_______________________________________ [ ] [THE SHADOWY WORLD OF COMPUTER HACKERS] [ An Article on us 'Naughty Boys' ] [ Typed by: Shadow's Pawn ] [ Original article in U.S. News and ] [ World Report June 3, 1985 ] [ ] [ Converted to 80 Columns by ] [ The Slipped Disk ] [ ] [ The Fifth Precinct ] [ [502] 245-8270 ] [_____________________________________]
Flash!: The FBI and private firms are cracking down on teenagers who use terminals to swap tips on how to break the law.
The following article recently published in U.S. News and World Report (June
3, 1985) reveals the shocking truth about the underworld of the Computer Hacker, or does it? This is basically educating thier reader on the crimes that are committed each and every day on bulletin board system around the United States.
Read and enjoy…
Shadow's Pawn/Control
Want to learn the intricacies of picking locks? The recipe for nitro-
glycerin? Or methods of making free long-distance phone calls? How about someone else's credit-card number for a shopping spree? Curious how to kill with your bare hands?
Until a few weeks ago, all this was available to users of COSMOS, a comput-
erized "bulletin board" run by a 16-year-old high-school student known as Time Lord to his fellow 'hackers,' or computer tinkerers. His board collapsed in late April after police and agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Secret Service came to his West Bloomfield, Mich., home. Dad took away the computer.
Time Lord escaped arrest, but six high-school students in Waukesha, Wis.,
weren't so lucky. On April 25, they were arrested in a seperate case for allegedly using stolen credit-card numbers to obtain thousands of dollars' worth of computer equipment. The numbers, said the Milwaukee Journal, were disseminated over a computer bulletin board called the World of Cryton.
These incidents shed light on a shadowy subculture in which hackers- nearly
all teenage boys- swap information and joust over who knows the most, and whose exploits are the most daring. To read their exchanges on computer monitors is to enter a world of bright young zealots whose talents at manipulating complex computers are often accompanied by a blithe disregard for authority. Some are barely in their teens and already are lawbreakers. Almost all come from affluent famlies.
Messages that cross back and forth bring to mind a fraternity food fight, a
detailed phone-system manual, a sex novel and a bomb factory rolled into one. many seem sophmoric –strewn with profanities questioning the masculinity of other system users.
"The bulletin boards,"says FBI agent John Anthony in Detroit,"give this aura
of Robin Hood, and young kids-particularly bright young kids- get involved in this as a challenge to the Establishment."
MOST LEGITAMITE. Bulletin boards are do-it-yourself electronic-message
systems. Anyone with a personal computer and a modem-a device that lets computers communicate over phone lines- can participate. Special software is needed to operate a board.
More than 1,000 (GET REAL!) such bulletin boards exist now. The great bulk of
them are totally legitimate. They offer to people with common in- terests an electronic meeting place to exchange messages about using their computers and software. Some boards are dedicated to a special interest, such as humor, law, education or health. Others allow users to order goods and are, in effect, electronic shopping services.
"The subject matter ranges from software swapping to games to information
about specific programs to finding the woman of your life," says James Cambron of Kansas City, who runs a bulletin board that distributes facts about other boards.
But a minority of boards cater to interests distinctly outside the main-
stream. On the political left, a Long Island board, called the Revolution, carries messages assailing President Reagan's Central America policy and calling for a campaign against the opening of a nearby nuclear power plant. When the user signs off, the system says, "Dosvedonia comrade"-an approximation of 'goodbye' in Russian.
On the right is a network of boards that attack blacks and Communists.Elec-
tronic files called "Know Your Enemies" claim to provide details about Jewish organizations and 'race traitors". Their operators, according to the Anti- defamation League of N'nai B'rith, are right wing extremists who "seek to spr- ead their hate propaganda among young people, surely the most vulnerable to its influence."
The segment run and used by young hackers, however, attracts the most at-
tention from law-enforcement agencies and companies whose computers store vast amounts of information. John Maxfield, a Detroit consultant who monitors such boards for business clients, says they are strewn with material that is "either borderline illegal or outright illegal or encourages illegal activities."
"PHREAKING." Telephone companies are especially upset about bulletin boards
that contain sections devoted to "phreaking" - making toll calls free of charge. Phreaking includes such techniques as breaking into corporate switchboards through phone lines to make conference calls and using ill-gotten identifacation numbers for Sprint, MCI and other toll services.
Explains maxfield: "If you're into calling bulletin boards, a big problem is
phone-bill shock at the end of the month. So a lot of boards, while not catering necessarily to illegal activities, generate a lot of fraudulent calls."
Many hacker-phreakers see nothing wrong with phone scams. " I only abuse
people who charge too much for thier long-distance calls," says one called the Comedian, a 17-year-old from Bethesda, Md "I've heard some pretty bad things about the phone company."
Reflecting the youth of most users, a hacker known as Access Finder recently
said on a board in Colorado called the Operating Room that he had been inactive for a while because "my computer had a major [expletive] when my mother spilled water from the plants all over it." He then asked other users to supply him with "codes for anything, " including businesses,government agencies, phone firms and banks.
Typical of the subterranean boards is one in Boulder, Colo., called Off The
Wall. Operated by Psycho, the board requires the last four digits of a users phone number and a seven character password for access. To make certain that they are not infiltrated by police or security agents, most system operators subject new users to "character checks" before granting passwords or access to some of the systems' more dubious sections. Some operators demand references from other hackers and automatically look askance at anyone older then 20.
"The bulletin boards out there have far better security than most corporate
mainframes. and that's pretty frightening and astounding,"says former hacker Ian Murphy, now a security consultant.
LAYERS OF ACCESS. Users with "Level I" security clearence on Off The Wall can
read and leave messages on subboards dedicated to specific computer brands, product reviews and general announcements. The next level permits access to messages dealing with such topics as software trading and X-rated and destructive materials. The highest level brings one to messages providing passwords and access codes for commercial computers and details on ways to make illegal long-distance phone calls.
Among some tidbits found recently on Off The Wall--
o Excerpts from sexually explicit material published in Penthouse magazine.
o Account numbers and passwords of Dow Jones News/Retrieval and CompuServe commercial data bases.
o Personal identifacation numbers for various Sprint and MCI long-distance accounts.
o Purported recipies for a biotoxin of wheat, a "cheap,very explosive,water- sensitive device" made with potassium and emptied cold capsules.
Before its abrupt end, COSMOS, in addition to its message boards, carried long
atricles on such subjects as making drugs, the basics of hand-to-hand combat, the ins and outs of the big TRW computers that house credit data on 120 million Americans, how to build devices for making toll free calls and ways to convince an operator that you work for the phone company. "It's amazing how many people know so much about our operators and how to use our system,"says Neal Norman, a district manager of corporate security for American Tele- phone & Telegraph.
COSMOS also contained a subsection for "trashing"--searching a company's
garbage for discarded credit-card carbons or computer printouts carrying valuable access codes. One trasher's advice: "Look everywhere and anywhere. People are dumb these days you can get good trash anywhere."
PIRATES ONLY. Boards like POBBS-- Pirates Only Bulletin Board System-- in
suburban New York are drawing notice from software firms trying to stamp out piracy of thier copyrighted products. Operated by Exorcist, a 19 year-old college student, POBBS exists mainly to allow users of International Business Machines personal computers to swap commercial software over the phonelines . Dozens of copyrighted programs,including Lotus 1-2-3 and Wordstar, are ava- ilable free through POBBS.
Fun and games for curious teenagers? That's the attitude they often convey .
"It's enjoyable taking risks,and it gives you a feeling of power because it puts you above most of the population," explains Demon of the Boston area.
Victims of these teenagers are not amused. So seriously do long-distance
companies view the problem that they formed the Communications Fraud Control Association to exchange information about illegal bulletin boards and lobby for stronger legislation. "One person with one code is not enough to give us much of a problem," says Van Willson, a security official for GTE Sprint. "The problem is that the little fellows start posting them on the boards."
PRECAUTIONS. All of the major toll carriers, as well as TRW claim to moni-
tor the boards closely. AT&T regularly briefs operators about fraud scams. TRW offers seminars on security for clients , who use it's service to check thier customers credit ratings. A key point: TRW people never call clients asking them to "confirm" thier subscriber numbers.
Police also are looking at bulletin boards more carefully. But prosecution is
sometimes difficult.Thomas Tcimpidis , a 34-year-old TV engineer in Calif- ornia, was arrested on state charges after someone posted a telephone credit -card number on his board. Tcimpidis argued that he was unaware that the stolen number was there. Charges against him were dropped last February. California's Legislature is being asked to outlaw the unauthorized placement of personal information on bulletin boards. State Senator John Doolittle intro- duced this proposal not long after New- sweek reporter Richard Sandza told of harassment by vengeful hackers angry about the article he had written on underground boards. One of them broke into a TRW computer, obtained Sandza's credit-card and Social Security numbers and published them on bulletin boards around the country.
A RIGHT? Many law enforcers feel powerless against the boards. Using stolen
code or card numbers is clearly illegal. Is posting those numbers on a computer bulletin board a crime as well ? Answers are murky. Some lawyers argue that this activity is a First Amendment right,no matter how unsavory.
County officials in Phoenix interpret Arizona's computer-crime aw broad- ly.
Reasoning that illegal toll calls are routed through a phone company's computerized switchboard, authorities recently arrested two system operators whose boards listed long-distance access codes belonging to others and char- ged them with facilitating computer fraud.
So hackers are starting to feel the heat. Some say they are cutting back on
thier activities. "A lot of people are very paranoid," says Shadow, an 18-year -old in New Jersey.
Like Shadow, other young computer wizards now must weigh the thrills of using
high-tech skills to challenge "the system" against the possibility of a criminal record.