Several advocates sided with Corley, including some of computer science's most renowned intellects. Marvin Minsky, an MIT professor, and Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation, are just two of the several people who have filed an amici curiae brief on behalf Corley. (See "Source Code is Speech" at http://www.2600.com/dvd/docs/2001/0126-speech.html.)

2600, which began publication in 1984, was a staple of the hacker community long before the movie industry targeted it. In July 2000, 2600 sponsored a conference called "Hackers on Planet Earth" which was featured in FRONTLINE's "Hackers" documentary.

In addition to creating products such as Back Orifice, the cDc supports and engages in a variety of "hacktivist" activities--using hacking skills to achieve political or social ends. Cult member Count Zero writes "Hacktivism means using technology to express political ideas, shed light on injustice, and enable technological civil disobedience."

We want to spread knowledge and information to all who want to learn...information about computers, telephones, the underground, and technology in general.  But, we plan to do this and uphold the old school hacker ethics at the same time.  We refuse to promote and distribute information on destructive and ignorant things i.e. carding, viruses, software pirating, email bombing etc.  Hackers have undeservedly held a tarnished name for too long, and we plan to build that name back up.  Instead of thinking 'criminal' or 'vandal' when hearing the word hacker, we want the public to think of 'knowledge seekers' and 'curious wanderers'.

The site is a useful portal into the hacker underground for the curious layperson and wanna-be hacker.

One of the staples of past DefCon conventions - "Spot the Fed," a good-natured game of outing law enforcement and intelligence officials - has become almost obsolete as the Department of Defense assumed a more visible role last year with its "Meet the Fed" seminar. It was the first time the federal government had made an overt appearance at DefCon.

At the time, Vranesevich was an active and accepted member of the hacker community. In 1998, however, he had a change of heart when he learned through the site about a hacker who was attempting to sell U.S. military secrets to a terrorist organization. Vranesevich says he became disillusioned with the hacker rhetoric about exposing security flaws, and thought that some in the community were crossing the line into dangerous and criminal behavior. He subsequently began working for the government, using his skills to track down hackers. Eventually, he began consulting as a security expert for private companies. The web site now provides an ongoing update of computer security and hacking related news, and tips for businesses and individuals to protect themselves and their systems from malicious hackers.

[Vranesevich's about-face from a teenage hacker to corporate anti-hack is profiled in this article from CNET.]