Aleph One and Smashing the Stack
loresecurityprogramming
The 1996 Phrack article by Elias Levy, writing as Aleph One, that explained the stack buffer overflow completely and clearly - stack frames, return addresses, shellcode, NOP sleds - and taught an entire generation how memory corruption actually works.
It is probably the single most influential technical text the underground produced. Before it, overflows were folklore known to a few; after it, they were a discipline with a curriculum, which is exactly why the paper is also the standing exhibit in the disclosure argument. Every defence built since - stack canaries, non-executable memory, address randomisation, memory-safe languages - is a response to what this article made common knowledge.
Also known as: elias levy, smashing the stack for fun and profit, phrack 49