“What’s this file?”
Purpsta, a 13-year-old YouTuber, is playing Hacknet OS for the first time.
In the game, he’s been given an assignment as part of his initiation into “Entropy” — an online hacking collective clearly inspired by the real-life Anonymous.
Purpsta’s assignment is to hack into the “Slash-Bot” news server and delete all articles that deal with Entropy. His mission brief says to leave everything else as it is.
He’s done that — he successfully defeated the proxy, exploited vulnerabilities in the SSH and FTP services running on the server, then cracked the password file to gain root.
Hacknet OS is high-fidelity. Purpsta has quickly learned that SSH runs on port 22, FTP on port 21, and that to cover his tracks after hacking a system he needs to rm * the contents of the log directory.
Purpsta’s deleted the articles about Entropy on Slash-Bot, but as he looks through the directories on the server he’s found a file titled: “Config.txt.DANGER”
He opens the file and reads the contents:
“Do not delete or modify the config.txt file. This can cause the system to become unstable or unbootable.”
“Oh… hehehe”
Purpsta goes back to the command-line and starts typing:
rm config.txt
“This is why you shouldn’t trust me with these things…” he says.
Returning to the Slash-Bot homepage, he is greeted by a “Critical Error” message.
“Yep, all up in here wrecking yo’ server!”
He returns to the filesystem and deletes the log, commenting as he does so: “Imma delete the logs, because Bit taught me not to be sloppy.”
In the world of Hacknet OS, Bit is the hacker who starts the story by contacting you via your “JMail” account, and drawing you into a web of conspiracy and high-tech hacking.
Hacknet (@hacknetOS on Twitter) is an independent game written by Adelaide developer Matt Trobiani (@Orann on Twitter).
It doesn’t dumb down the hacking — there’s no “hack the mainframe” schtick here. You can really learn some serious command-line-fu by playing this game, as well as gain an understanding of the broad brush strokes of penetrating networked systems. Kevin Mitnick would approve.
Purpsta is my son, and I’ve tried to teach him the command-line before. However, in a world of iPads and YouTube, a command-line is a frightfully boring thing.
Hacknet, however, brings gamification and an immersive story to the equation, plus an open world gaming experience.
It’s like Postal, where the mission to “go the corner store and buy milk” could be just that and nothing more; or can turn in to a day of ridiculous politically incorrect mayhem involving beheadings and immolation. As the head of Running With Scissors — the studio that produced Postal — pointed out: Postal is not intrinsically violent — in contrast to games like Modern Warfare where violence is not just required, it is the game’s central dynamic. In Postal, the world and the game is only as violent as you are.
Hacknet OS has a similar dynamic. You don’t have to crash the SlashBot server — but you can.
Obviously it would be illegal to hack into it in the first place in the real world, so illegal hacking is a central dynamic of Hacknet OS — but you can choose to be a grey hat hacker, ala Snowden — fighting for social justice; or a script-kiddie black hat — defacing websites for the hell of it.
It’s up to you.
It’s basically GTA at the command-line.
And it has a killer soundtrack, available via bandcamp or as a bundle with the game on Steam. Eight underground musicians contributed to the 14-track ambient electronic soundtrack — definitely Ein Klein Hackmusik “music to hack to”. How can you say no to a track with a name like “Malware Injection”?
Hacknet speaks to the iPad generation with its pop culture references: Entropy, SlashBot, JMail, and also its political consciousness — Entropy have a mantra about the ethics that guide their hacking. It’s an argument for a 21st-century Second Amendment: citizen hackers like Snowden are needed to balance power and fight injustice.
It’s an eternal existential question, phrased by Roman philosophers two thousand years ago as:
quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Who will watch the watchers?
In the world of Hacknet, that would be you.
Hacknet is US$9.99 on Steam ($14.99 with the soundtrack bundled).
