Dear 2600: Please help me to learn how to become an elite one day.

The first thing to learn is never to use the word elite as a noun. In fact, don’t even use it as an adjective. It’s radically lame.

Corporate secrets bouncing around a computer system thats open to the world? Hey, that’s fair game and they deserve the embarrassment of its discovery. But using this knowledge to line your pockets or, worse, using insider knowledge to get the information and then calling that hacking is an affront to any of us who hack for the sake of learning.

Dear 2600: OK I have some real serious stuff to tell but I need to be reassured that I can trust your company that you don’t do this sorta thing just so you can turn people in then I will tell my very serious and true story for you but I must be reassured first please reply. ANONYMOUS

How can we lie to you? We published 2600 for 16 years just so you would finally walk into our little trap. Welcome.

Dear 2600: I need someone with the abilities to get into my school server and change a few things. I have saved up $3500 over the past year for this and am willing to pay it in cash, as I am from the Winnipeg area.

Desperate doesnt begin to cover it. Whatever your problems, and we certainly wont try to minimize them, they are nothing compared to the world of hurt you’ll enter if you do stupid things like offer complete strangers money to help you do illegal things…..There should be something in your genetic code that alerts you to the fact that you're doing something extremely stupid and wrong. So we’re clear, the offer was in Canadian dollars and not American, right?

Dear 2600: …So, in the interest of information gathering and because I am a subscriber, are you going to be checking me out?

This would be unnecessary since we checked you out before you subscribed. That’s why we made sure you heard about us and followed the plan by subscribing. Writing this letter, however, was not part of the plan and we will be taking corrective action.

What hackers do is figure out technology and experiment with it in ways many people never imagined. They also have a strong desire to share this information with others and to explain it to people whose only qualification may be the desire to learn.