Paraphrasing a well-known software mogul who shall remain nameless in the pages of this magazine, insecure software is eating the world. The reasons of such sad state of things are varied and range from social to economic; the technological aspect is usually the one that concerns me the least. In this sea of unusable things and insecure networks, there is a “subculture” (a horrible word, but bear with me) of highly skilled individuals who teach each other how broken those things are. And yes, they have their own magazines to spread the word.
Some of those magazines have been around for ages: come to mind the venerable 2600, Phrack Magazine (which is celebrating its 40th anniversary as this entry hits the web), or the more corporate-friendly Hakin9.
In the pages of Phrack Magazine, for example, this author learned at the end of the 1990s the subtle art of smashing the stack, an exploit that would become the starting point of many a computer security book in the years that followed, including those from Microsoft a few years later.
There is one magazine, however, which has been around for a decade and which we are celebrating in this issue: the “International Journal of Proof-of-Concept or Get The Fuck Out”, also known by its shorter handle: “PoC||GTFO”.
(I should have probably warned the user about the profanity on the title, but nah, I assume my readership to consist of adults at this point. Also, this is not the first time this has happened.)
What kind of things can you learn on the pages of this classic? Very many wonderful ones.
So you could make a valid WAV file that, when encrypted with AES, gives you a valid PDF. That same file, when encrypted with Triple-DES, gives you a JPEG. Furthermore, when decrypted with ThreeFish, that file would give you a PE.
(From “A Binary Magic Trick, Angecryption” by Ange Albertini and Jean-Philippe Aumasson.)
Useless you say? Speak for yourself. The real art in programming consists in finding those dorky moments in which seemingly random sequences of bytes all of a sudden line up on the night sky, filled with semantic goodness. Some of those anecdotes might even hold deep emotional value, such as the portrait of Len Sassaman embedded on the Bitcoin blockchain.
The pages of “PoC||GTFO”, some of whose downloadable PDFs can be reinterpreted as PNG images or some executable format, are filled with philosophical advice of the utmost importance, usually penned by the Most Holy Reverend Pastor Manul Laphroaig himself.
Verily I say to you that when they keep uttering some words in such a way that you hear Capital Letters, look ’em in the eye and ask ’em, “how does this work?” Also remember that “I don’t really know” is an acceptable answer, and the one who gives it is your potential ally.
(From “Greybeard’s Luck”, a sermon by the Rt. Revd. Dr. Pastor Manul Laphroaig.)
What do you say? Laconic and repetitive, inapplicable or stupid? I say bullshit to you, and I stick by these sage words. Let us talk again after you will have grown a beard. (Because, let us be honest, those arguing on Hacker News about the uselessness of such texts are always young white males.)
Finally, given the popularity of the latest adaptations of Frank Herbert’s Dune on the big screen, we might as well remind everyone some of the core tenets of this visionary universe.
The Orange Catholic Bible commands: “Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a man’s mind.”
Instead of general purpose computers, Herbert’s society has application-specific machines for various tasks. Few would argue that a typewriter or a cat picture is dangerous, but your iPhone is a heresy.
(“Weird Machines from Serena Butler’s TV Typewriter”, by Travis Goodspeed.)
As far as I am concerned, I plan to convert to Herbert’s church very soon. Every day that passes I am more and more convinced the man came from the future to warn us. But I digress, as I usually do.
The printed version of “PoC||GTFO” looks like a Bible. Why yes, of course it does; with golden gilt edges, a page marker, and beautiful paper featuring perfectly typeset text, made with TeX, of course, and with the occasional advertising borrowed from old 1970s or 1980s magazines, sprinkled all over the place.
Currently, three volumes of “PoC||GTFO” are available for purchase (as expected, as DRM-free PDF or EPUB files) from No Starch Press, and we cannot not recommend its lecture. Not only are the articles fascinating (and/or worrying, your mileage may vary) but they are also fun and extremely well put together.
And, needless to say, the presentation of the printed volumes is immaculate. As Brian Benchoff said,
So, should you buy the good word of Pastor Laphroaig? Sure, if you like dead trees. At least one couple has already been married using PoC||GTFO as a bible. It looks great on a shelf, and if you read PoC||GTFO on public transportation, people stay away from you.
We end this article with some words of wisdom borrowed from the first volume, shown on the cover photo of this article:
Go now in peace and pwnage, and may the Manul always be with you.
Cover photo by the author.