Ask HN: Where do the real hackers hangout?

[factorialboy]

Is it still Freenode / IRC?

Why do I ask?

I remember 15 years ago, say 2004, technical sites weren't commercial. Except Experts Exchange ofcourse.

Nowadays I can't trust opinions of people because I fear they are selling me something. Framework authors are only building frameworks on the side, their real business is building a hosted service for whatever they are building.

Nothing wrong with that.

I just miss a simpler time. And want a slice of that again.

[_fwu1]

I had similar feelings a year ago and wanted to setup a “diet” for my mind; I’d only allow quality information, opinions to enter my mind, not just random stuff.

Firstly, the best way to access/find valuable knowledge is still books. Then, I have Freenode open in background for technical conversations, and also follow some good quality podcasts in non-technical subjects; from history to art.

If I got a question, I either ask in Freenode or ask trustworthy people by e-mail.

No social media. No news websites (except HN).

I’m a lot happier with this set of communication and information channels.

[factorialboy]

That's a great way to put it - a diet for the mind.

On that note, do you mind sharing the list of podcasts you subscribe to?

[silverfox17]

Freenode is a good place.. the /list command will show you channels once you connect. Popular ones are #hardware, #linux, #windows, #python, #debian, #bash, ##networking, etc. There is a channel for most major technologies.

[EnderMB]

My biggest gripe with Freenode is that a lot of popular channels are silent. Hundreds of users, but all lurking with very little conversation going on.

For me, the best channel was always #csharp. Every time I logged in, there was always a group of people talking. Any time I had a question, I could ask it and a handful of people would either give you the answer or would talk you through the problem and help you come up with an answer. That kind of guidance is often lacking from modern programming forums/q&a sites.

[wyclif]

I spend a lot of time in #python and usually it's quite active and helpful.

[todd3834]

I think I’m one of those people you are talking about. I don’t hang out in a secret place. I hang out here, subreddits for languages I’m interested in, many Slack groups for things I’m interested in, iMessage/SMS with current and previous co workers whom are enjoyable to talk to. I also hang out with my family and read a ton of programming books. If you find a secret place with more of these people I would love to know.

[gorbachev]

Please define "real hackers".

[monster99]

People who don't sellout to the corporate agenda... watching HN'ers downvote me for pointing out the videogame industry has been stealing PC games for the last 20 years was alarming. We went from owning diablo, warcraft and starcraft games to not owning them... that is a major change and to see a place that calls itself the place of "hackers" and nerds, who theoretically should all be about fighting to preserve culture against the corporate onslaught against our basic rights to own our own software and not have it tied to "the cloud" is disturbing in it's own right.

Seems everyone wants to be a slave to the mainframe and have no privacy and no general computing.

Not getting that the corporations of the world are hell bent on turning the PC into a dumb client and everyones bending over is disturbing.

The stuff Microsoft has in the pipe with UWP and encrypted computing is alarming on its own, "honest files" of the past, not trapped in some vm or some remotely controlled new microsoft file system and license servers for this new Software as a service (aka stealing your software an selling to back to you at inflated prices) is madness itself.

There is no reason for any piece of software whether that be an OS, Office application or Game to be divided between our computers and the companies.

[Daviey]

There is no such thing as a real hacker. Same as there is no true Scottsman - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

I take issue with "real" hacker categorisation as it implements a gatekeeping barrier for people and the definition of what a hacker is differs between communities.

[Millennium]

Mostly the same places they always did. Inertia is strong like that. Most of them miss a simpler time, just like you do, but hey, so it goes.

[neon_me]

mostly (and still) on the un-encrypted IRC :D

[non-entity]

Ok, so hear me out: I'm a young dumb kid, and I just don't get irc. I'll join a supposedly active irc channel for something I'm working on, do whatever the channel wants as far as registering, etc. Once I'm in, nothing.

No one seems to be chatting about anything, the only messages I see are logging people joining and leaving. One time I left an irc client open for hours and i finally saw some other human asked a question. After that , more nothing, I don't think anyone replied to them. These servers often show 100s or 1000s online too!

Am I doing something wrong, or am I missing something I need to use irc?

[eswat]

I miss hanging out in #CSS with the topic explicitly saying the channel wasn’t about Counter-Strike: Source. You’d still get new people asking for a scirm every so often though.

[seapunk]

I spent a part of my youth on Open Projects network especially in phreaking channels, I think real hackers are still there. Also I think that some of them decided to be more public and start to be active on Twitter or Telegram communities.

[ScottFree]

Most likely in private, invite-only chat servers and email lists of various kinds. Anything that's publicly exposed to the internet has too much noise these days. I remember when it was difficult to moderate a chat channel or a web forum back in the 00's. It's much tougher today because of the volume of people you're exposed to.

"Only once you can successfully wrestle a herd of monkeys will you truly be ready to manage your forum."

https://megatokyo.com/strip/209

[catacombs]

> Most likely in private, invite-only chat servers and email lists of various kinds. Anything that's publicly exposed to the internet has too much noise these days.

Honestly, this is the best answer. I would argue private IRC channels and servers because the people who use IRC are less likely to use the data-collecting behemoths that are Slack and Discord.

[rolph]

what/where lone wolf hackers do to hang out

A cheapo router as in goodwill or bargain basement, that has nas functionality, can often find a home in starange places. be creative about using other than factory casings, and find a place to piggyback some power, you will have a dead drop. secure the router with something hackish for a password, and even use LAN encryption. Keep doing this as often, and as wideley as possible, and when you come back to maintain the drop, and review the dropped material to scrubb out the knuckledragger porn and flaming, you can reveal a number of precious gems. it doesnt need to connect to the internet it only needs to be reliable and have storage. you may even get enough access points to mesh them.

https://www.instructables.com/id/Wireless-DeadDrop/

this should give you some ideas as well:

https://hackaday.com/2018/06/27/literary-camouflage-for-your...

look for old telephone subscriber boxes or other casings that are common in the wild to put your dead drop into.

Im from the era when BBS ing was moby huge, and we would war dial all night to get a list of potential BBSs and other fun numbers that gave a modem handshake.

[simonsarris]

Not hacker specific but IMO its somewhat unfortunate that most of the good/intellectual internet has moved into private chats, secret slacks, etc.

This is OK except that it makes it much more difficult for newcomers to find the good thing, so the pipeline is worse. Sometimes nowadays it is hard to discover and be discovered.

Twitter still works OK.

[pmoriarty]

Check out Noisebridge in SF.[1] It and other hackerspaces around the world are full of people tinkering with and making stuff. You only have to stroll around the space to see the fruits of their labor.

[1] - https://www.noisebridge.net/

[client4]

Other peoples boxes /joke

[root_axis]

If you have to ask, you're probably not leet enough to join us... jk, freenode of course!

[johnmarinelli]

digital - freenode, in person - hackerspaces. try googling hackerspaces in in your town/city. if there aren't any, start your own.

[adreamingsoul]

I don't imagine that information will be shared here in an open forum.

[factorialboy]

Clarification - I don't mean "hackers" as depicted in the movies.

I'm referring to nerds, geeks, engineers, tickerers etc. who do it for the love of doing it. Not for building a commercial operation.

[muzani]

Why not? It's not pornography, and likely not so taboo on a website called "Hacker News".

[dlphn___xyz]

group meetups

[segmondy]

github issues