theReformed

Consider this the vivid, no-holds barred e-documentary of the rise and leveling-off of the HNC Network. By our count, it has been almost 5 years since we ventured to publish anything to the world wide web, as a union. You might be asking yourself right now - what happened and where did you fall off the face of the earth to? That question comes with a complex answer. So allow us to delve deeper into the mysteries, dispell rumours and set the record straight for the sake of legacy of the infamous HNC Network. It has been said, history is written by the victors, so get ready for a read! When we last left you, you might indeed remember that the HNC Network was providing an online e-nviroment unmatched by any other 'competitor' in the game, free. HNC was on the forefront of creating open-source, tangible, useful auditing, media and encryption tools for the Windows 32-bit platform and the *Nix enviroments and distributing these applications to the public through our own Echelon Labs headed by G. Toonstra (Senior Production Engineer). The HNC Network, through a proactive group/site merger with HackedArchives (an upstart software application archiving powerhouse to network/security administrators and end-users), effectively created and maintained an active archive/directory of close to what we estimated to be at 80% of all openware/freeware security, management, auditing and infectious application worth mention in the global e-community available from the years 1995-2003, making the HNC Network a global one-stop-shop for the end-user and corporation alike. The HNC Network was the first to provide dominating underground webpages for registered users with an approximate 4,000 sign-ups in the first day and successfully created a online learning enviroment known as the Knowledge Center for all users that promoted the philosophies equally - blackhat/whitehat/grayhat, which had compiled more material rivaling that of some fee-based, commercial outlets which attracted industry technology/communication/media heavyweights (i.e. Earthlink, ZD Net, McAfee, FlashNet, Compuserve, IBM, AOL, etc.) to use the resource as a technical reference - this is based on accounts we received from insiders in many of those companies, including one that was on our own staff. The HNC Network effectively took up the reins on a media distribution initiative that came to be known as the Media Centre, which included exceptionally sourced articles from news outlets around the globe to independent expose's and eventually the breeding of our own e-journalists which exclusively covered technology related issues worldwide with relevant commentary, opinionated drafts and gritty, in-your-face fact finding articles that pulled the wool from many an eye. Lastly, Sector 54 was developed to give the HNC Network a foundation in which to launch commercial products applicable to many of the public's needs/desires at the time, such as affordable consumer based SIM card readers/burners and affiliated Jinx Hackwear clothing products made on our behalf - the HNC Network being one of the first major participating organizations in their 'underground' apparel line. Let us reiterate on the most controversial topic of the time at the sake of sounding redundant, all proceeds never went to line our pockets and they 100% went to either keeping HNC's resources running or were distributed to several global charitable causes. The organization was a groundbreaker in probing deeper and farther than just being some leading portal site, at a time when the terminology in itself was a rarity - the HNC Network helped put a human face on the technology behind the e-movement on a globalscale. The organization and membership were afforded the opportunity at times in rubbing shoulders with some of the most influencial/controversial groups and their constituents in it's time both online and off. Here are some more of the notable groups: foureightysix, Ethical Hackers Against Pedophilia (EHAP), HDC, Attrition, cDc, milw0rm, Team Spl0it, gH, L0pht Heavy Industries, Genocide 2600, Chaos Computer Club, HackCanada, r00tw0rm, HFX, Phrack and HackPhreak. A handful of the members were on hand as staff at DefCon 7 and gained the opportunity to attend the BlackHat briefings, marking another milestone for the group. Many contributors to the HNC Network were already/became established in industry while participating in the effort and in the community which created unique opportunities for many of the members to consult with corporations/governments, formed career opportunity incentives and many times allowed several to participate in audio/tv programs. At the same time, it also created a barrier for some members with private business, which saw the association to the organization (although it was entirely legitimate and generally took a dim view of defacing/security compromisation) as a conflict of interest in terms of their information or network security, which cost several members profitable opportunities. The association, as the 'fear' over the controversial culture grew over time, aggravated two contributors special background investigations years after the group had long disbanded. The group was not without it's shortcomings, plenty of times participants didn't see eye-to-eye, sometimes these were resolvable, sometimes they were beyond control. The organization's operational 'secrets' even fell prey to one member sourcing our methodology for another group's malicious intent. The collective had many e-nemies and competitors over the years, fueled by jealousy over our competent, proactive approach which they couldn't imitate or petty rivalries that were inherited when some members came aboard - when you're getting close to the top of the mountain, people are determined to bring you down, take your glory and discredit your efforts. That is the unfortunate side to the human quotient, but the group either outlasted them or eventually befriended them, all the while without without ever 'firing a shot' so to speak. Around 2002 though, we came to a realization that we had larger, farther-reaching obligations to consider. Unfortunately, our vast resources had grown far beyond our ability to manage them - volunteer turnover, inefficient code, poor hosting provider, etc.. Our bandwidth costs were far superceding any product marketing/placement/development and/or advertising revenues we needed as our source of income to keep the site functioning (i.e. at peak we were netting close to 6 million unique hits a day) - further abuse of the free webpages we provided to the community compounded this problem, at one point culminating in a billing overage of over $4,000. The organization was entirely non-profit (personal benefit from this effort was never an intention, but about the love of the subject matter), what capital can be generated to support this great collaboration, to keep serving the web denizens at no cost to them, to provide countless educational opportunities - where was the ROI? Simply, it didn't exist. Around this timeframe, we published a seering expose on a notorious e-thug who was supposedly a 'respected professional' out of the UK which landed us in the hotbed of litigation due to the methods used in researching the article that was conducted by one of our staff authors. This article made it to several credible sources which caused a backlash in legal threats for fear of his reputation being tarnished, claiming defamation of character while never officially denying our writer's claims. That is all we can post to this day regarding that event in accordance with our out-of-court agreement with the individual in question, but the article's impact had effectively taken it's toll in the short time it was published before we had to submit an official retraction. Frequently, we stood up for justice, but several times we hadn't the resources to continue a fight. This instance along with the aforementioned financial predicament, revealed a very serious issue we faced - collective representation was non-existent and we were in a financial shortfall. This situation prompted D. Shanley (Founder & Primary Financier) and J. Longoria (Director of Development & Administration) to begin developing a business model, something to steer the organization into becoming a commercially profitable organization while keeping the same features and resources completely available to the interactive public WITHOUT COST TO THEM. For those you that have followed and been with us for years, you'll remember that we attempted this previously in 1999, associating and aligning ourselves with a snake of a woman, Tina, that preyed on our hardwork and resources attempting to make a profit on the side. This brief "partnership" was based on an initial product we had traveled to Las Vegas to develop, "Defcon 7: Behind the Scenes" (Defcon), a production of the HNC Network and a post-production house that aimed to explore the world behind Defcon and some of the key personalities as the convention's powerhouse players which was distributed by the HNC Network at a comparable price on VHS. The first phase of this plan was a consolidation of resources, we simply merged or removed resources that weren't effective enough on their own, were outdated, or were just not applicable to the change in the industry that was taking place - this is all of course post-Internet bubble. The second stage was to align ourself with a start-up company that approached us with a convincing proposal of their own, which when summarized, sold the idea that they could essentially be 'sub-contracted' to provide a managed e-security solution to both small-business and corporate consumers alike in exchange for the access to our extensive audience of potential clientel. They would operate under our banner, we would hold joint decision-making and intellectual property rights on their products/services and the capital to assist in sustaining the HNC Network would be generated, in excess, allowing us to delve deeper and develop more significant products, and more importantly, reward the volunteer contributors with a bonus/salary for their countless hours/days/years of service in making the HNC Network what it was at it's culmination. Unfortunately, this just wasn't in the cards. Once again, the collective took a risk and put faith in the managed solution's creator - whom wasted our time, wasted money and eventually cut bait, dissappearing into the night. The last phase was a two-part phase; The first part was to initiate our Premiere package membership to the HNC Network, which included exclusive access to 0-day/exploit code too sensitive to post to the general public, technology related e-book access, participation in an anticipated discounted partnered certification program for technology related certification and non-restricted access to our collection of resources, events and discounts on our commercial products. The second part was to be a significant milestone, an initiative spearheaded by J. Longoria who recognized the need for a distancing and reinvention, the re-branding of the HNC Network as a whole, logo and all - unfortunately, this was met with slight opposition. It was imperative to us at the time that we must once again separate ourselves from the copycat web portals, the mainstream, the underground domains and the drama surrounding the hacker/cracker controversy. It was a reinvention of not only our organization, but ourselves. This didn't sit entirely well with everyone of the CORE (sidenote: the CORE being the 5 individuals in the HNC Network that held the decision making power on the behalf of the organization in their respective position -or- better explained the 'department' heads). So, what were we left with? An organization teetering on collapse prior to our implementation of these three phases. The plan was to shutdown all services, apart from the Media Centre and go on an extended hiatus. This included a complete restructuring of the HNC Network resource management, servers and website back-end software which would include a replacement product called OxyBox (CodeCircus) which was developed off 'lessons learned' of the proprietary brainchild application produced by in-house software engineer D. Shanley and concept analyst J. Longoria which made up the then current backoffice application for HNC Network's online resources. This term delay would give C.J. Sollien (Administrator of Archive & Resource Management) time to effectively reorganize and redistribute the excess in archived materials we had gathered over the years, which had become problematic to say the least as 35% of the descriptions and titles effectively identifying the software's capabilities were not applicable and much of the data had become corrupted over the course of several years, including several instances where trojans had taken place of legitimate applications prompting a serious investigation of our security and backend, as had the previous one time in history where HNC's server had been compromised by cracking group named HcV, years earlier. Anti-Social Magazine (one of the web's premiere and earliest E-Zines) would have time to regroup their resources, fully integrate with the Media Centre for distribution and begin to produce quality audio broadcasts through equipment proposed for purchase. So the question we (and we're sure you) keep asking, is what in the world happened? Simple. Life. Each of us had exceedingly higher priorities that demanded more of our attention, you can't live your life through the Internet and expect to make it another day, every day without dealing with the responsibilities and duties to work, family and friends. We had careers, romances, hobbies, these are things that every human needs to survive and be fulfilled. It was preached from our organization's inception - take care of your priorities first, then your position. This was consistently drilled into the staff. "In 1998, I put so much of myself into this collboration, I forgot about myself. I was in university at the time and I failed one class specifically because I wouldn't devote my attention away from my technological enthusiasm and my committment/obsession with the group - a sobering experience, I look back and can see where it was close to a borderline addiction, I let it ruin my GPA that year. From there on in I had to make sure noone else in the staff, including myself, made that same mistake," said J. Longoria. Because of this principle, the HNC Network began to suffer losses and during the third month of the chapter hiatus experienced a critical communication breakdown that crippled the organization - a combination of personality conflicts, trying times, tension and telecommunications problems/costs. Why do we air our dirty laundry like this? To depict the reality and humanity of the situation; we do this to let others in this e-conomy know that sometimes, good things do come to an end, or at least, they need to go back in the cupboard for awhile. So, what's next? This. What you're reading right now. This weblog is to be the continuation of our e-lives. The name/domain has several meanings in itself - hnc: the reformed. There is always a meaning in a name and this one is no exception. We look at it two ways: the reformed - we've come together under the same banner in a collaborative effort, we've done this before, we've made a difference, we've impacted the web community and each of us long ago had made a decision to move forward in life, to let the petty things go, to appreciate our associations/friendships and to transition away from our 'underground' derived lifestyle. You won't find us posting under our former monarchers in these life portfolios of the e-nfluencial as we've long since dropped the handles that we gained notoriety under. Unfortunately, you won't find all of us on here. Many of the former staff members we cannot get in touch with, others have moved on with their lives to the extent that any association with this relevant past could potentially jeopardize their professional positions, security clearances, etc. It is obvious where we stand on this though, you only need to read two and a half segments up. Our best wishes to those that cannot. For those that can and we haven't contacted you, chances are we can't find any contact information on you so PLEASE, contact us. We want your participation, you are apart of the heritage that made HNC what it was and/or what it might have become. To the audience, the community, the underground, the global userbase… we wish to thank you. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to impact your life and for the participation/feedback you gave us over the years. We hope you'll give us that same chance to come into your home, office, marketplace, coffee shop, foward operating location, etc. to share with your our thoughts, views, emotions and opinions as the reformed once again press on.