		      The Official HiR FAQ - Version 0

0x00.	Introduction/Thesis
0x01.	How Did HiR Start?
0x02.	Who are/were the HiR members?
0x03.	What do HiR members do?
0x04.	I Want to be an HiR member!  How can I do this?
0x05.	What all does an article go through before being published?
0x06.	General Article Information.
0x07.	What about distributing & copying HiR Articles?
0x08.	What's with the "Affiliates"?
0x09.	How popular is HiR?
0x0A.	Where can HiR Be Found?
0x0B.	Is there a mailing list to announce new Issues?
___________________________________________________________________________

0x00.	Introduction/Thesis

	This is just a general FAQ about the HiR Crew and the events that formed what HiR has become today.  This is being put together almost
soley from the Editor's (Axon's) point of view.  This FAQ is being 
created so that our readers and the general public can know exactly who
we are (to an extent), and what it is that we actually do.

For a lot of our readers, this will probably clear up some misconceptions
that are usually assumed on their part.   We also feel that it is good for
the people to know what goes into a group such as ours.  This is not going
to be a hacking FAQ.  If you want that kind of information, read our
articles, and read all sorts of other stuff.  This is for those who want
to know our background, and how things all got started...


0x01.	How Did HiR Start?

	HiR (Hackers Information Resource, as it was originally called)
was started in May of 1997.  It was written entirely by Axon.  Most of the
writing took place on a road trip.  The entire issue was assembled on
Axon's laptop at the time.  He created HiR as almost an "apology" of
sorts.  For the previous 2 years, Axon had been a system cracker who had
taken what he had learned and used it to benefit himself alone.  He was
learning, but he was not sharing much of his knowledge with the outside
world.  He teamed up with several other system crackers, and would often
help them do things hat weren't very nice.  It was a thrill, at the time.
It was also very, very stupid.  After several of Axon's system cracker
buddies got busted, he felt the heat and danger.  It was just enough to
scare him into "being good".  Axon felt that he owed his part to the true
computer underground: The ones who strive for knowledge and understanding,
not the greedy people that want power to destroy other people's things.
So he wrote... and wrote... and came out with HiR Issue #1.  Halfway
through HiR 1 Axon decided that "Hackers Information Report" would sound
better, and so it was changed to that instead, but keeping the HiR
initials.  Axon's main purpose for creating HiR was to share information,
but he also knew that having to write articles would force him to pick up
new things to write about, and thus, pick up new skills.

0x02.	Who are/were the HiR Members?

	After the release of HiR 1, a handle-juggling fellow who called
himself tgsnoop (or kminor), decided to join up.  He put together some
interesting stuff here and there, but some of his writing topics were
getting into the dark areas we didn't want to get into.  He was also having
other problems by the time HiR 4 came out.  Also, right before HiR 2 was
released, we accepted another writer: Dr. Freeze.  Dr. Freeze wrote 3
pretty nice rough cuts that could have been turned into decent articles in
a short matter of time, but his computer was destroyed.  We lost him for a
few months, and we had no clue what had happened.  Both tgsnoop and Dr.
Freeze were dormant for a few issues and they were dropped.

	When HiR 3 came around, we aquired another writer, Asmodian X, who
was a good friend of tgsnoop, and also was in an Information Technology
class with Axon.  He saw Axon writing an HiR article on his laptop before
class, and approached Axon, saying he knew someone who wrote in HiR.
Confused, I told him "yah, you're looking at him.", and he said "which one
are you?".  "Axon" I replied, and we talked.  It was only a matter of
time, and Asmodian X was writing some juicy bits for HiR, as well as
helping Axon take care of the Distro Site.

	The Man In Black is a long-time, very close friend of Axon's, and
is not really into hacking in the sense of the word.  He does provide a
well-kept-up mirror of the site back in New Mexico, while he's at school.
The mirror goes down when he comes back to the midwest with his computer.

	In HiR 6, we had another writer, Frogman.  Frogman was an
aquaintance of Axon's for quite some time, as they frequented some of the
same local BBS's in town.  At a 2600 meeting one time, Frogman was there,
and got to talking with Axon & Asmodian X, and told us about some cool
cryptography books he was reading.  His articles have carried a mostly
mathematical and cryptography-based topic. 

	With the release of HiR 9, another writer was introduced to the
world.  Ixl joined HiR, and is thousands of miles away from the rest of
the HiR Crowd.  He's situated somewhere in Canada.  Ixl went through the
typical phase of playing with Windows and the like, and graduated to 
FreeBSD and Linux quite a while ago.  Ixl's hoping to not only learn more
from writing for HiR, but to help teach others what he picks up along the
way.

	Memeber		Membership Span
	----------	----------------
	Axon		HiR #1 - Present
	tgsnoop		HiR #2 - HiR #6
	Dr. Freeze	HiR #2 - HiR #6
	Asmodian X	HiR #3 - Present
	TMIB		HiR #4 - Present
	Frogman		HiR #6 - Present
	Ixl		HiR #9 - Present


0x03.	What Do HiR Members Do?

	HiR Members, for the most part, function all on their own.  Each
one of us learns stuff our own way, and we use it in our own ways.  We
have our own writing styles, and that's about it.  A Common misconception
about the HiR Crew is that we are an active "hacking group" and that is
totally wrong.  We are basically just journalists.  Not once have all the
HiR Members gotten together to "go hack something", and we probably never
will, either.  I know of two times that 2 HiR members worked together on a
hack, and it wasn't the same 2 both times.  Axon's mother is an English
instructor, so he's picked up some halfway decent writing and editing
skills.  All HiR articles are usually read and fixed up by Axon before
hitting the shelf.  Major changes that need to be done are referred back
to the author.  In short: HiR Members just write HiR Articles.  Each one
of them has their own pasttimes and hobbies.


0x04.	I want to be an HiR Member!  How can I do this?

	Easy.  If you're knowledgeable about things in the Hack/Phreak
scene, and a good writer, then send us some of your writings.  We'll
determine if we need that kind of material, and if we approve, then you're
a member!  You can't hack stuff in our name, or anything of the sort.
You're just a journalist, remember?  The HiR Crew is very proud of their
ethical standpoint, however.  We only publish articles about hacking and
phreaking, and we really strive to keep the published material as ethical
as possible.  We explain systems, not how to break into them.  Examples of
article titles we would publish: "A Closer Look at NTFS"; "Crossbar
Switching, up close and personal"; "The inner workings of sendmail" and
"examining your system for exploits: is YOUR box secure?"
Things you would NOT see in HiR: "H0w t3w h4x0r w00t 1n t3n 34zy st3pz";
"Using Teardrop to nuke a class C"; "Mercury Fulminate: The explosive of
champions" or "Obtaining lots of credit card numbers".  If you want to
write for us, make sure the article is educational.  If the reader is a
real hacker, and they want to use your information for evil things, they
will find it out all on their own after putting some thought into your
article.  You don't need to feed the 12-year-old "I wanna hack" rebel
script kiddies.  Note: I know some *REALLY* Good hackers that are 11-14,
not all 12-year-old "hackers" are script kiddies, but a lot of 'em are...


0x05.	What All does an article go through before being published?

	All HiR Members have accounts on the web server that runs the main
HiR Distro site.  HiR Writers e-mail the other HiR members with
what they plan on writing on, and usually get some sort of opinion
from the group, or a few people on the group.  When they write the
articles, they pretty much do most of the work on their articles on their
own computers, and upload them to a directory where the Editor can read
them.  Usually if they need to be touched up, through secure shell, they
edit it on the web server machine.  The Editor then checks the work,
and touches up any minor typos he sees.  After re-numbering the articles,
The Editor creates the ToC file.  Different HiR members send in things for
HiR Hacker Newz and HiR Informative Resources.  Axon & Asmodian X throw
together the web work for the new release, including the new HiR Graphic
for the new release (Axon and Asmo take turns creating these).


0x06.	General Article Information.

	HiR Articles are supposed to be no wider than 78 columns, and is
distributed in text-only format.  This is to accomodate all types of file
viewers.  (78 column limitation is for MS-DOS EDIT).  Older HiR Articles
were basically written totally in MS-DOS EDIT, and are in MS-DOS's native
CR+LF Text format.  The more recent ones have been written mostly
on some sort of UNIX platform, and are in CR Format.  If you use the DOS
print command on some of the newer articles, it will stair-step the text,
which is annoying.  If you print it from MS-DOS Edit, Microsoft Notepad,
or a few other Dos/Win editors, this will be fixed.  Also, running
"UNIX2DOS.EXE" on the text files changes them to CR+LF format.  Netscape
on the UNIX/Mac/Windows platforms prints the articles just fine, and so
does Internet Explorer on all available platforms.  Anyone who is using
UNIX (or a derivitive) should be able to print via "lpr" without any
problems, so long as the printer is configured properly.  HiR Authors are
required to put their handle on any of their work, and they are strongly
urged to place "HiR" in some way, shape, or form in the article.  


0x07	What about disributing and copying HiR?

	HiR Articles ARE Copyrighted material, but due to our beliefs, you
are free to distribute it at no cost to the recipients in whole electronic 
form, or as one un-modified article. If you wish to reference an article of 
ours, say for an essay, use the same process you would use for any magazine.  
We have no problem with other people using our information, just give credit 
to the article's author where it is due.  We would rather you not place HiR
content in your own E-Zine.  Place links to our site, or something, and 
recommend reading the article.  The Editor of an E-Zine published in Brazil
(Brazil's main language is Portugese) wanted to know if he could translate 
some of our articles and place them in his freely-available E-Zine.  Because 
he asked, we allowed him to do so, while giving HiR and the Authors of the 
Articles credit.  This is about the only way we will let HiR be placed in 
another Zine, as the content will be able to reach across a language barrier 
in this manner.  If you have any doubts that we would approve of how you are
copying HiR, contact our E-Mail account (H_i_R@Hotmail.com), and we'll
talk.  Basically, if you post an unmodified article, or a whole HiR Issue,
you're going to be safe, as the author's name is in it, and usually so is
"HiR", somewhere, as well.  We would hate to see what would happen to
someone that tried to pass off our hard-written words as their own.

Hard-Copy distribution:

As far as distributing hard-copies of HiR, you really must contact us.  If
distributing one of our articles hard-copy, we require you to distribute
all articles in that issue as well, in the original order, with credit
given to the HiR Crew (credit to individual writers is already at the
beginning of each article).  Depending on if the hard-copies will be
distributed (especially for a fee), we may, at our option, deny you the
right to distribute our material, or request royalties.  Printing a copy
out for yourself for archival purposes or to take with you to sociology class 
to read while the teacher drones on and on and on,..  You can do that without 
permission.  That's fine. =]

0x08.	What's with the "Affiliates"?

	HiR is affiliated with a few pretty good sites.  Hacker News
Network and Packet Storm Security are the 2 heavy hitters.  These 2 news
sites are devoted completely to NEW hacking information, and
hacking/network related programs.  The guys at HNN constantly weed through
newsfeeds and web sites, looking for news that's pertainent to hacking,
and all the guys at Packet Storm sift through massive amounts of
hot-off-the-press files and programs for almost all platforms.  We have a
mild affiliation with Hack Factor X.  HiR Forms affiliations with groups
or websites that uphold similar ethics and virtues as we do.  With the
news sites that we are affiliated with, we give back a tiny piece by
giving them someting to post on their site every 2 or 3 months.  =]
Packet Storm Security also mirrors just the E-Zine text files that we
produce.


0x09.	How popular is HiR?

	HiR really started to pick up a massive reader base with the
affiliation of the Hacker News Network (http://www.hackernews.com), who
have been more than kind to our needs.  Before the affiliation, HiR was a
fairly small-spread Zine, mostly found on some BBS's, and not very many
people knew about us.  Later, we also joined up with Packet Storm Security 
(http://packetstorm.securify.com), which also increased readers by
quite a bit.  Typically, the main HiR Distro Site alone gets around 2000
hits per week.  While this isn't much, it's a lot more than we used to
get.  Within the first week of HiR 9's release, we got over 20,000 web
hits.  With each release we seem to get a few more hits per week average,
and the first week or 2 after a new Issue is just phenomenal.  We really
wouldn't be where we are today if places like Hacker News Network and
Packet Storm Security weren't around.


0x0A.	Where can HiR be Found?

	HiR's current main distro site is currently at:
	     --> http://hir.chewies.net <--
This URL has changed many times, and it's subject to change again.
This distro site contains all sorts of stuff other than the 'Zine, as
well.  We have a library of cool Windows 95/98/NT and UNIX/Linux programs.
These programs are usually kept up to date, but not always.  If you cannot 
find our new URL (for instance if we had to abandon that server for some 
reason or another), then check out our "HNN Affiliate link" at hackernews.com.

Other places you can find HiR:

	Official Southwestern U.S. Distro Site Mirror:
	     --> http://azure.rcn.nmt.edu:2007/hir/ <--
This site is up only when The Man in Black is away at school.  Usually
it's down in the summer.  This site tries to be an exact replica of the
HiR Distro Site.

	Packet Storm Security
	     --> http://packetstorm.securify.com <--
You'll need to search for "HiR" or E-Zine to find us, because they don't
let you type in the whole URL, you have to link direct from their site.
This is to prevent bandwidth theft, so you can't just link directly to
images or files on their box.  



0x0B.	Is there a mailing list to announce new Issues?

	Althogh it's crossed our minds a few times, none of us can justify
maintaining a mailing list.  We're just not popular enough to need one.
We believe that our readers probably keep up on the news sites, and Packet
Storm + Hacker News Network publish release announcements for us.  Visit
the HiR Distro Site often.   If you don't find a new Issue of HiR, you'll
probably find several new files every week or 2.  

 

