this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2026
116 points (100.0% liked)

Today I Learned

28419 readers
928 users here now

What did you learn today? Share it with us!

We learn something new every day. This is a community dedicated to informing each other and helping to spread knowledge.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must begin with TIL. Linking to a source of info is optional, but highly recommended as it helps to spark discussion.

** Posts must be about an actual fact that you have learned, but it doesn't matter if you learned it today. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.**



Rule 2- Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding non-TIL posts.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-TIL posts using the [META] tag on your post title.



Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.

If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.

Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.



Partnered Communities

You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.

Community Moderation

For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 8 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] DandomRude@piefed.social 40 points 3 hours ago (3 children)

The prominent hacker Kevin Mitnick, on the other hand, was sentenced to a long prison term, with the judge perhaps slightly overestimating the danger he posed:

Mitnick served five years in prison—four-and-a-half years' pre-trial and eight months in solitary confinement, because, according to Mitnick, law enforcement officials convinced a judge that he had the ability to "start a nuclear war by whistling into a pay phone",[36] implying that law enforcement told the judge that he could somehow dial into the NORAD modem via a payphone from prison and communicate with the modem by whistling to launch nuclear missiles.[37]

Source

[–] teft@piefed.social 21 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Always makes me laugh reading about the things they thought Mitnick could do. I wonder if they thought Captain Crunch could whistle and make your brain leak out your skull at 2600 hz.

I will not stand for the blatant disrespecting of Captain Crunch. He could easily whistle you brain to goo and so much more!

[–] flandish@lemmy.world 8 points 2 hours ago

i am sad my “free kevin” shirt did not last.

[–] MadMadBunny@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Back in the 80’s and 90’s, hackers were respected and feared. That title meant something, and was earned.

We were few, because everything had to be done by hand, and the knowledge to do so came from experiments, experience, and obscure community.

Then those lazy script kiddies arrived along and ruined that.

[–] DickFiasco@sh.itjust.works 14 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

Crazy to think that the method of attack in the year 2000 was to email a script to someone and request them to open it.

[–] osanna@lemmy.vg 23 points 3 hours ago

tbf, social engineering still works. always has and always will when clueless end users are around.

[–] 7U5K3N@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 3 hours ago

My corp just sent everyone an email from a jshfgkejfue.fr email address.

It said that the inbox was at 99% capacity and they needed to click this link to inspect the contents of their drive.

Our company does HIPAA training annually and cyber security training quarterly.

Folks still failed it.

Humans gonna human. We are all just dumb apes that react when emotionally triggered.

So this will always be a thing.