Phrack
Phrack is the long-running hacker e-zine — first published 17 November 1985, ISSN 1068-1035 — whose early issues were released from Metal Shop Private, a St. Louis bulletin board run by co-founder Taran King (Randy Tischler). SCALE is opening a growing record set around Phrack, its St. Louis roots, and founding editor Knight Lightning (Craig Neidorf).
Start here
- Phrack records — announcement and call for submissions
- Knight Lightning — co-founding editor; people profile and links
- Phrack on Wikipedia — publication history, volumes, notable articles
- phrack.org — official site; latest issue #72 (40th anniversary, 2025)
- Phrack on textfiles.com — full run mirror
St. Louis origins
Phrack's name joins phreak and hack. While later editorial eras moved through Austin and a worldwide volunteer staff, the magazine's founding infrastructure was St. Louis:
- Metal Shop Private — BBS sysop Taran King; home base of Phrack Inc.; 314 area code
- SummerCon '88 — hacker convention hosted in St. Louis (July 22–24, 1988); documented in Phrack #20
- Knight Lightning — Craig Neidorf, Missouri editor; United States v. Riggs trial (1990) after the E911 Phrack World News article
Taran King put up Metal Shop because, as he wrote in Phrack #20, "St. Louis totally lacked bulletin boards that dealt with hacking or phreaking." The board drew a national crowd and became the distribution point for early issues.
Publication line
| Volume | Years | Issues | Editors (selected) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | 1985–86 | #1–#9 | Taran King, Cheap Shades |
| 02 | 1987–88 | #10–#24 | Taran King, Knight Lightning, Shooting Shark, Elric of Imrryr |
| 03 | 1989–91 | #25–#36 | Taran King, Crimson Death, Dispater |
| 04–06 | 1992–95 | #37–#47 | Dispater, Erik Bloodaxe |
| 07–10 | 1996–00 | #48–#56 | Voyager, route (daemon9) |
| 11–13 | 2001–09 | #57–#66 | Phrackstaff, Circle of Lost Hackers |
| 14–17 | 2010– | #67–#72 | Phrack Staff |
Latest issue #72 (2025) marked Phrack's 40th anniversary with ~15,000 free hardcopies distributed at DefCon, HOPE, WHY, and other conferences.
Notable philes
Articles that shaped hacker and security culture:
- "The Conscience of a Hacker" (The Mentor) — the Hacker Manifesto; Phrack #7
- "Smashing The Stack For Fun And Profit" (Aleph One) — stack buffer overflows; #49
- "The Art of Scanning" (Fyodor) — introduced nmap; #51
- E911 document (Phrack #24, 1989) — BellSouth memo; Operation Sundevil; EFF amicus in U.S. v. Riggs
Regular columns include Prophile, Linenoise, Loopback, Phrack World News, and International Scenes.
What we are collecting
Issue archives and mirrors, BBS ephemera (Metal Shop, SummerCon flyers), oral history from St. Louis and 314-era sysops, trial transcripts, hardcopy release party photos, and material connecting Phrack to Missouri hacker circles and later security research.
Submit: up@scalepublishing.com — subject line Phrack records
Seed links
Archives and reference
- Phrack — Internet Archive search
- Phrack #20 — Taran King profile & SummerCon '88 — St. Louis convention report
- The Hacker Crackdown — Bruce Sterling on Operation Sundevil and Knight Lightning
- United States v. Riggs — E911 prosecution; charges dropped 1990
- Electronic Frontier Foundation — formed amid Phrack-era computer-law battles
Hardcopy releases
| Issue | Year | Place |
|---|---|---|
| #57 | 2001 | Hackers At Large (Netherlands) |
| #62 | 2004 | RuxCon (Australia) |
| #63 | 2005 | What the Hack (Netherlands) |
| #71 | 2024 | DefCon 32 |
| #72 | 2025 | WHY, DefCon 33, HOPE |
Related SCALE threads
Phrack shares terrain with SCALE's other open-culture archives — MONDO 2000 (1990s magazine underground), The Ilya Archive (network connectors), and St. Louis art-tech circles documented in the Artifaq catalog. Missouri's BBS era is part of the same publication-and-platform history SCALE traces from zines through graduate journals to today's imprint.