Phrack is legendary. It is the oldest, and arguably the most prestigious, underground hacking magazine in the world.
It started in 1985 and is still running today. In this episode we interview the Phrack staff to hear some stories about what it’s like running a hacker magazine for 40 years.
Sponsors
Support for this show comes from ThreatLocker®. ThreatLocker® is a Zero Trust Endpoint Protection Platform that strengthens your infrastructure from the ground up. With ThreatLocker® Allowlisting and Ringfencing™, you gain a more secure approach to blocking exploits of known and unknown vulnerabilities. ThreatLocker® provides Zero Trust control at the kernel level that enables you to allow everything you need and block everything else, including ransomware! Learn more at www.threatlocker.com.
Support for this show comes from Drata. Drata is the trust management platform that uses AI-driven automation to modernize governance, risk, and compliance, helping thousands of businesses stay audit-ready and scale securely. Learn more at drata.com/darknetdiaries.
This episode is sponsored by Meter, the company building networks from the ground up. Meter delivers a complete networking stack - wired, wireless, and cellular - in one solution that’s built for performance and scale. Alongside their partners, Meter designs the hardware, writes the firmware, builds the software, manages deployments, and runs support. Learn more at meter.com.
Attribution
Darknet Diaries is created by Jack Rhysider.
This episode was written by Nate Nelson.
Assembled by Tristan Ledger.
Episode artwork by odibagas.
Mixing by Proximity Sound.
Theme song created by Breakmaster Cylinder. Theme song available for listen and download at bandcamp. Or listen to it on Spotify.
Transcript
[Start of recording]
JACK: Hey, it’s Jack, host of the show. So, the last two episodes talked about hacking in the eighties and nineties, which was primarily phone phreaking. In those episodes I talked about a digital magazine called Phrack, which was incredibly influential to the hacking scene. It wasn’t uncommon to be in a chat room and someone come in and ask, ‘How do I get started as a hacker?’ and then someone else simply say, ‘Go to Phrack’s site, start reading it at Issue #1. By the time you’re all caught up, you’ll be a great hacker.’