My opinion on hak5

[proskater123]

Ok I am going out more than i normally would. But most of everyone here knows me or have seen me around (so I think) so I think I have room for my opinion. I have been around since season 1. When haxor flakes were cool :)!

But I think hak5 has gone down hill. I miss the times when i actually looked forward to a release. What happened to all of the mods and builds? The underwater cam? Music through a laser? I mean anymore it seems (to me) that hak5 has turned into a tutorial or a walk through place. I'm not sure if that makes sense to you or not. Sure the vmware is cool and everything but it is hak5. Where is the haks? I'm not talking about the pwning the school or something. Yes I know you have went over the wpa and jasager. It almost seems like hak5 has gone cooperate in a way.

I love hak5. Im always on Irc and checking up on the forums. I have watched every episode except for the one just released. I even follow alot of people on twitter just to know what is going on. So please don't think I am saying hak5 sucks. Its more constructive criticism. I know I am going to get flamed really bad for this but it was bothering me to the point I had to say something. Maby I am just getting bored with the episodes and stay for the people that I have kinda grown up close to. I have made many friends here at hak5. I remembered when I tryed taking Darren out on bbs on red dragon. (I think thats what it was called)

I just miss all the interesting stuff hak5 had. It makes me miss all the old times. I don't even really know what it was that I am missing.

Well Please don't flame and tell me what you think also. (besides that I am stupid or anything along those lines.)

Is there anything you notice or is there anyone else feeling the same way I do. I noticed alot of people like hak5 better this way. I also hope no one thinks different of me for sharing my feelings about this.

[StarStorm]

You're an awesome person. I don't know why anyone would think badly of you.

[Deags]

haha i hacked deags account what a loser.

bragging about his shit to the world. and i cun7f4c3 hacked him. hahaha. what a noob. the a-team sucks. hak5 sucks.

[Burncycle]

I can't say one way or the other as I've only followed hak5 since its emergence under the Rev3 umbrella, but I have to say that its probably my favorite podcast at the moment.

[zero1]

I think the shorter release cycle doesn't allow for such large projects as in the older seasons but the segment idea works ok. The VMware stuff was good and had a good flow between episodes and I'm sure this will continue to improve.

Also being on rev3 there is a far lager audience with less technical knowledge that the show now accommodates for.

But I'm still impressed they can come up with content on a weekly basis.

[deleted]

Ive also been following since Haxor flakes and comical sketches and I have to agree with you.

I feel in the older episodes, episodes went on the assumption that you had a little bit of prior knowledge (even just a little bit) so that they could dive right in to something cool. Now they are going on the basis that viewers don't know anything about their chosen subject and have to start from the ground up.

P.S. Why would anyone flame you for an opinion that is reasonable? If you came on going "h4r h4r, im teh l33t nd hak5 pure suks!" im sure that may have been flamed.

[VaKo]

Have you considered that Hak5 may not have changed much, its just that you have grown as a person and your likes, dislikes and desires have changed over the past few years?

[cabster21]

I think it has changed, but for the worse? I don't know. I have been around since the first season. Though I didn't and still don't have any input into the past community projects. So I don't miss that part, as I never was part of it, I barely even look at these forums.

As far as the show, there are things I miss, but then there are some pretty good additions. As far as I'm aware there are some pretty hard core members of the community that felt pretty poorly treated, so I think they generally feel the show has taken some bad turns. My evolvement went no further than sending $10 for stickers and downloading the shows. And I'm still happy to check in from time to time and watch the show. This is just going to become like Diggnation, look at some of the threads on that.

Anyway, I'd still call myself a fan but did prefer the first couple seasons. But I do agree with Vako, I was in a very different place in my life, for one I was a student. So dosing around watching Hak5 drinking was the norm, it's not now and that doesn't reflect on the show. What I'm saying is, even though I don't download every show like I used to, that's not really down to the show.

[Snubs]

No one's gonna flame you, at least I won't. I get where you're coming from.

The hardest part is doing the show weekly and trying to come up with segments and information that everyone will enjoy. I wish we could do mods and hardware hacks every week. That would be SWEET! We have had some awesome stuff the past 2 seasons- like the Pineapple Jasager, the Monkey, building a server, konboot, and the multi boot USB from this episode I find incredibly interesting.

I'm looking foward to the day that I get to quit my day job and stay at home during the day figuring out how to hack my 360 to do interesting things... Ahh, but I'm dreaming. :P

[Iain]

I never really liked the physical mods. I prefer the grey activity (and how to prevent against it) as well as information about the many Windows and Linux tools that I'd never encounter otherwise.

As a side note, I'm amazed that Darren et. al. manage to find sufficient time and material to produce a 30 - 40 minute show each week. I was impressed by the monthly production so this season has got me buzzing. It's a pity there's not a lot of time for me to play around with what's been demonstrated in one episode before the next one comes around!

[proskater123]

I have taken into account that they have to release weekly, they do have real lives aside from the show, and it is hard to find material to film, edit, and throw up on the site all in one week. And I was worried about the flaming cause I was pretty much saying hak5 has turned for the worst and in the past when I have done that, that is what happened.

[dr0p]

Starting with season 4, I started hating the show. I still usually watch most of the episodes though.... why I do I'm not exactly sure. Imo, the show has lost all of its 'technolust'... People with technolust like to tinker, explore for themselves, and get bored to shit when they get walked through creating a TC volume. I miss the hardware mods, stuff like the custom guitar hero guitar was pure awesomeness. The show no longer pertains to people with real technolust, only to people who think they do but actually don't. Tbh, the show sucks man.

[joeypesci]

I still like the show. I looked back on the old seasons and now feel its a bit better now in a production sense. Looks better, presenters are more relaxed, Matt is a good addition and a welcome replacement to Wess (no offence to him but his accent used to grate so would skip his segments.) I do miss stuff like the man in the middle attack by Darren and Harrison. It was good back then that it was just a group of people that had slapped together a show each week. However, I feel it hasn't lost that as although now with Rev3, it doesn't look like Darren or the rest have lost any control and aren't controlled in what they show, which is nice. If Rev3 start forcing them to do segments they don't want to do, then it will lose its way.

Been an IT Engineer for 2 and a half years now, kinda got thrown in at the deep end as despite not knowing about domains etc I was given a job anyway and had to learn on the job. I now use Hak5 as a little bit of a learning tool as I'm no expert. I like the sections on VMWare as I currently have it setup at home with a server running inside a VM. They can't please everyone though. As although I'd like to see, I'm sure others wouldn't, them setting up, in VMWare a Windows server 2003 domain and getting it working correctly with physical machines talking to it (mainly cause I think mines setup wrong and I'd like to see how its done correctly :) )

So I'm one of those noobs, maybe that's why I still enjoy the show. And having Darren, Matt and Shannon present it is just the perfect amount of presenters and the perfect people to host it. Darren and Matt know their stuff and have the passion and present well and not in a boring way but also still with that amateurish feel which I think helps. And Shannon, although doesn't seem as confident, as a charm that allows you to forgive and still enjoy her segments. Although she doesn't seem as truly into the tech as Matt and Darren (but I could be wrong). Although when she went into town on the 4th July episode and actually said "lol" out loud, that was slightly embarrassing :)

[VaKo]

But in the flipside, I was quite ready to fly over to the states, get a taxi to the HakHouse and take an axe to the copy of Guitar Hero in question. Different stuff interests different people, which is something hak5 is good at providing. Personally I think the earlier stuff had more energy to it, i still love the GameCube DVD player mod, but the production is far better now and the show as an entity works far better. The content is less interesting to me these days, because I work with this stuff on a daily basis now, but when I was a student it was all new to me and it honestly taught me a lot.

[h3%5kr3w]

Well even though I did not see any of this from any of you, but what about maybe the reason why it has inevitably changed so much is that for the most part (or so it seems) it's just Darren and Shannon? I mean yeah Matt is still around and in eps. here and there but you just dont get the variety that there was when it was 3 or 4 or 5 people on the show at one time.

I have thought about that a lot recently. It almost seems to me like the last two eps. of each season of Big Brother.. You only have 2 or 3 people in the house and there is just not the spontineity there was when it was more people.

I think that maybe they should try dividing the segments to half what they are now, and just try to grab people they know (well at least people who know what they are doing) and fill ea. individual segment with what they are doing, and then give links to more knowledge on the subject in the show notes. At the same time, even though it looks more professional, maybe not cut away to the 'intermission' segments as it were, and just have paul edit in the segments to tighten it all up. That way the segments are 1,2,3,4,5,6. So that would be 6 segments in a show, by at least 4 people, and go ahead and have some goofing around and random blahblah (which actually, I enjoy because it's more personable sometimes) @ the end before they close the show.

TBH it's not that there is lack of content to actually put on the show. I would personally like to see more wallpapers in the beginning (if any of you have seen how many wallpapers I have put in you know what I am talking about :P) Not for self promotion mind you, it makes me giggle like a school girl when I see my wallpapers showing after the intro vid, and on the flat panels in the background, but just in a way that gives back to the community ya know?

How's about this? I know you have hack stalkers and stuff like that, but what about a live segment ea. week or so, running about an hour long, with video uplink, where it can be about anything. Doesn't have to be about even tech. I know there is more than that implemented now, but just something where let's say as en example it would be a live thing anyone could watch, but then have like a cue system where people basically line up and get 10 mins. On their own chatting with Darren and or Snubs and or Matt about whatever. It could be about the show, it could be about them, or just bullshitting away about stuff.

Personally I think that the show lately is dwelling too much on too few topics. I don't think it's anyone's fault though, and I also think that it will get better. The show is always evolving which is why I always watch, and I think that is why we all watch even when we really don't care about the topics on the show, or when we think that the segments go on too long, or blah blah blah (insert whatever here).

Although we all have our yaps about this topic in one way or another that cannot fathomably be resolved without coming out with 4 hour eps. with 20 sum odd people featured ea. week, I think we can all agree that without Darren and Matt, the show would not be Hak.5 in any sense. (sry snubs, it's not you, just that you were not an original but definitely a key part of the show, and continue to be a benchmark person for the part you have in the show).

Without Matt, Darren would just be a goofy gz.tar, without Darren, Matt would be some super serious .dll file, and without Matt and Darren... heh.. Well it would be funny as hell I'll tell you that much, but not really techno-lusty as we know it. It's like a Reeses... Without peanut butter it's just chocolate, and without chocolate it's just peanut butter. And without the package... It's just nasty. :P

****BTW I was so excited when I saw my background on the hd monitor when everyone appeared on the new york segment of Diggnation. I was like 'ooooooohhh shiizzz!'.*****

lol, I know no one was really looking but I thought it was awesome hehehe.

[proskater123]

Haha h3%5kr3w. I like alot of your ideas. It would be really cool to see more people involved. Another thing i just thought of is in the hacking sense of things. Pretty much with the vmware segments, it would be cool to see how to install vmware esxi on an ide instead of a sata. I know its possible I just havn't done it myself. Wouldn't that kinda be a hack?

[wh1t3 and n3rdy]

Ahhh this is a topic tat never seems to die, it just keeps coming round and round. As someone who started watching In season 1 I might as well throw my 2 cents in.

The productions is better now, and the show looks great. The content is up and down in terms of appeal to me, so you can't keep everyone happy. I do appreciate Darrens greater usage of Linux though, top marks there. Matt's virtualisation segments were enjoyable also. I don't give two shits about the wii, but I dont care if they cover wii stuff because the show isn't soley made for me.

There are several reasons why I think Season 1 will never be outdone. One is a i appreciated it more because I had to wait a whole month to get it. Two, Harrison. He's the man. Now he left for the reasons he did but you can't bug out on the rest of the guys for that. Work commitments would have cut his involvement anyway, but I loved the segments he AND Darren did. Ditto for Jonathon.

Wess. Well what can you say? He is and always will be missed but people change, things happen there is a season turn turn turn. I fucking hate when people who hate the show stick around to piss and moan about the good old days. A weekly release schedule is a big fucking ask so if your not interested in helping out, then fuck off. I would rather a smaller community with less morons then look and see that there are 10,000 members of the forum.

I am just going to say thanks to the cast, past present and future, for trying to give something back to us nerds/geeks etc. Nobody will ever agree 100% with what you say, do or put on the show but I say ignore those wankers and keep on going and show the content you want to show. As far as I am concerned you guys have nothing to prove and don't need the naysayers having a cry over whatever has caught the attention of their tiny braids. Except for connection speed and torrenting, i wish the internet was the same as it was back in 94. Best year on the internet I have ever had, bar none.

Hak5 FTW, fuck off losers.

[OtterFox]

I can't really vote either way. I found their earlier stuff to be better, but I would say that was before I learnt alot of the stuff they now show on the show. I'd say that hak5 is still aimed at the same audience, it's just that for me I've kinda grown out of it.

[operat0r_001]

* "tutorial or a walk through place." Yes skiddie powers activate! Maybe once a month one of you could think of something somewhat original or hell take submissions on ideas for shows you have ton of users!

* admit it could any of you do a weekly show with *original* content? I have a hard time thinking of new presentations myself so I can't bitch ..

* Hak.5 is THE only VIDEO security podcast I know of that is any good/recent ..

[CraigHB]

I'm a recent member of the Hak5 audience. I've been watching the new shows as they're released, but have also been viewing the earlier shows as I can get to them. I enjoy the newer shows much more simply because the production quality is so much better. The season 1 shows are really raw production wise, it makes them hard to watch. Even the audio quality is hard to endure.

I don't have any real complaints about the content. I'm not interested in everything they cover, but there's definitely enough to make the show worth my while. I'm amazed at the amount of content they can come up with every week.

I really like the regulars they have now. I'm hoping Matt doesn't fall off the grid. I think He and Darren are really good together and my favorite shows are the ones with both of them. Snubs is great too. She doesn't seem to miss any shows, but I hope she doesn't go anywhere either.

[nicatronTg]

@CraigHB the production quality improves drastically in S2 and S3, yet we still get repeated segments, like, how many times have I heard how to make a TC volume in Hak5? If stuff from S1 needs to be redone, then redo it, but stuff that we've seen multiple times gets really old, really fast.

[cabster21]

Yeah but if all you know how to do is peel a banana, what do you teach people?

I haven't watched an episode in a while, liked some of the esxi stuff but yeah it is kind of basic. Matt usually comes across like he is in a bad mood, Darren comes across like the bastard child of Chris Pirillo, Snubs seems to be there as the female token. If this were the eighty's she would be black-Can't actually remember her name, Stephanie was what I was thinking, can remember Snubs though- I've posted this before, but I liked it more when they had the live eps, and things were not so scripted. I understand the show has probably grown and better in many respects. Even though Chris was no Jimmy Dean his things were interesting, but there you go. The show seems so flat to me, I remember about Xmas time watching live and Darren asked the live feed if they should have a long ep or short, of course everyone said long. Then I assume they got their arses kicked and told to keep it short. It's probably better for them to stay with Rev3, but it's not hak5 anymore. I'm not going to bring the whole Wes thing into it, I think it's just coincidence, but there is no debating it has lost what it had. I don't think anyone really thought they learnt a great deal, but then it was more of a forum of this is what we've seen and think.

It now seems like it is trying to be educational, but it is if you have no interest in that particular subject. In short what I'm saying is, since Rev3 which seems to be Matt's domain, contents seems 'Oh well, better get this show done' In saying this I just stick to other podcasts as this has nothing different for me. I guesss it's like diggnation, lose 15 viewers gain 255. Why would they care? I can't see Darren reading this and really caring, why should he? I know I wouldn't, out of this whole thread no one has really said anything bad.

I actually like the hosts, kind of people I could imagine having a drink with. You can tell Darren really does love Hak5, or Tek5 would probably better suit it. But it's not the same, anything that stays the same rarely grows. There will always be someone waiting to exploit it to make money. I'm bitching and moaning now, as I know it won't make a difference.

Anyway, if this does actually get some attention, I would like to see an episode with the regular cast, plus Wes and Chris. Just chatting, think of TWIT with booze, tech that attracts the hosts. And I'd be happy. Yes I know this will not happen, but something close should be plausible? This thread is dead so my bullshit rant should go unnoticed.

[psydT0ne]

Nah your bullshit rant brings up a lot of valid points.

[proskater123]

I don't think Darren is the kind of guy that would let a thread like this go unnoticed. I agree that he loves hak5 and if I was him I would want as much criticism as possible. If I thought that no one would care about my rants or anyone else I would have never started this thread. I think the episode were Wess comes back would be my favorite one of my life. Not gonna lie he was a big part of the show and I skipped around the episodes to watch his segments first then watched the entire thing. (I think I have a man crush =\ ) I loved the arcade mods. I plan on building one of my own soon. I want to build a couple and make an epic game room. Maby we should start a thread where we can throw all of our ideas in so its community driven too and the host arn't stuck with coming up with ideas. Maby make an submission page where we can drop out ideas in. I would have a ton that I would submit every now and then. That way we would see what everyone wants and hit a couple ideas every week. Just a thought tho.

[h3%5kr3w]

I for one would like to see a follow up to the long forgotten season 4 gnireenigne-esrever-erawtfos... I mean reverse-software-engineering :P That was pretty cool