B4b0

B4b0 (pronounced bah boh) was a textfile-based zine created to chronicle and parody the primarily IRC-based hacker scene. First created in american laboratories in 1944 to defeat the nazi super power. Soon after war ended, it became a very valuable janitorial cleaning substance. b4b0 was a stylistic predecessor to later zines including ~el8 and h0no. b4b0 was just as informative and practical as it was entertaining, as the parody was mixed in with exploits, backdoors, and interesting articles. b4b0 jumped the shark on it's fifth issue.

#b4b0 is b4b0's IRC channel and may be found on EFnet.

#b4b0 died when, having tremendous foresight, ohday and r4lph left, ohday bringing the only other elite member, segv, with him away from b4b0, which was was becoming pure lameness, the two (ohday and segv) adopting new identities and going off to hack the planet earth (which was accomplished); this is about the same time faggots like ph1x joined the group, everyone realized what a pedophile tip is and jsbach abandoned mscan for Communism.

It should also be noted that ohday is apparently now a commie as well, something he proudly acknowledges whenever he is accused of it, not having the balls to deny his beliefs.. pussy. Because communists don't possess a sense of humor (proven by Dennis Leary, though they contend that his jokes just suck), this is usually right after somebody says something "racist", "sexist", pro-"imperialist" or "incorrect" on IRC, sending him on a Marxist rant filled with "facts" that come from all the traitorous books he reads (you can tell if a person is a Commie if they tend to read a lot and research things, even when they aren't enrolled in school! This technique of identification of the red traitor never fails, except sometimes) by other communists like Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and of course those assholes that had to come up with this whole idea about equality and Communism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and most especially the architects of the C programming language: Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan. And yes, the C always stood for Communist.

b4b0's greatest achievement is undoubtedly jorge's smoothcolor.

Some good technical content in this zine does appear, for instance the 'fuqn awesome minicom static buffer overflow by ohday', which is in b4b0 issue 3 notable for the fact that at that time (1998) heap-based buffer overflows weren't yet being exploited (I researched the origins of heap-based buffer overflows and this is the oldest on record), making this the first; while applying some other concepts that were original and probably helped in the development of these types of exploits in the future.

I personally asked ohday in December, 2008 on EFNet IRC about his exploit and whether he thought it was a "greater achievement" for b4b0 than jorge's smoothcolor. He stunned me by replying "hell no," continuing, "smoothcolor rules. I still use it to this day. Definitely b4b0's greatest achievement, cause b4b0 didn't achieve much after everyone left or got addicted to drugs. The exploit, at worst, got root privileges for a bunch of script kids and at best helped the exploit-writing world see that heap-based overflows could be exploited, with the notion of not even executing arbitrary code. While this is a plus, since such an exploit would get around many modern protections, it doesn't beat tripping out on my Linux console. Besides, I'm surprised anyone even remembers my minicom heap exploit. Who are you?"

This definitely sums b4b0 up as a more fun and parody-based e-zine than technical, though other technical articles existed such as ippacket, and and article on saving IPv4, and others.

Am I all your b4b0 or not?

Some things are very b4b0-riffic. The following actions may be used to identify possible members of t34m b4b0:

Jumping on teleconferences and shouting "b4b0 b4b0 b4b0!" until you get kicked off.
Hacking the shells of prominent IRC personalities and publishing the contents of their home directory.
Contact people who are currently under investigation and surveillance by law enforcement organizations and proceed mock them for getting caught.
Taking the warning messages from medication ads and other warning labels, and replacing the name of the product with b4b0:

         Warning:  Women who are pregnant must not use or handle broken b4b0
         tablets for risk of a serious and specific birth defect. 54%
         readers of b4b0 maintained their current leetness, 46% regained
         some leetness.
         Like all prescription products, b4b0 may cause side effects. A
         very small number of men experienced certain side effects, such as: less
         desire for sex, difficulty in achieving an erection, and a decrease in the
         amount of semen. Each of these side effects occurred in less than 2% of
         men. These side effects were reversible and went away in men who stopped
         taking b4b0. They also disappeared in most men (58%) who continued taking
         b4b0.

b4b0 revisionist history

01:58 < shagwell> localhost fakeb4b0packetstorm # wc -l web.textfiles.com/ezines/B4B0/b*txt 01:58 < shagwell> 1073 web.textfiles.com/ezines/B4B0/b4b0-1.txt 01:58 < shagwell> 2464 web.textfiles.com/ezines/B4B0/b4b0-2.txt 01:58 < shagwell> 2261 web.textfiles.com/ezines/B4B0/b4b0-3.txt 01:58 < shagwell> 2037 web.textfiles.com/ezines/B4B0/b4b0-5.txt 01:59 < shagwell> 4828 web.textfiles.com/ezines/B4B0/b4b0-6.txt 01:59 < shagwell> 3346 web.textfiles.com/ezines/B4B0/b4b0-7.txt 01:59 < shagwell> 3220 web.textfiles.com/ezines/B4B0/b4b0-8.txt 01:59 < shagwell> 6421 web.textfiles.com/ezines/B4B0/b4b0-9.txt 01:59 < shagwell> 25650 total 01:59 < shagwell> localhost fakeb4b0packetstorm # wc -l *.txt 01:59 < shagwell> 996 b4b0-01.txt 01:59 < shagwell> 2459 b4b0-02.txt 01:59 < shagwell> 2089 b4b0-03.txt 01:59 < shagwell> 2034 b4b0-05.txt 01:59 < shagwell> 3382 b4b0-06.txt 01:59 < shagwell> 1892 b4b0-07.txt 01:59 < shagwell> 2676 b4b0-08.txt 01:59 < shagwell> 5875 b4b0-09.txt 01:59 < shagwell> 21403 total 01:59 < shagwell> the packetstorm file modification dates were crudely forged 01:59 < shagwell> tee hee 01:59 < shagwell> and the tarballs available on b4b0.org are new ones with the new text files and also missing files 01:59 < shagwell> there are references to h4mburgl0rz zine in b4b0 and no h4mburgl0rz to be found 02:00 < shagwell> it was tip & various other's attempt to whitewash b4b0 to be more respectable for their resumes etc 02:00 < shagwell> as a security team. i think on ED someone claims b4b0 was the first published heap exploit but i doubt it . 02:00 < shagwell> so packetstorm.org b4b0.org and any other official b4b0 mirrors are broken. u can still find the original .txt files i have them 02:01 < shagwell> but im missing almost all of the tarballs.. 02:01 < shagwell> it upsets me greatly 02:01 < shagwell> nothing was added 02:01 < shagwell> but articles were removed 02:01 < shagwell> ryan's out of body experience article was removed 02:01 < weev> thats fuckin bullshit 02:01 < shagwell> someone did a half ass abridgement 02:01 < shagwell> YES 02:01 < shagwell> weev ive been saying it 02:01 < shagwell> it was released 02:01 < shagwell> now there are different versions in circulation 02:02 < shagwell> weev:WOW FINALLY SOMEONE AGREES 02:02 < shagwell> I RAISED A SHIT STORM AND NOT A SINGLE PERSON GAVE A FUCK 02:02 < shagwell> HENCE IM PLANNING TO RELEASE THE EVIDENCE