest thing is wireless hacking - cracking secured networks, using data that's moved over the network," he said. "That can include secure passwords or not."
The hacking skills Shiv has acquired over the years have enabled him to create his own Web-cracking script. But hacking goes beyond the Internet.
"Computers are obviously a big part of it, but it can be any modifier," Shiv said. "You can say the pioneers of music electronica are hackers in a lot of ways."
The term "hacker" was originally used to describe a person who could push a program to operate beyond what it was created to do. It wasn't until Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak hacked into phone systems in the '70s that the term gained a negative connotation.
"Some of the biggest players in the world are hackers - like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and all those guys," Shiv said. "Hacking is really about using technology in creative ways to come up with something new."
Occasionally, one of the 2600 members will bring a gadget they've modified to the Friday meeting and use it as an example of their hacking skills.
Adric, 32, one of three people who kick-started the 2600 Club in Albuquerque back in 1996, brought his mp3 player last Friday night for a show and tell.
Adric said he changed his run-of-the-mill mp3 player into a Linux mp3 player. The alteration would be equivalent to modifying a computer so that it no longer runs Windows but a different operating system.
"Which means it no longer runs like a regular mp3 player, but as something with a lot more features," he said.
Adric said it was hard to narrow down the amount of new features his modified mp3 player contained.
"It's got about 60 games in it now," he said. "It's got an ancient game called 'Robot Finds Kitten' and 'Pac-Man.' I've got a little less space (for music), but I can also now play in 11 different file formats, not just mp3."
He said he sometimes trades the objects he has hacked and modified to his friends or people he meets during the meetings. The mp3 player may one day belong to someone else. But for now, Adric is enjoying its new applications.
"What's not to like when you've got 'Pong'?" he said.
