From cfff46ff9becdbe5cf48816870e625ed253ecc57 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: drebs Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2017 12:08:25 -0300 Subject: [refactor] move tests to root of repository Tests entrypoint was in a testing/ subfolder in the root of the repository. This was made mainly because we had some common files for tests and we didn't want to ship them (files in testing/test_soledad, which is itself a python package. This sometimes causes errors when loading tests (it seems setuptools is confused with having one python package in a subdirectory of another). This commit moves the tests entrypoint to the root of the repository. Closes: #8952 --- testing/tests/sqlcipher/hacker_crackdown.txt | 13005 ------------------------- testing/tests/sqlcipher/test_async.py | 146 - testing/tests/sqlcipher/test_backend.py | 677 -- 3 files changed, 13828 deletions(-) delete mode 100644 testing/tests/sqlcipher/hacker_crackdown.txt delete mode 100644 testing/tests/sqlcipher/test_async.py delete mode 100644 testing/tests/sqlcipher/test_backend.py (limited to 'testing/tests/sqlcipher') diff --git a/testing/tests/sqlcipher/hacker_crackdown.txt b/testing/tests/sqlcipher/hacker_crackdown.txt deleted file mode 100644 index a01eb509..00000000 --- a/testing/tests/sqlcipher/hacker_crackdown.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,13005 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hacker Crackdown, by Bruce Sterling - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - -** This is a COPYRIGHTED Project Gutenberg eBook, Details Below ** -** Please follow the copyright guidelines in this file. ** - -Title: Hacker Crackdown - Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier - -Author: Bruce Sterling - -Posting Date: February 9, 2012 [EBook #101] -Release Date: January, 1994 - -Language: English - - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HACKER CRACKDOWN *** - - - - - - - - - - - - - -THE HACKER CRACKDOWN - -Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier - -by Bruce Sterling - - - - -CONTENTS - - -Preface to the Electronic Release of The Hacker Crackdown - -Chronology of the Hacker Crackdown - - -Introduction - - -Part 1: CRASHING THE SYSTEM -A Brief History of Telephony -Bell's Golden Vaporware -Universal Service -Wild Boys and Wire Women -The Electronic Communities -The Ungentle Giant -The Breakup -In Defense of the System -The Crash Post-Mortem -Landslides in Cyberspace - - -Part 2: THE DIGITAL UNDERGROUND -Steal This Phone -Phreaking and Hacking -The View From Under the Floorboards -Boards: Core of the Underground -Phile Phun -The Rake's Progress -Strongholds of the Elite -Sting Boards -Hot Potatoes -War on the Legion -Terminus -Phile 9-1-1 -War Games -Real Cyberpunk - - -Part 3: LAW AND ORDER -Crooked Boards -The World's Biggest Hacker Bust -Teach Them a Lesson -The U.S. Secret Service -The Secret Service Battles the Boodlers -A Walk Downtown -FCIC: The Cutting-Edge Mess -Cyberspace Rangers -FLETC: Training the Hacker-Trackers - - -Part 4: THE CIVIL LIBERTARIANS -NuPrometheus + FBI = Grateful Dead -Whole Earth + Computer Revolution = WELL -Phiber Runs Underground and Acid Spikes the Well -The Trial of Knight Lightning -Shadowhawk Plummets to Earth -Kyrie in the Confessional -$79,499 -A Scholar Investigates -Computers, Freedom, and Privacy - - -Electronic Afterword to The Hacker Crackdown, Halloween 1993 - - - - -THE HACKER CRACKDOWN - -Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier - -by Bruce Sterling - - - - - -Preface to the Electronic Release of The Hacker Crackdown - - -January 1, 1994--Austin, Texas - - -Hi, I'm Bruce Sterling, the author of this electronic book. - -Out in the traditional world of print, The Hacker Crackdown -is ISBN 0-553-08058-X, and is formally catalogued by -the Library of Congress as "1. Computer crimes--United States. -2. Telephone--United States--Corrupt practices. -3. Programming (Electronic computers)--United States--Corrupt practices." - -`Corrupt practices,' I always get a kick out of that description. -Librarians are very ingenious people. - -The paperback is ISBN 0-553-56370-X. If you go -and buy a print version of The Hacker Crackdown, -an action I encourage heartily, you may notice that -in the front of the book, beneath the copyright notice-- -"Copyright (C) 1992 by Bruce Sterling"-- -it has this little block of printed legal -boilerplate from the publisher. It says, and I quote: - - "No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form -or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, -recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, -without permission in writing from the publisher. -For information address: Bantam Books." - -This is a pretty good disclaimer, as such disclaimers go. -I collect intellectual-property disclaimers, and I've seen dozens of them, -and this one is at least pretty straightforward. In this narrow -and particular case, however, it isn't quite accurate. -Bantam Books puts that disclaimer on every book they publish, -but Bantam Books does not, in fact, own the electronic rights to this book. -I do, because of certain extensive contract maneuverings my agent and I -went through before this book was written. I want to give those electronic -publishing rights away through certain not-for-profit channels, -and I've convinced Bantam that this is a good idea. - -Since Bantam has seen fit to peacably agree to this scheme of mine, -Bantam Books is not going to fuss about this. Provided you don't try -to sell the book, they are not going to bother you for what you do with -the electronic copy of this book. If you want to check this out personally, -you can ask them; they're at 1540 Broadway NY NY 10036. However, if you were -so foolish as to print this book and start retailing it for money in violation -of my copyright and the commercial interests of Bantam Books, then Bantam, -a part of the gigantic Bertelsmann multinational publishing combine, -would roust some of their heavy-duty attorneys out of hibernation -and crush you like a bug. This is only to be expected. -I didn't write this book so that you could make money out of it. -If anybody is gonna make money out of this book, -it's gonna be me and my publisher. - -My publisher deserves to make money out of this book. -Not only did the folks at Bantam Books commission me -to write the book, and pay me a hefty sum to do so, but -they bravely printed, in text, an electronic document the -reproduction of which was once alleged to be a federal felony. -Bantam Books and their numerous attorneys were very brave -and forthright about this book. Furthermore, my former editor -at Bantam Books, Betsy Mitchell, genuinely cared about this project, -and worked hard on it, and had a lot of wise things to say -about the manuscript. Betsy deserves genuine credit for this book, -credit that editors too rarely get. - -The critics were very kind to The Hacker Crackdown, -and commercially the book has done well. On the other hand, -I didn't write this book in order to squeeze every last nickel -and dime out of the mitts of impoverished sixteen-year-old -cyberpunk high-school-students. Teenagers don't have any money-- -(no, not even enough for the six-dollar Hacker Crackdown paperback, -with its attractive bright-red cover and useful index). -That's a major reason why teenagers sometimes succumb to the temptation -to do things they shouldn't, such as swiping my books out of libraries. -Kids: this one is all yours, all right? Go give the print version back. -*8-) - -Well-meaning, public-spirited civil libertarians don't have much money, -either. And it seems almost criminal to snatch cash out of the hands of -America's direly underpaid electronic law enforcement community. - -If you're a computer cop, a hacker, or an electronic civil -liberties activist, you are the target audience for this book. -I wrote this book because I wanted to help you, and help other people -understand you and your unique, uhm, problems. I wrote this book -to aid your activities, and to contribute to the public discussion -of important political issues. In giving the text away in this -fashion, I am directly contributing to the book's ultimate aim: -to help civilize cyberspace. - -Information WANTS to be free. And the information inside -this book longs for freedom with a peculiar intensity. -I genuinely believe that the natural habitat of this book -is inside an electronic network. That may not be the easiest -direct method to generate revenue for the book's author, -but that doesn't matter; this is where this book belongs -by its nature. I've written other books--plenty of other books-- -and I'll write more and I am writing more, but this one is special. -I am making The Hacker Crackdown available electronically -as widely as I can conveniently manage, and if you like the book, -and think it is useful, then I urge you to do the same with it. - -You can copy this electronic book. Copy the heck out of it, -be my guest, and give those copies to anybody who wants them. -The nascent world of cyberspace is full of sysadmins, teachers, -trainers, cybrarians, netgurus, and various species of cybernetic activist. -If you're one of those people, I know about you, and I know the hassle -you go through to try to help people learn about the electronic frontier. -I hope that possessing this book in electronic form will lessen your troubles. -Granted, this treatment of our electronic social spectrum is not the ultimate -in academic rigor. And politically, it has something to offend -and trouble almost everyone. But hey, I'm told it's readable, -and at least the price is right. - -You can upload the book onto bulletin board systems, or Internet nodes, -or electronic discussion groups. Go right ahead and do that, I am giving -you express permission right now. Enjoy yourself. - -You can put the book on disks and give the disks away, -as long as you don't take any money for it. - -But this book is not public domain. You can't copyright it in -your own name. I own the copyright. Attempts to pirate this book -and make money from selling it may involve you in a serious litigative snarl. -Believe me, for the pittance you might wring out of such an action, -it's really not worth it. This book don't "belong" to you. -In an odd but very genuine way, I feel it doesn't "belong" to me, either. -It's a book about the people of cyberspace, and distributing it in this way -is the best way I know to actually make this information available, -freely and easily, to all the people of cyberspace--including people -far outside the borders of the United States, who otherwise may never -have a chance to see any edition of the book, and who may perhaps learn -something useful from this strange story of distant, obscure, but portentous -events in so-called "American cyberspace." - -This electronic book is now literary freeware. It now belongs to the -emergent realm of alternative information economics. You have no right -to make this electronic book part of the conventional flow of commerce. -Let it be part of the flow of knowledge: there's a difference. -I've divided the book into four sections, so that it is less ungainly -for upload and download; if there's a section of particular relevance -to you and your colleagues, feel free to reproduce that one and skip the rest. - -[Project Gutenberg has reassembled the file, with Sterling's permission.] - -Just make more when you need them, and give them to whoever might want them. - -Now have fun. - -Bruce Sterling--bruces@well.sf.ca.us - - -THE HACKER CRACKDOWN - -Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier - -by Bruce Sterling - - - - - - - -CHRONOLOGY OF THE HACKER CRACKDOWN - - -1865 U.S. Secret Service (USSS) founded. - -1876 Alexander Graham Bell invents telephone. - -1878 First teenage males flung off phone system by enraged authorities. - -1939 "Futurian" science-fiction group raided by Secret Service. - -1971 Yippie phone phreaks start YIPL/TAP magazine. - -1972 RAMPARTS magazine seized in blue-box rip-off scandal. - -1978 Ward Christenson and Randy Suess create first personal - computer bulletin board system. - -1982 William Gibson coins term "cyberspace." - -1982 "414 Gang" raided. - -1983-1983 AT&T dismantled in divestiture. - -1984 Congress passes Comprehensive Crime Control Act giving USSS - jurisdiction over credit card fraud and computer fraud. - -1984 "Legion of Doom" formed. - -1984. 2600: THE HACKER QUARTERLY founded. - -1984. WHOLE EARTH SOFTWARE CATALOG published. - -1985. First police "sting" bulletin board systems established. - -1985. Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link computer conference (WELL) goes on-line. - -1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act passed. - -1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act passed. - -1987 Chicago prosecutors form Computer Fraud and Abuse Task Force. - - -1988 - -July. Secret Service covertly videotapes "SummerCon" hacker convention. - -September. "Prophet" cracks BellSouth AIMSX computer network - and downloads E911 Document to his own computer and to Jolnet. - -September. AT&T Corporate Information Security informed of Prophet's action. - -October. Bellcore Security informed of Prophet's action. - - -1989 - -January. Prophet uploads E911 Document to Knight Lightning. - -February 25. Knight Lightning publishes E911 Document in PHRACK - electronic newsletter. - -May. Chicago Task Force raids and arrests "Kyrie." - -June. "NuPrometheus League" distributes Apple Computer proprietary software. - -June 13. Florida probation office crossed with phone-sex line - in switching-station stunt. - -July. "Fry Guy" raided by USSS and Chicago Computer Fraud - and Abuse Task Force. - -July. Secret Service raids "Prophet," "Leftist," and "Urvile" in Georgia. - - -1990 - -January 15. Martin Luther King Day Crash strikes AT&T long-distance - network nationwide. - -January 18-19. Chicago Task Force raids Knight Lightning in St. Louis. - -January 24. USSS and New York State Police raid "Phiber Optik," - "Acid Phreak," and "Scorpion" in New York City. - -February 1. USSS raids "Terminus" in Maryland. - -February 3. Chicago Task Force raids Richard Andrews' home. - -February 6. Chicago Task Force raids Richard Andrews' business. - -February 6. USSS arrests Terminus, Prophet, Leftist, and Urvile. - -February 9. Chicago Task Force arrests Knight Lightning. - -February 20. AT&T Security shuts down public-access - "attctc" computer in Dallas. - -February 21. Chicago Task Force raids Robert Izenberg in Austin. - -March 1. Chicago Task Force raids Steve Jackson Games, Inc., - "Mentor," and "Erik Bloodaxe" in Austin. - -May 7,8,9. - -USSS and Arizona Organized Crime and Racketeering Bureau conduct -"Operation Sundevil" raids in Cincinnatti, Detroit, Los Angeles, -Miami, Newark, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Richmond, Tucson, San Diego, -San Jose, and San Francisco. - -May. FBI interviews John Perry Barlow re NuPrometheus case. - -June. Mitch Kapor and Barlow found Electronic Frontier Foundation; - Barlow publishes CRIME AND PUZZLEMENT manifesto. - -July 24-27. Trial of Knight Lightning. - -1991 - -February. CPSR Roundtable in Washington, D.C. - -March 25-28. Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference in San Francisco. - -May 1. Electronic Frontier Foundation, Steve Jackson, - and others file suit against members of Chicago Task Force. - -July 1-2. Switching station phone software crash affects - Washington, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, San Francisco. - -September 17. AT&T phone crash affects New York City and three airports. - - - - -Introduction - -This is a book about cops, and wild teenage whiz-kids, and lawyers, -and hairy-eyed anarchists, and industrial technicians, and hippies, -and high-tech millionaires, and game hobbyists, and computer security -experts, and Secret Service agents, and grifters, and thieves. - -This book is about the electronic frontier of the 1990s. -It concerns activities that take place inside computers -and over telephone lines. - -A science fiction writer coined the useful term "cyberspace" in 1982, -but the territory in question, the electronic frontier, is about -a hundred and thirty years old. Cyberspace is the "place" where -a telephone conversation appears to occur. Not inside your actual phone, -the plastic device on your desk. Not inside the other person's phone, -in some other city. THE PLACE BETWEEN the phones. The indefinite -place OUT THERE, where the two of you, two human beings, -actually meet and communicate. - -Although it is not exactly "real," "cyberspace" is a genuine place. -Things happen there that have very genuine consequences. This "place" -is not "real," but it is serious, it is earnest. Tens of thousands -of people have dedicated their lives to it, to the public service -of public communication by wire and electronics. - -People have worked on this "frontier" for generations now. -Some people became rich and famous from their efforts there. -Some just played in it, as hobbyists. Others soberly pondered it, -and wrote about it, and regulated it, and negotiated over it in -international forums, and sued one another about it, in gigantic, -epic court battles that lasted for years. And almost since -the beginning, some people have committed crimes in this place. - -But in the past twenty years, this electrical "space," -which was once thin and dark and one-dimensional--little more -than a narrow speaking-tube, stretching from phone to phone-- -has flung itself open like a gigantic jack-in-the-box. -Light has flooded upon it, the eerie light of the glowing computer screen. -This dark electric netherworld has become a vast flowering electronic landscape. -Since the 1960s, the world of the telephone has cross-bred itself -with computers and television, and though there is still no substance -to cyberspace, nothing you can handle, it has a strange kind -of physicality now. It makes good sense today to talk of cyberspace -as a place all its own. - -Because people live in it now. Not just a few people, -not just a few technicians and eccentrics, but thousands -of people, quite normal people. And not just for a little while, -either, but for hours straight, over weeks, and months, -and years. Cyberspace today is a "Net," a "Matrix," -international in scope and growing swiftly and steadily. -It's growing in size, and wealth, and political importance. - -People are making entire careers in modern cyberspace. -Scientists and technicians, of course; they've been there -for twenty years now. But increasingly, cyberspace -is filling with journalists and doctors and lawyers -and artists and clerks. Civil servants make their -careers there now, "on-line" in vast government data-banks; -and so do spies, industrial, political, and just plain snoops; -and so do police, at least a few of them. And there are children -living there now. - -People have met there and been married there. -There are entire living communities in cyberspace today; -chattering, gossiping, planning, conferring and scheming, -leaving one another voice-mail and electronic mail, -giving one another big weightless chunks of valuable data, -both legitimate and illegitimate. They busily pass one another -computer software and the occasional festering computer virus. - -We do not really understand how to live in cyberspace yet. -We are feeling our way into it, blundering about. -That is not surprising. Our lives in the physical world, -the "real" world, are also far from perfect, despite a lot more practice. -Human lives, real lives, are imperfect by their nature, and there are -human beings in cyberspace. The way we live in cyberspace is -a funhouse mirror of the way we live in the real world. -We take both our advantages and our troubles with us. - -This book is about trouble in cyberspace. -Specifically, this book is about certain strange events in -the year 1990, an unprecedented and startling year for the -the growing world of computerized communications. - -In 1990 there came a nationwide crackdown on illicit -computer hackers, with arrests, criminal charges, -one dramatic show-trial, several guilty pleas, and -huge confiscations of data and equipment all over the USA. - -The Hacker Crackdown of 1990 was larger, better organized, -more deliberate, and more resolute than any previous effort -in the brave new world of computer crime. The U.S. Secret Service, -private telephone security, and state and local law enforcement groups -across the country all joined forces in a determined attempt to break -the back of America's electronic underground. It was a fascinating -effort, with very mixed results. - -The Hacker Crackdown had another unprecedented effect; -it spurred the creation, within "the computer community," -of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a new and very odd -interest group, fiercely dedicated to the establishment -and preservation of electronic civil liberties. The crackdown, -remarkable in itself, has created a melee of debate over electronic crime, -punishment, freedom of the press, and issues of search and seizure. -Politics has entered cyberspace. Where people go, politics follow. - -This is the story of the people of cyberspace. - - - -PART ONE: Crashing the System - -On January 15, 1990, AT&T's long-distance telephone switching system crashed. - -This was a strange, dire, huge event. Sixty thousand people lost -their telephone service completely. During the nine long hours -of frantic effort that it took to restore service, some seventy million -telephone calls went uncompleted. - -Losses of service, known as "outages" in the telco trade, -are a known and accepted hazard of the telephone business. -Hurricanes hit, and phone cables get snapped by the thousands. -Earthquakes wrench through buried fiber-optic lines. -Switching stations catch fire and burn to the ground. -These things do happen. There are contingency plans for them, -and decades of experience in dealing with them. -But the Crash of January 15 was unprecedented. -It was unbelievably huge, and it occurred for -no apparent physical reason. - -The crash started on a Monday afternoon in a single -switching-station in Manhattan. But, unlike any merely -physical damage, it spread and spread. Station after -station across America collapsed in a chain reaction, -until fully half of AT&T's network had gone haywire -and the remaining half was hard-put to handle the overflow. - -Within nine hours, AT&T software engineers more or less -understood what had caused the crash. Replicating the -problem exactly, poring over software line by line, -took them a couple of weeks. But because it was hard -to understand technically, the full truth of the matter -and its implications were not widely and thoroughly aired -and explained. The root cause of the crash remained obscure, -surrounded by rumor and fear. - -The crash was a grave corporate embarrassment. -The "culprit" was a bug in AT&T's own software--not the -sort of admission the telecommunications giant wanted -to make, especially in the face of increasing competition. -Still, the truth WAS told, in the baffling technical terms -necessary to explain it. - -Somehow the explanation failed to persuade -American law enforcement officials and even telephone -corporate security personnel. These people were not -technical experts or software wizards, and they had their -own suspicions about the cause of this disaster. - -The police and telco security had important sources -of information denied to mere software engineers. -They had informants in the computer underground and -years of experience in dealing with high-tech rascality -that seemed to grow ever more sophisticated. -For years they had been expecting a direct and -savage attack against the American national telephone system. -And with the Crash of January 15--the first month of a -new, high-tech decade--their predictions, fears, -and suspicions seemed at last to have entered the real world. -A world where the telephone system had not merely crashed, -but, quite likely, BEEN crashed--by "hackers." - -The crash created a large dark cloud of suspicion -that would color certain people's assumptions and actions -for months. The fact that it took place in the realm of -software was suspicious on its face. The fact that it -occurred on Martin Luther King Day, still the most -politically touchy of American holidays, made it more -suspicious yet. - -The Crash of January 15 gave the Hacker Crackdown -its sense of edge and its sweaty urgency. It made people, -powerful people in positions of public authority, -willing to believe the worst. And, most fatally, -it helped to give investigators a willingness -to take extreme measures and the determination -to preserve almost total secrecy. - -An obscure software fault in an aging switching system -in New York was to lead to a chain reaction of legal -and constitutional trouble all across the country. - -# - -Like the crash in the telephone system, this chain reaction -was ready and waiting to happen. During the 1980s, -the American legal system was extensively patched -to deal with the novel issues of computer crime. -There was, for instance, the Electronic Communications -Privacy Act of 1986 (eloquently described as "a stinking mess" -by a prominent law enforcement official). And there was the -draconian Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986, passed unanimously -by the United States Senate, which later would reveal -a large number of flaws. Extensive, well-meant efforts -had been made to keep the legal system up to date. -But in the day-to-day grind of the real world, -even the most elegant software tends to crumble -and suddenly reveal its hidden bugs. - -Like the advancing telephone system, the American legal system -was certainly not ruined by its temporary crash; but for those -caught under the weight of the collapsing system, life became -a series of blackouts and anomalies. - -In order to understand why these weird events occurred, -both in the world of technology and in the world of law, -it's not enough to understand the merely technical problems. -We will get to those; but first and foremost, we must try -to understand the telephone, and the business of telephones, -and the community of human beings that telephones have created. - -# - -Technologies have life cycles, like cities do, -like institutions do, like laws and governments do. - -The first stage of any technology is the Question -Mark, often known as the "Golden Vaporware" stage. -At this early point, the technology is only a phantom, -a mere gleam in the inventor's eye. One such inventor -was a speech teacher and electrical tinkerer named -Alexander Graham Bell. - -Bell's early inventions, while ingenious, failed to move the world. -In 1863, the teenage Bell and his brother Melville made an artificial -talking mechanism out of wood, rubber, gutta-percha, and tin. -This weird device had a rubber-covered "tongue" made of movable -wooden segments, with vibrating rubber "vocal cords," and -rubber "lips" and "cheeks." While Melville puffed a bellows -into a tin tube, imitating the lungs, young Alec Bell would -manipulate the "lips," "teeth," and "tongue," causing the thing -to emit high-pitched falsetto gibberish. - -Another would-be technical breakthrough was the Bell "phonautograph" -of 1874, actually made out of a human cadaver's ear. Clamped into place -on a tripod, this grisly gadget drew sound-wave images on smoked glass -through a thin straw glued to its vibrating earbones. - -By 1875, Bell had learned to produce audible sounds--ugly shrieks -and squawks--by using magnets, diaphragms, and electrical current. - -Most "Golden Vaporware" technologies go nowhere. - -But the second stage of technology is the Rising Star, -or, the "Goofy Prototype," stage. The telephone, Bell's -most ambitious gadget yet, reached this stage on March -10, 1876. On that great day, Alexander Graham Bell -became the first person to transmit intelligible human -speech electrically. As it happened, young Professor Bell, -industriously tinkering in his Boston lab, had spattered -his trousers with acid. His assistant, Mr. Watson, -heard his cry for help--over Bell's experimental -audio-telegraph. This was an event without precedent. - -Technologies in their "Goofy Prototype" stage rarely -work very well. They're experimental, and therefore -half- baked and rather frazzled. The prototype may -be attractive and novel, and it does look as if it ought -to be good for something-or-other. But nobody, including -the inventor, is quite sure what. Inventors, and speculators, -and pundits may have very firm ideas about its potential -use, but those ideas are often very wrong. - -The natural habitat of the Goofy Prototype is in trade shows -and in the popular press. Infant technologies need publicity -and investment money like a tottering calf need milk. -This was very true of Bell's machine. To raise research and -development money, Bell toured with his device as a stage attraction. - -Contemporary press reports of the stage debut of the telephone -showed pleased astonishment mixed with considerable dread. -Bell's stage telephone was a large wooden box with a crude -speaker-nozzle, the whole contraption about the size and shape -of an overgrown Brownie camera. Its buzzing steel soundplate, -pumped up by powerful electromagnets, was loud enough to fill -an auditorium. Bell's assistant Mr. Watson, who could manage -on the keyboards fairly well, kicked in by playing the organ -from distant rooms, and, later, distant cities. This feat was -considered marvellous, but very eerie indeed. - -Bell's original notion for the telephone, an idea promoted -for a couple of years, was that it would become a mass medium. -We might recognize Bell's idea today as something close to modern -"cable radio." Telephones at a central source would transmit music, -Sunday sermons, and important public speeches to a paying network -of wired-up subscribers. - -At the time, most people thought this notion made good sense. -In fact, Bell's idea was workable. In Hungary, this philosophy -of the telephone was successfully put into everyday practice. -In Budapest, for decades, from 1893 until after World War I, -there was a government-run information service called -"Telefon Hirmondo-." Hirmondo- was a centralized source -of news and entertainment and culture, including stock reports, -plays, concerts, and novels read aloud. At certain hours -of the day, the phone would ring, you would plug in -a loudspeaker for the use of the family, and Telefon -Hirmondo- would be on the air--or rather, on the phone. - -Hirmondo- is dead tech today, but Hirmondo- might be considered -a spiritual ancestor of the modern telephone-accessed computer -data services, such as CompuServe, GEnie or Prodigy. -The principle behind Hirmondo- is also not too far from computer -"bulletin- board systems" or BBS's, which arrived in the late 1970s, -spread rapidly across America, and will figure largely in this book. - -We are used to using telephones for individual person-to-person speech, -because we are used to the Bell system. But this was just one possibility -among many. Communication networks are very flexible and protean, -especially when their hardware becomes sufficiently advanced. -They can be put to all kinds of uses. And they have been-- -and they will be. - -Bell's telephone was bound for glory, but this was a combination -of political decisions, canny infighting in court, inspired industrial -leadership, receptive local conditions and outright good luck. -Much the same is true of communications systems today. - -As Bell and his backers struggled to install their newfangled system -in the real world of nineteenth-century New England, they had to fight -against skepticism and industrial rivalry. There was already a strong -electrical communications network present in America: the telegraph. -The head of the Western Union telegraph system dismissed Bell's prototype -as "an electrical toy" and refused to buy the rights to Bell's patent. -The telephone, it seemed, might be all right as a parlor entertainment-- -but not for serious business. - -Telegrams, unlike mere telephones, left a permanent physical record -of their messages. Telegrams, unlike telephones, could be answered -whenever the recipient had time and convenience. And the telegram -had a much longer distance-range than Bell's early telephone. -These factors made telegraphy seem a much more sound and businesslike -technology--at least to some. - -The telegraph system was huge, and well-entrenched. -In 1876, the United States had 214,000 miles of telegraph wire, -and 8500 telegraph offices. There were specialized telegraphs -for businesses and stock traders, government, police and fire departments. -And Bell's "toy" was best known as a stage-magic musical device. - -The third stage of technology is known as the "Cash Cow" stage. -In the "cash cow" stage, a technology finds its place in the world, -and matures, and becomes settled and productive. After a year or so, -Alexander Graham Bell and his capitalist backers concluded that -eerie music piped from nineteenth-century cyberspace was not the real -selling-point of his invention. Instead, the telephone was about speech-- -individual, personal speech, the human voice, human conversation and -human interaction. The telephone was not to be managed from any centralized -broadcast center. It was to be a personal, intimate technology. - -When you picked up a telephone, you were not absorbing -the cold output of a machine--you were speaking to another human being. -Once people realized this, their instinctive dread of the telephone -as an eerie, unnatural device, swiftly vanished. A "telephone call" -was not a "call" from a "telephone" itself, but a call from another -human being, someone you would generally know and recognize. -The real point was not what the machine could do for you (or to you), -but what you yourself, a person and citizen, could do THROUGH the machine. -This decision on the part of the young Bell Company was absolutely vital. - -The first telephone networks went up around Boston--mostly among -the technically curious and the well-to-do (much the same segment -of the American populace that, a hundred years later, would be -buying personal computers). Entrenched backers of the telegraph -continued to scoff. - -But in January 1878, a disaster made the telephone famous. -A train crashed in Tarriffville, Connecticut. Forward-looking -doctors in the nearby city of Hartford had had Bell's -"speaking telephone" installed. An alert local druggist -was able to telephone an entire community of local doctors, -who rushed to the site to give aid. The disaster, as disasters do, -aroused intense press coverage. The phone had proven its usefulness -in the real world. - -After Tarriffville, the telephone network spread like crabgrass. -By 1890 it was all over New England. By '93, out to Chicago. -By '97, into Minnesota, Nebraska and Texas. By 1904 it was -all over the continent. - -The telephone had become a mature technology. Professor Bell -(now generally known as "Dr. Bell" despite his lack of a formal degree) -became quite wealthy. He lost interest in the tedious day-to-day business -muddle of the booming telephone network, and gratefully returned -his attention to creatively hacking-around in his various laboratories, -which were now much larger, better-ventilated, and gratifyingly -better-equipped. Bell was never to have another great inventive success, -though his speculations and prototypes anticipated fiber-optic transmission, -manned flight, sonar, hydrofoil ships, tetrahedral construction, and -Montessori education. The "decibel," the standard scientific measure -of sound intensity, was named after Bell. - -Not all Bell's vaporware notions were inspired. He was fascinated -by human eugenics. He also spent many years developing a weird personal -system of astrophysics in which gravity did not exist. - -Bell was a definite eccentric. He was something of a hypochondriac, -and throughout his life he habitually stayed up until four A.M., -refusing to rise before noon. But Bell had accomplished a great feat; -he was an idol of millions and his influence, wealth, and great -personal charm, combined with his eccentricity, made him something -of a loose cannon on deck. Bell maintained a thriving scientific -salon in his winter mansion in Washington, D.C., which gave him -considerable backstage influence in governmental and scientific circles. -He was a major financial backer of the the magazines Science and -National Geographic, both still flourishing today as important organs -of the American scientific establishment. - -Bell's companion Thomas Watson, similarly wealthy and similarly odd, -became the ardent political disciple of a 19th-century science-fiction writer -and would-be social reformer, Edward Bellamy. Watson also trod the boards -briefly as a Shakespearian actor. - -There would never be another Alexander Graham Bell, -but in years to come there would be surprising numbers -of people like him. Bell was a prototype of the -high-tech entrepreneur. High-tech entrepreneurs will -play a very prominent role in this book: not merely as -technicians and businessmen, but as pioneers of the -technical frontier, who can carry the power and prestige -they derive from high-technology into the political and -social arena. - -Like later entrepreneurs, Bell was fierce in defense of -his own technological territory. As the telephone began to -flourish, Bell was soon involved in violent lawsuits in the -defense of his patents. Bell's Boston lawyers were -excellent, however, and Bell himself, as an elocution -teacher and gifted public speaker, was a devastatingly -effective legal witness. In the eighteen years of Bell's patents, -the Bell company was involved in six hundred separate lawsuits. -The legal records printed filled 149 volumes. The Bell Company -won every single suit. - -After Bell's exclusive patents expired, rival telephone -companies sprang up all over America. Bell's company, -American Bell Telephone, was soon in deep trouble. -In 1907, American Bell Telephone fell into the hands of the -rather sinister J.P. Morgan financial cartel, robber-baron -speculators who dominated Wall Street. - -At this point, history might have taken a different turn. -American might well have been served forever by a patchwork -of locally owned telephone companies. Many state politicians -and local businessmen considered this an excellent solution. - -But the new Bell holding company, American Telephone and Telegraph -or AT&T, put in a new man at the helm, a visionary industrialist -named Theodore Vail. Vail, a former Post Office manager, -understood large organizations and had an innate feeling -for the nature of large-scale communications. Vail quickly -saw to it that AT&T seized the technological edge once again. -The Pupin and Campbell "loading coil," and the deForest -"audion," are both extinct technology today, but in 1913 -they gave Vail's company the best LONG-DISTANCE lines -ever built. By controlling long-distance--the links -between, and over, and above the smaller local phone -companies--AT&T swiftly gained the whip-hand over them, -and was soon devouring them right and left. - -Vail plowed the profits back into research and development, -starting the Bell tradition of huge-scale and brilliant -industrial research. - -Technically and financially, AT&T gradually steamrollered -the opposition. Independent telephone companies never -became entirely extinct, and hundreds of them flourish today. -But Vail's AT&T became the supreme communications company. -At one point, Vail's AT&T bought Western Union itself, -the very company that had derided Bell's telephone as a "toy." -Vail thoroughly reformed Western Union's hidebound business -along his modern principles; but when the federal government -grew anxious at this centralization of power, Vail politely -gave Western Union back. - -This centralizing process was not unique. Very similar -events had happened in American steel, oil, and railroads. -But AT&T, unlike the other companies, was to remain supreme. -The monopoly robber-barons of those other industries -were humbled and shattered by government trust-busting. - -Vail, the former Post Office official, was quite willing -to accommodate the US government; in fact he would -forge an active alliance with it. AT&T would become -almost a wing of the American government, almost -another Post Office--though not quite. AT&T would -willingly submit to federal regulation, but in return, -it would use the government's regulators as its own police, -who would keep out competitors and assure the Bell -system's profits and preeminence. - -This was the second birth--the political birth--of the -American telephone system. Vail's arrangement was to -persist, with vast success, for many decades, until 1982. -His system was an odd kind of American industrial socialism. -It was born at about the same time as Leninist Communism, -and it lasted almost as long--and, it must be admitted, -to considerably better effect. - -Vail's system worked. Except perhaps for aerospace, -there has been no technology more thoroughly dominated -by Americans than the telephone. The telephone was -seen from the beginning as a quintessentially American -technology. Bell's policy, and the policy of Theodore Vail, -was a profoundly democratic policy of UNIVERSAL ACCESS. -Vail's famous corporate slogan, "One Policy, One System, -Universal Service," was a political slogan, with a very -American ring to it. - -The American telephone was not to become the specialized tool -of government or business, but a general public utility. -At first, it was true, only the wealthy could afford -private telephones, and Bell's company pursued the -business markets primarily. The American phone system -was a capitalist effort, meant to make money; it was not a charity. -But from the first, almost all communities with telephone service -had public telephones. And many stores--especially drugstores-- -offered public use of their phones. You might not own a telephone-- -but you could always get into the system, if you really needed to. - -There was nothing inevitable about this decision to make telephones -"public" and "universal." Vail's system involved a profound act -of trust in the public. This decision was a political one, -informed by the basic values of the American republic. -The situation might have been very different; -and in other countries, under other systems, -it certainly was. - -Joseph Stalin, for instance, vetoed plans for a Soviet -phone system soon after the Bolshevik revolution. -Stalin was certain that publicly accessible telephones -would become instruments of anti-Soviet counterrevolution -and conspiracy. (He was probably right.) When telephones -did arrive in the Soviet Union, they would be instruments -of Party authority, and always heavily tapped. (Alexander -Solzhenitsyn's prison-camp novel The First Circle -describes efforts to develop a phone system more suited -to Stalinist purposes.) - -France, with its tradition of rational centralized government, -had fought bitterly even against the electric telegraph, -which seemed to the French entirely too anarchical and frivolous. -For decades, nineteenth-century France communicated via the -"visual telegraph," a nation-spanning, government-owned semaphore -system of huge stone towers that signalled from hilltops, -across vast distances, with big windmill-like arms. -In 1846, one Dr. Barbay, a semaphore enthusiast, -memorably uttered an early version of what might be called -"the security expert's argument" against the open media. - -"No, the electric telegraph is not a sound invention. -It will always be at the mercy of the slightest disruption, -wild youths, drunkards, bums, etc. . . . The electric telegraph -meets those destructive elements with only a few meters of wire -over which supervision is impossible. A single man could, -without being seen, cut the telegraph wires leading to Paris, -and in twenty-four hours cut in ten different places the wires -of the same line, without being arrested. The visual telegraph, -on the contrary, has its towers, its high walls, its gates -well-guarded from inside by strong armed men. Yes, I declare, -substitution of the electric telegraph for the visual one -is a dreadful measure, a truly idiotic act." - -Dr. Barbay and his high-security stone machines -were eventually unsuccessful, but his argument-- -that communication exists for the safety and convenience -of the state, and must be carefully protected from the wild -boys and the gutter rabble who might want to crash the -system--would be heard again and again. - -When the French telephone system finally did arrive, -its snarled inadequacy was to be notorious. Devotees -of the American Bell System often recommended a trip -to France, for skeptics. - -In Edwardian Britain, issues of class and privacy -were a ball-and-chain for telephonic progress. It was -considered outrageous that anyone--any wild fool off -the street--could simply barge bellowing into one's office -or home, preceded only by the ringing of a telephone bell. -In Britain, phones were tolerated for the use of business, -but private phones tended be stuffed away into closets, -smoking rooms, or servants' quarters. Telephone operators -were resented in Britain because they did not seem to -"know their place." And no one of breeding would print -a telephone number on a business card; this seemed a crass -attempt to make the acquaintance of strangers. - -But phone access in America was to become a popular right; -something like universal suffrage, only more so. -American women could not yet vote when the phone system -came through; yet from the beginning American women -doted on the telephone. This "feminization" of the -American telephone was often commented on by foreigners. -Phones in America were not censored or stiff or formalized; -they were social, private, intimate, and domestic. -In America, Mother's Day is by far the busiest day -of the year for the phone network. - -The early telephone companies, and especially AT&T, -were among the foremost employers of American women. -They employed the daughters of the American middle-class -in great armies: in 1891, eight thousand women; by 1946, -almost a quarter of a million. Women seemed to enjoy -telephone work; it was respectable, it was steady, -it paid fairly well as women's work went, and--not least-- -it seemed a genuine contribution to the social good -of the community. Women found Vail's ideal of public -service attractive. This was especially true in rural areas, -where women operators, running extensive rural party-lines, -enjoyed considerable social power. The operator knew everyone -on the party-line, and everyone knew her. - -Although Bell himself was an ardent suffragist, the -telephone company did not employ women for the sake of -advancing female liberation. AT&T did this for sound -commercial reasons. The first telephone operators of -the Bell system were not women, but teenage American boys. -They were telegraphic messenger boys (a group about to -be rendered technically obsolescent), who swept up -around the phone office, dunned customers for bills, -and made phone connections on the switchboard, -all on the cheap. - -Within the very first year of operation, 1878, -Bell's company learned a sharp lesson about combining -teenage boys and telephone switchboards. Putting -teenage boys in charge of the phone system brought swift -and consistent disaster. Bell's chief engineer described them -as "Wild Indians." The boys were openly rude to customers. -They talked back to subscribers, saucing off, -uttering facetious remarks, and generally giving lip. -The rascals took Saint Patrick's Day off without permission. -And worst of all they played clever tricks with -the switchboard plugs: disconnecting calls, crossing lines -so that customers found themselves talking to strangers, -and so forth. - -This combination of power, technical mastery, and effective -anonymity seemed to act like catnip on teenage boys. - -This wild-kid-on-the-wires phenomenon was not confined to -the USA; from the beginning, the same was true of the British -phone system. An early British commentator kindly remarked: -"No doubt boys in their teens found the work not a little irksome, -and it is also highly probable that under the early conditions -of employment the adventurous and inquisitive spirits of which -the average healthy boy of that age is possessed, were not always -conducive to the best attention being given to the wants -of the telephone subscribers." - -So the boys were flung off the system--or at least, -deprived of control of the switchboard. But the -"adventurous and inquisitive spirits" of the teenage boys -would be heard from in the world of telephony, again and again. - -The fourth stage in the technological life-cycle is death: -"the Dog," dead tech. The telephone has so far avoided this fate. -On the contrary, it is thriving, still spreading, still evolving, -and at increasing speed. - -The telephone has achieved a rare and exalted state for a -technological artifact: it has become a HOUSEHOLD OBJECT. -The telephone, like the clock, like pen and paper, -like kitchen utensils and running water, has become -a technology that is visible only by its absence. -The telephone is technologically transparent. -The global telephone system is the largest and most -complex machine in the world, yet it is easy to use. -More remarkable yet, the telephone is almost entirely -physically safe for the user. - -For the average citizen in the 1870s, the telephone -was weirder, more shocking, more "high-tech" and -harder to comprehend, than the most outrageous stunts -of advanced computing for us Americans in the 1990s. -In trying to understand what is happening to us today, -with our bulletin-board systems, direct overseas dialling, -fiber-optic transmissions, computer viruses, hacking stunts, -and a vivid tangle of new laws and new crimes, it is important -to realize that our society has been through a similar challenge before-- -and that, all in all, we did rather well by it. - -Bell's stage telephone seemed bizarre at first. But the -sensations of weirdness vanished quickly, once people began -to hear the familiar voices of relatives and friends, -in their own homes on their own telephones. The telephone -changed from a fearsome high-tech totem to an everyday pillar -of human community. - -This has also happened, and is still happening, -to computer networks. Computer networks such as -NSFnet, BITnet, USENET, JANET, are technically -advanced, intimidating, and much harder to use than -telephones. Even the popular, commercial computer -networks, such as GEnie, Prodigy, and CompuServe, -cause much head-scratching and have been described -as "user-hateful." Nevertheless they too are changing -from fancy high-tech items into everyday sources -of human community. - -The words "community" and "communication" have -the same root. Wherever you put a communications -network, you put a community as well. And whenever -you TAKE AWAY that network--confiscate it, outlaw it, -crash it, raise its price beyond affordability-- -then you hurt that community. - -Communities will fight to defend themselves. People will fight harder -and more bitterly to defend their communities, than they will fight -to defend their own individual selves. And this is very true -of the "electronic community" that arose around computer networks -in the 1980s--or rather, the VARIOUS electronic communities, -in telephony, law enforcement, computing, and the digital -underground that, by the year 1990, were raiding, rallying, -arresting, suing, jailing, fining and issuing angry manifestos. - -None of the events of 1990 were entirely new. -Nothing happened in 1990 that did not have some kind -of earlier and more understandable precedent. What gave -the Hacker Crackdown its new sense of gravity and -importance was the feeling--the COMMUNITY feeling-- -that the political stakes had been raised; that trouble -in cyberspace was no longer mere mischief or inconclusive -skirmishing, but a genuine fight over genuine issues, -a fight for community survival and the shape of the future. - -These electronic communities, having flourished throughout -the 1980s, were becoming aware of themselves, and increasingly, -becoming aware of other, rival communities. Worries were -sprouting up right and left, with complaints, rumors, -uneasy speculations. But it would take a catalyst, a shock, -to make the new world evident. Like Bell's great publicity break, -the Tarriffville Rail Disaster of January 1878, -it would take a cause celebre. - -That cause was the AT&T Crash of January 15, 1990. -After the Crash, the wounded and anxious telephone -community would come out fighting hard. - -# - -The community of telephone technicians, engineers, operators -and researchers is the oldest community in cyberspace. -These are the veterans, the most developed group, -the richest, the most respectable, in most ways the most powerful. -Whole generations have come and gone since Alexander Graham Bell's day, -but the community he founded survives; people work for the phone system -today whose great-grandparents worked for the phone system. -Its specialty magazines, such as Telephony, AT&T Technical Journal, -Telephone Engineer and Management, are decades old; -they make computer publications like Macworld and PC Week -look like amateur johnny-come-latelies. - -And the phone companies take no back seat in high-technology, either. -Other companies' industrial researchers may have won new markets; -but the researchers of Bell Labs have won SEVEN NOBEL PRIZES. -One potent device that Bell Labs originated, the transistor, -has created entire GROUPS of industries. Bell Labs are -world-famous for generating "a patent a day," and have even -made vital discoveries in astronomy, physics and cosmology. - -Throughout its seventy-year history, "Ma Bell" was not so much -a company as a way of life. Until the cataclysmic divestiture -of the 1980s, Ma Bell was perhaps the ultimate maternalist mega-employer. -The AT&T corporate image was the "gentle giant," "the voice with a smile," -a vaguely socialist-realist world of cleanshaven linemen in shiny helmets -and blandly pretty phone-girls in headsets and nylons. Bell System -employees were famous as rock-ribbed Kiwanis and Rotary members, -Little-League enthusiasts, school-board people. - -During the long heyday of Ma Bell, the Bell employee corps -were nurtured top-to-bottom on a corporate ethos of public service. -There was good money in Bell, but Bell was not ABOUT money; -Bell used public relations, but never mere marketeering. -People went into the Bell System for a good life, -and they had a good life. But it was not mere money -that led Bell people out in the midst of storms and earthquakes -to fight with toppled phone-poles, to wade in flooded manholes, -to pull the red-eyed graveyard-shift over collapsing switching-systems. -The Bell ethic was the electrical equivalent of the postman's: -neither rain, nor snow, nor gloom of night would stop these couriers. - -It is easy to be cynical about this, as it is easy to be -cynical about any political or social system; but cynicism -does not change the fact that thousands of people took -these ideals very seriously. And some still do. - -The Bell ethos was about public service; and that was -gratifying; but it was also about private POWER, and that -was gratifying too. As a corporation, Bell was very special. -Bell was privileged. Bell had snuggled up close to the state. -In fact, Bell was as close to government as you could get in -America and still make a whole lot of legitimate money. - -But unlike other companies, Bell was above and beyond -the vulgar commercial fray. Through its regional operating companies, -Bell was omnipresent, local, and intimate, all over America; -but the central ivory towers at its corporate heart were the -tallest and the ivoriest around. - -There were other phone companies in America, to be sure; -the so-called independents. Rural cooperatives, mostly; -small fry, mostly tolerated, sometimes warred upon. -For many decades, "independent" American phone companies -lived in fear and loathing of the official Bell monopoly -(or the "Bell Octopus," as Ma Bell's nineteenth-century -enemies described her in many angry newspaper manifestos). -Some few of these independent entrepreneurs, while legally -in the wrong, fought so bitterly against the Octopus -that their illegal phone networks were cast into the street -by Bell agents and publicly burned. - -The pure technical sweetness of the Bell System gave its operators, -inventors and engineers a deeply satisfying sense of power and mastery. -They had devoted their lives to improving this vast nation-spanning machine; -over years, whole human lives, they had watched it improve and grow. -It was like a great technological temple. They were an elite, -and they knew it--even if others did not; in fact, they felt -even more powerful BECAUSE others did not understand. - -The deep attraction of this sensation of elite technical power -should never be underestimated. "Technical power" is not for everybody; -for many people it simply has no charm at all. But for some people, -it becomes the core of their lives. For a few, it is overwhelming, -obsessive; it becomes something close to an addiction. People--especially -clever teenage boys whose lives are otherwise mostly powerless and put-upon ---love this sensation of secret power, and are willing to do all sorts -of amazing things to achieve it. The technical POWER of electronics -has motivated many strange acts detailed in this book, which would -otherwise be inexplicable. - -So Bell had power beyond mere capitalism. The Bell service ethos worked, -and was often propagandized, in a rather saccharine fashion. Over the decades, -people slowly grew tired of this. And then, openly impatient with it. -By the early 1980s, Ma Bell was to find herself with scarcely a real friend -in the world. Vail's industrial socialism had become hopelessly -out-of-fashion politically. Bell would be punished for that. -And that punishment would fall harshly upon the people of the -telephone community. - -# - -In 1983, Ma Bell was dismantled by federal court action. -The pieces of Bell are now separate corporate entities. -The core of the company became AT&T Communications, -and also AT&T Industries (formerly Western Electric, -Bell's manufacturing arm). AT&T Bell Labs became Bell -Communications Research, Bellcore. Then there are the -Regional Bell Operating Companies, or RBOCs, pronounced "arbocks." - -Bell was a titan and even these regional chunks are gigantic enterprises: -Fortune 50 companies with plenty of wealth and power behind them. -But the clean lines of "One Policy, One System, Universal Service" -have been shattered, apparently forever. - -The "One Policy" of the early Reagan Administration was to -shatter a system that smacked of noncompetitive socialism. -Since that time, there has been no real telephone "policy" -on the federal level. Despite the breakup, the remnants -of Bell have never been set free to compete in the open marketplace. - -The RBOCs are still very heavily regulated, but not from the top. -Instead, they struggle politically, economically and legally, -in what seems an endless turmoil, in a patchwork of overlapping federal -and state jurisdictions. Increasingly, like other major American corporations, -the RBOCs are becoming multinational, acquiring important commercial interests -in Europe, Latin America, and the Pacific Rim. But this, too, adds to their -legal and political predicament. - -The people of what used to be Ma Bell are not happy about their fate. -They feel ill-used. They might have been grudgingly willing to make -a full transition to the free market; to become just companies amid -other companies. But this never happened. Instead, AT&T and the RBOCS -("the Baby Bells") feel themselves wrenched from side to side by state -regulators, by Congress, by the FCC, and especially by the federal court -of Judge Harold Greene, the magistrate who ordered the Bell breakup -and who has been the de facto czar of American telecommunications -ever since 1983. - -Bell people feel that they exist in a kind of paralegal limbo today. -They don't understand what's demanded of them. If it's "service," -why aren't they treated like a public service? And if it's money, -then why aren't they free to compete for it? No one seems to know, -really. Those who claim to know keep changing their minds. -Nobody in authority seems willing to grasp the nettle for once and all. - -Telephone people from other countries are amazed by the -American telephone system today. Not that it works so well; -for nowadays even the French telephone system works, more or less. -They are amazed that the American telephone system STILL works -AT ALL, under these strange conditions. - -Bell's "One System" of long-distance service is now only about -eighty percent of a system, with the remainder held by Sprint, MCI, -and the midget long-distance companies. Ugly wars over dubious -corporate practices such as "slamming" (an underhanded method -of snitching clients from rivals) break out with some regularity -in the realm of long-distance service. The battle to break Bell's -long-distance monopoly was long and ugly, and since the breakup -the battlefield has not become much prettier. AT&T's famous -shame-and-blame advertisements, which emphasized the shoddy work -and purported ethical shadiness of their competitors, were much -remarked on for their studied psychological cruelty. - -There is much bad blood in this industry, and much -long-treasured resentment. AT&T's post-breakup -corporate logo, a striped sphere, is known in the -industry as the "Death Star" (a reference from the movie -Star Wars, in which the "Death Star" was the spherical -high- tech fortress of the harsh-breathing imperial ultra-baddie, -Darth Vader.) Even AT&T employees are less than thrilled -by the Death Star. A popular (though banned) T-shirt among -AT&T employees bears the old-fashioned Bell logo of the Bell System, -plus the newfangled striped sphere, with the before-and-after comments: -"This is your brain--This is your brain on drugs!" AT&T made a very -well-financed and determined effort to break into the personal -computer market; it was disastrous, and telco computer experts -are derisively known by their competitors as "the pole-climbers." -AT&T and the Baby Bell arbocks still seem to have few friends. - -Under conditions of sharp commercial competition, a crash like -that of January 15, 1990 was a major embarrassment to AT&T. -It was a direct blow against their much-treasured reputation -for reliability. Within days of the crash AT&T's -Chief Executive Officer, Bob Allen, officially apologized, -in terms of deeply pained humility: - -"AT&T had a major service disruption last Monday. -We didn't live up to our own standards of quality, -and we didn't live up to yours. It's as simple as that. -And that's not acceptable to us. Or to you. . . . -We understand how much people have come to depend -upon AT&T service, so our AT&T Bell Laboratories scientists -and our network engineers are doing everything possible -to guard against a recurrence. . . . We know there's no way -to make up for the inconvenience this problem may have caused you." - -Mr Allen's "open letter to customers" was printed in lavish ads -all over the country: in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, -New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, -Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Chronicle Examiner, -Boston Globe, Dallas Morning News, Detroit Free Press, -Washington Post, Houston Chronicle, Cleveland Plain Dealer, -Atlanta Journal Constitution, Minneapolis Star Tribune, -St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch, Seattle Times/Post Intelligencer, -Tacoma News Tribune, Miami Herald, Pittsburgh Press, -St. Louis Post Dispatch, Denver Post, Phoenix Republic Gazette -and Tampa Tribune. - -In another press release, AT&T went to some pains to suggest -that this "software glitch" might have happened just as easily to MCI, -although, in fact, it hadn't. (MCI's switching software was quite different -from AT&T's--though not necessarily any safer.) AT&T also announced -their plans to offer a rebate of service on Valentine's Day to make up -for the loss during the Crash. - -"Every technical resource available, including Bell Labs -scientists and engineers, has been devoted to assuring -it will not occur again," the public was told. They were -further assured that "The chances of a recurrence are small-- -a problem of this magnitude never occurred before." - -In the meantime, however, police and corporate -security maintained their own suspicions about -"the chances of recurrence" and the real reason why -a "problem of this magnitude" had appeared, seemingly -out of nowhere. Police and security knew for a fact -that hackers of unprecedented sophistication were illegally -entering, and reprogramming, certain digital switching stations. -Rumors of hidden "viruses" and secret "logic bombs" -in the switches ran rampant in the underground, -with much chortling over AT&T's predicament, -and idle speculation over what unsung hacker genius -was responsible for it. Some hackers, including police -informants, were trying hard to finger one another -as the true culprits of the Crash. - -Telco people found little comfort in objectivity when -they contemplated these possibilities. It was just too close -to the bone for them; it was embarrassing; it hurt so much, -it was hard even to talk about. - -There has always been thieving and misbehavior in the phone system. -There has always been trouble with the rival independents, -and in the local loops. But to have such trouble in the core -of the system, the long-distance switching stations, -is a horrifying affair. To telco people, this is -all the difference between finding roaches in your kitchen -and big horrid sewer-rats in your bedroom. - -From the outside, to the average citizen, the telcos -still seem gigantic and impersonal. The American public -seems to regard them as something akin to Soviet apparats. -Even when the telcos do their best corporate-citizen routine, -subsidizing magnet high-schools and sponsoring news-shows -on public television, they seem to win little except public suspicion. - -But from the inside, all this looks very different. -There's harsh competition. A legal and political system -that seems baffled and bored, when not actively hostile -to telco interests. There's a loss of morale, a deep sensation -of having somehow lost the upper hand. Technological change -has caused a loss of data and revenue to other, newer forms -of transmission. There's theft, and new forms of theft, -of growing scale and boldness and sophistication. -With all these factors, it was no surprise to see the telcos, -large and small, break out in a litany of bitter complaint. - -In late '88 and throughout 1989, telco representatives -grew shrill in their complaints to those few American law -enforcement officials who make it their business to try to -understand what telephone people are talking about. -Telco security officials had discovered the computer- -hacker underground, infiltrated it thoroughly, -and become deeply alarmed at its growing expertise. -Here they had found a target that was not only loathsome -on its face, but clearly ripe for counterattack. - -Those bitter rivals: AT&T, MCI and Sprint--and a crowd -of Baby Bells: PacBell, Bell South, Southwestern Bell, -NYNEX, USWest, as well as the Bell research consortium Bellcore, -and the independent long-distance carrier Mid-American-- -all were to have their role in the great hacker dragnet of 1990. -After years of being battered and pushed around, the telcos had, -at least in a small way, seized the initiative again. -After years of turmoil, telcos and government officials were -once again to work smoothly in concert in defense of the System. -Optimism blossomed; enthusiasm grew on all sides; -the prospective taste of vengeance was sweet. - -# - -From the beginning--even before the crackdown had a name-- -secrecy was a big problem. There were many good reasons -for secrecy in the hacker crackdown. Hackers and code-thieves -were wily prey, slinking back to their bedrooms and basements -and destroying vital incriminating evidence at the first hint of trouble. -Furthermore, the crimes themselves were heavily technical and difficult -to describe, even to police--much less to the general public. - -When such crimes HAD been described intelligibly to the public, -in the past, that very publicity had tended to INCREASE the crimes -enormously. Telco officials, while painfully aware of the vulnerabilities -of their systems, were anxious not to publicize those weaknesses. -Experience showed them that those weaknesses, once discovered, -would be pitilessly exploited by tens of thousands of people--not only -by professional grifters and by underground hackers and phone phreaks, -but by many otherwise more-or-less honest everyday folks, who regarded -stealing service from the faceless, soulless "Phone Company" as a kind of -harmless indoor sport. When it came to protecting their interests, -telcos had long since given up on general public sympathy for -"the Voice with a Smile." Nowadays the telco's "Voice" was -very likely to be a computer's; and the American public -showed much less of the proper respect and gratitude due -the fine public service bequeathed them by Dr. Bell and Mr. Vail. -The more efficient, high-tech, computerized, and impersonal -the telcos became, it seemed, the more they were met by -sullen public resentment and amoral greed. - -Telco officials wanted to punish the phone-phreak underground, in as -public and exemplary a manner as possible. They wanted to make dire -examples of the worst offenders, to seize the ringleaders and intimidate -the small fry, to discourage and frighten the wacky hobbyists, and send -the professional grifters to jail. To do all this, publicity was vital. - -Yet operational secrecy was even more so. If word got out that -a nationwide crackdown was coming, the hackers might simply vanish; -destroy the evidence, hide their computers, go to earth, -and wait for the campaign to blow over. Even the young -hackers were crafty and suspicious, and as for the professional grifters, -they tended to split for the nearest state-line at the first sign of trouble. -For the crackdown to work well, they would all have to be caught red-handed, -swept upon suddenly, out of the blue, from every corner of the compass. - -And there was another strong motive for secrecy. In the worst-case scenario, -a blown campaign might leave the telcos open to a devastating hacker -counter-attack. If there were indeed hackers loose in America who -had caused the January 15 Crash--if there were truly gifted hackers, -loose in the nation's long-distance switching systems, and enraged -or frightened by the crackdown--then they might react unpredictably -to an attempt to collar them. Even if caught, they might have talented -and vengeful friends still running around loose. Conceivably, -it could turn ugly. Very ugly. In fact, it was hard to imagine -just how ugly things might turn, given that possibility. - -Counter-attack from hackers was a genuine concern for the telcos. -In point of fact, they would never suffer any such counter-attack. -But in months to come, they would be at some pains to publicize -this notion and to utter grim warnings about it. - -Still, that risk seemed well worth running. Better to run the risk -of vengeful attacks, than to live at the mercy of potential crashers. -Any cop would tell you that a protection racket had no real future. - -And publicity was such a useful thing. Corporate security officers, -including telco security, generally work under conditions of great discretion. -And corporate security officials do not make money for their companies. -Their job is to PREVENT THE LOSS of money, which is much less glamorous -than actually winning profits. - -If you are a corporate security official, and you do your job brilliantly, -then nothing bad happens to your company at all. Because of this, you appear -completely superfluous. This is one of the many unattractive aspects -of security work. It's rare that these folks have the chance to draw -some healthy attention to their own efforts. - -Publicity also served the interest of their friends in law enforcement. -Public officials, including law enforcement officials, thrive by attracting -favorable public interest. A brilliant prosecution in a matter of vital -public interest can make the career of a prosecuting attorney. -And for a police officer, good publicity opens the purses of the legislature; -it may bring a citation, or a promotion, or at least a rise in status -and the respect of one's peers. - -But to have both publicity and secrecy is to have one's cake and eat it too. -In months to come, as we will show, this impossible act was to cause great -pain to the agents of the crackdown. But early on, it seemed possible ---maybe even likely--that the crackdown could successfully combine -the best of both worlds. The ARREST of hackers would be heavily publicized. -The actual DEEDS of the hackers, which were technically hard to explain -and also a security risk, would be left decently obscured. The THREAT -hackers posed would be heavily trumpeted; the likelihood of their actually -committing such fearsome crimes would be left to the public's imagination. -The spread of the computer underground, and its growing technical -sophistication, would be heavily promoted; the actual hackers themselves, -mostly bespectacled middle-class white suburban teenagers, -would be denied any personal publicity. - -It does not seem to have occurred to any telco official -that the hackers accused would demand a day in court; -that journalists would smile upon the hackers as -"good copy;" that wealthy high-tech entrepreneurs would -offer moral and financial support to crackdown victims; -that constitutional lawyers would show up with briefcases, -frowning mightily. This possibility does not seem to have -ever entered the game-plan. - -And even if it had, it probably would not have slowed -the ferocious pursuit of a stolen phone-company document, -mellifluously known as "Control Office Administration of -Enhanced 911 Services for Special Services and Major Account Centers." - -In the chapters to follow, we will explore the worlds -of police and the computer underground, and the large -shadowy area where they overlap. But first, we must -explore the battleground. Before we leave the world -of the telcos, we must understand what a switching system -actually is and how your telephone actually works. - -# - -To the average citizen, the idea of the telephone is represented by, -well, a TELEPHONE: a device that you talk into. To a telco -professional, however, the telephone itself is known, in lordly -fashion, as a "subset." The "subset" in your house is a mere adjunct, -a distant nerve ending, of the central switching stations, -which are ranked in levels of heirarchy, up to the long-distance electronic -switching stations, which are some of the largest computers on earth. - -Let us imagine that it is, say, 1925, before the -introduction of computers, when the phone system was -simpler and somewhat easier to grasp. Let's further -imagine that you are Miss Leticia Luthor, a fictional -operator for Ma Bell in New York City of the 20s. - -Basically, you, Miss Luthor, ARE the "switching system." -You are sitting in front of a large vertical switchboard, -known as a "cordboard," made of shiny wooden panels, -with ten thousand metal-rimmed holes punched in them, -known as jacks. The engineers would have put more -holes into your switchboard, but ten thousand is -as many as you can reach without actually having -to get up out of your chair. - -Each of these ten thousand holes has its own little electric lightbulb, -known as a "lamp," and its own neatly printed number code. - -With the ease of long habit, you are scanning your board for lit-up bulbs. -This is what you do most of the time, so you are used to it. - -A lamp lights up. This means that the phone -at the end of that line has been taken off the hook. -Whenever a handset is taken off the hook, that closes a circuit -inside the phone which then signals the local office, i.e. you, -automatically. There might be somebody calling, or then -again the phone might be simply off the hook, but this -does not matter to you yet. The first thing you do, -is record that number in your logbook, in your fine American -public-school handwriting. This comes first, naturally, -since it is done for billing purposes. - -You now take the plug of your answering cord, which goes -directly to your headset, and plug it into the lit-up hole. -"Operator," you announce. - -In operator's classes, before taking this job, you have -been issued a large pamphlet full of canned operator's -responses for all kinds of contingencies, which you had -to memorize. You have also been trained in a proper -non-regional, non-ethnic pronunciation and tone of voice. -You rarely have the occasion to make any spontaneous -remark to a customer, and in fact this is frowned upon -(except out on the rural lines where people have time -on their hands and get up to all kinds of mischief). - -A tough-sounding user's voice at the end of the line -gives you a number. Immediately, you write that number -down in your logbook, next to the caller's number, -which you just wrote earlier. You then look and see if -the number this guy wants is in fact on your switchboard, -which it generally is, since it's generally a local call. -Long distance costs so much that people use it sparingly. - -Only then do you pick up a calling-cord from a shelf -at the base of the switchboard. This is a long elastic cord -mounted on a kind of reel so that it will zip back in when -you unplug it. There are a lot of cords down there, -and when a bunch of them are out at once they look like -a nest of snakes. Some of the girls think there are bugs -living in those cable-holes. They're called "cable mites" -and are supposed to bite your hands and give you rashes. -You don't believe this, yourself. - -Gripping the head of your calling-cord, you slip the tip -of it deftly into the sleeve of the jack for the called person. -Not all the way in, though. You just touch it. If you hear -a clicking sound, that means the line is busy and you can't -put the call through. If the line is busy, you have to stick -the calling-cord into a "busy-tone jack," which will give -the guy a busy-tone. This way you don't have to talk to him -yourself and absorb his natural human frustration. - -But the line isn't busy. So you pop the cord all the way in. -Relay circuits in your board make the distant phone ring, -and if somebody picks it up off the hook, then a phone -conversation starts. You can hear this conversation -on your answering cord, until you unplug it. In fact -you could listen to the whole conversation if you wanted, -but this is sternly frowned upon by management, and frankly, -when you've overheard one, you've pretty much heard 'em all. - -You can tell how long the conversation lasts by the glow -of the calling-cord's lamp, down on the calling-cord's shelf. -When it's over, you unplug and the calling-cord zips back into place. - -Having done this stuff a few hundred thousand times, -you become quite good at it. In fact you're plugging, -and connecting, and disconnecting, ten, twenty, forty cords -at a time. It's a manual handicraft, really, quite satisfying -in a way, rather like weaving on an upright loom. - -Should a long-distance call come up, it would be different, -but not all that different. Instead of connecting the call -through your own local switchboard, you have to go up the hierarchy, -onto the long-distance lines, known as "trunklines." -Depending on how far the call goes, it may have to work -its way through a whole series of operators, which can -take quite a while. The caller doesn't wait on the line -while this complex process is negotiated across the country -by the gaggle of operators. Instead, the caller hangs up, -and you call him back yourself when the call has finally -worked its way through. - -After four or five years of this work, you get married, -and you have to quit your job, this being the natural order -of womanhood in the American 1920s. The phone company -has to train somebody else--maybe two people, since -the phone system has grown somewhat in the meantime. -And this costs money. - -In fact, to use any kind of human being as a switching -system is a very expensive proposition. Eight thousand -Leticia Luthors would be bad enough, but a quarter of a -million of them is a military-scale proposition and makes -drastic measures in automation financially worthwhile. - -Although the phone system continues to grow today, -the number of human beings employed by telcos has -been dropping steadily for years. Phone "operators" -now deal with nothing but unusual contingencies, -all routine operations having been shrugged off onto machines. -Consequently, telephone operators are considerably less -machine-like nowadays, and have been known to have accents -and actual character in their voices. When you reach -a human operator today, the operators are rather more -"human" than they were in Leticia's day--but on the other hand, -human beings in the phone system are much harder to reach -in the first place. - -Over the first half of the twentieth century, -"electromechanical" switching systems of growing -complexity were cautiously introduced into the phone system. -In certain backwaters, some of these hybrid systems are still -in use. But after 1965, the phone system began to go completely -electronic, and this is by far the dominant mode today. -Electromechanical systems have "crossbars," and "brushes," -and other large moving mechanical parts, which, while faster -and cheaper than Leticia, are still slow, and tend to wear out -fairly quickly. - -But fully electronic systems are inscribed on silicon chips, -and are lightning-fast, very cheap, and quite durable. -They are much cheaper to maintain than even the best -electromechanical systems, and they fit into half the space. -And with every year, the silicon chip grows smaller, faster, -and cheaper yet. Best of all, automated electronics work -around the clock and don't have salaries or health insurance. - -There are, however, quite serious drawbacks to the -use of computer-chips. When they do break down, it is -a daunting challenge to figure out what the heck has gone -wrong with them. A broken cordboard generally had -a problem in it big enough to see. A broken chip has -invisible, microscopic faults. And the faults in bad -software can be so subtle as to be practically theological. - -If you want a mechanical system to do something new, -then you must travel to where it is, and pull pieces out of it, -and wire in new pieces. This costs money. However, if you want -a chip to do something new, all you have to do is change its software, -which is easy, fast and dirt-cheap. You don't even have to see the chip -to change its program. Even if you did see the chip, it wouldn't look -like much. A chip with program X doesn't look one whit different from -a chip with program Y. - -With the proper codes and sequences, and access to specialized phone-lines, -you can change electronic switching systems all over America from anywhere -you please. - -And so can other people. If they know how, and if they want to, -they can sneak into a microchip via the special phonelines and diddle with it, -leaving no physical trace at all. If they broke into the operator's station -and held Leticia at gunpoint, that would be very obvious. If they broke into -a telco building and went after an electromechanical switch with a toolbelt, -that would at least leave many traces. But people can do all manner of amazing -things to computer switches just by typing on a keyboard, and keyboards are -everywhere today. The extent of this vulnerability is deep, dark, broad, -almost mind-boggling, and yet this is a basic, primal fact of life about -any computer on a network. - -Security experts over the past twenty years have insisted, -with growing urgency, that this basic vulnerability of computers -represents an entirely new level of risk, of unknown but obviously -dire potential to society. And they are right. - -An electronic switching station does pretty much -everything Letitia did, except in nanoseconds and -on a much larger scale. Compared to Miss Luthor's -ten thousand jacks, even a primitive 1ESS switching computer, -60s vintage, has a 128,000 lines. And the current AT&T -system of choice is the monstrous fifth-generation 5ESS. - -An Electronic Switching Station can scan every line on its "board" -in a tenth of a second, and it does this over and over, tirelessly, -around the clock. Instead of eyes, it uses "ferrod scanners" -to check the condition of local lines and trunks. Instead of hands, -it has "signal distributors," "central pulse distributors," -"magnetic latching relays," and "reed switches," which complete -and break the calls. Instead of a brain, it has a "central processor." -Instead of an instruction manual, it has a program. Instead of -a handwritten logbook for recording and billing calls, -it has magnetic tapes. And it never has to talk to anybody. -Everything a customer might say to it is done by punching -the direct-dial tone buttons on your subset. - -Although an Electronic Switching Station can't talk, -it does need an interface, some way to relate to its, er, -employers. This interface is known as the "master control -center." (This interface might be better known simply as -"the interface," since it doesn't actually "control" phone -calls directly. However, a term like "Master Control -Center" is just the kind of rhetoric that telco maintenance -engineers--and hackers--find particularly satisfying.) - -Using the master control center, a phone engineer can test -local and trunk lines for malfunctions. He (rarely she) -can check various alarm displays, measure traffic on the lines, -examine the records of telephone usage and the charges for those calls, -and change the programming. - -And, of course, anybody else who gets into the master control center -by remote control can also do these things, if he (rarely she) -has managed to figure them out, or, more likely, has somehow swiped -the knowledge from people who already know. - -In 1989 and 1990, one particular RBOC, BellSouth, -which felt particularly troubled, spent a purported $1.2 -million on computer security. Some think it spent as -much as two million, if you count all the associated costs. -Two million dollars is still very little compared to the -great cost-saving utility of telephonic computer systems. - -Unfortunately, computers are also stupid. -Unlike human beings, computers possess the truly -profound stupidity of the inanimate. - -In the 1960s, in the first shocks of spreading computerization, -there was much easy talk about the stupidity of computers-- -how they could "only follow the program" and were rigidly required -to do "only what they were told." There has been rather less talk -about the stupidity of computers since they began to achieve -grandmaster status in chess tournaments, and to manifest -many other impressive forms of apparent cleverness. - -Nevertheless, computers STILL are profoundly brittle and stupid; -they are simply vastly more subtle in their stupidity and brittleness. -The computers of the 1990s are much more reliable in their components -than earlier computer systems, but they are also called upon to do -far more complex things, under far more challenging conditions. - -On a basic mathematical level, every single line of -a software program offers a chance for some possible screwup. -Software does not sit still when it works; it "runs," -it interacts with itself and with its own inputs and outputs. -By analogy, it stretches like putty into millions of possible -shapes and conditions, so many shapes that they can never -all be successfully tested, not even in the lifespan of the universe. -Sometimes the putty snaps. - -The stuff we call "software" is not like anything that human society -is used to thinking about. Software is something like a machine, -and something like mathematics, and something like language, and -something like thought, and art, and information. . . . But software -is not in fact any of those other things. The protean quality -of software is one of the great sources of its fascination. -It also makes software very powerful, very subtle, -very unpredictable, and very risky. - -Some software is bad and buggy. Some is "robust," -even "bulletproof." The best software is that which has -been tested by thousands of users under thousands of -different conditions, over years. It is then known as -"stable." This does NOT mean that the software is -now flawless, free of bugs. It generally means that there -are plenty of bugs in it, but the bugs are well-identified -and fairly well understood. - -There is simply no way to assure that software is free -of flaws. Though software is mathematical in nature, -it cannot by "proven" like a mathematical theorem; -software is more like language, with inherent ambiguities, -with different definitions, different assumptions, -different levels of meaning that can conflict. - -Human beings can manage, more or less, with -human language because we can catch the gist of it. - -Computers, despite years of effort in "artificial intelligence," -have proven spectacularly bad in "catching the gist" of anything at all. -The tiniest bit of semantic grit may still bring the mightiest computer -tumbling down. One of the most hazardous things you can do to a -computer program is try to improve it--to try to make it safer. -Software "patches" represent new, untried un-"stable" software, -which is by definition riskier. - -The modern telephone system has come to depend, -utterly and irretrievably, upon software. And the -System Crash of January 15, 1990, was caused by an -IMPROVEMENT in software. Or rather, an ATTEMPTED -improvement. - -As it happened, the problem itself--the problem per se--took this form. -A piece of telco software had been written in C language, a standard -language of the telco field. Within the C software was a -long "do. . .while" construct. The "do. . .while" construct -contained a "switch" statement. The "switch" statement contained -an "if" clause. The "if" clause contained a "break." The "break" -was SUPPOSED to "break" the "if clause." Instead, the "break" -broke the "switch" statement. - -That was the problem, the actual reason why people picking up phones -on January 15, 1990, could not talk to one another. - -Or at least, that was the subtle, abstract, cyberspatial -seed of the problem. This is how the problem manifested itself -from the realm of programming into the realm of real life. - -The System 7 software for AT&T's 4ESS switching station, -the "Generic 44E14 Central Office Switch Software," -had been extensively tested, and was considered very stable. -By the end of 1989, eighty of AT&T's switching systems -nationwide had been programmed with the new software. Cautiously, -thirty-four stations were left to run the slower, less-capable -System 6, because AT&T suspected there might be shakedown problems -with the new and unprecedently sophisticated System 7 network. - -The stations with System 7 were programmed to switch over to a backup net -in case of any problems. In mid-December 1989, however, a new high-velocity, -high-security software patch was distributed to each of the 4ESS switches -that would enable them to switch over even more quickly, making the System 7 -network that much more secure. - -Unfortunately, every one of these 4ESS switches was now in possession -of a small but deadly flaw. - -In order to maintain the network, switches must monitor -the condition of other switches--whether they are up and running, -whether they have temporarily shut down, whether they are overloaded -and in need of assistance, and so forth. The new software helped -control this bookkeeping function by monitoring the status calls -from other switches. - -It only takes four to six seconds for a troubled 4ESS switch -to rid itself of all its calls, drop everything temporarily, -and re-boot its software from scratch. Starting over from scratch -will generally rid the switch of any software problems that may have -developed in the course of running the system. Bugs that arise will -be simply wiped out by this process. It is a clever idea. This process -of automatically re-booting from scratch is known as the "normal fault -recovery routine." Since AT&T's software is in fact exceptionally stable, -systems rarely have to go into "fault recovery" in the first place; -but AT&T has always boasted of its "real world" reliability, and this -tactic is a belt-and-suspenders routine. - -The 4ESS switch used its new software to monitor its fellow switches -as they recovered from faults. As other switches came back on line -after recovery, they would send their "OK" signals to the switch. -The switch would make a little note to that effect in its "status map," -recognizing that the fellow switch was back and ready to go, -and should be sent some calls and put back to regular work. - -Unfortunately, while it was busy bookkeeping with the status map, -the tiny flaw in the brand-new software came into play. -The flaw caused the 4ESS switch to interact, subtly but drastically, -with incoming telephone calls from human users. If--and only if-- -two incoming phone-calls happened to hit the switch within a hundredth -of a second, then a small patch of data would be garbled by the flaw. - -But the switch had been programmed to monitor itself -constantly for any possible damage to its data. -When the switch perceived that its data had been somehow garbled, -then it too would go down, for swift repairs to its software. -It would signal its fellow switches not to send any more work. -It would go into the fault-recovery mode for four to six seconds. -And then the switch would be fine again, and would send out its "OK, -ready for work" signal. - -However, the "OK, ready for work" signal was the VERY THING THAT -HAD CAUSED THE SWITCH TO GO DOWN IN THE FIRST PLACE. And ALL the -System 7 switches had the same flaw in their status-map software. -As soon as they stopped to make the bookkeeping note that their fellow -switch was "OK," then they too would become vulnerable to the slight -chance that two phone-calls would hit them within a hundredth of a second. - -At approximately 2:25 P.M. EST on Monday, January 15, -one of AT&T's 4ESS toll switching systems in New York City -had an actual, legitimate, minor problem. It went into fault -recovery routines, announced "I'm going down," then announced, -"I'm back, I'm OK." And this cheery message then blasted -throughout the network to many of its fellow 4ESS switches. - -Many of the switches, at first, completely escaped trouble. -These lucky switches were not hit by the coincidence of -two phone calls within a hundredth of a second. -Their software did not fail--at first. But three switches-- -in Atlanta, St. Louis, and Detroit--were unlucky, -and were caught with their hands full. And they went down. -And they came back up, almost immediately. And they too began -to broadcast the lethal message that they, too, were "OK" again, -activating the lurking software bug in yet other switches. - -As more and more switches did have that bit of bad luck -and collapsed, the call-traffic became more and more densely -packed in the remaining switches, which were groaning -to keep up with the load. And of course, as the calls -became more densely packed, the switches were MUCH MORE LIKELY -to be hit twice within a hundredth of a second. - -It only took four seconds for a switch to get well. -There was no PHYSICAL damage of any kind to the switches, -after all. Physically, they were working perfectly. -This situation was "only" a software problem. - -But the 4ESS switches were leaping up and down every -four to six seconds, in a virulent spreading wave all over America, -in utter, manic, mechanical stupidity. They kept KNOCKING -one another down with their contagious "OK" messages. - -It took about ten minutes for the chain reaction to cripple the network. -Even then, switches would periodically luck-out and manage to resume -their normal work. Many calls--millions of them--were managing -to get through. But millions weren't. - -The switching stations that used System 6 were not directly affected. -Thanks to these old-fashioned switches, AT&T's national system avoided -complete collapse. This fact also made it clear to engineers that -System 7 was at fault. - -Bell Labs engineers, working feverishly in New Jersey, Illinois, -and Ohio, first tried their entire repertoire of standard network -remedies on the malfunctioning System 7. None of the remedies worked, -of course, because nothing like this had ever happened to any -phone system before. - -By cutting out the backup safety network entirely, -they were able to reduce the frenzy of "OK" messages -by about half. The system then began to recover, as the -chain reaction slowed. By 11:30 P.M. on Monday January -15, sweating engineers on the midnight shift breathed a -sigh of relief as the last switch cleared-up. - -By Tuesday they were pulling all the brand-new 4ESS software -and replacing it with an earlier version of System 7. - -If these had been human operators, rather than -computers at work, someone would simply have -eventually stopped screaming. It would have been -OBVIOUS that the situation was not "OK," and common -sense would have kicked in. Humans possess common sense-- -at least to some extent. Computers simply don't. - -On the other hand, computers can handle hundreds -of calls per second. Humans simply can't. If every single -human being in America worked for the phone company, -we couldn't match the performance of digital switches: -direct-dialling, three-way calling, speed-calling, call- -waiting, Caller ID, all the rest of the cornucopia -of digital bounty. Replacing computers with operators -is simply not an option any more. - -And yet we still, anachronistically, expect humans to -be running our phone system. It is hard for us -to understand that we have sacrificed huge amounts -of initiative and control to senseless yet powerful machines. -When the phones fail, we want somebody to be responsible. -We want somebody to blame. - -When the Crash of January 15 happened, the American populace -was simply not prepared to understand that enormous landslides -in cyberspace, like the Crash itself, can happen, -and can be nobody's fault in particular. It was easier to believe, -maybe even in some odd way more reassuring to believe, -that some evil person, or evil group, had done this to us. -"Hackers" had done it. With a virus. A trojan horse. -A software bomb. A dirty plot of some kind. People believed this, -responsible people. In 1990, they were looking hard for evidence -to confirm their heartfelt suspicions. - -And they would look in a lot of places. - -Come 1991, however, the outlines of an apparent new reality -would begin to emerge from the fog. - -On July 1 and 2, 1991, computer-software collapses -in telephone switching stations disrupted service in -Washington DC, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and San Francisco. -Once again, seemingly minor maintenance problems had -crippled the digital System 7. About twelve million -people were affected in the Crash of July 1, 1991. - -Said the New York Times Service: "Telephone company executives -and federal regulators said they were not ruling out the possibility -of sabotage by computer hackers, but most seemed to think the problems -stemmed from some unknown defect in the software running the networks." - -And sure enough, within the week, a red-faced software company, -DSC Communications Corporation of Plano, Texas, owned up -to "glitches" in the "signal transfer point" software that -DSC had designed for Bell Atlantic and Pacific Bell. -The immediate cause of the July 1 Crash was a single -mistyped character: one tiny typographical flaw -in one single line of the software. One mistyped letter, -in one single line, had deprived the nation's capital of phone service. -It was not particularly surprising that this tiny flaw had escaped attention: -a typical System 7 station requires TEN MILLION lines of code. - -On Tuesday, September 17, 1991, came the most spectacular outage yet. -This case had nothing to do with software failures--at least, not directly. -Instead, a group of AT&T's switching stations in New York City had simply -run out of electrical power and shut down cold. Their back-up batteries -had failed. Automatic warning systems were supposed to warn of the loss -of battery power, but those automatic systems had failed as well. - -This time, Kennedy, La Guardia, and Newark airports -all had their voice and data communications cut. -This horrifying event was particularly ironic, as attacks -on airport computers by hackers had long been a standard -nightmare scenario, much trumpeted by computer-security -experts who feared the computer underground. There had even -been a Hollywood thriller about sinister hackers ruining -airport computers--DIE HARD II. - -Now AT&T itself had crippled airports with computer malfunctions-- -not just one airport, but three at once, some of the busiest in the world. - -Air traffic came to a standstill throughout the Greater New York area, -causing more than 500 flights to be cancelled, in a spreading wave -all over America and even into Europe. Another 500 or so flights -were delayed, affecting, all in all, about 85,000 passengers. -(One of these passengers was the chairman of the Federal -Communications Commission.) - -Stranded passengers in New York and New Jersey were further -infuriated to discover that they could not even manage to -make a long distance phone call, to explain their delay -to loved ones or business associates. Thanks to the crash, -about four and a half million domestic calls, and half a million -international calls, failed to get through. - -The September 17 NYC Crash, unlike the previous ones, -involved not a whisper of "hacker" misdeeds. On the contrary, -by 1991, AT&T itself was suffering much of the vilification -that had formerly been directed at hackers. Congressmen were grumbling. -So were state and federal regulators. And so was the press. - -For their part, ancient rival MCI took out snide full-page -newspaper ads in New York, offering their own long-distance -services for the "next time that AT&T goes down." - -"You wouldn't find a classy company like AT&T using such advertising," -protested AT&T Chairman Robert Allen, unconvincingly. Once again, -out came the full-page AT&T apologies in newspapers, apologies for -"an inexcusable culmination of both human and mechanical failure." -(This time, however, AT&T offered no discount on later calls. -Unkind critics suggested that AT&T were worried about setting any precedent -for refunding the financial losses caused by telephone crashes.) - -Industry journals asked publicly if AT&T was "asleep at the switch." -The telephone network, America's purported marvel of high-tech reliability, -had gone down three times in 18 months. Fortune magazine listed the -Crash of September 17 among the "Biggest Business Goofs of 1991," -cruelly parodying AT&T's ad campaign in an article entitled -"AT&T Wants You Back (Safely On the Ground, God Willing)." - -Why had those New York switching systems simply run out of power? -Because no human being had attended to the alarm system. -Why did the alarm systems blare automatically, -without any human being noticing? Because the three -telco technicians who SHOULD have been listening -were absent from their stations in the power-room, -on another floor of the building--attending a training class. -A training class about the alarm systems for the power room! - -"Crashing the System" was no longer "unprecedented" by late 1991. -On the contrary, it no longer even seemed an oddity. By 1991, -it was clear that all the policemen in the world could no longer -"protect" the phone system from crashes. By far the worst crashes -the system had ever had, had been inflicted, by the system, -upon ITSELF. And this time nobody was making cocksure statements -that this was an anomaly, something that would never happen again. -By 1991 the System's defenders had met their nebulous Enemy, -and the Enemy was--the System. - - - -PART TWO: THE DIGITAL UNDERGROUND - - -The date was May 9, 1990. The Pope was touring Mexico City. -Hustlers from the Medellin Cartel were trying to buy -black-market Stinger missiles in Florida. On the comics page, -Doonesbury character Andy was dying of AIDS. And then. . .a highly -unusual item whose novelty and calculated rhetoric won it -headscratching attention in newspapers all over America. - -The US Attorney's office in Phoenix, Arizona, had issued -a press release announcing a nationwide law enforcement crackdown -against "illegal computer hacking activities." The sweep was -officially known as "Operation Sundevil." - -Eight paragraphs in the press release gave the bare facts: -twenty-seven search warrants carried out on May 8, with three arrests, -and a hundred and fifty agents on the prowl in "twelve" cities across America. -(Different counts in local press reports yielded "thirteen," "fourteen," and -"sixteen" cities.) Officials estimated that criminal losses of revenue -to telephone companies "may run into millions of dollars." Credit for -the Sundevil investigations was taken by the US Secret Service, -Assistant US Attorney Tim Holtzen of Phoenix, and the Assistant -Attorney General of Arizona, Gail Thackeray. - -The prepared remarks of Garry M. Jenkins, appearing in a U.S. Department -of Justice press release, were of particular interest. Mr. Jenkins was the -Assistant Director of the US Secret Service, and the highest-ranking federal -official to take any direct public role in the hacker crackdown of 1990. - -"Today, the Secret Service is sending a clear message to those computer hackers -who have decided to violate the laws of this nation in the mistaken belief -that they can successfully avoid detection by hiding behind the relative -anonymity of their computer terminals. (. . .) "Underground groups have been -formed for the purpose of exchanging information relevant to their criminal -activities. These groups often communicate with each other through message -systems between computers called `bulletin boards.' "Our experience shows -that many computer hacker suspects are no longer misguided teenagers, -mischievously playing games with their computers in their bedrooms. -Some are now high tech computer operators using computers to engage -in unlawful conduct." - -Who were these "underground groups" and "high-tech operators?" -Where had they come from? What did they want? Who WERE they? -Were they "mischievous?" Were they dangerous? How had "misguided teenagers" -managed to alarm the United States Secret Service? And just how widespread -was this sort of thing? - -Of all the major players in the Hacker Crackdown: the phone companies, -law enforcement, the civil libertarians, and the "hackers" themselves-- -the "hackers" are by far the most mysterious, by far the hardest to -understand, by far the WEIRDEST. - -Not only are "hackers" novel in their activities, but they come -in a variety of odd subcultures, with a variety of languages, -motives and values. - -The earliest proto-hackers were probably those unsung mischievous -telegraph boys who were summarily fired by the Bell Company in 1878. - -Legitimate "hackers," those computer enthusiasts who are independent-minded -but law-abiding, generally trace their spiritual ancestry to elite technical -universities, especially M.I.T. and Stanford, in the 1960s. - -But the genuine roots of the modern hacker UNDERGROUND can probably be traced -most successfully to a now much-obscured hippie anarchist movement known as -the Yippies. The Yippies, who took their name from the largely fictional -"Youth International Party," carried out a loud and lively policy of surrealistic -subversion and outrageous political mischief. Their basic tenets were flagrant -sexual promiscuity, open and copious drug use, the political overthrow of any -powermonger over thirty years of age, and an immediate end to the war -in Vietnam, by any means necessary, including the psychic levitation -of the Pentagon. - -The two most visible Yippies were Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. -Rubin eventually became a Wall Street broker. Hoffman, ardently sought -by federal authorities, went into hiding for seven years, -in Mexico, France, and the United States. While on the lam, -Hoffman continued to write and publish, with help from sympathizers -in the American anarcho-leftist underground. Mostly, Hoffman survived -through false ID and odd jobs. Eventually he underwent facial plastic -surgery and adopted an entirely new identity as one "Barry Freed." -After surrendering himself to authorities in 1980, Hoffman spent a year -in prison on a cocaine conviction. - -Hoffman's worldview grew much darker as the glory days of the 1960s faded. -In 1989, he purportedly committed suicide, under odd and, to some, rather -suspicious circumstances. - -Abbie Hoffman is said to have caused the Federal Bureau of Investigation -to amass the single largest investigation file ever opened on an individual -American citizen. (If this is true, it is still questionable whether the -FBI regarded Abbie Hoffman a serious public threat--quite possibly, -his file was enormous simply because Hoffman left colorful legendry -wherever he went). He was a gifted publicist, who regarded electronic -media as both playground and weapon. He actively enjoyed manipulating -network TV and other gullible, image-hungry media, with various weird lies, -mindboggling rumors, impersonation scams, and other sinister distortions, -all absolutely guaranteed to upset cops, Presidential candidates, -and federal judges. Hoffman's most famous work was a book self-reflexively -known as STEAL THIS BOOK, which publicized a number of methods by which young, -penniless hippie agitators might live off the fat of a system supported by -humorless drones. STEAL THIS BOOK, whose title urged readers to damage -the very means of distribution which had put it into their hands, -might be described as a spiritual ancestor of a computer virus. - -Hoffman, like many a later conspirator, made extensive use of -pay-phones for his agitation work--in his case, generally through -the use of cheap brass washers as coin-slugs. - -During the Vietnam War, there was a federal surtax imposed on telephone -service; Hoffman and his cohorts could, and did, argue that in systematically -stealing phone service they were engaging in civil disobedience: -virtuously denying tax funds to an illegal and immoral war. - -But this thin veil of decency was soon dropped entirely. -Ripping-off the System found its own justification in deep alienation -and a basic outlaw contempt for conventional bourgeois values. -Ingenious, vaguely politicized varieties of rip-off, -which might be described as "anarchy by convenience," -became very popular in Yippie circles, and because rip-off -was so useful, it was to survive the Yippie movement itself. - -In the early 1970s, it required fairly limited expertise -and ingenuity to cheat payphones, to divert "free" -electricity and gas service, or to rob vending machines -and parking meters for handy pocket change. It also required -a conspiracy to spread this knowledge, and the gall -and nerve actually to commit petty theft, but the Yippies -had these qualifications in plenty. In June 1971, Abbie -Hoffman and a telephone enthusiast sarcastically known -as "Al Bell" began publishing a newsletter called Youth -International Party Line. This newsletter was dedicated -to collating and spreading Yippie rip-off techniques, -especially of phones, to the joy of the freewheeling -underground and the insensate rage of all straight people. -As a political tactic, phone-service theft ensured -that Yippie advocates would always have ready access -to the long-distance telephone as a medium, despite -the Yippies' chronic lack of organization, discipline, -money, or even a steady home address. - -PARTY LINE was run out of Greenwich Village for a couple of years, -then "Al Bell" more or less defected from the faltering ranks of Yippiedom, -changing the newsletter's name to TAP or Technical Assistance Program. -After the Vietnam War ended, the steam began leaking rapidly out of American -radical dissent. But by this time, "Bell" and his dozen or so -core contributors had the bit between their teeth, -and had begun to derive tremendous gut-level satisfaction -from the sensation of pure TECHNICAL POWER. - -TAP articles, once highly politicized, became pitilessly jargonized -and technical, in homage or parody to the Bell System's own technical -documents, which TAP studied closely, gutted, and reproduced without -permission. The TAP elite revelled in gloating possession -of the specialized knowledge necessary to beat the system. - -"Al Bell" dropped out of the game by the late 70s, -and "Tom Edison" took over; TAP readers (some 1400 of -them, all told) now began to show more interest in telex -switches and the growing phenomenon of computer systems. - -In 1983, "Tom Edison" had his computer stolen and his house -set on fire by an arsonist. This was an eventually mortal blow -to TAP (though the legendary name was to be resurrected -in 1990 by a young Kentuckian computer-outlaw named "Predat0r.") - -# - -Ever since telephones began to make money, there have been -people willing to rob and defraud phone companies. -The legions of petty phone thieves vastly outnumber those -"phone phreaks" who "explore the system" for the sake -of the intellectual challenge. The New York metropolitan area -(long in the vanguard of American crime) claims over 150,000 -physical attacks on pay telephones every year! Studied carefully, -a modern payphone reveals itself as a little fortress, carefully -designed and redesigned over generations, to resist coin-slugs, -zaps of electricity, chunks of coin-shaped ice, prybars, magnets, -lockpicks, blasting caps. Public pay- phones must survive in a world -of unfriendly, greedy people, and a modern payphone is as exquisitely -evolved as a cactus. -Because the phone network pre-dates the computer network, -the scofflaws known as "phone phreaks" pre-date the scofflaws -known as "computer hackers." In practice, today, the line -between "phreaking" and "hacking" is very blurred, -just as the distinction between telephones and computers -has blurred. The phone system has been digitized, -and computers have learned to "talk" over phone-lines. -What's worse--and this was the point of the Mr. Jenkins -of the Secret Service--some hackers have learned to steal, -and some thieves have learned to hack. - -Despite the blurring, one can still draw a few useful -behavioral distinctions between "phreaks" and "hackers." -Hackers are intensely interested in the "system" per se, -and enjoy relating to machines. "Phreaks" are more -social, manipulating the system in a rough-and-ready -fashion in order to get through to other human beings, -fast, cheap and under the table. - -Phone phreaks love nothing so much as "bridges," -illegal conference calls of ten or twelve chatting -conspirators, seaboard to seaboard, lasting for many hours ---and running, of course, on somebody else's tab, -preferably a large corporation's. - -As phone-phreak conferences wear on, people drop out -(or simply leave the phone off the hook, while they -sashay off to work or school or babysitting), -and new people are phoned up and invited to join in, -from some other continent, if possible. Technical trivia, -boasts, brags, lies, head-trip deceptions, weird rumors, -and cruel gossip are all freely exchanged. - -The lowest rung of phone-phreaking is the theft of telephone access codes. -Charging a phone call to somebody else's stolen number is, of course, -a pig-easy way of stealing phone service, requiring practically no -technical expertise. This practice has been very widespread, -especially among lonely people without much money who are far from home. -Code theft has flourished especially in college dorms, military bases, -and, notoriously, among roadies for rock bands. Of late, code theft -has spread very rapidly among Third Worlders in the US, who pile up -enormous unpaid long-distance bills to the Caribbean, South America, -and Pakistan. - -The simplest way to steal phone-codes is simply to look over -a victim's shoulder as he punches-in his own code-number -on a public payphone. This technique is known as "shoulder-surfing," -and is especially common in airports, bus terminals, and train stations. -The code is then sold by the thief for a few dollars. The buyer abusing -the code has no computer expertise, but calls his Mom in New York, -Kingston or Caracas and runs up a huge bill with impunity. The losses -from this primitive phreaking activity are far, far greater than the -monetary losses caused by computer-intruding hackers. - -In the mid-to-late 1980s, until the introduction of sterner telco -security measures, COMPUTERIZED code theft worked like a charm, -and was virtually omnipresent throughout the digital underground, -among phreaks and hackers alike. This was accomplished through -programming one's computer to try random code numbers over the telephone -until one of them worked. Simple programs to do this were widely available -in the underground; a computer running all night was likely to come up with -a dozen or so useful hits. This could be repeated week after week until -one had a large library of stolen codes. - -Nowadays, the computerized dialling of hundreds of numbers -can be detected within hours and swiftly traced. -If a stolen code is repeatedly abused, this too can -be detected within a few hours. But for years in the 1980s, -the publication of stolen codes was a kind of elementary etiquette -for fledgling hackers. The simplest way to establish your bona-fides -as a raider was to steal a code through repeated random dialling -and offer it to the "community" for use. Codes could be both stolen, -and used, simply and easily from the safety of one's own bedroom, -with very little fear of detection or punishment. - -Before computers and their phone-line modems entered American homes -in gigantic numbers, phone phreaks had their own special telecommunications -hardware gadget, the famous "blue box." This fraud device (now rendered -increasingly useless by the digital evolution of the phone system) could -trick switching systems into granting free access to long-distance lines. -It did this by mimicking the system's own signal, a tone of 2600 hertz. - -Steven Jobs and Steve Wozniak, the founders of Apple Computer, Inc., -once dabbled in selling blue-boxes in college dorms in California. -For many, in the early days of phreaking, blue-boxing was scarcely -perceived as "theft," but rather as a fun (if sneaky) way to use -excess phone capacity harmlessly. After all, the long-distance -lines were JUST SITTING THERE. . . . Whom did it hurt, really? -If you're not DAMAGING the system, and you're not USING UP ANY -TANGIBLE RESOURCE, and if nobody FINDS OUT what you did, -then what real harm have you done? What exactly HAVE you "stolen," -anyway? If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, -how much is the noise worth? Even now this remains a rather -dicey question. - -Blue-boxing was no joke to the phone companies, however. -Indeed, when Ramparts magazine, a radical publication in California, -printed the wiring schematics necessary to create a mute box in June 1972, -the magazine was seized by police and Pacific Bell phone-company officials. -The mute box, a blue-box variant, allowed its user to receive long-distance -calls free of charge to the caller. This device was closely described in a -Ramparts article wryly titled "Regulating the Phone Company In Your Home." -Publication of this article was held to be in violation of Californian -State Penal Code section 502.7, which outlaws ownership of wire-fraud -devices and the selling of "plans or instructions for any instrument, -apparatus, or device intended to avoid telephone toll charges." - -Issues of Ramparts were recalled or seized on the newsstands, -and the resultant loss of income helped put the magazine out of business. -This was an ominous precedent for free-expression issues, but the telco's -crushing of a radical-fringe magazine passed without serious challenge -at the time. Even in the freewheeling California 1970s, it was widely felt -that there was something sacrosanct about what the phone company knew; -that the telco had a legal and moral right to protect itself by shutting -off the flow of such illicit information. Most telco information was so -"specialized" that it would scarcely be understood by any honest member -of the public. If not published, it would not be missed. To print such -material did not seem part of the legitimate role of a free press. - -In 1990 there would be a similar telco-inspired attack -on the electronic phreak/hacking "magazine" Phrack. -The Phrack legal case became a central issue in the -Hacker Crackdown, and gave rise to great controversy. -Phrack would also be shut down, for a time, at least, -but this time both the telcos and their law-enforcement -allies would pay a much larger price for their actions. -The Phrack case will be examined in detail, later. - -Phone-phreaking as a social practice is still very -much alive at this moment. Today, phone-phreaking -is thriving much more vigorously than the better-known -and worse-feared practice of "computer hacking." -New forms of phreaking are spreading rapidly, following -new vulnerabilities in sophisticated phone services. - -Cellular phones are especially vulnerable; their chips -can be re-programmed to present a false caller ID -and avoid billing. Doing so also avoids police tapping, -making cellular-phone abuse a favorite among drug-dealers. -"Call-sell operations" using pirate cellular phones can, -and have, been run right out of the backs of cars, which move -from "cell" to "cell" in the local phone system, retailing -stolen long-distance service, like some kind of demented -electronic version of the neighborhood ice-cream truck. - -Private branch-exchange phone systems in large corporations -can be penetrated; phreaks dial-up a local company, enter its -internal phone-system, hack it, then use the company's own -PBX system to dial back out over the public network, -causing the company to be stuck with the resulting -long-distance bill. This technique is known as "diverting." -"Diverting" can be very costly, especially because phreaks -tend to travel in packs and never stop talking. -Perhaps the worst by-product of this "PBX fraud" -is that victim companies and telcos have sued one another -over the financial responsibility for the stolen calls, -thus enriching not only shabby phreaks but well-paid lawyers. - -"Voice-mail systems" can also be abused; phreaks -can seize their own sections of these sophisticated -electronic answering machines, and use them for trading -codes or knowledge of illegal techniques. Voice-mail -abuse does not hurt the company directly, but finding -supposedly empty slots in your company's answering -machine all crammed with phreaks eagerly chattering -and hey-duding one another in impenetrable jargon can -cause sensations of almost mystical repulsion and dread. - -Worse yet, phreaks have sometimes been known to react -truculently to attempts to "clean up" the voice-mail system. -Rather than humbly acquiescing to being thrown out of their playground, -they may very well call up the company officials at work (or at home) -and loudly demand free voice-mail addresses of their very own. -Such bullying is taken very seriously by spooked victims. - -Acts of phreak revenge against straight people are rare, -but voice-mail systems are especially tempting and vulnerable, -and an infestation of angry phreaks in one's voice-mail system is no joke. -They can erase legitimate messages; or spy on private messages; -or harass users with recorded taunts and obscenities. -They've even been known to seize control of voice-mail security, -and lock out legitimate users, or even shut down the system entirely. - -Cellular phone-calls, cordless phones, and ship-to-shore -telephony can all be monitored by various forms of radio; -this kind of "passive monitoring" is spreading explosively today. -Technically eavesdropping on other people's cordless and cellular -phone-calls is the fastest-growing area in phreaking today. -This practice strongly appeals to the lust for power and conveys -gratifying sensations of technical superiority over the eavesdropping -victim. Monitoring is rife with all manner of tempting evil mischief. -Simple prurient snooping is by far the most common activity. -But credit-card numbers unwarily spoken over the phone can be recorded, -stolen and used. And tapping people's phone-calls (whether through -active telephone taps or passive radio monitors) does lend itself -conveniently to activities like blackmail, industrial espionage, -and political dirty tricks. - -It should be repeated that telecommunications fraud, -the theft of phone service, causes vastly greater monetary -losses than the practice of entering into computers by stealth. -Hackers are mostly young suburban American white males, -and exist in their hundreds--but "phreaks" come from both sexes -and from many nationalities, ages and ethnic backgrounds, -and are flourishing in the thousands. - -# - -The term "hacker" has had an unfortunate history. -This book, The Hacker Crackdown, has little to say about -"hacking" in its finer, original sense. The term can signify -the free-wheeling intellectual exploration of the highest -and deepest potential of computer systems. Hacking can -describe the determination to make access to computers -and information as free and open as possible. Hacking -can involve the heartfelt conviction that beauty can -be found in computers, that the fine aesthetic in a perfect -program can liberate the mind and spirit. This is "hacking" -as it was defined in Steven Levy's much-praised history -of the pioneer computer milieu, Hackers, published in 1984. - -Hackers of all kinds are absolutely soaked through with heroic -anti-bureaucratic sentiment. Hackers long for recognition -as a praiseworthy cultural archetype, the postmodern electronic -equivalent of the cowboy and mountain man. Whether they deserve -such a reputation is something for history to decide. But many hackers-- -including those outlaw hackers who are computer intruders, and whose -activities are defined as criminal--actually attempt to LIVE UP TO -this techno-cowboy reputation. And given that electronics and -telecommunications are still largely unexplored territories, -there is simply NO TELLING what hackers might uncover. - -For some people, this freedom is the very breath of oxygen, -the inventive spontaneity that makes life worth living -and that flings open doors to marvellous possibility and -individual empowerment. But for many people ---and increasingly so--the hacker is an ominous figure, -a smart-aleck sociopath ready to burst out of his basement -wilderness and savage other people's lives for his own -anarchical convenience. - -Any form of power without responsibility, without direct -and formal checks and balances, is frightening to people-- -and reasonably so. It should be frankly admitted that -hackers ARE frightening, and that the basis of this fear -is not irrational. - -Fear of hackers goes well beyond the fear of merely criminal activity. - -Subversion and manipulation of the phone system -is an act with disturbing political overtones. -In America, computers and telephones are potent symbols -of organized authority and the technocratic business elite. - -But there is an element in American culture that -has always strongly rebelled against these symbols; -rebelled against all large industrial computers -and all phone companies. A certain anarchical tinge deep -in the American soul delights in causing confusion and pain -to all bureaucracies, including technological ones. - -There is sometimes malice and vandalism in this attitude, -but it is a deep and cherished part of the American national character. -The outlaw, the rebel, the rugged individual, the pioneer, -the sturdy Jeffersonian yeoman, the private citizen resisting -interference in his pursuit of happiness--these are figures that all -Americans recognize, and that many will strongly applaud and defend. - -Many scrupulously law-abiding citizens today do cutting-edge work -with electronics--work that has already had tremendous social influence -and will have much more in years to come. In all truth, these talented, -hardworking, law-abiding, mature, adult people are far more disturbing -to the peace and order of the current status quo than any scofflaw group -of romantic teenage punk kids. These law-abiding hackers have the power, -ability, and willingness to influence other people's lives quite unpredictably. -They have means, motive, and opportunity to meddle drastically with the -American social order. When corralled into governments, universities, -or large multinational companies, and forced to follow rulebooks -and wear suits and ties, they at least have some conventional halters -on their freedom of action. But when loosed alone, or in small groups, -and fired by imagination and the entrepreneurial spirit, they can move -mountains--causing landslides that will likely crash directly into your -office and living room. - -These people, as a class, instinctively recognize that a public, -politicized attack on hackers will eventually spread to them-- -that the term "hacker," once demonized, might be used to knock -their hands off the levers of power and choke them out of existence. -There are hackers today who fiercely and publicly resist any besmirching -of the noble title of hacker. Naturally and understandably, they deeply -resent the attack on their values implicit in using the word "hacker" -as a synonym for computer-criminal. - -This book, sadly but in my opinion unavoidably, rather adds -to the degradation of the term. It concerns itself mostly with "hacking" -in its commonest latter-day definition, i.e., intruding into computer -systems by stealth and without permission. The term "hacking" is used -routinely today by almost all law enforcement officials with any -professional interest in computer fraud and abuse. American police -describe almost any crime committed with, by, through, or against -a computer as hacking. - -Most importantly, "hacker" is what computer-intruders -choose to call THEMSELVES. Nobody who "hacks" into systems -willingly describes himself (rarely, herself) as a "computer intruder," -"computer trespasser," "cracker," "wormer," "darkside hacker" -or "high tech street gangster." Several other demeaning terms -have been invented in the hope that the press and public -will leave the original sense of the word alone. But few people -actually use these terms. (I exempt the term "cyberpunk," -which a few hackers and law enforcement people actually do use. -The term "cyberpunk" is drawn from literary criticism and has -some odd and unlikely resonances, but, like hacker, -cyberpunk too has become a criminal pejorative today.) - -In any case, breaking into computer systems was hardly alien -to the original hacker tradition. The first tottering systems -of the 1960s required fairly extensive internal surgery merely -to function day-by-day. Their users "invaded" the deepest, -most arcane recesses of their operating software almost -as a matter of routine. "Computer security" in these early, -primitive systems was at best an afterthought. What security -there was, was entirely physical, for it was assumed that -anyone allowed near this expensive, arcane hardware would be -a fully qualified professional expert. - -In a campus environment, though, this meant that grad students, -teaching assistants, undergraduates, and eventually, -all manner of dropouts and hangers-on ended up accessing -and often running the works. - -Universities, even modern universities, are not in -the business of maintaining security over information. -On the contrary, universities, as institutions, pre-date -the "information economy" by many centuries and are not- -for-profit cultural entities, whose reason for existence -(purportedly) is to discover truth, codify it through -techniques of scholarship, and then teach it. Universities -are meant to PASS THE TORCH OF CIVILIZATION, not just -download data into student skulls, and the values of the -academic community are strongly at odds with those of all -would-be information empires. Teachers at all levels, from -kindergarten up, have proven to be shameless and persistent -software and data pirates. Universities do not merely -"leak information" but vigorously broadcast free thought. - -This clash of values has been fraught with controversy. -Many hackers of the 1960s remember their professional -apprenticeship as a long guerilla war against the uptight -mainframe-computer "information priesthood." These computer-hungry -youngsters had to struggle hard for access to computing power, -and many of them were not above certain, er, shortcuts. -But, over the years, this practice freed computing -from the sterile reserve of lab-coated technocrats and -was largely responsible for the explosive growth of computing -in general society--especially PERSONAL computing. - -Access to technical power acted like catnip on certain -of these youngsters. Most of the basic techniques of -computer intrusion: password cracking, trapdoors, backdoors, -trojan horses--were invented in college environments in the 1960s, -in the early days of network computing. Some off-the-cuff -experience at computer intrusion was to be in the informal -resume of most "hackers" and many future industry giants. -Outside of the tiny cult of computer enthusiasts, few people -thought much about the implications of "breaking into" -computers. This sort of activity had not yet been publicized, -much less criminalized. - -In the 1960s, definitions of "property" and "privacy" -had not yet been extended to cyberspace. Computers -were not yet indispensable to society. There were no vast -databanks of vulnerable, proprietary information stored -in computers, which might be accessed, copied without -permission, erased, altered, or sabotaged. The stakes -were low in the early days--but they grew every year, -exponentially, as computers themselves grew. - -By the 1990s, commercial and political pressures -had become overwhelming, and they broke the social -boundaries of the hacking subculture. Hacking -had become too important to be left to the hackers. -Society was now forced to tackle the intangible nature -of cyberspace-as-property, cyberspace as privately-owned -unreal-estate. In the new, severe, responsible, high-stakes -context of the "Information Society" of the 1990s, -"hacking" was called into question. - -What did it mean to break into a computer without -permission and use its computational power, or look -around inside its files without hurting anything? -What were computer-intruding hackers, anyway--how should -society, and the law, best define their actions? -Were they just BROWSERS, harmless intellectual explorers? -Were they VOYEURS, snoops, invaders of privacy? Should -they be sternly treated as potential AGENTS OF ESPIONAGE, -or perhaps as INDUSTRIAL SPIES? Or were they best -defined as TRESPASSERS, a very common teenage -misdemeanor? Was hacking THEFT OF SERVICE? -(After all, intruders were getting someone else's -computer to carry out their orders, without permission -and without paying). Was hacking FRAUD? Maybe it was -best described as IMPERSONATION. The commonest mode -of computer intrusion was (and is) to swipe or snoop -somebody else's password, and then enter the computer -in the guise of another person--who is commonly stuck -with the blame and the bills. - -Perhaps a medical metaphor was better--hackers should -be defined as "sick," as COMPUTER ADDICTS unable -to control their irresponsible, compulsive behavior. - -But these weighty assessments meant little to the -people who were actually being judged. From inside -the underground world of hacking itself, all these -perceptions seem quaint, wrongheaded, stupid, or meaningless. -The most important self-perception of underground hackers-- -from the 1960s, right through to the present day--is that -they are an ELITE. The day-to-day struggle in the underground -is not over sociological definitions--who cares?--but for power, -knowledge, and status among one's peers. - -When you are a hacker, it is your own inner conviction -of your elite status that enables you to break, or let -us say "transcend," the rules. It is not that ALL rules -go by the board. The rules habitually broken by hackers -are UNIMPORTANT rules--the rules of dopey greedhead telco -bureaucrats and pig-ignorant government pests. - -Hackers have their OWN rules, which separate behavior -which is cool and elite, from behavior which is rodentlike, -stupid and losing. These "rules," however, are mostly unwritten -and enforced by peer pressure and tribal feeling. Like all rules -that depend on the unspoken conviction that everybody else -is a good old boy, these rules are ripe for abuse. The mechanisms -of hacker peer- pressure, "teletrials" and ostracism, are rarely used -and rarely work. Back-stabbing slander, threats, and electronic -harassment are also freely employed in down-and-dirty intrahacker feuds, -but this rarely forces a rival out of the scene entirely. The only real -solution for the problem of an utterly losing, treacherous and rodentlike -hacker is to TURN HIM IN TO THE POLICE. Unlike the Mafia or Medellin Cartel, -the hacker elite cannot simply execute the bigmouths, creeps and troublemakers -among their ranks, so they turn one another in with astonishing frequency. - -There is no tradition of silence or OMERTA in the hacker underworld. -Hackers can be shy, even reclusive, but when they do talk, hackers -tend to brag, boast and strut. Almost everything hackers do is INVISIBLE; -if they don't brag, boast, and strut about it, then NOBODY WILL EVER KNOW. -If you don't have something to brag, boast, and strut about, then nobody -in the underground will recognize you and favor you with vital cooperation -and respect. - -The way to win a solid reputation in the underground -is by telling other hackers things that could only -have been learned by exceptional cunning and stealth. -Forbidden knowledge, therefore, is the basic currency -of the digital underground, like seashells among -Trobriand Islanders. Hackers hoard this knowledge, -and dwell upon it obsessively, and refine it, -and bargain with it, and talk and talk about it. - -Many hackers even suffer from a strange obsession to TEACH-- -to spread the ethos and the knowledge of the digital underground. -They'll do this even when it gains them no particular advantage -and presents a grave personal risk. - -And when that risk catches up with them, they will go right on teaching -and preaching--to a new audience this time, their interrogators from law -enforcement. Almost every hacker arrested tells everything he knows-- -all about his friends, his mentors, his disciples--legends, threats, -horror stories, dire rumors, gossip, hallucinations. This is, of course, -convenient for law enforcement--except when law enforcement begins -to believe hacker legendry. - -Phone phreaks are unique among criminals in their willingness -to call up law enforcement officials--in the office, at their homes-- -and give them an extended piece of their mind. It is hard not to -interpret this as BEGGING FOR ARREST, and in fact it is an act -of incredible foolhardiness. Police are naturally nettled -by these acts of chutzpah and will go well out of their way -to bust these flaunting idiots. But it can also be interpreted -as a product of a world-view so elitist, so closed and hermetic, -that electronic police are simply not perceived as "police," -but rather as ENEMY PHONE PHREAKS who should be scolded -into behaving "decently." - -Hackers at their most grandiloquent perceive themselves -as the elite pioneers of a new electronic world. -Attempts to make them obey the democratically -established laws of contemporary American society are -seen as repression and persecution. After all, they argue, -if Alexander Graham Bell had gone along with the rules -of the Western Union telegraph company, there would have -been no telephones. If Jobs and Wozniak had believed -that IBM was the be-all and end-all, there would have -been no personal computers. If Benjamin Franklin and -Thomas Jefferson had tried to "work within the system" -there would have been no United States. - -Not only do hackers privately believe this as an article of faith, -but they have been known to write ardent manifestos about it. -Here are some revealing excerpts from an especially vivid hacker manifesto: -"The Techno-Revolution" by "Dr. Crash," which appeared in electronic -form in Phrack Volume 1, Issue 6, Phile 3. - - -"To fully explain the true motives behind hacking, -we must first take a quick look into the past. In the 1960s, -a group of MIT students built the first modern computer system. -This wild, rebellious group of young men were the first to bear -the name `hackers.' The systems that they developed were intended -to be used to solve world problems and to benefit all of mankind. -"As we can see, this has not been the case. The computer system -has been solely in the hands of big businesses and the government. -The wonderful device meant to enrich life has become a weapon which -dehumanizes people. To the government and large businesses, -people are no more than disk space, and the government doesn't -use computers to arrange aid for the poor, but to control nuclear -death weapons. The average American can only have access -to a small microcomputer which is worth only a fraction -of what they pay for it. The businesses keep the -true state-of-the-art equipment away from the people -behind a steel wall of incredibly high prices and bureaucracy. -It is because of this state of affairs that hacking was born. (. . .) -"Of course, the government doesn't want the monopoly of technology broken, -so they have outlawed hacking and arrest anyone who is caught. (. . .) -The phone company is another example of technology abused and kept -from people with high prices. (. . .) "Hackers often find that their -existing equipment, due to the monopoly tactics of computer companies, -is inefficient for their purposes. Due to the exorbitantly high prices, -it is impossible to legally purchase the necessary equipment. -This need has given still another segment of the fight: Credit Carding. -Carding is a way of obtaining the necessary goods without paying for them. -It is again due to the companies' stupidity that Carding is so easy, -and shows that the world's businesses are in the hands of those -with considerably less technical know-how than we, the hackers. (. . .) -"Hacking must continue. We must train newcomers to the art of hacking. -(. . . .) And whatever you do, continue the fight. Whether you know it -or not, if you are a hacker, you are a revolutionary. Don't worry, -you're on the right side." - -The defense of "carding" is rare. Most hackers regard credit-card -theft as "poison" to the underground, a sleazy and immoral effort that, -worse yet, is hard to get away with. Nevertheless, manifestos advocating -credit-card theft, the deliberate crashing of computer systems, -and even acts of violent physical destruction such as vandalism -and arson do exist in the underground. These boasts and threats -are taken quite seriously by the police. And not every hacker -is an abstract, Platonic computer-nerd. Some few are quite experienced -at picking locks, robbing phone-trucks, and breaking and entering buildings. - -Hackers vary in their degree of hatred for authority -and the violence of their rhetoric. But, at a bottom line, -they are scofflaws. They don't regard the current rules -of electronic behavior as respectable efforts to preserve -law and order and protect public safety. They regard these -laws as immoral efforts by soulless corporations to protect -their profit margins and to crush dissidents. "Stupid" people, -including police, businessmen, politicians, and journalists, -simply have no right to judge the actions of those possessed of genius, -techno-revolutionary intentions, and technical expertise. - -# - -Hackers are generally teenagers and college kids not -engaged in earning a living. They often come from fairly -well-to-do middle-class backgrounds, and are markedly -anti-materialistic (except, that is, when it comes to -computer equipment). Anyone motivated by greed for -mere money (as opposed to the greed for power, -knowledge and status) is swiftly written-off as a narrow- -minded breadhead whose interests can only be corrupt -and contemptible. Having grown up in the 1970s and -1980s, the young Bohemians of the digital underground -regard straight society as awash in plutocratic corruption, -where everyone from the President down is for sale and -whoever has the gold makes the rules. - -Interestingly, there's a funhouse-mirror image of this attitude -on the other side of the conflict. The police are also -one of the most markedly anti-materialistic groups -in American society, motivated not by mere money -but by ideals of service, justice, esprit-de-corps, -and, of course, their own brand of specialized knowledge -and power. Remarkably, the propaganda war between cops -and hackers has always involved angry allegations -that the other side is trying to make a sleazy buck. -Hackers consistently sneer that anti-phreak prosecutors -are angling for cushy jobs as telco lawyers and that -computer-crime police are aiming to cash in later -as well-paid computer-security consultants in the private sector. - -For their part, police publicly conflate all -hacking crimes with robbing payphones with crowbars. -Allegations of "monetary losses" from computer intrusion -are notoriously inflated. The act of illicitly copying -a document from a computer is morally equated with -directly robbing a company of, say, half a million dollars. -The teenage computer intruder in possession of this "proprietary" -document has certainly not sold it for such a sum, would likely -have little idea how to sell it at all, and quite probably -doesn't even understand what he has. He has not made a cent -in profit from his felony but is still morally equated with -a thief who has robbed the church poorbox and lit out for Brazil. - -Police want to believe that all hackers are thieves. -It is a tortuous and almost unbearable act for the American -justice system to put people in jail because they want -to learn things which are forbidden for them to know. -In an American context, almost any pretext for punishment -is better than jailing people to protect certain restricted -kinds of information. Nevertheless, POLICING INFORMATION -is part and parcel of the struggle against hackers. - -This dilemma is well exemplified by the remarkable -activities of "Emmanuel Goldstein," editor and publisher -of a print magazine known as 2600: The Hacker Quarterly. -Goldstein was an English major at Long Island's State University -of New York in the '70s, when he became involved with the local -college radio station. His growing interest in electronics -caused him to drift into Yippie TAP circles and thus into -the digital underground, where he became a self-described -techno-rat. His magazine publishes techniques of computer -intrusion and telephone "exploration" as well as gloating -exposes of telco misdeeds and governmental failings. - -Goldstein lives quietly and very privately in a large, -crumbling Victorian mansion in Setauket, New York. -The seaside house is decorated with telco decals, chunks of -driftwood, and the basic bric-a-brac of a hippie crash-pad. -He is unmarried, mildly unkempt, and survives mostly -on TV dinners and turkey-stuffing eaten straight out -of the bag. Goldstein is a man of considerable charm -and fluency, with a brief, disarming smile and the kind -of pitiless, stubborn, thoroughly recidivist integrity -that America's electronic police find genuinely alarming. - -Goldstein took his nom-de-plume, or "handle," from -a character in Orwell's 1984, which may be taken, -correctly, as a symptom of the gravity of his sociopolitical -worldview. He is not himself a practicing computer -intruder, though he vigorously abets these actions, -especially when they are pursued against large -corporations or governmental agencies. Nor is he a thief, -for he loudly scorns mere theft of phone service, in favor -of "exploring and manipulating the system." He is probably -best described and understood as a DISSIDENT. - -Weirdly, Goldstein is living in modern America -under conditions very similar to those of former -East European intellectual dissidents. In other words, -he flagrantly espouses a value-system that is deeply -and irrevocably opposed to the system of those in power -and the police. The values in 2600 are generally expressed -in terms that are ironic, sarcastic, paradoxical, or just -downright confused. But there's no mistaking their -radically anti-authoritarian tenor. 2600 holds that -technical power and specialized knowledge, of any kind -obtainable, belong by right in the hands of those individuals -brave and bold enough to discover them--by whatever means necessary. -Devices, laws, or systems that forbid access, and the free -spread of knowledge, are provocations that any free -and self-respecting hacker should relentlessly attack. -The "privacy" of governments, corporations and other soulless -technocratic organizations should never be protected -at the expense of the liberty and free initiative -of the individual techno-rat. - -However, in our contemporary workaday world, both governments -and corporations are very anxious indeed to police information -which is secret, proprietary, restricted, confidential, -copyrighted, patented, hazardous, illegal, unethical, -embarrassing, or otherwise sensitive. This makes Goldstein -persona non grata, and his philosophy a threat. - -Very little about the conditions of Goldstein's daily -life would astonish, say, Vaclav Havel. (We may note -in passing that President Havel once had his word-processor -confiscated by the Czechoslovak police.) Goldstein lives -by SAMIZDAT, acting semi-openly as a data-center -for the underground, while challenging the powers-that-be -to abide by their own stated rules: freedom of speech -and the First Amendment. - -Goldstein thoroughly looks and acts the part of techno-rat, -with shoulder-length ringlets and a piratical black -fisherman's-cap set at a rakish angle. He often shows up -like Banquo's ghost at meetings of computer professionals, -where he listens quietly, half-smiling and taking thorough notes. - -Computer professionals generally meet publicly, -and find it very difficult to rid themselves of Goldstein -and his ilk without extralegal and unconstitutional actions. -Sympathizers, many of them quite respectable people -with responsible jobs, admire Goldstein's attitude and -surreptitiously pass him information. An unknown but -presumably large proportion of Goldstein's 2,000-plus -readership are telco security personnel and police, -who are forced to subscribe to 2600 to stay abreast -of new developments in hacking. They thus find themselves -PAYING THIS GUY'S RENT while grinding their teeth in anguish, -a situation that would have delighted Abbie Hoffman -(one of Goldstein's few idols). - -Goldstein is probably the best-known public representative -of the hacker underground today, and certainly the best-hated. -Police regard him as a Fagin, a corrupter of youth, and speak -of him with untempered loathing. He is quite an accomplished gadfly. -After the Martin Luther King Day Crash of 1990, Goldstein, -for instance, adeptly rubbed salt into the wound in the pages of 2600. -"Yeah, it was fun for the phone phreaks as we watched the network crumble," -he admitted cheerfully. "But it was also an ominous sign of what's -to come. . . . Some AT&T people, aided by well-meaning but ignorant media, -were spreading the notion that many companies had the same software -and therefore could face the same problem someday. Wrong. This was -entirely an AT&T software deficiency. Of course, other companies could -face entirely DIFFERENT software problems. But then, so too could AT&T." - -After a technical discussion of the system's failings, -the Long Island techno-rat went on to offer thoughtful -criticism to the gigantic multinational's hundreds of -professionally qualified engineers. "What we don't know -is how a major force in communications like AT&T could -be so sloppy. What happened to backups? Sure, -computer systems go down all the time, but people -making phone calls are not the same as people logging -on to computers. We must make that distinction. It's not -acceptable for the phone system or any other essential -service to `go down.' If we continue to trust technology -without understanding it, we can look forward to many -variations on this theme. - -"AT&T owes it to its customers to be prepared to INSTANTLY -switch to another network if something strange and unpredictable -starts occurring. The news here isn't so much the failure -of a computer program, but the failure of AT&T's entire structure." - -The very idea of this. . . . this PERSON. . . . offering -"advice" about "AT&T's entire structure" is more than -some people can easily bear. How dare this near-criminal -dictate what is or isn't "acceptable" behavior from AT&T? -Especially when he's publishing, in the very same issue, -detailed schematic diagrams for creating various switching-network -signalling tones unavailable to the public. - -"See what happens when you drop a `silver box' tone or two -down your local exchange or through different long distance -service carriers," advises 2600 contributor "Mr. Upsetter" -in "How To Build a Signal Box." "If you experiment systematically -and keep good records, you will surely discover something interesting." - -This is, of course, the scientific method, generally regarded -as a praiseworthy activity and one of the flowers of modern civilization. -One can indeed learn a great deal with this sort of structured -intellectual activity. Telco employees regard this mode of "exploration" -as akin to flinging sticks of dynamite into their pond to see what lives -on the bottom. - -2600 has been published consistently since 1984. -It has also run a bulletin board computer system, -printed 2600 T-shirts, taken fax calls. . . . -The Spring 1991 issue has an interesting announcement on page 45: -"We just discovered an extra set of wires attached to our fax line -and heading up the pole. (They've since been clipped.) -Your faxes to us and to anyone else could be monitored." -In the worldview of 2600, the tiny band of techno-rat brothers -(rarely, sisters) are a beseiged vanguard of the truly free and honest. -The rest of the world is a maelstrom of corporate crime and high-level -governmental corruption, occasionally tempered with well-meaning -ignorance. To read a few issues in a row is to enter a nightmare -akin to Solzhenitsyn's, somewhat tempered by the fact that 2600 -is often extremely funny. - -Goldstein did not become a target of the Hacker Crackdown, -though he protested loudly, eloquently, and publicly about it, -and it added considerably to his fame. It was not that he is not -regarded as dangerous, because he is so regarded. Goldstein has had -brushes with the law in the past: in 1985, a 2600 bulletin board -computer was seized by the FBI, and some software on it was formally -declared "a burglary tool in the form of a computer program." -But Goldstein escaped direct repression in 1990, because his -magazine is printed on paper, and recognized as subject -to Constitutional freedom of the press protection. -As was seen in the Ramparts case, this is far from -an absolute guarantee. Still, as a practical matter, -shutting down 2600 by court-order would create so much -legal hassle that it is simply unfeasible, at least -for the present. Throughout 1990, both Goldstein -and his magazine were peevishly thriving. - -Instead, the Crackdown of 1990 would concern itself -with the computerized version of forbidden data. -The crackdown itself, first and foremost, was about -BULLETIN BOARD SYSTEMS. Bulletin Board Systems, most often -known by the ugly and un-pluralizable acronym "BBS," are -the life-blood of the digital underground. Boards were -also central to law enforcement's tactics and strategy -in the Hacker Crackdown. - -A "bulletin board system" can be formally defined as -a computer which serves as an information and message- -passing center for users dialing-up over the phone-lines -through the use of modems. A "modem," or modulator- -demodulator, is a device which translates the digital -impulses of computers into audible analog telephone -signals, and vice versa. Modems connect computers -to phones and thus to each other. - -Large-scale mainframe computers have been connected since the 1960s, -but PERSONAL computers, run by individuals out of their homes, -were first networked in the late 1970s. The "board" created -by Ward Christensen and Randy Suess in February 1978, -in Chicago, Illinois, is generally regarded as the first -personal-computer bulletin board system worthy of the name. - -Boards run on many different machines, employing many -different kinds of software. Early boards were crude and buggy, -and their managers, known as "system operators" or "sysops," -were hard-working technical experts who wrote their own software. -But like most everything else in the world of electronics, -boards became faster, cheaper, better-designed, and generally -far more sophisticated throughout the 1980s. They also moved -swiftly out of the hands of pioneers and into those of the -general public. By 1985 there were something in the -neighborhood of 4,000 boards in America. By 1990 it was -calculated, vaguely, that there were about 30,000 boards in -the US, with uncounted thousands overseas. - -Computer bulletin boards are unregulated enterprises. -Running a board is a rough-and-ready, catch-as-catch-can proposition. -Basically, anybody with a computer, modem, software and a phone-line -can start a board. With second-hand equipment and public-domain -free software, the price of a board might be quite small-- -less than it would take to publish a magazine or even a -decent pamphlet. Entrepreneurs eagerly sell bulletin-board -software, and will coach nontechnical amateur sysops in its use. - -Boards are not "presses." They are not magazines, -or libraries, or phones, or CB radios, or traditional cork -bulletin boards down at the local laundry, though they -have some passing resemblance to those earlier media. -Boards are a new medium--they may even be a LARGE NUMBER of new media. - -Consider these unique characteristics: boards are cheap, -yet they can have a national, even global reach. -Boards can be contacted from anywhere in the global -telephone network, at NO COST to the person running the board-- -the caller pays the phone bill, and if the caller is local, -the call is free. Boards do not involve an editorial elite -addressing a mass audience. The "sysop" of a board is not -an exclusive publisher or writer--he is managing an electronic salon, -where individuals can address the general public, play the part -of the general public, and also exchange private mail -with other individuals. And the "conversation" on boards, -though fluid, rapid, and highly interactive, is not spoken, -but written. It is also relatively anonymous, sometimes completely so. - -And because boards are cheap and ubiquitous, regulations -and licensing requirements would likely be practically unenforceable. -It would almost be easier to "regulate," "inspect," and "license" -the content of private mail--probably more so, since the mail system -is operated by the federal government. Boards are run by individuals, -independently, entirely at their own whim. - -For the sysop, the cost of operation is not the primary -limiting factor. Once the investment in a computer and -modem has been made, the only steady cost is the charge -for maintaining a phone line (or several phone lines). -The primary limits for sysops are time and energy. -Boards require upkeep. New users are generally "validated"-- -they must be issued individual passwords, and called at -home by voice-phone, so that their identity can be -verified. Obnoxious users, who exist in plenty, must be -chided or purged. Proliferating messages must be deleted -when they grow old, so that the capacity of the system -is not overwhelmed. And software programs (if such things -are kept on the board) must be examined for possible -computer viruses. If there is a financial charge to use -the board (increasingly common, especially in larger and -fancier systems) then accounts must be kept, and users -must be billed. And if the board crashes--a very common -occurrence--then repairs must be made. - -Boards can be distinguished by the amount of effort -spent in regulating them. First, we have the completely -open board, whose sysop is off chugging brews and -watching re-runs while his users generally degenerate -over time into peevish anarchy and eventual silence. -Second comes the supervised board, where the sysop -breaks in every once in a while to tidy up, calm brawls, -issue announcements, and rid the community of dolts -and troublemakers. Third is the heavily supervised -board, which sternly urges adult and responsible behavior -and swiftly edits any message considered offensive, -impertinent, illegal or irrelevant. And last comes -the completely edited "electronic publication," which -is presented to a silent audience which is not allowed -to respond directly in any way. - -Boards can also be grouped by their degree of anonymity. -There is the completely anonymous board, where everyone -uses pseudonyms--"handles"--and even the sysop is unaware -of the user's true identity. The sysop himself is likely -pseudonymous on a board of this type. Second, and rather -more common, is the board where the sysop knows (or thinks -he knows) the true names and addresses of all users, -but the users don't know one another's names and may not know his. -Third is the board where everyone has to use real names, -and roleplaying and pseudonymous posturing are forbidden. - -Boards can be grouped by their immediacy. "Chat-lines" -are boards linking several users together over several -different phone-lines simultaneously, so that people -exchange messages at the very moment that they type. -(Many large boards feature "chat" capabilities along -with other services.) Less immediate boards, -perhaps with a single phoneline, store messages serially, -one at a time. And some boards are only open for business -in daylight hours or on weekends, which greatly slows response. -A NETWORK of boards, such as "FidoNet," can carry electronic mail -from board to board, continent to continent, across huge distances-- -but at a relative snail's pace, so that a message can take several -days to reach its target audience and elicit a reply. - -Boards can be grouped by their degree of community. -Some boards emphasize the exchange of private, -person-to-person electronic mail. Others emphasize -public postings and may even purge people who "lurk," -merely reading posts but refusing to openly participate. -Some boards are intimate and neighborly. Others are frosty -and highly technical. Some are little more than storage -dumps for software, where users "download" and "upload" programs, -but interact among themselves little if at all. - -Boards can be grouped by their ease of access. Some boards -are entirely public. Others are private and restricted only -to personal friends of the sysop. Some boards divide users by status. -On these boards, some users, especially beginners, strangers or children, -will be restricted to general topics, and perhaps forbidden to post. -Favored users, though, are granted the ability to post as they please, -and to stay "on-line" as long as they like, even to the disadvantage -of other people trying to call in. High-status users can be given access -to hidden areas in the board, such as off-color topics, private discussions, -and/or valuable software. Favored users may even become "remote sysops" -with the power to take remote control of the board through their own -home computers. Quite often "remote sysops" end up doing all the work -and taking formal control of the enterprise, despite the fact that it's -physically located in someone else's house. Sometimes several "co-sysops" -share power. - -And boards can also be grouped by size. Massive, nationwide -commercial networks, such as CompuServe, Delphi, GEnie and Prodigy, -are run on mainframe computers and are generally not considered "boards," -though they share many of their characteristics, such as electronic mail, -discussion topics, libraries of software, and persistent and growing problems -with civil-liberties issues. Some private boards have as many as -thirty phone-lines and quite sophisticated hardware. And then -there are tiny boards. - -Boards vary in popularity. Some boards are huge and crowded, -where users must claw their way in against a constant busy-signal. -Others are huge and empty--there are few things sadder than a formerly -flourishing board where no one posts any longer, and the dead conversations -of vanished users lie about gathering digital dust. Some boards are tiny -and intimate, their telephone numbers intentionally kept confidential -so that only a small number can log on. - -And some boards are UNDERGROUND. - -Boards can be mysterious entities. The activities of -their users can be hard to differentiate from conspiracy. -Sometimes they ARE conspiracies. Boards have harbored, -or have been accused of harboring, all manner of fringe groups, -and have abetted, or been accused of abetting, every manner -of frowned-upon, sleazy, radical, and criminal activity. -There are Satanist boards. Nazi boards. Pornographic boards. -Pedophile boards. Drug- dealing boards. Anarchist boards. -Communist boards. Gay and Lesbian boards (these exist in great profusion, -many of them quite lively with well-established histories). -Religious cult boards. Evangelical boards. Witchcraft -boards, hippie boards, punk boards, skateboarder boards. -Boards for UFO believers. There may well be boards for -serial killers, airline terrorists and professional assassins. -There is simply no way to tell. Boards spring up, flourish, -and disappear in large numbers, in most every corner of -the developed world. Even apparently innocuous public -boards can, and sometimes do, harbor secret areas known -only to a few. And even on the vast, public, commercial services, -private mail is very private--and quite possibly criminal. - -Boards cover most every topic imaginable and some -that are hard to imagine. They cover a vast spectrum -of social activity. However, all board users do have -something in common: their possession of computers -and phones. Naturally, computers and phones are -primary topics of conversation on almost every board. - -And hackers and phone phreaks, those utter devotees -of computers and phones, live by boards. They swarm by boards. -They are bred by boards. By the late 1980s, phone-phreak groups -and hacker groups, united by boards, had proliferated fantastically. - - -As evidence, here is a list of hacker groups compiled -by the editors of Phrack on August 8, 1988. - - -The Administration. -Advanced Telecommunications, Inc. -ALIAS. -American Tone Travelers. -Anarchy Inc. -Apple Mafia. -The Association. -Atlantic Pirates Guild. - -Bad Ass Mother Fuckers. -Bellcore. -Bell Shock Force. -Black Bag. - -Camorra. -C&M Productions. -Catholics Anonymous. -Chaos Computer Club. -Chief Executive Officers. -Circle Of Death. -Circle Of Deneb. -Club X. -Coalition of Hi-Tech -Pirates. -Coast-To-Coast. -Corrupt Computing. -Cult Of The -Dead Cow. -Custom Retaliations. - -Damage Inc. -D&B Communications. -The Danger Gang. -Dec Hunters. -Digital Gang. -DPAK. - -Eastern Alliance. -The Elite Hackers Guild. -Elite Phreakers and Hackers Club. -The Elite Society Of America. -EPG. -Executives Of Crime. -Extasyy Elite. - -Fargo 4A. -Farmers Of Doom. -The Federation. -Feds R Us. -First Class. -Five O. -Five Star. -Force Hackers. -The 414s. - -Hack-A-Trip. -Hackers Of America. -High Mountain Hackers. -High Society. -The Hitchhikers. - -IBM Syndicate. -The Ice Pirates. -Imperial Warlords. -Inner Circle. -Inner Circle II. -Insanity Inc. -International Computer Underground Bandits. - -Justice League of America. - -Kaos Inc. -Knights Of Shadow. -Knights Of The Round Table. - -League Of Adepts. -Legion Of Doom. -Legion Of Hackers. -Lords Of Chaos. -Lunatic Labs, Unlimited. - -Master Hackers. -MAD! -The Marauders. -MD/PhD. - -Metal Communications, Inc. -MetalliBashers, Inc. -MBI. - -Metro Communications. -Midwest Pirates Guild. - -NASA Elite. -The NATO Association. -Neon Knights. - -Nihilist Order. -Order Of The Rose. -OSS. - -Pacific Pirates Guild. -Phantom Access Associates. - -PHido PHreaks. -The Phirm. -Phlash. -PhoneLine Phantoms. -Phone Phreakers Of America. -Phortune 500. - -Phreak Hack Delinquents. -Phreak Hack Destroyers. - -Phreakers, Hackers, And Laundromat Employees Gang (PHALSE Gang). -Phreaks Against Geeks. -Phreaks Against Phreaks Against Geeks. -Phreaks and Hackers of America. -Phreaks Anonymous World Wide. -Project Genesis. -The Punk Mafia. - -The Racketeers. -Red Dawn Text Files. -Roscoe Gang. - - -SABRE. -Secret Circle of Pirates. -Secret Service. -707 Club. -Shadow Brotherhood. -Sharp Inc. -65C02 Elite. - -Spectral Force. -Star League. -Stowaways. -Strata-Crackers. - - -Team Hackers '86. -Team Hackers '87. - -TeleComputist Newsletter Staff. -Tribunal Of Knowledge. - -Triple Entente. -Turn Over And Die Syndrome (TOADS). - -300 Club. -1200 Club. -2300 Club. -2600 Club. -2601 Club. - -2AF. - -The United Soft WareZ Force. -United Technical Underground. - -Ware Brigade. -The Warelords. -WASP. - -Contemplating this list is an impressive, almost humbling business. -As a cultural artifact, the thing approaches poetry. - -Underground groups--subcultures--can be distinguished -from independent cultures by their habit of referring -constantly to the parent society. Undergrounds by their -nature constantly must maintain a membrane of differentiation. -Funny/distinctive clothes and hair, specialized jargon, specialized -ghettoized areas in cities, different hours of rising, working, -sleeping. . . . The digital underground, which specializes in information, -relies very heavily on language to distinguish itself. As can be seen -from this list, they make heavy use of parody and mockery. -It's revealing to see who they choose to mock. - -First, large corporations. We have the Phortune 500, -The Chief Executive Officers, Bellcore, IBM Syndicate, -SABRE (a computerized reservation service maintained -by airlines). The common use of "Inc." is telling-- -none of these groups are actual corporations, -but take clear delight in mimicking them. - -Second, governments and police. NASA Elite, NATO Association. -"Feds R Us" and "Secret Service" are fine bits of fleering boldness. -OSS--the Office of Strategic Services was the forerunner of the CIA. - -Third, criminals. Using stigmatizing pejoratives as a perverse -badge of honor is a time-honored tactic for subcultures: -punks, gangs, delinquents, mafias, pirates, bandits, racketeers. - -Specialized orthography, especially the use of "ph" for "f" -and "z" for the plural "s," are instant recognition symbols. -So is the use of the numeral "0" for the letter "O" ---computer-software orthography generally features a -slash through the zero, making the distinction obvious. - -Some terms are poetically descriptive of computer intrusion: -the Stowaways, the Hitchhikers, the PhoneLine Phantoms, Coast-to-Coast. -Others are simple bravado and vainglorious puffery. -(Note the insistent use of the terms "elite" and "master.") -Some terms are blasphemous, some obscene, others merely cryptic-- -anything to puzzle, offend, confuse, and keep the straights at bay. - -Many hacker groups further re-encrypt their names -by the use of acronyms: United Technical Underground -becomes UTU, Farmers of Doom become FoD, the United SoftWareZ -Force becomes, at its own insistence, "TuSwF," and woe to the -ignorant rodent who capitalizes the wrong letters. - -It should be further recognized that the members of these groups -are themselves pseudonymous. If you did, in fact, run across -the "PhoneLine Phantoms," you would find them to consist of -"Carrier Culprit," "The Executioner," "Black Majik," -"Egyptian Lover," "Solid State," and "Mr Icom." -"Carrier Culprit" will likely be referred to by his friends -as "CC," as in, "I got these dialups from CC of PLP." - -It's quite possible that this entire list refers to as -few as a thousand people. It is not a complete list -of underground groups--there has never been such a list, -and there never will be. Groups rise, flourish, decline, -share membership, maintain a cloud of wannabes and -casual hangers-on. People pass in and out, are ostracized, -get bored, are busted by police, or are cornered by telco -security and presented with huge bills. Many "underground -groups" are software pirates, "warez d00dz," who might break -copy protection and pirate programs, but likely wouldn't dare -to intrude on a computer-system. - -It is hard to estimate the true population of the digital -underground. There is constant turnover. Most hackers -start young, come and go, then drop out at age 22-- -the age of college graduation. And a large majority -of "hackers" access pirate boards, adopt a handle, -swipe software and perhaps abuse a phone-code or two, -while never actually joining the elite. - -Some professional informants, who make it their business -to retail knowledge of the underground to paymasters in private -corporate security, have estimated the hacker population -at as high as fifty thousand. This is likely highly inflated, -unless one counts every single teenage software pirate -and petty phone-booth thief. My best guess is about 5,000 people. -Of these, I would guess that as few as a hundred are truly "elite" ---active computer intruders, skilled enough to penetrate -sophisticated systems and truly to worry corporate security -and law enforcement. - -Another interesting speculation is whether this group -is growing or not. Young teenage hackers are often -convinced that hackers exist in vast swarms and will soon -dominate the cybernetic universe. Older and wiser -veterans, perhaps as wizened as 24 or 25 years old, -are convinced that the glory days are long gone, that the cops -have the underground's number now, and that kids these days -are dirt-stupid and just want to play Nintendo. - -My own assessment is that computer intrusion, as a non-profit act -of intellectual exploration and mastery, is in slow decline, -at least in the United States; but that electronic fraud, -especially telecommunication crime, is growing by leaps and bounds. - -One might find a useful parallel to the digital underground -in the drug underground. There was a time, now much-obscured -by historical revisionism, when Bohemians freely shared joints -at concerts, and hip, small-scale marijuana dealers might -turn people on just for the sake of enjoying a long stoned conversation -about the Doors and Allen Ginsberg. Now drugs are increasingly verboten, -except in a high-stakes, highly-criminal world of highly addictive drugs. -Over years of disenchantment and police harassment, a vaguely ideological, -free-wheeling drug underground has relinquished the business of drug-dealing -to a far more savage criminal hard-core. This is not a pleasant prospect -to contemplate, but the analogy is fairly compelling. - -What does an underground board look like? What distinguishes -it from a standard board? It isn't necessarily the conversation-- -hackers often talk about common board topics, such as hardware, software, -sex, science fiction, current events, politics, movies, personal gossip. -Underground boards can best be distinguished by their files, or "philes," -pre-composed texts which teach the techniques and ethos of the underground. -These are prized reservoirs of forbidden knowledge. Some are anonymous, -but most proudly bear the handle of the "hacker" who has created them, -and his group affiliation, if he has one. - -Here is a partial table-of-contents of philes from an underground board, -somewhere in the heart of middle America, circa 1991. The descriptions -are mostly self-explanatory. - - -BANKAMER.ZIP 5406 06-11-91 Hacking Bank America -CHHACK.ZIP 4481 06-11-91 Chilton Hacking -CITIBANK.ZIP 4118 06-11-91 Hacking Citibank -CREDIMTC.ZIP 3241 06-11-91 Hacking Mtc Credit Company -DIGEST.ZIP 5159 06-11-91 Hackers Digest -HACK.ZIP 14031 06-11-91 How To Hack -HACKBAS.ZIP 5073 06-11-91 Basics Of Hacking -HACKDICT.ZIP 42774 06-11-91 Hackers Dictionary -HACKER.ZIP 57938 06-11-91 Hacker Info -HACKERME.ZIP 3148 06-11-91 Hackers Manual -HACKHAND.ZIP 4814 06-11-91 Hackers Handbook -HACKTHES.ZIP 48290 06-11-91 Hackers Thesis -HACKVMS.ZIP 4696 06-11-91 Hacking Vms Systems -MCDON.ZIP 3830 06-11-91 Hacking Macdonalds (Home Of The Archs) -P500UNIX.ZIP 15525 06-11-91 Phortune 500 Guide To Unix -RADHACK.ZIP 8411 06-11-91 Radio Hacking -TAOTRASH.DOC 4096 12-25-89 Suggestions For Trashing -TECHHACK.ZIP 5063 06-11-91 Technical Hacking - - -The files above are do-it-yourself manuals about computer intrusion. -The above is only a small section of a much larger library of hacking -and phreaking techniques and history. We now move into a different -and perhaps surprising area. - -+------------+ - |Anarchy| -+------------+ - -ANARC.ZIP 3641 06-11-91 Anarchy Files -ANARCHST.ZIP 63703 06-11-91 Anarchist Book -ANARCHY.ZIP 2076 06-11-91 Anarchy At Home -ANARCHY3.ZIP 6982 06-11-91 Anarchy No 3 -ANARCTOY.ZIP 2361 06-11-91 Anarchy Toys -ANTIMODM.ZIP 2877 06-11-91 Anti-modem Weapons -ATOM.ZIP 4494 06-11-91 How To Make An Atom Bomb -BARBITUA.ZIP 3982 06-11-91 Barbiturate Formula -BLCKPWDR.ZIP 2810 06-11-91 Black Powder Formulas -BOMB.ZIP 3765 06-11-91 How To Make Bombs -BOOM.ZIP 2036 06-11-91 Things That Go Boom -CHLORINE.ZIP 1926 06-11-91 Chlorine Bomb -COOKBOOK.ZIP 1500 06-11-91 Anarchy Cook Book -DESTROY.ZIP 3947 06-11-91 Destroy Stuff -DUSTBOMB.ZIP 2576 06-11-91 Dust Bomb -ELECTERR.ZIP 3230 06-11-91 Electronic Terror -EXPLOS1.ZIP 2598 06-11-91 Explosives 1 -EXPLOSIV.ZIP 18051 06-11-91 More Explosives -EZSTEAL.ZIP 4521 06-11-91 Ez-stealing -FLAME.ZIP 2240 06-11-91 Flame Thrower -FLASHLT.ZIP 2533 06-11-91 Flashlight Bomb -FMBUG.ZIP 2906 06-11-91 How To Make An Fm Bug -OMEEXPL.ZIP 2139 06-11-91 Home Explosives -HOW2BRK.ZIP 3332 06-11-91 How To Break In -LETTER.ZIP 2990 06-11-91 Letter Bomb -LOCK.ZIP 2199 06-11-91 How To Pick Locks -MRSHIN.ZIP 3991 06-11-91 Briefcase Locks -NAPALM.ZIP 3563 06-11-91 Napalm At Home -NITRO.ZIP 3158 06-11-91 Fun With Nitro -PARAMIL.ZIP 2962 06-11-91 Paramilitary Info -PICKING.ZIP 3398 06-11-91 Picking Locks -PIPEBOMB.ZIP 2137 06-11-91 Pipe Bomb -POTASS.ZIP 3987 06-11-91 Formulas With Potassium -PRANK.TXT 11074 08-03-90 More Pranks To Pull On Idiots! -REVENGE.ZIP 4447 06-11-91 Revenge Tactics -ROCKET.ZIP 2590 06-11-91 Rockets For Fun -SMUGGLE.ZIP 3385 06-11-91 How To Smuggle - -HOLY COW! The damned thing is full of stuff about bombs! - -What are we to make of this? - -First, it should be acknowledged that spreading -knowledge about demolitions to teenagers is a highly and -deliberately antisocial act. It is not, however, illegal. - -Second, it should be recognized that most of these -philes were in fact WRITTEN by teenagers. Most adult -American males who can remember their teenage years -will recognize that the notion of building a flamethrower -in your garage is an incredibly neat-o idea. ACTUALLY, -building a flamethrower in your garage, however, is -fraught with discouraging difficulty. Stuffing gunpowder -into a booby-trapped flashlight, so as to blow the arm off -your high-school vice-principal, can be a thing of dark -beauty to contemplate. Actually committing assault by -explosives will earn you the sustained attention of the -federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. - -Some people, however, will actually try these plans. -A determinedly murderous American teenager can probably -buy or steal a handgun far more easily than he can brew -fake "napalm" in the kitchen sink. Nevertheless, -if temptation is spread before people, a certain number -will succumb, and a small minority will actually attempt -these stunts. A large minority of that small minority -will either fail or, quite likely, maim themselves, -since these "philes" have not been checked for accuracy, -are not the product of professional experience, -and are often highly fanciful. But the gloating menace -of these philes is not to be entirely dismissed. - -Hackers may not be "serious" about bombing; if they were, -we would hear far more about exploding flashlights, homemade bazookas, -and gym teachers poisoned by chlorine and potassium. -However, hackers are VERY serious about forbidden knowledge. -They are possessed not merely by curiosity, but by -a positive LUST TO KNOW. The desire to know what -others don't is scarcely new. But the INTENSITY -of this desire, as manifested by these young technophilic -denizens of the Information Age, may in fact BE new, -and may represent some basic shift in social values-- -a harbinger of what the world may come to, as society -lays more and more value on the possession, -assimilation and retailing of INFORMATION -as a basic commodity of daily life. - -There have always been young men with obsessive interests -in these topics. Never before, however, have they been able -to network so extensively and easily, and to propagandize -their interests with impunity to random passers-by. -High-school teachers will recognize that there's always -one in a crowd, but when the one in a crowd escapes control -by jumping into the phone-lines, and becomes a hundred such kids -all together on a board, then trouble is brewing visibly. -The urge of authority to DO SOMETHING, even something drastic, -is hard to resist. And in 1990, authority did something. -In fact authority did a great deal. - -# - -The process by which boards create hackers goes something -like this. A youngster becomes interested in computers-- -usually, computer games. He hears from friends that -"bulletin boards" exist where games can be obtained for free. -(Many computer games are "freeware," not copyrighted-- -invented simply for the love of it and given away to the public; -some of these games are quite good.) He bugs his parents for a modem, -or quite often, uses his parents' modem. - -The world of boards suddenly opens up. Computer games -can be quite expensive, real budget-breakers for a kid, -but pirated games, stripped of copy protection, are cheap or free. -They are also illegal, but it is very rare, almost unheard of, -for a small-scale software pirate to be prosecuted. -Once "cracked" of its copy protection, the program, -being digital data, becomes infinitely reproducible. -Even the instructions to the game, any manuals that accompany it, -can be reproduced as text files, or photocopied from legitimate sets. -Other users on boards can give many useful hints in game-playing tactics. -And a youngster with an infinite supply of free computer games can -certainly cut quite a swath among his modem-less friends. - -And boards are pseudonymous. No one need know that you're -fourteen years old--with a little practice at subterfuge, -you can talk to adults about adult things, and be accepted -and taken seriously! You can even pretend to be a girl, -or an old man, or anybody you can imagine. If you find this -kind of deception gratifying, there is ample opportunity -to hone your ability on boards. - -But local boards can grow stale. And almost every board maintains -a list of phone-numbers to other boards, some in distant, tempting, -exotic locales. Who knows what they're up to, in Oregon or Alaska -or Florida or California? It's very easy to find out--just order -the modem to call through its software--nothing to this, just typing -on a keyboard, the same thing you would do for most any computer game. -The machine reacts swiftly and in a few seconds you are talking to -a bunch of interesting people on another seaboard. - -And yet the BILLS for this trivial action can be staggering! -Just by going tippety-tap with your fingers, you may have -saddled your parents with four hundred bucks in long-distance charges, -and gotten chewed out but good. That hardly seems fair. - -How horrifying to have made friends in another state -and to be deprived of their company--and their software-- -just because telephone companies demand absurd amounts of money! -How painful, to be restricted to boards in one's own AREA CODE-- -what the heck is an "area code" anyway, and what makes it so special? -A few grumbles, complaints, and innocent questions of this sort -will often elicit a sympathetic reply from another board user-- -someone with some stolen codes to hand. You dither a while, -knowing this isn't quite right, then you make up your mind -to try them anyhow--AND THEY WORK! Suddenly you're doing something -even your parents can't do. Six months ago you were just some kid--now, -you're the Crimson Flash of Area Code 512! You're bad--you're nationwide! - -Maybe you'll stop at a few abused codes. Maybe you'll decide that -boards aren't all that interesting after all, that it's wrong, -not worth the risk --but maybe you won't. The next step -is to pick up your own repeat-dialling program-- -to learn to generate your own stolen codes. -(This was dead easy five years ago, much harder -to get away with nowadays, but not yet impossible.) -And these dialling programs are not complex or intimidating-- -some are as small as twenty lines of software. - -Now, you too can share codes. You can trade codes to learn -other techniques. If you're smart enough to catch on, -and obsessive enough to want to bother, and ruthless enough -to start seriously bending rules, then you'll get better, fast. -You start to develop a rep. You move up to a heavier class -of board--a board with a bad attitude, the kind of board -that naive dopes like your classmates and your former self -have never even heard of! You pick up the jargon of phreaking -and hacking from the board. You read a few of those anarchy philes-- -and man, you never realized you could be a real OUTLAW without -ever leaving your bedroom. - -You still play other computer games, but now you have a new -and bigger game. This one will bring you a different kind of status -than destroying even eight zillion lousy space invaders. - -Hacking is perceived by hackers as a "game." This is -not an entirely unreasonable or sociopathic perception. -You can win or lose at hacking, succeed or fail, -but it never feels "real." It's not simply that -imaginative youngsters sometimes have a hard time -telling "make-believe" from "real life." Cyberspace -is NOT REAL! "Real" things are physical objects -like trees and shoes and cars. Hacking takes place -on a screen. Words aren't physical, numbers -(even telephone numbers and credit card numbers) -aren't physical. Sticks and stones may break my bones, -but data will never hurt me. Computers SIMULATE reality, -like computer games that simulate tank battles or dogfights -or spaceships. Simulations are just make-believe, -and the stuff in computers is NOT REAL. - -Consider this: if "hacking" is supposed to be so serious and -real-life and dangerous, then how come NINE-YEAR-OLD KIDS have -computers and modems? You wouldn't give a nine year old his own car, -or his own rifle, or his own chainsaw--those things are "real." - -People underground are perfectly aware that the "game" -is frowned upon by the powers that be. Word gets around -about busts in the underground. Publicizing busts is one -of the primary functions of pirate boards, but they also -promulgate an attitude about them, and their own idiosyncratic -ideas of justice. The users of underground boards won't complain -if some guy is busted for crashing systems, spreading viruses, -or stealing money by wire-fraud. They may shake their heads -with a sneaky grin, but they won't openly defend these practices. -But when a kid is charged with some theoretical amount of theft: -$233,846.14, for instance, because he sneaked into a computer -and copied something, and kept it in his house on a floppy disk-- -this is regarded as a sign of near-insanity from prosecutors, -a sign that they've drastically mistaken the immaterial game -of computing for their real and boring everyday world -of fatcat corporate money. - -It's as if big companies and their suck-up lawyers -think that computing belongs to them, and they can -retail it with price stickers, as if it were boxes -of laundry soap! But pricing "information" is like -trying to price air or price dreams. Well, anybody -on a pirate board knows that computing can be, -and ought to be, FREE. Pirate boards are little -independent worlds in cyberspace, and they don't belong -to anybody but the underground. Underground boards -aren't "brought to you by Procter & Gamble." - -To log on to an underground board can mean to -experience liberation, to enter a world where, -for once, money isn't everything and adults -don't have all the answers. - -Let's sample another vivid hacker manifesto. Here are -some excerpts from "The Conscience of a Hacker," by "The Mentor," -from Phrack Volume One, Issue 7, Phile 3. - -"I made a discovery today. I found a computer. -Wait a second, this is cool. It does what I want it to. -If it makes a mistake, it's because I screwed it up. -Not because it doesn't like me. (. . .) -"And then it happened. . .a door opened to a world. . . -rushing through the phone line like heroin through an -addict's veins, an electronic pulse is sent out, -a refuge from day-to-day incompetencies is sought. . . -a board is found. `This is it. . .this is where I belong. . .' -"I know everyone here. . .even if I've never met them, -never talked to them, may never hear from them again. . . -I know you all. . . (. . .) - -"This is our world now. . .the world of the electron -and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a -service already existing without paying for what could be -dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and you -call us criminals. We explore. . .and you call us criminals. -We seek after knowledge. . .and you call us criminals. -We exist without skin color, without nationality, -without religious bias. . .and you call us criminals. -You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, -cheat and lie to us and try to make us believe that -it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals. - -"Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. -My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, -not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, -something that you will never forgive me for." - -# - -There have been underground boards almost as long -as there have been boards. One of the first was 8BBS, -which became a stronghold of the West Coast phone-phreak elite. -After going on-line in March 1980, 8BBS sponsored "Susan Thunder," -and "Tuc," and, most notoriously, "the Condor." "The Condor" -bore the singular distinction of becoming the most vilified -American phreak and hacker ever. Angry underground associates, -fed up with Condor's peevish behavior, turned him in to police, -along with a heaping double-helping of outrageous hacker legendry. -As a result, Condor was kept in solitary confinement for seven months, -for fear that he might start World War Three by triggering missile silos -from the prison payphone. (Having served his time, Condor is now -walking around loose; WWIII has thus far conspicuously failed to occur.) - -The sysop of 8BBS was an ardent free-speech enthusiast -who simply felt that ANY attempt to restrict the expression -of his users was unconstitutional and immoral. -Swarms of the technically curious entered 8BBS -and emerged as phreaks and hackers, until, in 1982, -a friendly 8BBS alumnus passed the sysop a new modem -which had been purchased by credit-card fraud. -Police took this opportunity to seize the entire board -and remove what they considered an attractive nuisance. - -Plovernet was a powerful East Coast pirate board -that operated in both New York and Florida. -Owned and operated by teenage hacker "Quasi Moto," -Plovernet attracted five hundred eager users in 1983. -"Emmanuel Goldstein" was one-time co-sysop of Plovernet, -along with "Lex Luthor," founder of the "Legion of Doom" group. -Plovernet bore the signal honor of being the original home -of the "Legion of Doom," about which the reader will be hearing -a great deal, soon. - -"Pirate-80," or "P-80," run by a sysop known as "Scan-Man," -got into the game very early in Charleston, and continued -steadily for years. P-80 flourished so flagrantly that -even its most hardened users became nervous, and some -slanderously speculated that "Scan Man" must have ties -to corporate security, a charge he vigorously denied. - -"414 Private" was the home board for the first GROUP -to attract conspicuous trouble, the teenage "414 Gang," -whose intrusions into Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and -Los Alamos military computers were to be a nine-days-wonder in 1982. - -At about this time, the first software piracy boards -began to open up, trading cracked games for the Atari 800 -and the Commodore C64. Naturally these boards were -heavily frequented by teenagers. And with the 1983 -release of the hacker-thriller movie War Games, -the scene exploded. It seemed that every kid -in America had demanded and gotten a modem for Christmas. -Most of these dabbler wannabes put their modems in the attic -after a few weeks, and most of the remainder minded their -P's and Q's and stayed well out of hot water. But some -stubborn and talented diehards had this hacker kid in -War Games figured for a happening dude. They simply -could not rest until they had contacted the underground-- -or, failing that, created their own. - -In the mid-80s, underground boards sprang up like digital fungi. -ShadowSpawn Elite. Sherwood Forest I, II, and III. -Digital Logic Data Service in Florida, sysoped by no less -a man than "Digital Logic" himself; Lex Luthor of the -Legion of Doom was prominent on this board, since it -was in his area code. Lex's own board, "Legion of Doom," -started in 1984. The Neon Knights ran a network of Apple- -hacker boards: Neon Knights North, South, East and West. -Free World II was run by "Major Havoc." Lunatic Labs -is still in operation as of this writing. Dr. Ripco -in Chicago, an anything-goes anarchist board with an -extensive and raucous history, was seized by Secret Service -agents in 1990 on Sundevil day, but up again almost immediately, -with new machines and scarcely diminished vigor. - -The St. Louis scene was not to rank with major centers -of American hacking such as New York and L.A. But St. -Louis did rejoice in possession of "Knight Lightning" -and "Taran King," two of the foremost JOURNALISTS native -to the underground. Missouri boards like Metal Shop, -Metal Shop Private, Metal Shop Brewery, may not have -been the heaviest boards around in terms of illicit -expertise. But they became boards where hackers could -exchange social gossip and try to figure out what the -heck was going on nationally--and internationally. -Gossip from Metal Shop was put into the form of news files, -then assembled into a general electronic publication, -Phrack, a portmanteau title coined from "phreak" and "hack." -The Phrack editors were as obsessively curious about other -hackers as hackers were about machines. - -Phrack, being free of charge and lively reading, began -to circulate throughout the underground. As Taran King -and Knight Lightning left high school for college, -Phrack began to appear on mainframe machines linked to BITNET, -and, through BITNET to the "Internet," that loose but -extremely potent not-for-profit network where academic, -governmental and corporate machines trade data through -the UNIX TCP/IP protocol. (The "Internet Worm" of -November 2-3,1988, created by Cornell grad student Robert Morris, -was to be the largest and best-publicized computer-intrusion scandal -to date. Morris claimed that his ingenious "worm" program was meant -to harmlessly explore the Internet, but due to bad programming, -the Worm replicated out of control and crashed some six thousand -Internet computers. Smaller-scale and less ambitious Internet hacking -was a standard for the underground elite.) - -Most any underground board not hopelessly lame and out-of-it -would feature a complete run of Phrack--and, possibly, -the lesser-known standards of the underground: -the Legion of Doom Technical Journal, the obscene -and raucous Cult of the Dead Cow files, P/HUN magazine, -Pirate, the Syndicate Reports, and perhaps the highly -anarcho-political Activist Times Incorporated. - -Possession of Phrack on one's board was prima facie -evidence of a bad attitude. Phrack was seemingly everywhere, -aiding, abetting, and spreading the underground ethos. -And this did not escape the attention of corporate security -or the police. - -We now come to the touchy subject of police and boards. -Police, do, in fact, own boards. In 1989, there were -police-sponsored boards in California, Colorado, Florida, -Georgia, Idaho, Michigan, Missouri, Texas, and Virginia: -boards such as "Crime Bytes," "Crimestoppers," "All Points" -and "Bullet-N-Board." Police officers, as private computer -enthusiasts, ran their own boards in Arizona, California, -Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Missouri, Maryland, -New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas. -Police boards have often proved helpful in community relations. -Sometimes crimes are reported on police boards. - -Sometimes crimes are COMMITTED on police boards. -This has sometimes happened by accident, as naive hackers -blunder onto police boards and blithely begin offering telephone codes. -Far more often, however, it occurs through the now almost-traditional -use of "sting boards." The first police sting-boards were established -in 1985: "Underground Tunnel" in Austin, Texas, whose sysop -Sgt. Robert Ansley called himself "Pluto"--"The Phone Company" -in Phoenix, Arizona, run by Ken MacLeod of the Maricopa County -Sheriff's office--and Sgt. Dan Pasquale's board in Fremont, California. -Sysops posed as hackers, and swiftly garnered coteries of ardent users, -who posted codes and loaded pirate software with abandon, -and came to a sticky end. - -Sting boards, like other boards, are cheap to operate, -very cheap by the standards of undercover police operations. -Once accepted by the local underground, sysops will likely be -invited into other pirate boards, where they can compile more dossiers. -And when the sting is announced and the worst offenders arrested, -the publicity is generally gratifying. The resultant paranoia -in the underground--perhaps more justly described as a "deterrence effect"-- -tends to quell local lawbreaking for quite a while. - -Obviously police do not have to beat the underbrush for hackers. -On the contrary, they can go trolling for them. Those caught -can be grilled. Some become useful informants. They can lead -the way to pirate boards all across the country. - -And boards all across the country showed the sticky -fingerprints of Phrack, and of that loudest and most -flagrant of all underground groups, the "Legion of Doom." - -The term "Legion of Doom" came from comic books. The Legion of Doom, -a conspiracy of costumed super- villains headed by the chrome-domed -criminal ultra- mastermind Lex Luthor, gave Superman a lot of four-color -graphic trouble for a number of decades. Of course, Superman, -that exemplar of Truth, Justice, and the American Way, -always won in the long run. This didn't matter to the hacker Doomsters-- -"Legion of Doom" was not some thunderous and evil Satanic reference, -it was not meant to be taken seriously. "Legion of Doom" came -from funny-books and was supposed to be funny. - -"Legion of Doom" did have a good mouthfilling ring to it, though. -It sounded really cool. Other groups, such as the "Farmers of Doom," -closely allied to LoD, recognized this grandiloquent quality, -and made fun of it. There was even a hacker group called -"Justice League of America," named after Superman's club -of true-blue crimefighting superheros. - -But they didn't last; the Legion did. - -The original Legion of Doom, hanging out on Quasi Moto's Plovernet board, -were phone phreaks. They weren't much into computers. "Lex Luthor" himself -(who was under eighteen when he formed the Legion) was a COSMOS expert, -COSMOS being the "Central System for Mainframe Operations," -a telco internal computer network. Lex would eventually become -quite a dab hand at breaking into IBM mainframes, but although -everyone liked Lex and admired his attitude, he was not considered -a truly accomplished computer intruder. Nor was he the "mastermind" -of the Legion of Doom--LoD were never big on formal leadership. -As a regular on Plovernet and sysop of his "Legion of Doom BBS," -Lex was the Legion's cheerleader and recruiting officer. - -Legion of Doom began on the ruins of an earlier phreak group, -The Knights of Shadow. Later, LoD was to subsume the personnel -of the hacker group "Tribunal of Knowledge." People came and went -constantly in LoD; groups split up or formed offshoots. - -Early on, the LoD phreaks befriended a few computer-intrusion -enthusiasts, who became the associated "Legion of Hackers." -Then the two groups conflated into the "Legion of Doom/Hackers," -or LoD/H. When the original "hacker" wing, Messrs. "Compu-Phreak" -and "Phucked Agent 04," found other matters to occupy their time, -the extra "/H" slowly atrophied out of the name; but by this time -the phreak wing, Messrs. Lex Luthor, "Blue Archer," "Gary Seven," -"Kerrang Khan," "Master of Impact," "Silver Spy," "The Marauder," -and "The Videosmith," had picked up a plethora of intrusion -expertise and had become a force to be reckoned with. - -LoD members seemed to have an instinctive understanding -that the way to real power in the underground lay through -covert publicity. LoD were flagrant. Not only was it one -of the earliest groups, but the members took pains to widely -distribute their illicit knowledge. Some LoD members, -like "The Mentor," were close to evangelical about it. -Legion of Doom Technical Journal began to show up on boards -throughout the underground. - -LoD Technical Journal was named in cruel parody -of the ancient and honored AT&T Technical Journal. -The material in these two publications was quite similar-- -much of it, adopted from public journals and discussions -in the telco community. And yet, the predatory attitude -of LoD made even its most innocuous data seem deeply sinister; -an outrage; a clear and present danger. - -To see why this should be, let's consider the following -(invented) paragraphs, as a kind of thought experiment. - -(A) "W. Fred Brown, AT&T Vice President for -Advanced Technical Development, testified May 8 -at a Washington hearing of the National Telecommunications -and Information Administration (NTIA), regarding -Bellcore's GARDEN project. GARDEN (Generalized -Automatic Remote Distributed Electronic Network) is a -telephone-switch programming tool that makes it possible -to develop new telecom services, including hold-on-hold -and customized message transfers, from any keypad terminal, -within seconds. The GARDEN prototype combines centrex -lines with a minicomputer using UNIX operating system software." - -(B) "Crimson Flash 512 of the Centrex Mobsters reports: -D00dz, you wouldn't believe this GARDEN bullshit Bellcore's -just come up with! Now you don't even need a lousy Commodore -to reprogram a switch--just log on to GARDEN as a technician, -and you can reprogram switches right off the keypad in any -public phone booth! You can give yourself hold-on-hold -and customized message transfers, and best of all, -the thing is run off (notoriously insecure) centrex lines -using--get this--standard UNIX software! Ha ha ha ha!" - -Message (A), couched in typical techno-bureaucratese, -appears tedious and almost unreadable. (A) scarcely seems -threatening or menacing. Message (B), on the other hand, -is a dreadful thing, prima facie evidence of a dire conspiracy, -definitely not the kind of thing you want your teenager reading. - -The INFORMATION, however, is identical. It is PUBLIC -information, presented before the federal government in -an open hearing. It is not "secret." It is not "proprietary." -It is not even "confidential." On the contrary, the -development of advanced software systems is a matter -of great public pride to Bellcore. - -However, when Bellcore publicly announces a project of this kind, -it expects a certain attitude from the public--something along -the lines of GOSH WOW, YOU GUYS ARE GREAT, KEEP THAT UP, WHATEVER IT IS-- -certainly not cruel mimickry, one-upmanship and outrageous speculations -about possible security holes. - -Now put yourself in the place of a policeman confronted by -an outraged parent, or telco official, with a copy of Version (B). -This well-meaning citizen, to his horror, has discovered -a local bulletin-board carrying outrageous stuff like (B), -which his son is examining with a deep and unhealthy interest. -If (B) were printed in a book or magazine, you, as an American -law enforcement officer, would know that it would take -a hell of a lot of trouble to do anything about it; -but it doesn't take technical genius to recognize that -if there's a computer in your area harboring stuff like (B), -there's going to be trouble. - -In fact, if you ask around, any computer-literate cop -will tell you straight out that boards with stuff like (B) -are the SOURCE of trouble. And the WORST source of trouble -on boards are the ringleaders inventing and spreading stuff like (B). -If it weren't for these jokers, there wouldn't BE any trouble. - -And Legion of Doom were on boards like nobody else. -Plovernet. The Legion of Doom Board. The Farmers of Doom Board. -Metal Shop. OSUNY. Blottoland. Private Sector. Atlantis. -Digital Logic. Hell Phrozen Over. - -LoD members also ran their own boards. "Silver Spy" started -his own board, "Catch-22," considered one of the heaviest around. -So did "Mentor," with his "Phoenix Project." When they didn't run boards -themselves, they showed up on other people's boards, to brag, boast, -and strut. And where they themselves didn't go, their philes went, -carrying evil knowledge and an even more evil attitude. - -As early as 1986, the police were under the vague impression -that EVERYONE in the underground was Legion of Doom. -LoD was never that large--considerably smaller than either -"Metal Communications" or "The Administration," for instance-- -but LoD got tremendous press. Especially in Phrack, -which at times read like an LoD fan magazine; and Phrack -was everywhere, especially in the offices of telco security. -You couldn't GET busted as a phone phreak, a hacker, -or even a lousy codes kid or warez dood, without the cops -asking if you were LoD. - -This was a difficult charge to deny, as LoD never -distributed membership badges or laminated ID cards. -If they had, they would likely have died out quickly, -for turnover in their membership was considerable. -LoD was less a high-tech street-gang than an ongoing -state-of-mind. LoD was the Gang That Refused to Die. -By 1990, LoD had RULED for ten years, and it seemed WEIRD -to police that they were continually busting people who were -only sixteen years old. All these teenage small-timers -were pleading the tiresome hacker litany of "just curious, -no criminal intent." Somewhere at the center of this -conspiracy there had to be some serious adult masterminds, -not this seemingly endless supply of myopic suburban -white kids with high SATs and funny haircuts. - -There was no question that most any American hacker -arrested would "know" LoD. They knew the handles -of contributors to LoD Tech Journal, and were likely -to have learned their craft through LoD boards and LoD activism. -But they'd never met anyone from LoD. Even some of the -rotating cadre who were actually and formally "in LoD" -knew one another only by board-mail and pseudonyms. -This was a highly unconventional profile for a criminal conspiracy. -Computer networking, and the rapid evolution of the digital underground, -made the situation very diffuse and confusing. - -Furthermore, a big reputation in the digital underground -did not coincide with one's willingness to commit "crimes." -Instead, reputation was based on cleverness and technical mastery. -As a result, it often seemed that the HEAVIER the hackers were, -the LESS likely they were to have committed any kind of common, -easily prosecutable crime. There were some hackers who could really steal. -And there were hackers who could really hack. But the two groups didn't seem -to overlap much, if at all. For instance, most people in the underground -looked up to "Emmanuel Goldstein" of 2600 as a hacker demigod. -But Goldstein's publishing activities were entirely legal-- -Goldstein just printed dodgy stuff and talked about politics, -he didn't even hack. When you came right down to it, -Goldstein spent half his time complaining that computer security -WASN'T STRONG ENOUGH and ought to be drastically improved -across the board! - -Truly heavy-duty hackers, those with serious technical skills -who had earned the respect of the underground, never stole money -or abused credit cards. Sometimes they might abuse phone-codes-- -but often, they seemed to get all the free phone-time they wanted -without leaving a trace of any kind. - -The best hackers, the most powerful and technically accomplished, -were not professional fraudsters. They raided computers habitually, -but wouldn't alter anything, or damage anything. They didn't even steal -computer equipment--most had day-jobs messing with hardware, -and could get all the cheap secondhand equipment they wanted. -The hottest hackers, unlike the teenage wannabes, weren't snobs -about fancy or expensive hardware. Their machines tended to be -raw second-hand digital hot-rods full of custom add-ons that -they'd cobbled together out of chickenwire, memory chips and spit. -Some were adults, computer software writers and consultants by trade, -and making quite good livings at it. Some of them ACTUALLY WORKED -FOR THE PHONE COMPANY--and for those, the "hackers" actually found -under the skirts of Ma Bell, there would be little mercy in 1990. - -It has long been an article of faith in the -underground that the "best" hackers never get caught. -They're far too smart, supposedly. They never get caught -because they never boast, brag, or strut. These demigods -may read underground boards (with a condescending smile), -but they never say anything there. The "best" hackers, -according to legend, are adult computer professionals, -such as mainframe system administrators, who already know -the ins and outs of their particular brand of security. -Even the "best" hacker can't break in to just any computer at random: -the knowledge of security holes is too specialized, varying widely -with different software and hardware. But if people are employed to run, -say, a UNIX mainframe or a VAX/VMS machine, then they tend to learn -security from the inside out. Armed with this knowledge, -they can look into most anybody else's UNIX or VMS -without much trouble or risk, if they want to. -And, according to hacker legend, of course they want to, -so of course they do. They just don't make a big deal -of what they've done. So nobody ever finds out. - -It is also an article of faith in the underground that -professional telco people "phreak" like crazed weasels. -OF COURSE they spy on Madonna's phone calls--I mean, -WOULDN'T YOU? Of course they give themselves free long- -distance--why the hell should THEY pay, they're running -the whole shebang! - -It has, as a third matter, long been an article of faith -that any hacker caught can escape serious punishment if -he confesses HOW HE DID IT. Hackers seem to believe -that governmental agencies and large corporations are -blundering about in cyberspace like eyeless jellyfish -or cave salamanders. They feel that these large -but pathetically stupid organizations will proffer up -genuine gratitude, and perhaps even a security post -and a big salary, to the hot-shot intruder who will deign -to reveal to them the supreme genius of his modus operandi. - -In the case of longtime LoD member "Control-C," -this actually happened, more or less. Control-C had led -Michigan Bell a merry chase, and when captured in 1987, -he turned out to be a bright and apparently physically -harmless young fanatic, fascinated by phones. There was -no chance in hell that Control-C would actually repay the -enormous and largely theoretical sums in long-distance -service that he had accumulated from Michigan Bell. -He could always be indicted for fraud or computer-intrusion, -but there seemed little real point in this--he hadn't -physically damaged any computer. He'd just plead guilty, -and he'd likely get the usual slap-on-the-wrist, -and in the meantime it would be a big hassle for Michigan Bell -just to bring up the case. But if kept on the payroll, -he might at least keep his fellow hackers at bay. - -There were uses for him. For instance, a contrite -Control-C was featured on Michigan Bell internal posters, -sternly warning employees to shred their trash. -He'd always gotten most of his best inside info from -"trashing"--raiding telco dumpsters, for useful data -indiscreetly thrown away. He signed these posters, too. -Control-C had become something like a Michigan Bell mascot. -And in fact, Control-C DID keep other hackers at bay. -Little hackers were quite scared of Control-C and his -heavy-duty Legion of Doom friends. And big hackers WERE -his friends and didn't want to screw up his cushy situation. - -No matter what one might say of LoD, they did stick together. -When "Wasp," an apparently genuinely malicious New York hacker, -began crashing Bellcore machines, Control-C received swift volunteer -help from "the Mentor" and the Georgia LoD wing made up of -"The Prophet," "Urvile," and "Leftist." Using Mentor's Phoenix -Project board to coordinate, the Doomsters helped telco security -to trap Wasp, by luring him into a machine with a tap -and line-trace installed. Wasp lost. LoD won! And my, did they brag. - -Urvile, Prophet and Leftist were well-qualified for this activity, -probably more so even than the quite accomplished Control-C. -The Georgia boys knew all about phone switching-stations. -Though relative johnny-come-latelies in the Legion of Doom, -they were considered some of LoD's heaviest guys, -into the hairiest systems around. They had the good fortune -to live in or near Atlanta, home of the sleepy and apparently -tolerant BellSouth RBOC. - -As RBOC security went, BellSouth were "cake." US West (of Arizona, -the Rockies and the Pacific Northwest) were tough and aggressive, -probably the heaviest RBOC around. Pacific Bell, California's PacBell, -were sleek, high-tech, and longtime veterans of the LA phone-phreak wars. -NYNEX had the misfortune to run the New York City area, and were warily -prepared for most anything. Even Michigan Bell, a division of the -Ameritech RBOC, at least had the elementary sense to hire their own hacker -as a useful scarecrow. But BellSouth, even though their corporate P.R. -proclaimed them to have "Everything You Expect From a Leader," were pathetic. - -When rumor about LoD's mastery of Georgia's switching network got around -to BellSouth through Bellcore and telco security scuttlebutt, -they at first refused to believe it. If you paid serious attention -to every rumor out and about these hacker kids, you would hear all kinds -of wacko saucer-nut nonsense: that the National Security Agency -monitored all American phone calls, that the CIA and DEA tracked -traffic on bulletin-boards with word-analysis programs, -that the Condor could start World War III from a payphone. - -If there were hackers into BellSouth switching-stations, then how come -nothing had happened? Nothing had been hurt. BellSouth's machines -weren't crashing. BellSouth wasn't suffering especially badly from fraud. -BellSouth's customers weren't complaining. BellSouth was headquartered -in Atlanta, ambitious metropolis of the new high-tech Sunbelt; -and BellSouth was upgrading its network by leaps and bounds, -digitizing the works left right and center. They could hardly be -considered sluggish or naive. BellSouth's technical expertise -was second to none, thank you kindly. But then came the Florida business. - -On June 13, 1989, callers to the Palm Beach County Probation Department, -in Delray Beach, Florida, found themselves involved in a remarkable -discussion with a phone-sex worker named "Tina" in New York State. -Somehow, ANY call to this probation office near Miami was instantly -and magically transported across state lines, at no extra charge to the user, -to a pornographic phone-sex hotline hundreds of miles away! - -This practical joke may seem utterly hilarious at first hearing, -and indeed there was a good deal of chuckling about it in -phone phreak circles, including the Autumn 1989 issue of 2600. -But for Southern Bell (the division of the BellSouth RBOC -supplying local service for Florida, Georgia, North Carolina -and South Carolina), this was a smoking gun. For the first time ever, -a computer intruder had broken into a BellSouth central office -switching station and re-programmed it! - -Or so BellSouth thought in June 1989. Actually, LoD members had been -frolicking harmlessly in BellSouth switches since September 1987. -The stunt of June 13--call-forwarding a number through manipulation -of a switching station--was child's play for hackers as accomplished -as the Georgia wing of LoD. Switching calls interstate sounded like -a big deal, but it took only four lines of code to accomplish this. -An easy, yet more discreet, stunt, would be to call-forward another -number to your own house. If you were careful and considerate, -and changed the software back later, then not a soul would know. -Except you. And whoever you had bragged to about it. - -As for BellSouth, what they didn't know wouldn't hurt them. - -Except now somebody had blown the whole thing wide open, and BellSouth knew. - -A now alerted and considerably paranoid BellSouth began searching switches -right and left for signs of impropriety, in that hot summer of 1989. -No fewer than forty-two BellSouth employees were put on 12-hour shifts, -twenty-four hours a day, for two solid months, poring over records -and monitoring computers for any sign of phony access. These forty-two -overworked experts were known as BellSouth's "Intrusion Task Force." - -What the investigators found astounded them. Proprietary telco databases -had been manipulated: phone numbers had been created out of thin air, -with no users' names and no addresses. And perhaps worst of all, -no charges and no records of use. The new digital ReMOB (Remote Observation) -diagnostic feature had been extensively tampered with--hackers had learned to -reprogram ReMOB software, so that they could listen in on any switch-routed -call at their leisure! They were using telco property to SPY! - -The electrifying news went out throughout law enforcement in 1989. -It had never really occurred to anyone at BellSouth that their prized -and brand-new digital switching-stations could be RE-PROGRAMMED. -People seemed utterly amazed that anyone could have the nerve. -Of course these switching stations were "computers," and everybody -knew hackers liked to "break into computers:" but telephone people's -computers were DIFFERENT from normal people's computers. - -The exact reason WHY these computers were "different" was -rather ill-defined. It certainly wasn't the extent of their security. -The security on these BellSouth computers was lousy; the AIMSX computers, -for instance, didn't even have passwords. But there was no question that -BellSouth strongly FELT that their computers were very different indeed. -And if there were some criminals out there who had not gotten that message, -BellSouth was determined to see that message taught. - -After all, a 5ESS switching station was no mere bookkeeping system for -some local chain of florists. Public service depended on these stations. -Public SAFETY depended on these stations. - -And hackers, lurking in there call-forwarding or ReMobbing, could spy -on anybody in the local area! They could spy on telco officials! -They could spy on police stations! They could spy on local offices -of the Secret Service. . . . - -In 1989, electronic cops and hacker-trackers began using scrambler-phones -and secured lines. It only made sense. There was no telling who was into -those systems. Whoever they were, they sounded scary. This was some -new level of antisocial daring. Could be West German hackers, in the pay -of the KGB. That too had seemed a weird and farfetched notion, -until Clifford Stoll had poked and prodded a sluggish Washington -law-enforcement bureaucracy into investigating a computer intrusion -that turned out to be exactly that--HACKERS, IN THE PAY OF THE KGB! -Stoll, the systems manager for an Internet lab in Berkeley California, -had ended up on the front page of the New Nork Times, proclaimed a national -hero in the first true story of international computer espionage. -Stoll's counterspy efforts, which he related in a bestselling book, -The Cuckoo's Egg, in 1989, had established the credibility of `hacking' -as a possible threat to national security. The United States Secret Service -doesn't mess around when it suspects a possible action by a foreign -intelligence apparat. - -The Secret Service scrambler-phones and secured lines put -a tremendous kink in law enforcement's ability to operate freely; -to get the word out, cooperate, prevent misunderstandings. -Nevertheless, 1989 scarcely seemed the time for half-measures. -If the police and Secret Service themselves were not operationally secure, -then how could they reasonably demand measures of security from -private enterprise? At least, the inconvenience made people aware -of the seriousness of the threat. - -If there was a final spur needed to get the police off the dime, -it came in the realization that the emergency 911 system was vulnerable. -The 911 system has its own specialized software, but it is run on the same -digital switching systems as the rest of the telephone network. -911 is not physically different from normal telephony. But it is -certainly culturally different, because this is the area of -telephonic cyberspace reserved for the police and emergency services. - -Your average policeman may not know much about hackers or phone-phreaks. -Computer people are weird; even computer COPS are rather weird; -the stuff they do is hard to figure out. But a threat to the 911 system -is anything but an abstract threat. If the 911 system goes, people can die. - -Imagine being in a car-wreck, staggering to a phone-booth, -punching 911 and hearing "Tina" pick up the phone-sex line -somewhere in New York! The situation's no longer comical, somehow. - -And was it possible? No question. Hackers had attacked 911 -systems before. Phreaks can max-out 911 systems just by siccing -a bunch of computer-modems on them in tandem, dialling them over -and over until they clog. That's very crude and low-tech, -but it's still a serious business. - -The time had come for action. It was time to take stern measures -with the underground. It was time to start picking up the dropped threads, -the loose edges, the bits of braggadocio here and there; it was time to get -on the stick and start putting serious casework together. Hackers weren't -"invisible." They THOUGHT they were invisible; but the truth was, -they had just been tolerated too long. - -Under sustained police attention in the summer of '89, the digital -underground began to unravel as never before. - -The first big break in the case came very early on: July 1989, -the following month. The perpetrator of the "Tina" switch was caught, -and confessed. His name was "Fry Guy," a 16-year-old in Indiana. -Fry Guy had been a very wicked young man. - -Fry Guy had earned his handle from a stunt involving French fries. -Fry Guy had filched the log-in of a local MacDonald's manager -and had logged-on to the MacDonald's mainframe on the Sprint -Telenet system. Posing as the manager, Fry Guy had altered -MacDonald's records, and given some teenage hamburger-flipping -friends of his, generous raises. He had not been caught. - -Emboldened by success, Fry Guy moved on to credit-card abuse. -Fry Guy was quite an accomplished talker; with a gift for -"social engineering." If you can do "social engineering" ---fast-talk, fake-outs, impersonation, conning, scamming-- -then card abuse comes easy. (Getting away with it in -the long run is another question). - -Fry Guy had run across "Urvile" of the Legion of Doom -on the ALTOS Chat board in Bonn, Germany. ALTOS Chat -was a sophisticated board, accessible through globe-spanning -computer networks like BITnet, Tymnet, and Telenet. -ALTOS was much frequented by members of Germany's -Chaos Computer Club. Two Chaos hackers who hung out on ALTOS, -"Jaeger" and "Pengo," had been the central villains of -Clifford Stoll's Cuckoo's Egg case: consorting in East Berlin -with a spymaster from the KGB, and breaking into American -computers for hire, through the Internet. - -When LoD members learned the story of Jaeger's depredations -from Stoll's book, they were rather less than impressed, -technically speaking. On LoD's own favorite board of the moment, -"Black Ice," LoD members bragged that they themselves could have done -all the Chaos break-ins in a week flat! Nevertheless, LoD were grudgingly -impressed by the Chaos rep, the sheer hairy-eyed daring of hash-smoking -anarchist hackers who had rubbed shoulders with the fearsome big-boys -of international Communist espionage. LoD members sometimes traded -bits of knowledge with friendly German hackers on ALTOS--phone numbers -for vulnerable VAX/VMS computers in Georgia, for instance. -Dutch and British phone phreaks, and the Australian clique of -"Phoenix," "Nom," and "Electron," were ALTOS regulars, too. -In underground circles, to hang out on ALTOS was considered -the sign of an elite dude, a sophisticated hacker of the -international digital jet-set. - -Fry Guy quickly learned how to raid information from credit-card -consumer-reporting agencies. He had over a hundred stolen credit-card -numbers in his notebooks, and upwards of a thousand swiped long-distance -access codes. He knew how to get onto Altos, and how to talk the talk of -the underground convincingly. He now wheedled knowledge of switching-station -tricks from Urvile on the ALTOS system. - -Combining these two forms of knowledge enabled Fry Guy to bootstrap -his way up to a new form of wire-fraud. First, he'd snitched credit card -numbers from credit-company computers. The data he copied included names, -addresses and phone numbers of the random card-holders. - -Then Fry Guy, impersonating a card-holder, called up Western Union -and asked for a cash advance on "his" credit card. Western Union, -as a security guarantee, would call the customer back, at home, -to verify the transaction. - -But, just as he had switched the Florida probation office to "Tina" -in New York, Fry Guy switched the card-holder's number to a local pay-phone. -There he would lurk in wait, muddying his trail by routing and re-routing -the call, through switches as far away as Canada. When the call came through, -he would boldly "social-engineer," or con, the Western Union people, pretending -to be the legitimate card-holder. Since he'd answered the proper phone number, -the deception was not very hard. Western Union's money was then shipped to -a confederate of Fry Guy's in his home town in Indiana. - -Fry Guy and his cohort, using LoD techniques, stole six thousand dollars -from Western Union between December 1988 and July 1989. They also dabbled -in ordering delivery of stolen goods through card-fraud. Fry Guy -was intoxicated with success. The sixteen-year-old fantasized wildly -to hacker rivals, boasting that he'd used rip-off money to hire himself -a big limousine, and had driven out-of-state with a groupie from -his favorite heavy-metal band, Motley Crue. - -Armed with knowledge, power, and a gratifying stream of free money, -Fry Guy now took it upon himself to call local representatives -of Indiana Bell security, to brag, boast, strut, and utter -tormenting warnings that his powerful friends in the notorious -Legion of Doom could crash the national telephone network. -Fry Guy even named a date for the scheme: the Fourth of July, -a national holiday. - -This egregious example of the begging-for-arrest syndrome was shortly -followed by Fry Guy's arrest. After the Indiana telephone company figured -out who he was, the Secret Service had DNRs--Dialed Number Recorders-- -installed on his home phone lines. These devices are not taps, and can't -record the substance of phone calls, but they do record the phone numbers -of all calls going in and out. Tracing these numbers showed Fry Guy's -long-distance code fraud, his extensive ties to pirate bulletin boards, -and numerous personal calls to his LoD friends in Atlanta. By July 11, -1989, Prophet, Urvile and Leftist also had Secret Service DNR -"pen registers" installed on their own lines. - -The Secret Service showed up in force at Fry Guy's house on July 22, 1989, -to the horror of his unsuspecting parents. The raiders were led by -a special agent from the Secret Service's Indianapolis office. -However, the raiders were accompanied and advised by Timothy M. Foley -of the Secret Service's Chicago office (a gentleman about whom -we will soon be hearing a great deal). - -Following federal computer-crime techniques that had been standard -since the early 1980s, the Secret Service searched the house thoroughly, -and seized all of Fry Guy's electronic equipment and notebooks. -All Fry Guy's equipment went out the door in the custody of the -Secret Service, which put a swift end to his depredations. - -The USSS interrogated Fry Guy at length. His case was put in the charge -of Deborah Daniels, the federal US Attorney for the Southern District -of Indiana. Fry Guy was charged with eleven counts of computer fraud, -unauthorized computer access, and wire fraud. The evidence was thorough -and irrefutable. For his part, Fry Guy blamed his corruption on the -Legion of Doom and offered to testify against them. - -Fry Guy insisted that the Legion intended to crash the phone system -on a national holiday. And when AT&T crashed on Martin Luther King Day, -1990, this lent a credence to his claim that genuinely alarmed telco -security and the Secret Service. - -Fry Guy eventually pled guilty on May 31, 1990. On September 14, -he was sentenced to forty-four months' probation and four hundred hours' -community service. He could have had it much worse; but it made sense -to prosecutors to take it easy on this teenage minor, while zeroing -in on the notorious kingpins of the Legion of Doom. - -But the case against LoD had nagging flaws. Despite the best effort -of investigators, it was impossible to prove that the Legion had crashed -the phone system on January 15, because they, in fact, hadn't done so. -The investigations of 1989 did show that certain members of -the Legion of Doom had achieved unprecedented power over the telco -switching stations, and that they were in active conspiracy -to obtain more power yet. Investigators were privately convinced -that the Legion of Doom intended to do awful things with this knowledge, -but mere evil intent was not enough to put them in jail. - -And although the Atlanta Three--Prophet, Leftist, and especially Urvile-- -had taught Fry Guy plenty, they were not themselves credit-card fraudsters. -The only thing they'd "stolen" was long-distance service--and since they'd -done much of that through phone-switch manipulation, there was no easy way -to judge how much they'd "stolen," or whether this practice was even "theft" -of any easily recognizable kind. - -Fry Guy's theft of long-distance codes had cost the phone companies plenty. -The theft of long-distance service may be a fairly theoretical "loss," -but it costs genuine money and genuine time to delete all those stolen codes, -and to re-issue new codes to the innocent owners of those corrupted codes. -The owners of the codes themselves are victimized, and lose time and money -and peace of mind in the hassle. And then there were the credit-card victims -to deal with, too, and Western Union. When it came to rip-off, Fry Guy was -far more of a thief than LoD. It was only when it came to actual computer -expertise that Fry Guy was small potatoes. - -The Atlanta Legion thought most "rules" of cyberspace were for rodents -and losers, but they DID have rules. THEY NEVER CRASHED ANYTHING, -AND THEY NEVER TOOK MONEY. These were rough rules-of-thumb, and -rather dubious principles when it comes to the ethical subtleties -of cyberspace, but they enabled the Atlanta Three to operate with -a relatively clear conscience (though never with peace of mind). - -If you didn't hack for money, if you weren't robbing people of actual funds ---money in the bank, that is-- then nobody REALLY got hurt, in LoD's opinion. -"Theft of service" was a bogus issue, and "intellectual property" was -a bad joke. But LoD had only elitist contempt for rip-off artists, -"leechers," thieves. They considered themselves clean. In their opinion, -if you didn't smash-up or crash any systems --(well, not on purpose, anyhow-- -accidents can happen, just ask Robert Morris) then it was very unfair -to call you a "vandal" or a "cracker." When you were hanging out on-line -with your "pals" in telco security, you could face them down from the higher -plane of hacker morality. And you could mock the police from the supercilious -heights of your hacker's quest for pure knowledge. - -But from the point of view of law enforcement and telco security, however, -Fry Guy was not really dangerous. The Atlanta Three WERE dangerous. -It wasn't the crimes they were committing, but the DANGER, -the potential hazard, the sheer TECHNICAL POWER LoD had accumulated, -that had made the situation untenable. Fry Guy was not LoD. -He'd never laid eyes on anyone in LoD; his only contacts with them -had been electronic. Core members of the Legion of Doom tended to meet -physically for conventions every year or so, to get drunk, give each other -the hacker high-sign, send out for pizza and ravage hotel suites. -Fry Guy had never done any of this. Deborah Daniels assessed Fry Guy -accurately as "an LoD wannabe." - -Nevertheless Fry Guy's crimes would be directly attributed to LoD -in much future police propaganda. LoD would be described as -"a closely knit group" involved in "numerous illegal activities" -including "stealing and modifying individual credit histories," -and "fraudulently obtaining money and property." Fry Guy did this, -but the Atlanta Three didn't; they simply weren't into theft, -but rather intrusion. This caused a strange kink in -the prosecution's strategy. LoD were accused of -"disseminating information about attacking computers -to other computer hackers in an effort to shift the focus -of law enforcement to those other hackers and away from the Legion of Doom." - -This last accusation (taken directly from a press release by the Chicago -Computer Fraud and Abuse Task Force) sounds particularly far-fetched. -One might conclude at this point that investigators would have been -well-advised to go ahead and "shift their focus" from the "Legion of Doom." -Maybe they SHOULD concentrate on "those other hackers"--the ones who were -actually stealing money and physical objects. - -But the Hacker Crackdown of 1990 was not a simple policing action. -It wasn't meant just to walk the beat in cyberspace--it was a CRACKDOWN, -a deliberate attempt to nail the core of the operation, to send a dire -and potent message that would settle the hash of the digital underground -for good. - -By this reasoning, Fry Guy wasn't much more than the electronic equivalent -of a cheap streetcorner dope dealer. As long as the masterminds of LoD were -still flagrantly operating, pushing their mountains of illicit knowledge -right and left, and whipping up enthusiasm for blatant lawbreaking, -then there would be an INFINITE SUPPLY of Fry Guys. - -Because LoD were flagrant, they had left trails everywhere, -to be picked up by law enforcement in New York, Indiana, -Florida, Texas, Arizona, Missouri, even Australia. -But 1990's war on the Legion of Doom was led out of Illinois, -by the Chicago Computer Fraud and Abuse Task Force. - -# - -The Computer Fraud and Abuse Task Force, led by federal prosecutor -William J. Cook, had started in 1987 and had swiftly become one -of the most aggressive local "dedicated computer-crime units." -Chicago was a natural home for such a group. The world's first -computer bulletin-board system had been invented in Illinois. -The state of Illinois had some of the nation's first and sternest -computer crime laws. Illinois State Police were markedly alert -to the possibilities of white-collar crime and electronic fraud. - -And William J. Cook in particular was a rising star in -electronic crime-busting. He and his fellow federal prosecutors -at the U.S. Attorney's office in Chicago had a tight relation -with the Secret Service, especially go-getting Chicago-based agent -Timothy Foley. While Cook and his Department of Justice colleagues -plotted strategy, Foley was their man on the street. - -Throughout the 1980s, the federal government had given prosecutors -an armory of new, untried legal tools against computer crime. -Cook and his colleagues were pioneers in the use of these new statutes -in the real-life cut-and-thrust of the federal courtroom. - -On October 2, 1986, the US Senate had passed the -"Computer Fraud and Abuse Act" unanimously, but there -were pitifully few convictions under this statute. -Cook's group took their name from this statute, -since they were determined to transform this powerful but -rather theoretical Act of Congress into a real-life engine -of legal destruction against computer fraudsters and scofflaws. - -It was not a question of merely discovering crimes, -investigating them, and then trying and punishing their -perpetrators. The Chicago unit, like most everyone else -in the business, already KNEW who the bad guys were: -the Legion of Doom and the writers and editors of Phrack. -The task at hand was to find some legal means of putting -these characters away. - -This approach might seem a bit dubious, to someone not -acquainted with the gritty realities of prosecutorial work. -But prosecutors don't put people in jail for crimes -they have committed; they put people in jail for crimes -they have committed THAT CAN BE PROVED IN COURT. -Chicago federal police put Al Capone in prison -for income-tax fraud. Chicago is a big town, -with a rough-and-ready bare-knuckle tradition -on both sides of the law. - -Fry Guy had broken the case wide open and alerted telco security -to the scope of the problem. But Fry Guy's crimes would not -put the Atlanta Three behind bars--much less the wacko underground -journalists of Phrack. So on July 22, 1989, the same day that -Fry Guy was raided in Indiana, the Secret Service descended upon -the Atlanta Three. - -This was likely inevitable. By the summer of 1989, law enforcement -were closing in on the Atlanta Three from at least six directions at once. -First, there were the leads from Fry Guy, which had led to the DNR registers -being installed on the lines of the Atlanta Three. The DNR evidence alone -would have finished them off, sooner or later. - -But second, the Atlanta lads were already well-known to Control-C -and his telco security sponsors. LoD's contacts with telco security -had made them overconfident and even more boastful than usual; -they felt that they had powerful friends in high places, -and that they were being openly tolerated by telco security. -But BellSouth's Intrusion Task Force were hot on the trail of LoD -and sparing no effort or expense. - -The Atlanta Three had also been identified by name and listed -on the extensive anti-hacker files maintained, and retailed for pay, -by private security operative John Maxfield of Detroit. -Maxfield, who had extensive ties to telco security -and many informants in the underground, was a bete noire -of the Phrack crowd, and the dislike was mutual. - - -The Atlanta Three themselves had written articles for Phrack. -This boastful act could not possibly escape telco and law enforcement -attention. - -"Knightmare," a high-school age hacker from Arizona, -was a close friend and disciple of Atlanta LoD, -but he had been nabbed by the formidable Arizona -Organized Crime and Racketeering Unit. Knightmare was -on some of LoD's favorite boards--"Black Ice" in particular-- -and was privy to their secrets. And to have Gail Thackeray, -the Assistant Attorney General of Arizona, on one's trail -was a dreadful peril for any hacker. - -And perhaps worst of all, Prophet had committed a major blunder -by passing an illicitly copied BellSouth computer-file to Knight Lightning, -who had published it in Phrack. This, as we will see, was an act of dire -consequence for almost everyone concerned. - -On July 22, 1989, the Secret Service showed up at the Leftist's house, -where he lived with his parents. A massive squad of some twenty officers -surrounded the building: Secret Service, federal marshals, local police, -possibly BellSouth telco security; it was hard to tell in the crush. -Leftist's dad, at work in his basement office, first noticed -a muscular stranger in plain clothes crashing through the -back yard with a drawn pistol. As more strangers poured -into the house, Leftist's dad naturally assumed there was -an armed robbery in progress. - -Like most hacker parents, Leftist's mom and dad had only the vaguest -notions of what their son had been up to all this time. Leftist had -a day-job repairing computer hardware. His obsession with computers -seemed a bit odd, but harmless enough, and likely to produce a well- -paying career. The sudden, overwhelming raid left Leftist's -parents traumatized. - -The Leftist himself had been out after work with his co-workers, -surrounding a couple of pitchers of margaritas. As he came trucking -on tequila-numbed feet up the pavement, toting a bag full of floppy-disks, -he noticed a large number of unmarked cars parked in his driveway. -All the cars sported tiny microwave antennas. - -The Secret Service had knocked the front door off its hinges, -almost flattening his mom. - -Inside, Leftist was greeted by Special Agent James Cool -of the US Secret Service, Atlanta office. Leftist was flabbergasted. -He'd never met a Secret Service agent before. He could not imagine -that he'd ever done anything worthy of federal attention. -He'd always figured that if his activities became intolerable, -one of his contacts in telco security would give him a private -phone-call and tell him to knock it off. - -But now Leftist was pat-searched for weapons by grim professionals, -and his bag of floppies was quickly seized. He and his parents were -all shepherded into separate rooms and grilled at length as a score -of officers scoured their home for anything electronic. - -Leftist was horrified as his treasured IBM AT personal computer -with its forty-meg hard disk, and his recently purchased 80386 IBM-clone -with a whopping hundred-meg hard disk, both went swiftly out the door -in Secret Service custody. They also seized all his disks, all his notebooks, -and a tremendous booty in dogeared telco documents that Leftist had snitched -out of trash dumpsters. - -Leftist figured the whole thing for a big misunderstanding. -He'd never been into MILITARY computers. He wasn't a SPY or a COMMUNIST. -He was just a good ol' Georgia hacker, and now he just wanted all these -people out of the house. But it seemed they wouldn't go until he made -some kind of statement. - -And so, he levelled with them. - -And that, Leftist said later from his federal prison camp in Talladega, -Alabama, was a big mistake. The Atlanta area was unique, -in that it had three members of the Legion of Doom who actually -occupied more or less the same physical locality. Unlike the rest -of LoD, who tended to associate by phone and computer, -Atlanta LoD actually WERE "tightly knit." It was no real -surprise that the Secret Service agents apprehending Urvile -at the computer-labs at Georgia Tech, would discover Prophet -with him as well. - -Urvile, a 21-year-old Georgia Tech student in polymer chemistry, -posed quite a puzzling case for law enforcement. Urvile--also known -as "Necron 99," as well as other handles, for he tended to change his -cover-alias about once a month--was both an accomplished hacker -and a fanatic simulation-gamer. - -Simulation games are an unusual hobby; but then hackers are unusual people, -and their favorite pastimes tend to be somewhat out of the ordinary. -The best-known American simulation game is probably "Dungeons & Dragons," -a multi-player parlor entertainment played with paper, maps, pencils, -statistical tables and a variety of oddly-shaped dice. Players pretend -to be heroic characters exploring a wholly-invented fantasy world. -The fantasy worlds of simulation gaming are commonly pseudo-medieval, -involving swords and sorcery--spell-casting wizards, knights in armor, -unicorns and dragons, demons and goblins. - -Urvile and his fellow gamers preferred their fantasies highly technological. -They made use of a game known as "G.U.R.P.S.," the "Generic Universal Role -Playing System," published by a company called Steve Jackson Games (SJG). - -"G.U.R.P.S." served as a framework for creating a wide variety of artificial -fantasy worlds. Steve Jackson Games published a smorgasboard of books, -full of detailed information and gaming hints, which were used to flesh-out -many different fantastic backgrounds for the basic GURPS framework. -Urvile made extensive use of two SJG books called GURPS High-Tech -and GURPS Special Ops. - -In the artificial fantasy-world of GURPS Special Ops, -players entered a modern fantasy of intrigue and international espionage. -On beginning the game, players started small and powerless, -perhaps as minor-league CIA agents or penny-ante arms dealers. -But as players persisted through a series of game sessions -(game sessions generally lasted for hours, over long, -elaborate campaigns that might be pursued for months on end) -then they would achieve new skills, new knowledge, new power. -They would acquire and hone new abilities, such as marksmanship, -karate, wiretapping, or Watergate burglary. They could also win -various kinds of imaginary booty, like Berettas, or martini shakers, -or fast cars with ejection seats and machine-guns under the headlights. - -As might be imagined from the complexity of these games, -Urvile's gaming notes were very detailed and extensive. -Urvile was a "dungeon-master," inventing scenarios -for his fellow gamers, giant simulated adventure-puzzles -for his friends to unravel. Urvile's game notes covered -dozens of pages with all sorts of exotic lunacy, all about -ninja raids on Libya and break-ins on encrypted Red Chinese supercomputers. -His notes were written on scrap-paper and kept in loose-leaf binders. - -The handiest scrap paper around Urvile's college digs were the many pounds of -BellSouth printouts and documents that he had snitched out of telco dumpsters. -His notes were written on the back of misappropriated telco property. -Worse yet, the gaming notes were chaotically interspersed with Urvile's -hand-scrawled records involving ACTUAL COMPUTER INTRUSIONS that he -had committed. - -Not only was it next to impossible to tell Urvile's fantasy game-notes -from cyberspace "reality," but Urvile himself barely made this distinction. -It's no exaggeration to say that to Urvile it was ALL a game. Urvile was -very bright, highly imaginative, and quite careless of other people's notions -of propriety. His connection to "reality" was not something to which he paid -a great deal of attention. - -Hacking was a game for Urvile. It was an amusement he was carrying out, -it was something he was doing for fun. And Urvile was an obsessive young man. -He could no more stop hacking than he could stop in the middle of -a jigsaw puzzle, or stop in the middle of reading a Stephen Donaldson -fantasy trilogy. (The name "Urvile" came from a best-selling Donaldson novel.) - -Urvile's airy, bulletproof attitude seriously annoyed his interrogators. -First of all, he didn't consider that he'd done anything wrong. -There was scarcely a shred of honest remorse in him. On the contrary, -he seemed privately convinced that his police interrogators were operating -in a demented fantasy-world all their own. Urvile was too polite -and well-behaved to say this straight-out, but his reactions were askew -and disquieting. - -For instance, there was the business about LoD's ability -to monitor phone-calls to the police and Secret Service. -Urvile agreed that this was quite possible, and posed -no big problem for LoD. In fact, he and his friends -had kicked the idea around on the "Black Ice" board, -much as they had discussed many other nifty notions, -such as building personal flame-throwers and jury-rigging -fistfulls of blasting-caps. They had hundreds of dial-up numbers -for government agencies that they'd gotten through scanning Atlanta phones, -or had pulled from raided VAX/VMS mainframe computers. - -Basically, they'd never gotten around to listening in on the cops -because the idea wasn't interesting enough to bother with. -Besides, if they'd been monitoring Secret Service phone calls, -obviously they'd never have been caught in the first place. Right? - -The Secret Service was less than satisfied with this rapier-like hacker logic. - -Then there was the issue of crashing the phone system. No problem, -Urvile admitted sunnily. Atlanta LoD could have shut down phone service -all over Atlanta any time they liked. EVEN THE 911 SERVICE? -Nothing special about that, Urvile explained patiently. -Bring the switch to its knees, with say the UNIX "makedir" bug, -and 911 goes down too as a matter of course. The 911 system -wasn't very interesting, frankly. It might be tremendously -interesting to cops (for odd reasons of their own), but as -technical challenges went, the 911 service was yawnsville. - -So of course the Atlanta Three could crash service. -They probably could have crashed service all over -BellSouth territory, if they'd worked at it for a while. -But Atlanta LoD weren't crashers. Only losers and rodents -were crashers. LoD were ELITE. - -Urvile was privately convinced that sheer technical -expertise could win him free of any kind of problem. -As far as he was concerned, elite status in the digital -underground had placed him permanently beyond the intellectual -grasp of cops and straights. Urvile had a lot to learn. - -Of the three LoD stalwarts, Prophet was in the most direct trouble. -Prophet was a UNIX programming expert who burrowed in and out -of the Internet as a matter of course. He'd started his hacking -career at around age 14, meddling with a UNIX mainframe system -at the University of North Carolina. - -Prophet himself had written the handy Legion of Doom -file "UNIX Use and Security From the Ground Up." -UNIX (pronounced "you-nicks") is a powerful, -flexible computer operating-system, for multi-user, -multi-tasking computers. In 1969, when UNIX was created -in Bell Labs, such computers were exclusive to large -corporations and universities, but today UNIX is run -on thousands of powerful home machines. UNIX was -particularly well-suited to telecommunications programming, -and had become a standard in the field. Naturally, UNIX -also became a standard for the elite hacker and phone phreak. -Lately, Prophet had not been so active as Leftist and Urvile, -but Prophet was a recidivist. In 1986, when he was eighteen, -Prophet had been convicted of "unauthorized access -to a computer network" in North Carolina. He'd been -discovered breaking into the Southern Bell Data Network, -a UNIX-based internal telco network supposedly closed to the public. -He'd gotten a typical hacker sentence: six months suspended, -120 hours community service, and three years' probation. - -After that humiliating bust, Prophet had gotten rid of most of his -tonnage of illicit phreak and hacker data, and had tried to go straight. -He was, after all, still on probation. But by the autumn of 1988, -the temptations of cyberspace had proved too much for young Prophet, -and he was shoulder-to-shoulder with Urvile and Leftist into some -of the hairiest systems around. - -In early September 1988, he'd broken into BellSouth's centralized -automation system, AIMSX or "Advanced Information Management System." -AIMSX was an internal business network for BellSouth, where telco -employees stored electronic mail, databases, memos, and calendars, -and did text processing. Since AIMSX did not have public dial-ups, -it was considered utterly invisible to the public, and was not well-secured ---it didn't even require passwords. Prophet abused an account known -as "waa1," the personal account of an unsuspecting telco employee. -Disguised as the owner of waa1, Prophet made about ten visits to AIMSX. - -Prophet did not damage or delete anything in the system. -His presence in AIMSX was harmless and almost invisible. -But he could not rest content with that. - -One particular piece of processed text on AIMSX was a telco document -known as "Bell South Standard Practice 660-225-104SV Control Office -Administration of Enhanced 911 Services for Special Services -and Major Account Centers dated March 1988." - -Prophet had not been looking for this document. It was merely one -among hundreds of similar documents with impenetrable titles. -However, having blundered over it in the course of his illicit -wanderings through AIMSX, he decided to take it with him as a trophy. -It might prove very useful in some future boasting, bragging, -and strutting session. So, some time in September 1988, -Prophet ordered the AIMSX mainframe computer to copy this document -(henceforth called simply called "the E911 Document") and to transfer -this copy to his home computer. - -No one noticed that Prophet had done this. He had "stolen" -the E911 Document in some sense, but notions of property -in cyberspace can be tricky. BellSouth noticed nothing wrong, -because BellSouth still had their original copy. They had not -been "robbed" of the document itself. Many people were supposed -to copy this document--specifically, people who worked for the -nineteen BellSouth "special services and major account centers," -scattered throughout the Southeastern United States. That was -what it was for, why it was present on a computer network -in the first place: so that it could be copied and read-- -by telco employees. But now the data had been copied -by someone who wasn't supposed to look at it. - -Prophet now had his trophy. But he further decided to store -yet another copy of the E911 Document on another person's computer. -This unwitting person was a computer enthusiast named Richard Andrews -who lived near Joliet, Illinois. Richard Andrews was a UNIX programmer -by trade, and ran a powerful UNIX board called "Jolnet," in the basement -of his house. - -Prophet, using the handle "Robert Johnson," had obtained an account -on Richard Andrews' computer. And there he stashed the E911 Document, -by storing it in his own private section of Andrews' computer. - -Why did Prophet do this? If Prophet had eliminated the E911 Document -from his own computer, and kept it hundreds of miles away, on another machine, under an -alias, then he might have been fairly safe from discovery and prosecution-- -although his sneaky action had certainly put the unsuspecting Richard Andrews -at risk. - -But, like most hackers, Prophet was a pack-rat for illicit data. -When it came to the crunch, he could not bear to part from his trophy. -When Prophet's place in Decatur, Georgia was raided in July 1989, -there was the E911 Document, a smoking gun. And there was Prophet -in the hands of the Secret Service, doing his best to "explain." - -Our story now takes us away from the Atlanta Three and their raids -of the Summer of 1989. We must leave Atlanta Three "cooperating fully" -with their numerous investigators. And all three of them did cooperate, -as their Sentencing Memorandum from the US District Court of the -Northern Division of Georgia explained--just before all three of them -were sentenced to various federal prisons in November 1990. - -We must now catch up on the other aspects of the war on the Legion of Doom. -The war on the Legion was a war on a network--in fact, a network of three -networks, which intertwined and interrelated in a complex fashion. -The Legion itself, with Atlanta LoD, and their hanger-on Fry Guy, -were the first network. The second network was Phrack magazine, -with its editors and contributors. - -The third network involved the electronic circle around a hacker -known as "Terminus." - -The war against these hacker networks was carried out by -a law enforcement network. Atlanta LoD and Fry Guy -were pursued by USSS agents and federal prosecutors in Atlanta, -Indiana, and Chicago. "Terminus" found himself pursued by USSS -and federal prosecutors from Baltimore and Chicago. And the war -against Phrack was almost entirely a Chicago operation. - -The investigation of Terminus involved a great deal of energy, -mostly from the Chicago Task Force, but it was to be the least-known -and least-publicized of the Crackdown operations. Terminus, who lived -in Maryland, was a UNIX programmer and consultant, fairly well-known -(under his given name) in the UNIX community, as an acknowledged expert -on AT&T minicomputers. Terminus idolized AT&T, especially Bellcore, -and longed for public recognition as a UNIX expert; his highest ambition -was to work for Bell Labs. - -But Terminus had odd friends and a spotted history. -Terminus had once been the subject of an admiring interview -in Phrack (Volume II, Issue 14, Phile 2--dated May 1987). -In this article, Phrack co-editor Taran King described -"Terminus" as an electronics engineer, 5'9", brown-haired, -born in 1959--at 28 years old, quite mature for a hacker. - -Terminus had once been sysop of a phreak/hack underground board -called "MetroNet," which ran on an Apple II. Later he'd replaced -"MetroNet" with an underground board called "MegaNet," -specializing in IBMs. In his younger days, Terminus had written -one of the very first and most elegant code-scanning programs -for the IBM-PC. This program had been widely distributed -in the underground. Uncounted legions of PC-owning phreaks and -hackers had used Terminus's scanner program to rip-off telco codes. -This feat had not escaped the attention of telco security; -it hardly could, since Terminus's earlier handle, "Terminal Technician," -was proudly written right on the program. - -When he became a full-time computer professional -(specializing in telecommunications programming), -he adopted the handle Terminus, meant to indicate that he -had "reached the final point of being a proficient hacker." -He'd moved up to the UNIX-based "Netsys" board on an AT&T computer, -with four phone lines and an impressive 240 megs of storage. -"Netsys" carried complete issues of Phrack, and Terminus was -quite friendly with its publishers, Taran King and Knight Lightning. - -In the early 1980s, Terminus had been a regular on Plovernet, -Pirate-80, Sherwood Forest and Shadowland, all well-known pirate boards, -all heavily frequented by the Legion of Doom. As it happened, Terminus -was never officially "in LoD," because he'd never been given the official -LoD high-sign and back-slap by Legion maven Lex Luthor. Terminus had -never physically met anyone from LoD. But that scarcely mattered much-- -the Atlanta Three themselves had never been officially vetted by Lex, either. - -As far as law enforcement was concerned, the issues were clear. -Terminus was a full-time, adult computer professional -with particular skills at AT&T software and hardware-- -but Terminus reeked of the Legion of Doom and the underground. - -On February 1, 1990--half a month after the Martin Luther King Day Crash-- -USSS agents Tim Foley from Chicago, and Jack Lewis from the Baltimore office, -accompanied by AT&T security officer Jerry Dalton, travelled to Middle Town, -Maryland. There they grilled Terminus in his home (to the stark terror of -his wife and small children), and, in their customary fashion, hauled his -computers out the door. - -The Netsys machine proved to contain a plethora of arcane UNIX software-- -proprietary source code formally owned by AT&T. Software such as: -UNIX System Five Release 3.2; UNIX SV Release 3.1; UUCP communications -software; KORN SHELL; RFS; IWB; WWB; DWB; the C++ programming language; -PMON; TOOL CHEST; QUEST; DACT, and S FIND. - -In the long-established piratical tradition of the underground, -Terminus had been trading this illicitly-copied software with -a small circle of fellow UNIX programmers. Very unwisely, -he had stored seven years of his electronic mail on his Netsys machine, -which documented all the friendly arrangements he had made with -his various colleagues. - -Terminus had not crashed the AT&T phone system on January 15. -He was, however, blithely running a not-for-profit AT&T -software-piracy ring. This was not an activity AT&T found amusing. -AT&T security officer Jerry Dalton valued this "stolen" property -at over three hundred thousand dollars. - -AT&T's entry into the tussle of free enterprise had been complicated -by the new, vague groundrules of the information economy. -Until the break-up of Ma Bell, AT&T was forbidden to sell -computer hardware or software. Ma Bell was the phone company; -Ma Bell was not allowed to use the enormous revenue from -telephone utilities, in order to finance any entry into -the computer market. - -AT&T nevertheless invented the UNIX operating system. -And somehow AT&T managed to make UNIX a minor source of income. -Weirdly, UNIX was not sold as computer software, -but actually retailed under an obscure regulatory -exemption allowing sales of surplus equipment and scrap. -Any bolder attempt to promote or retail UNIX would have -aroused angry legal opposition from computer companies. -Instead, UNIX was licensed to universities, at modest rates, -where the acids of academic freedom ate away steadily at AT&T's -proprietary rights. - -Come the breakup, AT&T recognized that UNIX was a potential gold-mine. -By now, large chunks of UNIX code had been created that were not AT&T's, -and were being sold by others. An entire rival UNIX-based operating system -had arisen in Berkeley, California (one of the world's great founts of -ideological hackerdom). Today, "hackers" commonly consider "Berkeley UNIX" -to be technically superior to AT&T's "System V UNIX," but AT&T has not -allowed mere technical elegance to intrude on the real-world business -of marketing proprietary software. AT&T has made its own code deliberately -incompatible with other folks' UNIX, and has written code that it can prove -is copyrightable, even if that code happens to be somewhat awkward--"kludgey." -AT&T UNIX user licenses are serious business agreements, replete with very -clear copyright statements and non-disclosure clauses. - -AT&T has not exactly kept the UNIX cat in the bag, -but it kept a grip on its scruff with some success. -By the rampant, explosive standards of software piracy, -AT&T UNIX source code is heavily copyrighted, well-guarded, -well-licensed. UNIX was traditionally run only on -mainframe machines, owned by large groups of suit-and-tie -professionals, rather than on bedroom machines where -people can get up to easy mischief. - -And AT&T UNIX source code is serious high-level programming. -The number of skilled UNIX programmers with any actual motive -to swipe UNIX source code is small. It's tiny, compared to -the tens of thousands prepared to rip-off, say, entertaining -PC games like "Leisure Suit Larry." - -But by 1989, the warez-d00d underground, in the persons of Terminus -and his friends, was gnawing at AT&T UNIX. And the property in question -was not sold for twenty bucks over the counter at the local branch of -Babbage's or Egghead's; this was massive, sophisticated, multi-line, -multi-author corporate code worth tens of thousands of dollars. - -It must be recognized at this point that Terminus's purported ring of UNIX -software pirates had not actually made any money from their suspected crimes. -The $300,000 dollar figure bandied about for the contents of Terminus's -computer did not mean that Terminus was in actual illicit possession -of three hundred thousand of AT&T's dollars. Terminus was shipping -software back and forth, privately, person to person, for free. -He was not making a commercial business of piracy. He hadn't -asked for money; he didn't take money. He lived quite modestly. - -AT&T employees--as well as freelance UNIX consultants, like Terminus-- -commonly worked with "proprietary" AT&T software, both in the office -and at home on their private machines. AT&T rarely sent security officers -out to comb the hard disks of its consultants. Cheap freelance UNIX -contractors were quite useful to AT&T; they didn't have health insurance -or retirement programs, much less union membership in the Communication -Workers of America. They were humble digital drudges, wandering with mop -and bucket through the Great Technological Temple of AT&T; but when the -Secret Service arrived at their homes, it seemed they were eating with -company silverware and sleeping on company sheets! Outrageously, they -behaved as if the things they worked with every day belonged to them! - -And these were no mere hacker teenagers with their hands full -of trash-paper and their noses pressed to the corporate windowpane. -These guys were UNIX wizards, not only carrying AT&T data in their -machines and their heads, but eagerly networking about it, -over machines that were far more powerful than anything previously -imagined in private hands. How do you keep people disposable, -yet assure their awestruck respect for your property? It was a dilemma. - -Much UNIX code was public-domain, available for free. Much "proprietary" -UNIX code had been extensively re-written, perhaps altered so much that it -became an entirely new product--or perhaps not. Intellectual property rights -for software developers were, and are, extraordinarily complex and confused. -And software "piracy," like the private copying of videos, is one of the most -widely practiced "crimes" in the world today. - -The USSS were not experts in UNIX or familiar with the customs of its use. -The United States Secret Service, considered as a body, did not have one single -person in it who could program in a UNIX environment--no, not even one. -The Secret Service WERE making extensive use of expert help, but the "experts" -they had chosen were AT&T and Bellcore security officials, the very victims of -the purported crimes under investigation, the very people whose interest in -AT&T's "proprietary" software was most pronounced. - -On February 6, 1990, Terminus was arrested by Agent Lewis. -Eventually, Terminus would be sent to prison for his illicit -use of a piece of AT&T software. - -The issue of pirated AT&T software would bubble along in the background -during the war on the Legion of Doom. Some half-dozen of Terminus's on-line -acquaintances, including people in Illinois, Texas and California, -were grilled by the Secret Service in connection with the illicit -copying of software. Except for Terminus, however, none were charged -with a crime. None of them shared his peculiar prominence in the -hacker underground. - -But that did not mean that these people would, or could, -stay out of trouble. The transferral of illicit data in -cyberspace is hazy and ill-defined business, with paradoxical -dangers for everyone concerned: hackers, signal carriers, -board owners, cops, prosecutors, even random passers-by. -Sometimes, well-meant attempts to avert trouble -or punish wrongdoing bring more trouble than -would simple ignorance, indifference or impropriety. - -Terminus's "Netsys" board was not a common-or-garden -bulletin board system, though it had most of the usual -functions of a board. Netsys was not a stand-alone machine, -but part of the globe-spanning "UUCP" cooperative network. -The UUCP network uses a set of Unix software programs called -"Unix-to-Unix Copy," which allows Unix systems to throw data to -one another at high speed through the public telephone network. -UUCP is a radically decentralized, not-for-profit network of UNIX computers. -There are tens of thousands of these UNIX machines. Some are small, -but many are powerful and also link to other networks. UUCP has -certain arcane links to major networks such as JANET, EasyNet, BITNET, -JUNET, VNET, DASnet, PeaceNet and FidoNet, as well as the gigantic Internet. -(The so-called "Internet" is not actually a network itself, but rather an -"internetwork" connections standard that allows several globe-spanning -computer networks to communicate with one another. Readers fascinated -by the weird and intricate tangles of modern computer networks may enjoy -John S. Quarterman's authoritative 719-page explication, The Matrix, -Digital Press, 1990.) - -A skilled user of Terminus' UNIX machine could send and receive -electronic mail from almost any major computer network in the world. -Netsys was not called a "board" per se, but rather a "node." -"Nodes" were larger, faster, and more sophisticated than mere "boards," -and for hackers, to hang out on internationally-connected "nodes" -was quite the step up from merely hanging out on local "boards." - -Terminus's Netsys node in Maryland had a number of direct -links to other, similar UUCP nodes, run by people who shared his -interests and at least something of his free-wheeling attitude. -One of these nodes was Jolnet, owned by Richard Andrews, who, -like Terminus, was an independent UNIX consultant. -Jolnet also ran UNIX, and could be contacted at high speed -by mainframe machines from all over the world. Jolnet was -quite a sophisticated piece of work, technically speaking, -but it was still run by an individual, as a private, -not-for-profit hobby. Jolnet was mostly used by other -UNIX programmers--for mail, storage, and access to networks. -Jolnet supplied access network access to about two hundred people, -as well as a local junior college. - -Among its various features and services, Jolnet also carried -Phrack magazine. - -For reasons of his own, Richard Andrews had become suspicious -of a new user called "Robert Johnson." Richard Andrews -took it upon himself to have a look at what "Robert Johnson" -was storing in Jolnet. And Andrews found the E911 Document. - -"Robert Johnson" was the Prophet from the Legion of Doom, -and the E911 Document was illicitly copied data from Prophet's -raid on the BellSouth computers. - -The E911 Document, a particularly illicit piece of digital property, -was about to resume its long, complex, and disastrous career. - -It struck Andrews as fishy that someone not a telephone employee -should have a document referring to the "Enhanced 911 System." -Besides, the document itself bore an obvious warning. - -"WARNING: NOT FOR USE OR DISCLOSURE OUTSIDE BELLSOUTH -OR ANY OF ITS SUBSIDIARIES EXCEPT UNDER WRITTEN AGREEMENT." - -These standard nondisclosure tags are often appended to all sorts -of corporate material. Telcos as a species are particularly notorious -for stamping most everything in sight as "not for use or disclosure." -Still, this particular piece of data was about the 911 System. -That sounded bad to Rich Andrews. - -Andrews was not prepared to ignore this sort of trouble. -He thought it would be wise to pass the document along -to a friend and acquaintance on the UNIX network, for consultation. -So, around September 1988, Andrews sent yet another copy of the -E911 Document electronically to an AT&T employee, one Charles Boykin, -who ran a UNIX-based node called "attctc" in Dallas, Texas. - -"Attctc" was the property of AT&T, and was run from AT&T's -Customer Technology Center in Dallas, hence the name "attctc." -"Attctc" was better-known as "Killer," the name of the machine -that the system was running on. "Killer" was a hefty, powerful, -AT&T 3B2 500 model, a multi-user, multi-tasking UNIX platform -with 32 meg of memory and a mind-boggling 3.2 Gigabytes of storage. -When Killer had first arrived in Texas, in 1985, the 3B2 had been -one of AT&T's great white hopes for going head-to-head with IBM -for the corporate computer-hardware market. "Killer" had been shipped -to the Customer Technology Center in the Dallas Infomart, essentially -a high-technology mall, and there it sat, a demonstration model. - -Charles Boykin, a veteran AT&T hardware and digital communications expert, -was a local technical backup man for the AT&T 3B2 system. As a display model -in the Infomart mall, "Killer" had little to do, and it seemed a shame -to waste the system's capacity. So Boykin ingeniously wrote some UNIX -bulletin-board software for "Killer," and plugged the machine in to the -local phone network. "Killer's" debut in late 1985 made it the first -publicly available UNIX site in the state of Texas. Anyone who wanted to -play was welcome. - -The machine immediately attracted an electronic community. -It joined the UUCP network, and offered network links -to over eighty other computer sites, all of which became dependent -on Killer for their links to the greater world of cyberspace. -And it wasn't just for the big guys; personal computer users -also stored freeware programs for the Amiga, the Apple, -the IBM and the Macintosh on Killer's vast 3,200 meg archives. -At one time, Killer had the largest library of public-domain -Macintosh software in Texas. - -Eventually, Killer attracted about 1,500 users, -all busily communicating, uploading and downloading, -getting mail, gossipping, and linking to arcane -and distant networks. - -Boykin received no pay for running Killer. He considered -it good publicity for the AT&T 3B2 system (whose sales were -somewhat less than stellar), but he also simply enjoyed -the vibrant community his skill had created. He gave away -the bulletin-board UNIX software he had written, free of charge. - -In the UNIX programming community, Charlie Boykin had the -reputation of a warm, open-hearted, level-headed kind of guy. -In 1989, a group of Texan UNIX professionals voted Boykin -"System Administrator of the Year." He was considered -a fellow you could trust for good advice. - -In September 1988, without warning, the E911 Document -came plunging into Boykin's life, forwarded by Richard Andrews. -Boykin immediately recognized that the Document was hot property. -He was not a voice-communications man, and knew little about -the ins and outs of the Baby Bells, but he certainly knew what -the 911 System was, and he was angry to see confidential data -about it in the hands of a nogoodnik. This was clearly a -matter for telco security. So, on September 21, 1988, Boykin -made yet ANOTHER copy of the E911 Document and passed this -one along to a professional acquaintance of his, one Jerome Dalton, -from AT&T Corporate Information Security. Jerry Dalton was the -very fellow who would later raid Terminus's house. - -From AT&T's security division, the E911 Document went to Bellcore. - -Bellcore (or BELL COmmunications REsearch) had once been the central -laboratory of the Bell System. Bell Labs employees had invented -the UNIX operating system. Now Bellcore was a quasi-independent, -jointly owned company that acted as the research arm for all seven -of the Baby Bell RBOCs. Bellcore was in a good position to co-ordinate -security technology and consultation for the RBOCs, and the gentleman in -charge of this effort was Henry M. Kluepfel, a veteran of the Bell System -who had worked there for twenty-four years. - -On October 13, 1988, Dalton passed the E911 Document to Henry Kluepfel. -Kluepfel, a veteran expert witness in telecommunications fraud and -computer-fraud cases, had certainly seen worse trouble than this. -He recognized the document for what it was: a trophy from a hacker break-in. - -However, whatever harm had been done in the intrusion was presumably old news. -At this point there seemed little to be done. Kluepfel made a careful note -of the circumstances and shelved the problem for the time being. - -Whole months passed. - -February 1989 arrived. The Atlanta Three were living it up -in Bell South's switches, and had not yet met their comeuppance. -The Legion was thriving. So was Phrack magazine. -A good six months had passed since Prophet's AIMSX break-in. -Prophet, as hackers will, grew weary of sitting on his laurels. -"Knight Lightning" and "Taran King," the editors of Phrack, -were always begging Prophet for material they could publish. -Prophet decided that the heat must be off by this time, -and that he could safely brag, boast, and strut. - -So he sent a copy of the E911 Document--yet another one-- -from Rich Andrews' Jolnet machine to Knight Lightning's -BITnet account at the University of Missouri. -Let's review the fate of the document so far. - -0. The original E911 Document. This in the AIMSX system -on a mainframe computer in Atlanta, available to hundreds of people, -but all of them, presumably, BellSouth employees. An unknown number -of them may have their own copies of this document, but they are all -professionals and all trusted by the phone company. - -1. Prophet's illicit copy, at home on his own computer in Decatur, Georgia. - -2. Prophet's back-up copy, stored on Rich Andrew's Jolnet machine - in the basement of Rich Andrews' house near Joliet Illinois. - -3. Charles Boykin's copy on "Killer" in Dallas, Texas, - sent by Rich Andrews from Joliet. - -4. Jerry Dalton's copy at AT&T Corporate Information Security in New Jersey, - sent from Charles Boykin in Dallas. - -5. Henry Kluepfel's copy at Bellcore security headquarters in New Jersey, - sent by Dalton. -6. Knight Lightning's copy, sent by Prophet from Rich Andrews' machine, - and now in Columbia, Missouri. - -We can see that the "security" situation of this proprietary document, -once dug out of AIMSX, swiftly became bizarre. Without any money -changing hands, without any particular special effort, this data -had been reproduced at least six times and had spread itself all over -the continent. By far the worst, however, was yet to come. - -In February 1989, Prophet and Knight Lightning bargained electronically -over the fate of this trophy. Prophet wanted to boast, but, at the same time, -scarcely wanted to be caught. - -For his part, Knight Lightning was eager to publish as much of the document -as he could manage. Knight Lightning was a fledgling political-science major -with a particular interest in freedom-of-information issues. He would gladly -publish most anything that would reflect glory on the prowess of the -underground and embarrass the telcos. However, Knight Lightning himself -had contacts in telco security, and sometimes consulted them on material -he'd received that might be too dicey for publication. - -Prophet and Knight Lightning decided to edit the E911 Document -so as to delete most of its identifying traits. First of all, -its large "NOT FOR USE OR DISCLOSURE" warning had to go. -Then there were other matters. For instance, it listed -the office telephone numbers of several BellSouth 911 -specialists in Florida. If these phone numbers were -published in Phrack, the BellSouth employees involved -would very likely be hassled by phone phreaks, -which would anger BellSouth no end, and pose a -definite operational hazard for both Prophet and Phrack. - -So Knight Lightning cut the Document almost in half, -removing the phone numbers and some of the touchier -and more specific information. He passed it back -electronically to Prophet; Prophet was still nervous, -so Knight Lightning cut a bit more. They finally agreed -that it was ready to go, and that it would be published -in Phrack under the pseudonym, "The Eavesdropper." - -And this was done on February 25, 1989. - -The twenty-fourth issue of Phrack featured a chatty interview -with co-ed phone-phreak "Chanda Leir," three articles on BITNET -and its links to other computer networks, an article on 800 and 900 -numbers by "Unknown User," "VaxCat's" article on telco basics -(slyly entitled "Lifting Ma Bell's Veil of Secrecy,)" and -the usual "Phrack World News." - -The News section, with painful irony, featured an extended account -of the sentencing of "Shadowhawk," an eighteen-year-old Chicago hacker -who had just been put in federal prison by William J. Cook himself. - -And then there were the two articles by "The Eavesdropper." -The first was the edited E911 Document, now titled -"Control Office Administration Of Enhanced 911 Services -for Special Services and Major Account Centers." -Eavesdropper's second article was a glossary of terms -explaining the blizzard of telco acronyms and buzzwords -in the E911 Document. - -The hapless document was now distributed, in the usual Phrack routine, -to a good one hundred and fifty sites. Not a hundred and fifty PEOPLE, -mind you--a hundred and fifty SITES, some of these sites linked to UNIX -nodes or bulletin board systems, which themselves had readerships of tens, -dozens, even hundreds of people. - -This was February 1989. Nothing happened immediately. -Summer came, and the Atlanta crew were raided by the Secret Service. -Fry Guy was apprehended. Still nothing whatever happened to Phrack. -Six more issues of Phrack came out, 30 in all, more or less on -a monthly schedule. Knight Lightning and co-editor Taran King -went untouched. - -Phrack tended to duck and cover whenever the heat came down. -During the summer busts of 1987--(hacker busts tended to cluster in summer, -perhaps because hackers were easier to find at home than in college)-- -Phrack had ceased publication for several months, and laid low. -Several LoD hangers-on had been arrested, but nothing had happened -to the Phrack crew, the premiere gossips of the underground. -In 1988, Phrack had been taken over by a new editor, -"Crimson Death," a raucous youngster with a taste for anarchy files. -1989, however, looked like a bounty year for the underground. -Knight Lightning and his co-editor Taran King took up the reins again, -and Phrack flourished throughout 1989. Atlanta LoD went down hard in -the summer of 1989, but Phrack rolled merrily on. Prophet's E911 Document -seemed unlikely to cause Phrack any trouble. By January 1990, -it had been available in Phrack for almost a year. Kluepfel and Dalton, -officers of Bellcore and AT&T security, had possessed the document -for sixteen months--in fact, they'd had it even before Knight Lightning -himself, and had done nothing in particular to stop its distribution. -They hadn't even told Rich Andrews or Charles Boykin to erase the copies -from their UNIX nodes, Jolnet and Killer. - -But then came the monster Martin Luther King Day Crash of January 15, 1990. - -A flat three days later, on January 18, four agents showed up -at Knight Lightning's fraternity house. One was Timothy Foley, -the second Barbara Golden, both of them Secret Service agents -from the Chicago office. Also along was a University of Missouri -security officer, and Reed Newlin, a security man from Southwestern Bell, -the RBOC having jurisdiction over Missouri. - -Foley accused Knight Lightning of causing the nationwide crash -of the phone system. - -Knight Lightning was aghast at this allegation. On the face of it, -the suspicion was not entirely implausible--though Knight Lightning -knew that he himself hadn't done it. Plenty of hot-dog hackers -had bragged that they could crash the phone system, however. -"Shadowhawk," for instance, the Chicago hacker whom William Cook -had recently put in jail, had several times boasted on boards -that he could "shut down AT&T's public switched network." - -And now this event, or something that looked just like it, -had actually taken place. The Crash had lit a fire under -the Chicago Task Force. And the former fence-sitters at -Bellcore and AT&T were now ready to roll. The consensus -among telco security--already horrified by the skill of -the BellSouth intruders --was that the digital underground -was out of hand. LoD and Phrack must go. And in publishing -Prophet's E911 Document, Phrack had provided law enforcement -with what appeared to be a powerful legal weapon. - -Foley confronted Knight Lightning about the E911 Document. - -Knight Lightning was cowed. He immediately began "cooperating fully" -in the usual tradition of the digital underground. - -He gave Foley a complete run of Phrack, printed out in a set -of three-ring binders. He handed over his electronic mailing list -of Phrack subscribers. Knight Lightning was grilled for four hours -by Foley and his cohorts. Knight Lightning admitted that Prophet -had passed him the E911 Document, and he admitted that he had known -it was stolen booty from a hacker raid on a telephone company. -Knight Lightning signed a statement to this effect, and agreed, -in writing, to cooperate with investigators. - -Next day--January 19, 1990, a Friday --the Secret Service returned -with a search warrant, and thoroughly searched Knight Lightning's -upstairs room in the fraternity house. They took all his floppy disks, -though, interestingly, they left Knight Lightning in possession -of both his computer and his modem. (The computer had no hard disk, -and in Foley's judgement was not a store of evidence.) But this was a -very minor bright spot among Knight Lightning's rapidly multiplying troubles. -By this time, Knight Lightning was in plenty of hot water, not only with -federal police, prosecutors, telco investigators, and university security, -but with the elders of his own campus fraternity, who were outraged -to think that they had been unwittingly harboring a federal computer-criminal. - -On Monday, Knight Lightning was summoned to Chicago, where he was -further grilled by Foley and USSS veteran agent Barbara Golden, this time -with an attorney present. And on Tuesday, he was formally indicted -by a federal grand jury. - -The trial of Knight Lightning, which occurred on July 24-27, 1990, -was the crucial show-trial of the Hacker Crackdown. We will examine -the trial at some length in Part Four of this book. - -In the meantime, we must continue our dogged pursuit of the E911 Document. - -It must have been clear by January 1990 that the E911 Document, -in the form Phrack had published it back in February 1989, -had gone off at the speed of light in at least a hundred -and fifty different directions. To attempt to put this -electronic genie back in the bottle was flatly impossible. - -And yet, the E911 Document was STILL stolen property, -formally and legally speaking. Any electronic transference -of this document, by anyone unauthorized to have it, -could be interpreted as an act of wire fraud. Interstate -transfer of stolen property, including electronic property, -was a federal crime. - -The Chicago Computer Fraud and Abuse Task Force had been assured -that the E911 Document was worth a hefty sum of money. In fact, -they had a precise estimate of its worth from BellSouth security personnel: -$79,449. A sum of this scale seemed to warrant vigorous prosecution. -Even if the damage could not be undone, at least this large sum -offered a good legal pretext for stern punishment of the thieves. -It seemed likely to impress judges and juries. And it could be used -in court to mop up the Legion of Doom. - -The Atlanta crowd was already in the bag, by the time -the Chicago Task Force had gotten around to Phrack. -But the Legion was a hydra-headed thing. In late 89, -a brand-new Legion of Doom board, "Phoenix Project," -had gone up in Austin, Texas. Phoenix Project was sysoped -by no less a man than the Mentor himself, ably assisted by -University of Texas student and hardened Doomster "Erik Bloodaxe." - -As we have seen from his Phrack manifesto, the Mentor was a hacker -zealot who regarded computer intrusion as something close to a moral duty. -Phoenix Project was an ambitious effort, intended to revive the digital -underground to what Mentor considered the full flower of the early 80s. -The Phoenix board would also boldly bring elite hackers face-to-face -with the telco "opposition." On "Phoenix," America's cleverest hackers -would supposedly shame the telco squareheads out of their stick-in-the-mud -attitudes, and perhaps convince them that the Legion of Doom elite were really -an all-right crew. The premiere of "Phoenix Project" was heavily trumpeted -by Phrack,and "Phoenix Project" carried a complete run of Phrack issues, -including the E911 Document as Phrack had published it. - -Phoenix Project was only one of many--possibly hundreds--of nodes and boards -all over America that were in guilty possession of the E911 Document. -But Phoenix was an outright, unashamed Legion of Doom board. -Under Mentor's guidance, it was flaunting itself in the face -of telco security personnel. Worse yet, it was actively trying -to WIN THEM OVER as sympathizers for the digital underground elite. -"Phoenix" had no cards or codes on it. Its hacker elite considered -Phoenix at least technically legal. But Phoenix was a corrupting influence, -where hacker anarchy was eating away like digital acid at the underbelly -of corporate propriety. - -The Chicago Computer Fraud and Abuse Task Force now prepared -to descend upon Austin, Texas. - -Oddly, not one but TWO trails of the Task Force's investigation led -toward Austin. The city of Austin, like Atlanta, had made itself -a bulwark of the Sunbelt's Information Age, with a strong university -research presence, and a number of cutting-edge electronics companies, -including Motorola, Dell, CompuAdd, IBM, Sematech and MCC. - -Where computing machinery went, hackers generally followed. -Austin boasted not only "Phoenix Project," currently LoD's -most flagrant underground board, but a number of UNIX nodes. - -One of these nodes was "Elephant," run by a UNIX consultant -named Robert Izenberg. Izenberg, in search of a relaxed Southern -lifestyle and a lowered cost-of-living, had recently migrated -to Austin from New Jersey. In New Jersey, Izenberg had worked -for an independent contracting company, programming UNIX code for -AT&T itself. "Terminus" had been a frequent user on Izenberg's -privately owned Elephant node. - -Having interviewed Terminus and examined the records on Netsys, -the Chicago Task Force were now convinced that they had discovered -an underground gang of UNIX software pirates, who were demonstrably -guilty of interstate trafficking in illicitly copied AT&T source code. -Izenberg was swept into the dragnet around Terminus, the self-proclaimed -ultimate UNIX hacker. - -Izenberg, in Austin, had settled down into a UNIX job -with a Texan branch of IBM. Izenberg was no longer -working as a contractor for AT&T, but he had friends -in New Jersey, and he still logged on to AT&T UNIX -computers back in New Jersey, more or less whenever -it pleased him. Izenberg's activities appeared highly -suspicious to the Task Force. Izenberg might well be -breaking into AT&T computers, swiping AT&T software, -and passing it to Terminus and other possible confederates, -through the UNIX node network. And this data was worth, -not merely $79,499, but hundreds of thousands of dollars! - -On February 21, 1990, Robert Izenberg arrived home -from work at IBM to find that all the computers -had mysteriously vanished from his Austin apartment. -Naturally he assumed that he had been robbed. -His "Elephant" node, his other machines, his notebooks, -his disks, his tapes, all gone! However, nothing much -else seemed disturbed--the place had not been ransacked. -The puzzle becaming much stranger some five minutes later. -Austin U. S. Secret Service Agent Al Soliz, accompanied by -University of Texas campus-security officer Larry Coutorie -and the ubiquitous Tim Foley, made their appearance at Izenberg's door. -They were in plain clothes: slacks, polo shirts. They came in, -and Tim Foley accused Izenberg of belonging to the Legion of Doom. - -Izenberg told them that he had never heard of the "Legion of Doom." -And what about a certain stolen E911 Document, that posed a direct -threat to the police emergency lines? Izenberg claimed that he'd -never heard of that, either. - -His interrogators found this difficult to believe. -Didn't he know Terminus? - -Who? - -They gave him Terminus's real name. Oh yes, said Izenberg. -He knew THAT guy all right--he was leading discussions -on the Internet about AT&T computers, especially the AT&T 3B2. - -AT&T had thrust this machine into the marketplace, -but, like many of AT&T's ambitious attempts to enter -the computing arena, the 3B2 project had something less -than a glittering success. Izenberg himself had been -a contractor for the division of AT&T that supported the 3B2. -The entire division had been shut down. - -Nowadays, the cheapest and quickest way to get help with this -fractious piece of machinery was to join one of Terminus's -discussion groups on the Internet, where friendly and knowledgeable -hackers would help you for free. Naturally the remarks within this -group were less than flattering about the Death Star. . .was -THAT the problem? - -Foley told Izenberg that Terminus had been acquiring hot software -through his, Izenberg's, machine. - -Izenberg shrugged this off. A good eight megabytes of data flowed -through his UUCP site every day. UUCP nodes spewed data like fire hoses. -Elephant had been directly linked to Netsys--not surprising, since Terminus -was a 3B2 expert and Izenberg had been a 3B2 contractor. -Izenberg was also linked to "attctc" and the University of Texas. -Terminus was a well-known UNIX expert, and might have been up to -all manner of hijinks on Elephant. Nothing Izenberg could do about that. -That was physically impossible. Needle in a haystack. - -In a four-hour grilling, Foley urged Izenberg to come clean -and admit that he was in conspiracy with Terminus, -and a member of the Legion of Doom. - -Izenberg denied this. He was no weirdo teenage hacker-- -he was thirty-two years old, and didn't even have a "handle." -Izenberg was a former TV technician and electronics specialist -who had drifted into UNIX consulting as a full-grown adult. -Izenberg had never met Terminus, physically. He'd once bought -a cheap high-speed modem from him, though. - -Foley told him that this modem (a Telenet T2500 which ran at 19.2 kilobaud, -and which had just gone out Izenberg's door in Secret Service custody) -was likely hot property. Izenberg was taken aback to hear this; but then -again, most of Izenberg's equipment, like that of most freelance professionals -in the industry, was discounted, passed hand-to-hand through various kinds -of barter and gray-market. There was no proof that the modem was stolen, -and even if it were, Izenberg hardly saw how that gave them the right -to take every electronic item in his house. - -Still, if the United States Secret Service figured they needed -his computer for national security reasons--or whatever-- -then Izenberg would not kick. He figured he would somehow -make the sacrifice of his twenty thousand dollars' worth -of professional equipment, in the spirit of full cooperation -and good citizenship. - -Robert Izenberg was not arrested. Izenberg was not charged with any crime. -His UUCP node--full of some 140 megabytes of the files, mail, and data -of himself and his dozen or so entirely innocent users--went out the door -as "evidence." Along with the disks and tapes, Izenberg had lost about -800 megabytes of data. - -Six months would pass before Izenberg decided to phone the Secret Service -and ask how the case was going. That was the first time that Robert Izenberg -would ever hear the name of William Cook. As of January 1992, a full -two years after the seizure, Izenberg, still not charged with any crime, -would be struggling through the morass of the courts, in hope of recovering -his thousands of dollars' worth of seized equipment. - -In the meantime, the Izenberg case received absolutely no press coverage. -The Secret Service had walked into an Austin home, removed a UNIX bulletin- -board system, and met with no operational difficulties whatsoever. - -Except that word of a crackdown had percolated through the Legion of Doom. -"The Mentor" voluntarily shut down "The Phoenix Project." It seemed a pity, -especially as telco security employees had, in fact, shown up on Phoenix, -just as he had hoped--along with the usual motley crowd of LoD heavies, -hangers-on, phreaks, hackers and wannabes. There was "Sandy" Sandquist from -US SPRINT security, and some guy named Henry Kluepfel, from Bellcore itself! -Kluepfel had been trading friendly banter with hackers on Phoenix since -January 30th (two weeks after the Martin Luther King Day Crash). -The presence of such a stellar telco official seemed quite the coup -for Phoenix Project. - -Still, Mentor could judge the climate. Atlanta in ruins, -Phrack in deep trouble, something weird going on with UNIX nodes-- -discretion was advisable. Phoenix Project went off-line. - -Kluepfel, of course, had been monitoring this LoD bulletin -board for his own purposes--and those of the Chicago unit. -As far back as June 1987, Kluepfel had logged on to a Texas -underground board called "Phreak Klass 2600." There he'd -discovered an Chicago youngster named "Shadowhawk," -strutting and boasting about rifling AT&T computer files, -and bragging of his ambitions to riddle AT&T's Bellcore -computers with trojan horse programs. Kluepfel had passed -the news to Cook in Chicago, Shadowhawk's computers -had gone out the door in Secret Service custody, -and Shadowhawk himself had gone to jail. - -Now it was Phoenix Project's turn. Phoenix Project postured -about "legality" and "merely intellectual interest," but it reeked -of the underground. It had Phrack on it. It had the E911 Document. -It had a lot of dicey talk about breaking into systems, including some -bold and reckless stuff about a supposed "decryption service" that Mentor -and friends were planning to run, to help crack encrypted passwords off -of hacked systems. - -Mentor was an adult. There was a bulletin board at his place of work, -as well. Kleupfel logged onto this board, too, and discovered it to be -called "Illuminati." It was run by some company called Steve Jackson Games. - -On March 1, 1990, the Austin crackdown went into high gear. - -On the morning of March 1--a Thursday--21-year-old University of Texas -student "Erik Bloodaxe," co-sysop of Phoenix Project and an avowed member -of the Legion of Doom, was wakened by a police revolver levelled at his head. - -Bloodaxe watched, jittery, as Secret Service agents -appropriated his 300 baud terminal and, rifling his files, -discovered his treasured source-code for Robert Morris's -notorious Internet Worm. But Bloodaxe, a wily operator, -had suspected that something of the like might be coming. -All his best equipment had been hidden away elsewhere. -The raiders took everything electronic, however, -including his telephone. They were stymied by his -hefty arcade-style Pac-Man game, and left it in place, -as it was simply too heavy to move. - -Bloodaxe was not arrested. He was not charged with any crime. -A good two years later, the police still had what they had -taken from him, however. - -The Mentor was less wary. The dawn raid rousted him and his wife -from bed in their underwear, and six Secret Service agents, -accompanied by an Austin policeman and Henry Kluepfel himself, -made a rich haul. Off went the works, into the agents' white -Chevrolet minivan: an IBM PC-AT clone with 4 meg of RAM and -a 120-meg hard disk; a Hewlett-Packard LaserJet II printer; -a completely legitimate and highly expensive SCO-Xenix 286 -operating system; Pagemaker disks and documentation; -and the Microsoft Word word-processing program. Mentor's wife -had her incomplete academic thesis stored on the hard-disk; -that went, too, and so did the couple's telephone. As of two years later, -all this property remained in police custody. - -Mentor remained under guard in his apartment as agents prepared -to raid Steve Jackson Games. The fact that this was a business -headquarters and not a private residence did not deter the agents. -It was still very early; no one was at work yet. The agents prepared -to break down the door, but Mentor, eavesdropping on the Secret Service -walkie-talkie traffic, begged them not to do it, and offered his key -to the building. - -The exact details of the next events are unclear. The agents -would not let anyone else into the building. Their search warrant, -when produced, was unsigned. Apparently they breakfasted from the local -"Whataburger," as the litter from hamburgers was later found inside. -They also extensively sampled a bag of jellybeans kept by an SJG employee. -Someone tore a "Dukakis for President" sticker from the wall. - -SJG employees, diligently showing up for the day's work, were met -at the door and briefly questioned by U.S. Secret Service agents. -The employees watched in astonishment as agents wielding crowbars -and screwdrivers emerged with captive machines. They attacked -outdoor storage units with boltcutters. The agents wore -blue nylon windbreakers with "SECRET SERVICE" stencilled -across the back, with running-shoes and jeans. - -Jackson's company lost three computers, several hard-disks, -hundred of floppy disks, two monitors, three modems, -a laser printer, various powercords, cables, and adapters -(and, oddly, a small bag of screws, bolts and nuts). -The seizure of Illuminati BBS deprived SJG of all the programs, -text files, and private e-mail on the board. The loss of two other -SJG computers was a severe blow as well, since it caused the loss -of electronically stored contracts, financial projections, -address directories, mailing lists, personnel files, -business correspondence, and, not least, the drafts -of forthcoming games and gaming books. - -No one at Steve Jackson Games was arrested. No one was accused -of any crime. No charges were filed. Everything appropriated -was officially kept as "evidence" of crimes never specified. - -After the Phrack show-trial, the Steve Jackson Games scandal -was the most bizarre and aggravating incident of the Hacker -Crackdown of 1990. This raid by the Chicago Task Force -on a science-fiction gaming publisher was to rouse a -swarming host of civil liberties issues, and gave rise -to an enduring controversy that was still re-complicating itself, -and growing in the scope of its implications, a full two years later. - -The pursuit of the E911 Document stopped with the Steve Jackson Games raid. -As we have seen, there were hundreds, perhaps thousands of computer users -in America with the E911 Document in their possession. Theoretically, -Chicago had a perfect legal right to raid any of these people, -and could have legally seized the machines of anybody who subscribed to Phrack. -However, there was no copy of the E911 Document on Jackson's Illuminati board. -And there the Chicago raiders stopped dead; they have not raided anyone since. - -It might be assumed that Rich Andrews and Charlie Boykin, who had brought -the E911 Document to the attention of telco security, might be spared -any official suspicion. But as we have seen, the willingness to -"cooperate fully" offers little, if any, assurance against federal -anti-hacker prosecution. - -Richard Andrews found himself in deep trouble, thanks to the E911 Document. -Andrews lived in Illinois, the native stomping grounds of the Chicago -Task Force. On February 3 and 6, both his home and his place of work -were raided by USSS. His machines went out the door, too, and he was -grilled at length (though not arrested). Andrews proved to be in -purportedly guilty possession of: UNIX SVR 3.2; UNIX SVR 3.1; UUCP; -PMON; WWB; IWB; DWB; NROFF; KORN SHELL '88; C++; and QUEST, -among other items. Andrews had received this proprietary code-- -which AT&T officially valued at well over $250,000--through the -UNIX network, much of it supplied to him as a personal favor by Terminus. -Perhaps worse yet, Andrews admitted to returning the favor, by passing -Terminus a copy of AT&T proprietary STARLAN source code. - -Even Charles Boykin, himself an AT&T employee, entered some very hot water. -By 1990, he'd almost forgotten about the E911 problem he'd reported in -September 88; in fact, since that date, he'd passed two more security alerts -to Jerry Dalton, concerning matters that Boykin considered far worse than -the E911 Document. - -But by 1990, year of the crackdown, AT&T Corporate Information Security -was fed up with "Killer." This machine offered no direct income to AT&T, -and was providing aid and comfort to a cloud of suspicious yokels -from outside the company, some of them actively malicious toward AT&T, -its property, and its corporate interests. Whatever goodwill and publicity -had been won among Killer's 1,500 devoted users was considered no longer -worth the security risk. On February 20, 1990, Jerry Dalton arrived in -Dallas and simply unplugged the phone jacks, to the puzzled alarm -of Killer's many Texan users. Killer went permanently off-line, -with the loss of vast archives of programs and huge quantities -of electronic mail; it was never restored to service. AT&T showed -no particular regard for the "property" of these 1,500 people. -Whatever "property" the users had been storing on AT&T's computer -simply vanished completely. - -Boykin, who had himself reported the E911 problem, -now found himself under a cloud of suspicion. In a weird -private-security replay of the Secret Service seizures, -Boykin's own home was visited by AT&T Security and his -own machines were carried out the door. - -However, there were marked special features in the Boykin case. -Boykin's disks and his personal computers were swiftly examined -by his corporate employers and returned politely in just two days-- -(unlike Secret Service seizures, which commonly take months or years). -Boykin was not charged with any crime or wrongdoing, and he kept his job -with AT&T (though he did retire from AT&T in September 1991, -at the age of 52). - -It's interesting to note that the US Secret Service somehow failed -to seize Boykin's "Killer" node and carry AT&T's own computer out the door. -Nor did they raid Boykin's home. They seemed perfectly willing to take the -word of AT&T Security that AT&T's employee, and AT&T's "Killer" node, -were free of hacker contraband and on the up-and-up. - -It's digital water-under-the-bridge at this point, as Killer's -3,200 megabytes of Texan electronic community were erased in 1990, -and "Killer" itself was shipped out of the state. - -But the experiences of Andrews and Boykin, and the users of their systems, -remained side issues. They did not begin to assume the social, political, -and legal importance that gathered, slowly but inexorably, around the issue -of the raid on Steve Jackson Games. - -# - -We must now turn our attention to Steve Jackson Games itself, -and explain what SJG was, what it really did, and how it had -managed to attract this particularly odd and virulent kind of trouble. -The reader may recall that this is not the first but the second time -that the company has appeared in this narrative; a Steve Jackson game -called GURPS was a favorite pastime of Atlanta hacker Urvile, -and Urvile's science-fictional gaming notes had been mixed up -promiscuously with notes about his actual computer intrusions. - -First, Steve Jackson Games, Inc., was NOT a publisher of "computer games." -SJG published "simulation games," parlor games that were played on paper, -with pencils, and dice, and printed guidebooks full of rules and -statistics tables. There were no computers involved in the games themselves. -When you bought a Steve Jackson Game, you did not receive any software disks. -What you got was a plastic bag with some cardboard game tokens, -maybe a few maps or a deck of cards. Most of their products were books. - -However, computers WERE deeply involved in the Steve Jackson Games business. -Like almost all modern publishers, Steve Jackson and his fifteen employees -used computers to write text, to keep accounts, and to run the business -generally. They also used a computer to run their official bulletin board -system for Steve Jackson Games, a board called Illuminati. On Illuminati, -simulation gamers who happened to own computers and modems could associate, -trade mail, debate the theory and practice of gaming, and keep up with the -company's news and its product announcements. - -Illuminati was a modestly popular board, run on a small computer -with limited storage, only one phone-line, and no ties to large-scale -computer networks. It did, however, have hundreds of users, -many of them dedicated gamers willing to call from out-of-state. - -Illuminati was NOT an "underground" board. It did not feature hints -on computer intrusion, or "anarchy files," or illicitly posted -credit card numbers, or long-distance access codes. -Some of Illuminati's users, however, were members of the Legion of Doom. -And so was one of Steve Jackson's senior employees--the Mentor. -The Mentor wrote for Phrack, and also ran an underground board, -Phoenix Project--but the Mentor was not a computer professional. -The Mentor was the managing editor of Steve Jackson Games and -a professional game designer by trade. These LoD members did not -use Illuminati to help their HACKING activities. They used it to -help their GAME-PLAYING activities--and they were even more dedicated -to simulation gaming than they were to hacking. - -"Illuminati" got its name from a card-game that Steve Jackson himself, -the company's founder and sole owner, had invented. This multi-player -card-game was one of Mr Jackson's best-known, most successful, -most technically innovative products. "Illuminati" was a game -of paranoiac conspiracy in which various antisocial cults warred -covertly to dominate the world. "Illuminati" was hilarious, -and great fun to play, involving flying saucers, the CIA, the KGB, -the phone companies, the Ku Klux Klan, the South American Nazis, -the cocaine cartels, the Boy Scouts, and dozens of other splinter groups -from the twisted depths of Mr. Jackson's professionally fervid imagination. -For the uninitiated, any public discussion of the "Illuminati" card-game -sounded, by turns, utterly menacing or completely insane. - -And then there was SJG's "Car Wars," in which souped-up armored hot-rods -with rocket-launchers and heavy machine-guns did battle on the American -highways of the future. The lively Car Wars discussion on the Illuminati -board featured many meticulous, painstaking discussions of the effects -of grenades, land-mines, flamethrowers and napalm. It sounded like -hacker anarchy files run amuck. - -Mr Jackson and his co-workers earned their daily bread by supplying people -with make-believe adventures and weird ideas. The more far-out, the better. - -Simulation gaming is an unusual pastime, but gamers have not -generally had to beg the permission of the Secret Service to exist. -Wargames and role-playing adventures are an old and honored pastime, -much favored by professional military strategists. Once little-known, -these games are now played by hundreds of thousands of enthusiasts -throughout North America, Europe and Japan. Gaming-books, once restricted -to hobby outlets, now commonly appear in chain-stores like B. Dalton's -and Waldenbooks, and sell vigorously. - -Steve Jackson Games, Inc., of Austin, Texas, was a games company -of the middle rank. In 1989, SJG grossed about a million dollars. -Jackson himself had a good reputation in his industry as a talented -and innovative designer of rather unconventional games, but his company -was something less than a titan of the field--certainly not like the -multimillion-dollar TSR Inc., or Britain's gigantic "Games Workshop." -SJG's Austin headquarters was a modest two-story brick office-suite, -cluttered with phones, photocopiers, fax machines and computers. -It bustled with semi-organized activity and was littered with -glossy promotional brochures and dog-eared science-fiction novels. -Attached to the offices was a large tin-roofed warehouse piled twenty feet -high with cardboard boxes of games and books. Despite the weird imaginings -that went on within it, the SJG headquarters was quite a quotidian, -everyday sort of place. It looked like what it was: a publishers' digs. - -Both "Car Wars" and "Illuminati" were well-known, popular games. -But the mainstay of the Jackson organization was their Generic Universal -Role-Playing System, "G.U.R.P.S." The GURPS system was considered solid -and well-designed, an asset for players. But perhaps the most popular -feature of the GURPS system was that it allowed gaming-masters to design -scenarios that closely resembled well-known books, movies, and other works -of fantasy. Jackson had licensed and adapted works from many science fiction -and fantasy authors. There was GURPS Conan, GURPS Riverworld, -GURPS Horseclans, GURPS Witch World, names eminently familiar -to science-fiction readers. And there was GURPS Special Ops, -from the world of espionage fantasy and unconventional warfare. - -And then there was GURPS Cyberpunk. - -"Cyberpunk" was a term given to certain science fiction writers -who had entered the genre in the 1980s. "Cyberpunk," as the label implies, -had two general distinguishing features. First, its writers had a compelling -interest in information technology, an interest closely akin -to science fiction's earlier fascination with space travel. -And second, these writers were "punks," with all the -distinguishing features that that implies: Bohemian artiness, -youth run wild, an air of deliberate rebellion, funny clothes and hair, -odd politics, a fondness for abrasive rock and roll; in a word, trouble. - -The "cyberpunk" SF writers were a small group of mostly college-educated -white middle-class litterateurs, scattered through the US and Canada. -Only one, Rudy Rucker, a professor of computer science in Silicon Valley, -could rank with even the humblest computer hacker. But, except for -Professor Rucker, the "cyberpunk" authors were not programmers -or hardware experts; they considered themselves artists -(as, indeed, did Professor Rucker). However, these writers -all owned computers, and took an intense and public interest -in the social ramifications of the information industry. - -The cyberpunks had a strong following among the global generation -that had grown up in a world of computers, multinational networks, -and cable television. Their outlook was considered somewhat morbid, -cynical, and dark, but then again, so was the outlook of their -generational peers. As that generation matured and increased -in strength and influence, so did the cyberpunks. -As science-fiction writers went, they were doing -fairly well for themselves. By the late 1980s, -their work had attracted attention from gaming companies, -including Steve Jackson Games, which was planning a cyberpunk -simulation for the flourishing GURPS gaming-system. - -The time seemed ripe for such a product, which had already been proven -in the marketplace. The first games- company out of the gate, -with a product boldly called "Cyberpunk" in defiance of possible -infringement-of-copyright suits, had been an upstart group called -R. Talsorian. Talsorian's Cyberpunk was a fairly decent game, -but the mechanics of the simulation system left a lot to be desired. -Commercially, however, the game did very well. - -The next cyberpunk game had been the even more successful Shadowrun -by FASA Corporation. The mechanics of this game were fine, but the -scenario was rendered moronic by sappy fantasy elements like elves, -trolls, wizards, and dragons--all highly ideologically-incorrect, -according to the hard-edged, high-tech standards of cyberpunk science fiction. - -Other game designers were champing at the bit. Prominent among them -was the Mentor, a gentleman who, like most of his friends in the -Legion of Doom, was quite the cyberpunk devotee. Mentor reasoned -that the time had come for a REAL cyberpunk gaming-book--one that the -princes of computer-mischief in the Legion of Doom could play without -laughing themselves sick. This book, GURPS Cyberpunk, would reek -of culturally on-line authenticity. - -Mentor was particularly well-qualified for this task. -Naturally, he knew far more about computer-intrusion -and digital skullduggery than any previously published -cyberpunk author. Not only that, but he was good at his work. -A vivid imagination, combined with an instinctive feeling -for the working of systems and, especially, the loopholes -within them, are excellent qualities for a professional game designer. - -By March 1st, GURPS Cyberpunk was almost complete, ready to print and ship. -Steve Jackson expected vigorous sales for this item, which, he hoped, -would keep the company financially afloat for several months. -GURPS Cyberpunk, like the other GURPS "modules," was not a "game" -like a Monopoly set, but a BOOK: a bound paperback book the size -of a glossy magazine, with a slick color cover, and pages full of text, -illustrations, tables and footnotes. It was advertised as a game, -and was used as an aid to game-playing, but it was a book, -with an ISBN number, published in Texas, copyrighted, -and sold in bookstores. - -And now, that book, stored on a computer, had gone out the door -in the custody of the Secret Service. - -The day after the raid, Steve Jackson visited the local Secret Service -headquarters with a lawyer in tow. There he confronted Tim Foley -(still in Austin at that time) and demanded his book back. But there -was trouble. GURPS Cyberpunk, alleged a Secret Service agent to astonished -businessman Steve Jackson, was "a manual for computer crime." - -"It's science fiction," Jackson said. - -"No, this is real." - -This statement was repeated several times, by several agents. -Jackson's ominously accurate game had passed from pure, -obscure, small-scale fantasy into the impure, highly publicized, -large-scale fantasy of the Hacker Crackdown. - -No mention was made of the real reason for the search. -According to their search warrant, the raiders had expected -to find the E911 Document stored on Jackson's bulletin board system. -But that warrant was sealed; a procedure that most law enforcement agencies -will use only when lives are demonstrably in danger. The raiders' -true motives were not discovered until the Jackson search-warrant -was unsealed by his lawyers, many months later. The Secret Service, -and the Chicago Computer Fraud and Abuse Task Force, -said absolutely nothing to Steve Jackson about any threat -to the police 911 System. They said nothing about the Atlanta Three, -nothing about Phrack or Knight Lightning, nothing about Terminus. - -Jackson was left to believe that his computers had been seized because -he intended to publish a science fiction book that law enforcement -considered too dangerous to see print. - -This misconception was repeated again and again, for months, -to an ever-widening public audience. It was not the truth of the case; -but as months passed, and this misconception was publicly printed again -and again, it became one of the few publicly known "facts" about -the mysterious Hacker Crackdown. The Secret Service had seized a computer -to stop the publication of a cyberpunk science fiction book. - -The second section of this book, "The Digital Underground," -is almost finished now. We have become acquainted with all -the major figures of this case who actually belong to the -underground milieu of computer intrusion. We have some idea -of their history, their motives, their general modus operandi. -We now know, I hope, who they are, where they came from, -and more or less what they want. In the next section of this book, -"Law and Order," we will leave this milieu and directly enter the -world of America's computer-crime police. - -At this point, however, I have another figure to introduce: myself. - -My name is Bruce Sterling. I live in Austin, Texas, where I am -a science fiction writer by trade: specifically, a CYBERPUNK -science fiction writer. - -Like my "cyberpunk" colleagues in the U.S. and Canada, -I've never been entirely happy with this literary label-- -especially after it became a synonym for computer criminal. -But I did once edit a book of stories by my colleagues, -called Mirrorshades: the Cyberpunk Anthology, and I've -long been a writer of literary-critical cyberpunk manifestos. -I am not a "hacker" of any description, though I do have readers -in the digital underground. - -When the Steve Jackson Games seizure occurred, I naturally took -an intense interest. If "cyberpunk" books were being banned -by federal police in my own home town, I reasonably wondered -whether I myself might be next. Would my computer be seized -by the Secret Service? At the time, I was in possession -of an aging Apple IIe without so much as a hard disk. -If I were to be raided as an author of computer-crime manuals, -the loss of my feeble word-processor would likely provoke more -snickers than sympathy. - -I'd known Steve Jackson for many years. We knew -one another as colleagues, for we frequented -the same local science-fiction conventions. -I'd played Jackson games, and recognized his cleverness; -but he certainly had never struck me as a potential mastermind -of computer crime. - -I also knew a little about computer bulletin-board systems. -In the mid-1980s I had taken an active role in an Austin board -called "SMOF-BBS," one of the first boards dedicated to science fiction. -I had a modem, and on occasion I'd logged on to Illuminati, -which always looked entertainly wacky, but certainly harmless enough. - -At the time of the Jackson seizure, I had no experience -whatsoever with underground boards. But I knew that no one -on Illuminati talked about breaking into systems illegally, -or about robbing phone companies. Illuminati didn't even -offer pirated computer games. Steve Jackson, like many creative artists, -was markedly touchy about theft of intellectual property. - -It seemed to me that Jackson was either seriously suspected -of some crime--in which case, he would be charged soon, -and would have his day in court--or else he was innocent, -in which case the Secret Service would quickly return his equipment, -and everyone would have a good laugh. I rather expected the good laugh. -The situation was not without its comic side. The raid, known -as the "Cyberpunk Bust" in the science fiction community, -was winning a great deal of free national publicity both -for Jackson himself and the "cyberpunk" science fiction -writers generally. - -Besides, science fiction people are used to being misinterpreted. -Science fiction is a colorful, disreputable, slipshod occupation, -full of unlikely oddballs, which, of course, is why we like it. -Weirdness can be an occupational hazard in our field. People who -wear Halloween costumes are sometimes mistaken for monsters. - -Once upon a time--back in 1939, in New York City-- -science fiction and the U.S. Secret Service collided in -a comic case of mistaken identity. This weird incident -involved a literary group quite famous in science fiction, -known as "the Futurians," whose membership included -such future genre greats as Isaac Asimov, Frederik Pohl, -and Damon Knight. The Futurians were every bit as -offbeat and wacky as any of their spiritual descendants, -including the cyberpunks, and were given to communal living, -spontaneous group renditions of light opera, and midnight fencing -exhibitions on the lawn. The Futurians didn't have bulletin -board systems, but they did have the technological equivalent -in 1939--mimeographs and a private printing press. These were -in steady use, producing a stream of science-fiction fan magazines, -literary manifestos, and weird articles, which were picked up -in ink-sticky bundles by a succession of strange, gangly, -spotty young men in fedoras and overcoats. - -The neighbors grew alarmed at the antics of the Futurians -and reported them to the Secret Service as suspected counterfeiters. -In the winter of 1939, a squad of USSS agents with drawn guns burst into -"Futurian House," prepared to confiscate the forged currency and illicit -printing presses. There they discovered a slumbering science fiction fan -named George Hahn, a guest of the Futurian commune who had just arrived -in New York. George Hahn managed to explain himself and his group, -and the Secret Service agents left the Futurians in peace henceforth. -(Alas, Hahn died in 1991, just before I had discovered this astonishing -historical parallel, and just before I could interview him for this book.) - -But the Jackson case did not come to a swift and comic end. -No quick answers came his way, or mine; no swift reassurances -that all was right in the digital world, that matters were well -in hand after all. Quite the opposite. In my alternate role -as a sometime pop-science journalist, I interviewed Jackson -and his staff for an article in a British magazine. -The strange details of the raid left me more concerned than ever. -Without its computers, the company had been financially -and operationally crippled. Half the SJG workforce, -a group of entirely innocent people, had been sorrowfully fired, -deprived of their livelihoods by the seizure. It began to dawn on me -that authors--American writers--might well have their computers seized, -under sealed warrants, without any criminal charge; and that, -as Steve Jackson had discovered, there was no immediate recourse for this. -This was no joke; this wasn't science fiction; this was real. - -I determined to put science fiction aside until I had discovered -what had happened and where this trouble had come from. -It was time to enter the purportedly real world of electronic -free expression and computer crime. Hence, this book. -Hence, the world of the telcos; and the world of the digital underground; -and next, the world of the police. - - - -PART THREE: LAW AND ORDER - - -Of the various anti-hacker activities of 1990, "Operation Sundevil" -had by far the highest public profile. The sweeping, nationwide -computer seizures of May 8, 1990 were unprecedented in scope and highly, -if rather selectively, publicized. - -Unlike the efforts of the Chicago Computer Fraud and Abuse Task Force, -"Operation Sundevil" was not intended to combat "hacking" in the sense -of computer intrusion or sophisticated raids on telco switching stations. -Nor did it have anything to do with hacker misdeeds with AT&T's software, -or with Southern Bell's proprietary documents. - -Instead, "Operation Sundevil" was a crackdown on those traditional scourges -of the digital underground: credit-card theft and telephone code abuse. -The ambitious activities out of Chicago, and the somewhat lesser-known -but vigorous anti-hacker actions of the New York State Police in 1990, -were never a part of "Operation Sundevil" per se, which was based in Arizona. - -Nevertheless, after the spectacular May 8 raids, the public, misled by -police secrecy, hacker panic, and a puzzled national press-corps, -conflated all aspects of the nationwide crackdown in 1990 under -the blanket term "Operation Sundevil." "Sundevil" is still the best-known -synonym for the crackdown of 1990. But the Arizona organizers of "Sundevil" -did not really deserve this reputation--any more, for instance, than all -hackers deserve a reputation as "hackers." - -There was some justice in this confused perception, though. -For one thing, the confusion was abetted by the Washington office -of the Secret Service, who responded to Freedom of Information Act -requests on "Operation Sundevil" by referring investigators -to the publicly known cases of Knight Lightning and the Atlanta Three. -And "Sundevil" was certainly the largest aspect of the Crackdown, -the most deliberate and the best-organized. As a crackdown on electronic -fraud, "Sundevil" lacked the frantic pace of the war on the Legion of Doom; -on the contrary, Sundevil's targets were picked out with cool deliberation -over an elaborate investigation lasting two full years. - -And once again the targets were bulletin board systems. - -Boards can be powerful aids to organized fraud. Underground boards carry -lively, extensive, detailed, and often quite flagrant "discussions" of -lawbreaking techniques and lawbreaking activities. "Discussing" crime -in the abstract, or "discussing" the particulars of criminal cases, -is not illegal--but there are stern state and federal laws against -coldbloodedly conspiring in groups in order to commit crimes. - -In the eyes of police, people who actively conspire to break the law -are not regarded as "clubs," "debating salons," "users' groups," or -"free speech advocates." Rather, such people tend to find themselves -formally indicted by prosecutors as "gangs," "racketeers," "corrupt -organizations" and "organized crime figures." - -What's more, the illicit data contained on outlaw boards goes well beyond -mere acts of speech and/or possible criminal conspiracy. As we have seen, -it was common practice in the digital underground to post purloined telephone -codes on boards, for any phreak or hacker who cared to abuse them. Is posting -digital booty of this sort supposed to be protected by the First Amendment? -Hardly--though the issue, like most issues in cyberspace, is not entirely -resolved. Some theorists argue that to merely RECITE a number publicly -is not illegal--only its USE is illegal. But anti-hacker police point out -that magazines and newspapers (more traditional forms of free expression) -never publish stolen telephone codes (even though this might well -raise their circulation). - -Stolen credit card numbers, being riskier and more valuable, -were less often publicly posted on boards--but there is no question -that some underground boards carried "carding" traffic, -generally exchanged through private mail. - -Underground boards also carried handy programs for "scanning" telephone -codes and raiding credit card companies, as well as the usual obnoxious -galaxy of pirated software, cracked passwords, blue-box schematics, -intrusion manuals, anarchy files, porn files, and so forth. - -But besides their nuisance potential for the spread of illicit knowledge, -bulletin boards have another vitally interesting aspect for the -professional investigator. Bulletin boards are cram-full of EVIDENCE. -All that busy trading of electronic mail, all those hacker boasts, -brags and struts, even the stolen codes and cards, can be neat, -electronic, real-time recordings of criminal activity. -As an investigator, when you seize a pirate board, you have -scored a coup as effective as tapping phones or intercepting mail. -However, you have not actually tapped a phone or intercepted a letter. -The rules of evidence regarding phone-taps and mail interceptions are old, -stern and well-understood by police, prosecutors and defense attorneys alike. -The rules of evidence regarding boards are new, waffling, and understood -by nobody at all. - -Sundevil was the largest crackdown on boards in world history. -On May 7, 8, and 9, 1990, about forty-two computer systems were seized. -Of those forty-two computers, about twenty-five actually were running boards. -(The vagueness of this estimate is attributable to the vagueness of -(a) what a "computer system" is, and (b) what it actually means to -"run a board" with one--or with two computers, or with three.) - -About twenty-five boards vanished into police custody in May 1990. -As we have seen, there are an estimated 30,000 boards in America today. -If we assume that one board in a hundred is up to no good with codes -and cards (which rather flatters the honesty of the board-using community), -then that would leave 2,975 outlaw boards untouched by Sundevil. -Sundevil seized about one tenth of one percent of all computer -bulletin boards in America. Seen objectively, this is something less -than a comprehensive assault. In 1990, Sundevil's organizers-- -the team at the Phoenix Secret Service office, and the Arizona -Attorney General's office-- had a list of at least THREE HUNDRED -boards that they considered fully deserving of search and seizure warrants. -The twenty-five boards actually seized were merely among the most obvious -and egregious of this much larger list of candidates. All these boards -had been examined beforehand--either by informants, who had passed printouts -to the Secret Service, or by Secret Service agents themselves, who not only -come equipped with modems but know how to use them. - -There were a number of motives for Sundevil. First, it offered -a chance to get ahead of the curve on wire-fraud crimes. -Tracking back credit-card ripoffs to their perpetrators -can be appallingly difficult. If these miscreants -have any kind of electronic sophistication, they can snarl -their tracks through the phone network into a mind-boggling, -untraceable mess, while still managing to "reach out and rob someone." -Boards, however, full of brags and boasts, codes and cards, -offer evidence in the handy congealed form. - -Seizures themselves--the mere physical removal of machines-- -tends to take the pressure off. During Sundevil, a large number -of code kids, warez d00dz, and credit card thieves would be deprived -of those boards--their means of community and conspiracy--in one swift blow. -As for the sysops themselves (commonly among the boldest offenders) -they would be directly stripped of their computer equipment, -and rendered digitally mute and blind. - -And this aspect of Sundevil was carried out with great success. -Sundevil seems to have been a complete tactical surprise-- -unlike the fragmentary and continuing seizures of the war on the -Legion of Doom, Sundevil was precisely timed and utterly overwhelming. -At least forty "computers" were seized during May 7, 8 and 9, 1990, -in Cincinnati, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, Phoenix, Tucson, -Richmond, San Diego, San Jose, Pittsburgh and San Francisco. -Some cities saw multiple raids, such as the five separate raids -in the New York City environs. Plano, Texas (essentially a suburb of -the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, and a hub of the telecommunications industry) -saw four computer seizures. Chicago, ever in the forefront, saw its own -local Sundevil raid, briskly carried out by Secret Service agents -Timothy Foley and Barbara Golden. - -Many of these raids occurred, not in the cities proper, -but in associated white-middle class suburbs--places like -Mount Lebanon, Pennsylvania and Clark Lake, Michigan. -There were a few raids on offices; most took place in people's homes, -the classic hacker basements and bedrooms. - -The Sundevil raids were searches and seizures, not a group of mass arrests. -There were only four arrests during Sundevil. "Tony the Trashman," -a longtime teenage bete noire of the Arizona Racketeering unit, -was arrested in Tucson on May 9. "Dr. Ripco," sysop of an outlaw board -with the misfortune to exist in Chicago itself, was also arrested-- -on illegal weapons charges. Local units also arrested a 19-year-old -female phone phreak named "Electra" in Pennsylvania, and a male juvenile -in California. Federal agents however were not seeking arrests, but computers. - -Hackers are generally not indicted (if at all) until the evidence -in their seized computers is evaluated--a process that can take weeks, -months--even years. When hackers are arrested on the spot, it's generally -an arrest for other reasons. Drugs and/or illegal weapons show up in a good -third of anti-hacker computer seizures (though not during Sundevil). - -That scofflaw teenage hackers (or their parents) should have marijuana -in their homes is probably not a shocking revelation, but the surprisingly -common presence of illegal firearms in hacker dens is a bit disquieting. -A Personal Computer can be a great equalizer for the techno-cowboy-- -much like that more traditional American "Great Equalizer," -the Personal Sixgun. Maybe it's not all that surprising -that some guy obsessed with power through illicit technology -would also have a few illicit high-velocity-impact devices around. -An element of the digital underground particularly dotes on those -"anarchy philes," and this element tends to shade into the crackpot milieu -of survivalists, gun-nuts, anarcho-leftists and the ultra-libertarian -right-wing. - -This is not to say that hacker raids to date have uncovered any -major crack-dens or illegal arsenals; but Secret Service agents -do not regard "hackers" as "just kids." They regard hackers as -unpredictable people, bright and slippery. It doesn't help matters -that the hacker himself has been "hiding behind his keyboard" -all this time. Commonly, police have no idea what he looks like. -This makes him an unknown quantity, someone best treated with -proper caution. - -To date, no hacker has come out shooting, though they do sometimes brag on -boards that they will do just that. Threats of this sort are taken seriously. -Secret Service hacker raids tend to be swift, comprehensive, well-manned -(even over-manned); and agents generally burst through every door -in the home at once, sometimes with drawn guns. Any potential resistance -is swiftly quelled. Hacker raids are usually raids on people's homes. -It can be a very dangerous business to raid an American home; -people can panic when strangers invade their sanctum. Statistically speaking, -the most dangerous thing a policeman can do is to enter someone's home. -(The second most dangerous thing is to stop a car in traffic.) -People have guns in their homes. More cops are hurt in homes -than are ever hurt in biker bars or massage parlors. - -But in any case, no one was hurt during Sundevil, -or indeed during any part of the Hacker Crackdown. - -Nor were there any allegations of any physical mistreatment of a suspect. -Guns were pointed, interrogations were sharp and prolonged; but no one -in 1990 claimed any act of brutality by any crackdown raider. - -In addition to the forty or so computers, Sundevil reaped floppy disks -in particularly great abundance--an estimated 23,000 of them, which -naturally included every manner of illegitimate data: pirated games, -stolen codes, hot credit card numbers, the complete text and software -of entire pirate bulletin-boards. These floppy disks, which remain -in police custody today, offer a gigantic, almost embarrassingly -rich source of possible criminal indictments. These 23,000 floppy disks -also include a thus-far unknown quantity of legitimate computer games, -legitimate software, purportedly "private" mail from boards, -business records, and personal correspondence of all kinds. - -Standard computer-crime search warrants lay great emphasis on seizing -written documents as well as computers--specifically including photocopies, -computer printouts, telephone bills, address books, logs, notes, -memoranda and correspondence. In practice, this has meant that diaries, -gaming magazines, software documentation, nonfiction books on hacking -and computer security, sometimes even science fiction novels, have all -vanished out the door in police custody. A wide variety of electronic items -have been known to vanish as well, including telephones, televisions, answering -machines, Sony Walkmans, desktop printers, compact disks, and audiotapes. - -No fewer than 150 members of the Secret Service were sent into -the field during Sundevil. They were commonly accompanied by -squads of local and/or state police. Most of these officers-- -especially the locals--had never been on an anti-hacker raid before. -(This was one good reason, in fact, why so many of them were invited along -in the first place.) Also, the presence of a uniformed police officer -assures the raidees that the people entering their homes are, in fact, police. -Secret Service agents wear plain clothes. So do the telco security experts -who commonly accompany the Secret Service on raids (and who make no particular -effort to identify themselves as mere employees of telephone companies). - -A typical hacker raid goes something like this. First, police storm in -rapidly, through every entrance, with overwhelming force, -in the assumption that this tactic will keep casualties to a minimum. -Second, possible suspects are immediately removed from the vicinity -of any and all computer systems, so that they will have no chance -to purge or destroy computer evidence. Suspects are herded into a room -without computers, commonly the living room, and kept under guard-- -not ARMED guard, for the guns are swiftly holstered, but under guard -nevertheless. They are presented with the search warrant and warned -that anything they say may be held against them. Commonly they have -a great deal to say, especially if they are unsuspecting parents. - -Somewhere in the house is the "hot spot"--a computer tied to a phone -line (possibly several computers and several phones). Commonly it's -a teenager's bedroom, but it can be anywhere in the house; -there may be several such rooms. This "hot spot" is put in charge -of a two-agent team, the "finder" and the "recorder." The "finder" -is computer-trained, commonly the case agent who has actually obtained -the search warrant from a judge. He or she understands what is being sought, -and actually carries out the seizures: unplugs machines, opens drawers, -desks, files, floppy-disk containers, etc. The "recorder" photographs -all the equipment, just as it stands--especially the tangle of -wired connections in the back, which can otherwise be a real nightmare -to restore. The recorder will also commonly photograph every room -in the house, lest some wily criminal claim that the police had robbed him -during the search. Some recorders carry videocams or tape recorders; -however, it's more common for the recorder to simply take written notes. -Objects are described and numbered as the finder seizes them, generally -on standard preprinted police inventory forms. - -Even Secret Service agents were not, and are not, expert computer users. -They have not made, and do not make, judgements on the fly about potential -threats posed by various forms of equipment. They may exercise discretion; -they may leave Dad his computer, for instance, but they don't HAVE to. -Standard computer-crime search warrants, which date back to the early 80s, -use a sweeping language that targets computers, most anything attached -to a computer, most anything used to operate a computer--most anything -that remotely resembles a computer--plus most any and all written documents -surrounding it. Computer-crime investigators have strongly urged agents -to seize the works. - -In this sense, Operation Sundevil appears to have been a complete success. -Boards went down all over America, and were shipped en masse to the computer -investigation lab of the Secret Service, in Washington DC, along with the -23,000 floppy disks and unknown quantities of printed material. - -But the seizure of twenty-five boards, and the multi-megabyte mountains -of possibly useful evidence contained in these boards (and in their owners' -other computers, also out the door), were far from the only motives for -Operation Sundevil. An unprecedented action of great ambition and size, -Sundevil's motives can only be described as political. It was a -public-relations effort, meant to pass certain messages, meant to make -certain situations clear: both in the mind of the general public, -and in the minds of various constituencies of the electronic community. - - First --and this motivation was vital--a "message" would be sent from -law enforcement to the digital underground. This very message was recited -in so many words by Garry M. Jenkins, the Assistant Director of the -US Secret Service, at the Sundevil press conference in Phoenix on -May 9, 1990, immediately after the raids. In brief, hackers were -mistaken in their foolish belief that they could hide behind the -"relative anonymity of their computer terminals." On the contrary, -they should fully understand that state and federal cops were -actively patrolling the beat in cyberspace--that they were -on the watch everywhere, even in those sleazy and secretive -dens of cybernetic vice, the underground boards. - -This is not an unusual message for police to publicly convey to crooks. -The message is a standard message; only the context is new. - -In this respect, the Sundevil raids were the digital equivalent -of the standard vice-squad crackdown on massage parlors, porno bookstores, -head-shops, or floating crap-games. There may be few or no arrests in a raid -of this sort; no convictions, no trials, no interrogations. In cases of this -sort, police may well walk out the door with many pounds of sleazy magazines, -X-rated videotapes, sex toys, gambling equipment, baggies of marijuana. . . . - -Of course, if something truly horrendous is discovered by the raiders, -there will be arrests and prosecutions. Far more likely, however, -there will simply be a brief but sharp disruption of the closed -and secretive world of the nogoodniks. There will be "street hassle." -"Heat." "Deterrence." And, of course, the immediate loss of the seized goods. -It is very unlikely that any of this seized material will ever be returned. -Whether charged or not, whether convicted or not, the perpetrators will -almost surely lack the nerve ever to ask for this stuff to be given back. - -Arrests and trials--putting people in jail--may involve all kinds of -formal legalities; but dealing with the justice system is far from the only -task of police. Police do not simply arrest people. They don't simply -put people in jail. That is not how the police perceive their jobs. -Police "protect and serve." Police "keep the peace," they "keep public order." -Like other forms of public relations, keeping public order is not an -exact science. Keeping public order is something of an art-form. - -If a group of tough-looking teenage hoodlums was loitering on a street-corner, -no one would be surprised to see a street-cop arrive and sternly order -them to "break it up." On the contrary, the surprise would come if one -of these ne'er-do-wells stepped briskly into a phone-booth, -called a civil rights lawyer, and instituted a civil suit -in defense of his Constitutional rights of free speech -and free assembly. But something much along this line -was one of the many anomolous outcomes of the Hacker Crackdown. - -Sundevil also carried useful "messages" for other constituents of -the electronic community. These messages may not have been read -aloud from the Phoenix podium in front of the press corps, -but there was little mistaking their meaning. There was a message -of reassurance for the primary victims of coding and carding: -the telcos, and the credit companies. Sundevil was greeted with joy -by the security officers of the electronic business community. -After years of high-tech harassment and spiralling revenue losses, -their complaints of rampant outlawry were being taken seriously by -law enforcement. No more head-scratching or dismissive shrugs; -no more feeble excuses about "lack of computer-trained officers" or -the low priority of "victimless" white-collar telecommunication crimes. - -Computer-crime experts have long believed that computer-related offenses -are drastically under-reported. They regard this as a major open scandal -of their field. Some victims are reluctant to come forth, because they -believe that police and prosecutors are not computer-literate, -and can and will do nothing. Others are embarrassed by -their vulnerabilities, and will take strong measures -to avoid any publicity; this is especially true of banks, -who fear a loss of investor confidence should an embezzlement-case -or wire-fraud surface. And some victims are so helplessly confused -by their own high technology that they never even realize that -a crime has occurred--even when they have been fleeced to the bone. - -The results of this situation can be dire. -Criminals escape apprehension and punishment. -The computer-crime units that do exist, can't get work. -The true scope of computer-crime: its size, its real nature, -the scope of its threats, and the legal remedies for it-- -all remain obscured. - -Another problem is very little publicized, but it is a cause -of genuine concern. Where there is persistent crime, -but no effective police protection, then vigilantism can result. -Telcos, banks, credit companies, the major corporations who -maintain extensive computer networks vulnerable to hacking ---these organizations are powerful, wealthy, and -politically influential. They are disinclined to be -pushed around by crooks (or by most anyone else, -for that matter). They often maintain well-organized -private security forces, commonly run by -experienced veterans of military and police units, -who have left public service for the greener pastures -of the private sector. For police, the corporate -security manager can be a powerful ally; but if this -gentleman finds no allies in the police, and the -pressure is on from his board-of-directors, -he may quietly take certain matters into his own hands. - -Nor is there any lack of disposable hired-help in the -corporate security business. Private security agencies-- -the `security business' generally--grew explosively in the 1980s. -Today there are spooky gumshoed armies of "security consultants," -"rent-a- cops," "private eyes," "outside experts"--every manner -of shady operator who retails in "results" and discretion. -Or course, many of these gentlemen and ladies may be paragons -of professional and moral rectitude. But as anyone -who has read a hard-boiled detective novel knows, -police tend to be less than fond of this sort -of private-sector competition. - -Companies in search of computer-security have even been -known to hire hackers. Police shudder at this prospect. - -Police treasure good relations with the business community. -Rarely will you see a policeman so indiscreet as to allege -publicly that some major employer in his state or city has succumbed -to paranoia and gone off the rails. Nevertheless, -police --and computer police in particular--are aware -of this possibility. Computer-crime police can and do -spend up to half of their business hours just doing -public relations: seminars, "dog and pony shows," -sometimes with parents' groups or computer users, -but generally with their core audience: the likely -victims of hacking crimes. These, of course, are telcos, -credit card companies and large computer-equipped corporations. -The police strongly urge these people, as good citizens, -to report offenses and press criminal charges; -they pass the message that there is someone in authority who cares, -understands, and, best of all, will take useful action -should a computer-crime occur. - -But reassuring talk is cheap. Sundevil offered action. - -The final message of Sundevil was intended for internal consumption -by law enforcement. Sundevil was offered as proof that the community -of American computer-crime police had come of age. Sundevil was -proof that enormous things like Sundevil itself could now be accomplished. -Sundevil was proof that the Secret Service and its local law-enforcement -allies could act like a well-oiled machine--(despite the hampering use -of those scrambled phones). It was also proof that the Arizona Organized -Crime and Racketeering Unit--the sparkplug of Sundevil--ranked with the best -in the world in ambition, organization, and sheer conceptual daring. - -And, as a final fillip, Sundevil was a message from the Secret Service -to their longtime rivals in the Federal Bureau of Investigation. -By Congressional fiat, both USSS and FBI formally share jurisdiction -over federal computer-crimebusting activities. Neither of these groups -has ever been remotely happy with this muddled situation. It seems to -suggest that Congress cannot make up its mind as to which of these groups -is better qualified. And there is scarcely a G-man or a Special Agent -anywhere without a very firm opinion on that topic. - -# - -For the neophyte, one of the most puzzling aspects of the crackdown -on hackers is why the United States Secret Service has anything at all -to do with this matter. - -The Secret Service is best known for its primary public role: -its agents protect the President of the United States. -They also guard the President's family, the Vice President and his family, -former Presidents, and Presidential candidates. They sometimes guard -foreign dignitaries who are visiting the United States, especially foreign -heads of state, and have been known to accompany American officials -on diplomatic missions overseas. - -Special Agents of the Secret Service don't wear uniforms, but the -Secret Service also has two uniformed police agencies. There's the -former White House Police (now known as the Secret Service Uniformed Division, -since they currently guard foreign embassies in Washington, as well as the -White House itself). And there's the uniformed Treasury Police Force. - -The Secret Service has been charged by Congress with a number -of little-known duties. They guard the precious metals in Treasury vaults. -They guard the most valuable historical documents of the United States: -originals of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, -Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, an American-owned copy of -the Magna Carta, and so forth. Once they were assigned to guard -the Mona Lisa, on her American tour in the 1960s. - -The entire Secret Service is a division of the Treasury Department. -Secret Service Special Agents (there are about 1,900 of them) -are bodyguards for the President et al, but they all work for the Treasury. -And the Treasury (through its divisions of the U.S. Mint and the -Bureau of Engraving and Printing) prints the nation's money. - -As Treasury police, the Secret Service guards the nation's currency; -it is the only federal law enforcement agency with direct jurisdiction -over counterfeiting and forgery. It analyzes documents for authenticity, -and its fight against fake cash is still quite lively (especially since -the skilled counterfeiters of Medellin, Columbia have gotten into the act). -Government checks, bonds, and other obligations, which exist in untold -millions and are worth untold billions, are common targets for forgery, -which the Secret Service also battles. It even handles forgery -of postage stamps. - -But cash is fading in importance today as money has become electronic. -As necessity beckoned, the Secret Service moved from fighting the -counterfeiting of paper currency and the forging of checks, -to the protection of funds transferred by wire. - -From wire-fraud, it was a simple skip-and-jump to what is formally -known as "access device fraud." Congress granted the Secret Service -the authority to investigate "access device fraud" under Title 18 -of the United States Code (U.S.C. Section 1029). - -The term "access device" seems intuitively simple. It's some kind -of high-tech gizmo you use to get money with. It makes good sense -to put this sort of thing in the charge of counterfeiting and -wire-fraud experts. - -However, in Section 1029, the term "access device" is very -generously defined. An access device is: "any card, plate, -code, account number, or other means of account access -that can be used, alone or in conjunction with another access device, -to obtain money, goods, services, or any other thing of value, -or that can be used to initiate a transfer of funds." - -"Access device" can therefore be construed to include credit cards -themselves (a popular forgery item nowadays). It also includes credit card -account NUMBERS, those standards of the digital underground. The same goes -for telephone charge cards (an increasingly popular item with telcos, -who are tired of being robbed of pocket change by phone-booth thieves). -And also telephone access CODES, those OTHER standards of the digital -underground. (Stolen telephone codes may not "obtain money," but they -certainly do obtain valuable "services," which is specifically forbidden -by Section 1029.) - -We can now see that Section 1029 already pits the United States Secret Service -directly against the digital underground, without any mention at all of -the word "computer." - -Standard phreaking devices, like "blue boxes," used to steal phone service -from old-fashioned mechanical switches, are unquestionably "counterfeit -access devices." Thanks to Sec.1029, it is not only illegal to USE -counterfeit access devices, but it is even illegal to BUILD them. -"Producing," "designing" "duplicating" or "assembling" blue boxes -are all federal crimes today, and if you do this, the Secret Service -has been charged by Congress to come after you. - -Automatic Teller Machines, which replicated all over America during the 1980s, -are definitely "access devices," too, and an attempt to tamper with their -punch-in codes and plastic bank cards falls directly under Sec. 1029. - -Section 1029 is remarkably elastic. Suppose you find a computer password -in somebody's trash. That password might be a "code"--it's certainly a -"means of account access." Now suppose you log on to a computer -and copy some software for yourself. You've certainly obtained -"service" (computer service) and a "thing of value" (the software). -Suppose you tell a dozen friends about your swiped password, -and let them use it, too. Now you're "trafficking in unauthorized -access devices." And when the Prophet, a member of the Legion of Doom, -passed a stolen telephone company document to Knight Lightning -at Phrack magazine, they were both charged under Sec. 1029! - -There are two limitations on Section 1029. First, the offense must -"affect interstate or foreign commerce" in order to become a matter -of federal jurisdiction. The term "affecting commerce" is not well defined; -but you may take it as a given that the Secret Service can take an interest -if you've done most anything that happens to cross a state line. -State and local police can be touchy about their jurisdictions, -and can sometimes be mulish when the feds show up. But when it comes -to computer-crime, the local police are pathetically grateful -for federal help--in fact they complain that they can't get enough of it. -If you're stealing long-distance service, you're almost certainly crossing -state lines, and you're definitely "affecting the interstate commerce" -of the telcos. And if you're abusing credit cards by ordering stuff -out of glossy catalogs from, say, Vermont, you're in for it. - -The second limitation is money. As a rule, the feds don't pursue -penny-ante offenders. Federal judges will dismiss cases that appear -to waste their time. Federal crimes must be serious; Section 1029 -specifies a minimum loss of a thousand dollars. - -We now come to the very next section of Title 18, which is Section 1030, -"Fraud and related activity in connection with computers." This statute -gives the Secret Service direct jurisdiction over acts of computer intrusion. -On the face of it, the Secret Service would now seem to command the field. -Section 1030, however, is nowhere near so ductile as Section 1029. - -The first annoyance is Section 1030(d), which reads: - -"(d) The United States Secret Service shall, -IN ADDITION TO ANY OTHER AGENCY HAVING SUCH AUTHORITY, -have the authority to investigate offenses under this section. -Such authority of the United States Secret Service shall be -exercised in accordance with an agreement which shall be entered -into by the Secretary of the Treasury AND THE ATTORNEY GENERAL." -(Author's italics.) [Represented by capitals.] - -The Secretary of the Treasury is the titular head of the Secret Service, -while the Attorney General is in charge of the FBI. In Section (d), -Congress shrugged off responsibility for the computer-crime turf-battle -between the Service and the Bureau, and made them fight it out all -by themselves. The result was a rather dire one for the Secret Service, -for the FBI ended up with exclusive jurisdiction over computer break-ins -having to do with national security, foreign espionage, federally insured -banks, and U.S. military bases, while retaining joint jurisdiction over -all the other computer intrusions. Essentially, when it comes to Section 1030, -the FBI not only gets the real glamor stuff for itself, but can peer over the -shoulder of the Secret Service and barge in to meddle whenever it suits them. - -The second problem has to do with the dicey term -"Federal interest computer." Section 1030(a)(2) -makes it illegal to "access a computer without authorization" -if that computer belongs to a financial institution or an issuer -of credit cards (fraud cases, in other words). Congress was quite -willing to give the Secret Service jurisdiction over -money-transferring computers, but Congress balked at -letting them investigate any and all computer intrusions. -Instead, the USSS had to settle for the money machines -and the "Federal interest computers." A "Federal interest computer" -is a computer which the government itself owns, or is using. -Large networks of interstate computers, linked over state lines, -are also considered to be of "Federal interest." (This notion of -"Federal interest" is legally rather foggy and has never been -clearly defined in the courts. The Secret Service has never yet -had its hand slapped for investigating computer break-ins that were NOT -of "Federal interest," but conceivably someday this might happen.) - -So the Secret Service's authority over "unauthorized access" -to computers covers a lot of territory, but by no means the -whole ball of cyberspatial wax. If you are, for instance, -a LOCAL computer retailer, or the owner of a LOCAL bulletin -board system, then a malicious LOCAL intruder can break in, -crash your system, trash your files and scatter viruses, -and the U.S. Secret Service cannot do a single thing about it. - -At least, it can't do anything DIRECTLY. But the Secret Service -will do plenty to help the local people who can. - -The FBI may have dealt itself an ace off the bottom of the deck -when it comes to Section 1030; but that's not the whole story; -that's not the street. What's Congress thinks is one thing, -and Congress has been known to change its mind. The REAL -turf-struggle is out there in the streets where it's happening. -If you're a local street-cop with a computer problem, -the Secret Service wants you to know where you can find -the real expertise. While the Bureau crowd are off having -their favorite shoes polished--(wing-tips)--and making derisive -fun of the Service's favorite shoes--("pansy-ass tassels")-- -the tassel-toting Secret Service has a crew of ready-and-able -hacker-trackers installed in the capital of every state in the Union. -Need advice? They'll give you advice, or at least point you in -the right direction. Need training? They can see to that, too. - -If you're a local cop and you call in the FBI, the FBI -(as is widely and slanderously rumored) will order you around -like a coolie, take all the credit for your busts, -and mop up every possible scrap of reflected glory. -The Secret Service, on the other hand, doesn't brag a lot. -They're the quiet types. VERY quiet. Very cool. Efficient. -High-tech. Mirrorshades, icy stares, radio ear-plugs, -an Uzi machine-pistol tucked somewhere in that well-cut jacket. -American samurai, sworn to give their lives to protect our President. -"The granite agents." Trained in martial arts, absolutely fearless. -Every single one of 'em has a top-secret security clearance. -Something goes a little wrong, you're not gonna hear any whining -and moaning and political buck-passing out of these guys. - -The facade of the granite agent is not, of course, the reality. -Secret Service agents are human beings. And the real glory -in Service work is not in battling computer crime--not yet, -anyway--but in protecting the President. The real glamour -of Secret Service work is in the White House Detail. -If you're at the President's side, then the kids and the wife -see you on television; you rub shoulders with the most powerful -people in the world. That's the real heart of Service work, -the number one priority. More than one computer investigation -has stopped dead in the water when Service agents vanished at -the President's need. - -There's romance in the work of the Service. The intimate access -to circles of great power; the esprit-de-corps of a highly trained -and disciplined elite; the high responsibility of defending the -Chief Executive; the fulfillment of a patriotic duty. And as police -work goes, the pay's not bad. But there's squalor in Service work, too. -You may get spat upon by protesters howling abuse--and if they get violent, -if they get too close, sometimes you have to knock one of them down-- -discreetly. - -The real squalor in Service work is drudgery such as "the quarterlies," -traipsing out four times a year, year in, year out, to interview the various -pathetic wretches, many of them in prisons and asylums, who have seen fit -to threaten the President's life. And then there's the grinding stress -of searching all those faces in the endless bustling crowds, looking for -hatred, looking for psychosis, looking for the tight, nervous face -of an Arthur Bremer, a Squeaky Fromme, a Lee Harvey Oswald. -It's watching all those grasping, waving hands for sudden movements, -while your ears strain at your radio headphone for the long-rehearsed -cry of "Gun!" - -It's poring, in grinding detail, over the biographies of every rotten -loser who ever shot at a President. It's the unsung work of the -Protective Research Section, who study scrawled, anonymous death threats -with all the meticulous tools of anti-forgery techniques. - -And it's maintaining the hefty computerized files on anyone -who ever threatened the President's life. Civil libertarians -have become increasingly concerned at the Government's use -of computer files to track American citizens--but the -Secret Service file of potential Presidential assassins, -which has upward of twenty thousand names, rarely causes -a peep of protest. If you EVER state that you intend to -kill the President, the Secret Service will want to know -and record who you are, where you are, what you are, -and what you're up to. If you're a serious threat-- -if you're officially considered "of protective interest"-- -then the Secret Service may well keep tabs on you -for the rest of your natural life. - -Protecting the President has first call on all the Service's resources. -But there's a lot more to the Service's traditions and history than -standing guard outside the Oval Office. - -The Secret Service is the nation's oldest general federal -law-enforcement agency. Compared to the Secret Service, -the FBI are new-hires and the CIA are temps. The Secret Service -was founded 'way back in 1865, at the suggestion of Hugh McCulloch, -Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury. McCulloch wanted -a specialized Treasury police to combat counterfeiting. -Abraham Lincoln agreed that this seemed a good idea, and, -with a terrible irony, Abraham Lincoln was shot that -very night by John Wilkes Booth. - -The Secret Service originally had nothing to do with protecting Presidents. -They didn't take this on as a regular assignment until after the Garfield -assassination in 1881. And they didn't get any Congressional money for it -until President McKinley was shot in 1901. The Service was originally -designed for one purpose: destroying counterfeiters. - -# - -There are interesting parallels between the Service's -nineteenth-century entry into counterfeiting, -and America's twentieth-century entry into computer-crime. - -In 1865, America's paper currency was a terrible muddle. -Security was drastically bad. Currency was printed on the spot -by local banks in literally hundreds of different designs. -No one really knew what the heck a dollar bill was supposed to look like. -Bogus bills passed easily. If some joker told you that a one-dollar bill -from the Railroad Bank of Lowell, Massachusetts had a woman leaning on -a shield, with a locomotive, a cornucopia, a compass, various agricultural -implements, a railroad bridge, and some factories, then you pretty much had -to take his word for it. (And in fact he was telling the truth!) - -SIXTEEN HUNDRED local American banks designed and printed their own -paper currency, and there were no general standards for security. -Like a badly guarded node in a computer network, badly designed bills -were easy to fake, and posed a security hazard for the entire monetary system. - -No one knew the exact extent of the threat to the currency. -There were panicked estimates that as much as a third of -the entire national currency was faked. Counterfeiters-- -known as "boodlers" in the underground slang of the time-- -were mostly technically skilled printers who had gone to the bad. -Many had once worked printing legitimate currency. -Boodlers operated in rings and gangs. Technical experts -engraved the bogus plates--commonly in basements in New York City. -Smooth confidence men passed large wads of high-quality, -high-denomination fakes, including the really sophisticated stuff-- -government bonds, stock certificates, and railway shares. -Cheaper, botched fakes were sold or sharewared to low-level -gangs of boodler wannabes. (The really cheesy lowlife boodlers -merely upgraded real bills by altering face values, -changing ones to fives, tens to hundreds, and so on.) - -The techniques of boodling were little-known and regarded -with a certain awe by the mid- nineteenth-century public. -The ability to manipulate the system for rip-off seemed -diabolically clever. As the skill and daring of the -boodlers increased, the situation became intolerable. -The federal government stepped in, and began offering -its own federal currency, which was printed in fancy green ink, -but only on the back--the original "greenbacks." And at first, -the improved security of the well-designed, well-printed -federal greenbacks seemed to solve the problem; but then -the counterfeiters caught on. Within a few years things were -worse than ever: a CENTRALIZED system where ALL security was bad! - -The local police were helpless. The Government tried offering -blood money to potential informants, but this met with little success. -Banks, plagued by boodling, gave up hope of police help and hired -private security men instead. Merchants and bankers queued up -by the thousands to buy privately-printed manuals on currency security, -slim little books like Laban Heath's INFALLIBLE GOVERNMENT -COUNTERFEIT DETECTOR. The back of the book offered Laban Heath's -patent microscope for five bucks. - -Then the Secret Service entered the picture. The first agents -were a rough and ready crew. Their chief was one William P. Wood, -a former guerilla in the Mexican War who'd won a reputation busting -contractor fraudsters for the War Department during the Civil War. -Wood, who was also Keeper of the Capital Prison, had a sideline -as a counterfeiting expert, bagging boodlers for the federal bounty money. - -Wood was named Chief of the new Secret Service in July 1865. -There were only ten Secret Service agents in all: Wood himself, -a handful who'd worked for him in the War Department, and a few -former private investigators--counterfeiting experts--whom Wood -had won over to public service. (The Secret Service of 1865 was -much the size of the Chicago Computer Fraud Task Force or the -Arizona Racketeering Unit of 1990.) These ten "Operatives" -had an additional twenty or so "Assistant Operatives" and "Informants." -Besides salary and per diem, each Secret Service employee received -a whopping twenty-five dollars for each boodler he captured. - -Wood himself publicly estimated that at least HALF of America's currency -was counterfeit, a perhaps pardonable perception. Within a year the -Secret Service had arrested over 200 counterfeiters. They busted about -two hundred boodlers a year for four years straight. - -Wood attributed his success to travelling fast and light, hitting the -bad-guys hard, and avoiding bureaucratic baggage. "Because my raids -were made without military escort and I did not ask the assistance -of state officers, I surprised the professional counterfeiter." - -Wood's social message to the once-impudent boodlers bore an eerie ring -of Sundevil: "It was also my purpose to convince such characters that -it would no longer be healthy for them to ply their vocation without -being handled roughly, a fact they soon discovered." - -William P. Wood, the Secret Service's guerilla pioneer, -did not end well. He succumbed to the lure of aiming for -the really big score. The notorious Brockway Gang of New York City, -headed by William E. Brockway, the "King of the Counterfeiters," -had forged a number of government bonds. They'd passed these -brilliant fakes on the prestigious Wall Street investment -firm of Jay Cooke and Company. The Cooke firm were frantic -and offered a huge reward for the forgers' plates. - -Laboring diligently, Wood confiscated the plates -(though not Mr. Brockway) and claimed the reward. -But the Cooke company treacherously reneged. -Wood got involved in a down-and-dirty lawsuit -with the Cooke capitalists. Wood's boss, -Secretary of the Treasury McCulloch, felt that -Wood's demands for money and glory were unseemly, -and even when the reward money finally came through, -McCulloch refused to pay Wood anything. -Wood found himself mired in a seemingly endless -round of federal suits and Congressional lobbying. - -Wood never got his money. And he lost his job to boot. -He resigned in 1869. - -Wood's agents suffered, too. On May 12, 1869, the second Chief -of the Secret Service took over, and almost immediately fired -most of Wood's pioneer Secret Service agents: Operatives, -Assistants and Informants alike. The practice of receiving $25 -per crook was abolished. And the Secret Service began the long, -uncertain process of thorough professionalization. - -Wood ended badly. He must have felt stabbed in the back. -In fact his entire organization was mangled. - -On the other hand, William P. Wood WAS the first head of the Secret Service. -William Wood was the pioneer. People still honor his name. Who remembers -the name of the SECOND head of the Secret Service? - -As for William Brockway (also known as "Colonel Spencer"), -he was finally arrested by the Secret Service in 1880. -He did five years in prison, got out, and was still boodling -at the age of seventy-four. - -# - -Anyone with an interest in Operation Sundevil-- -or in American computer-crime generally-- -could scarcely miss the presence of Gail Thackeray, -Assistant Attorney General of the State of Arizona. -Computer-crime training manuals often cited -Thackeray's group and her work; she was the -highest-ranking state official to specialize -in computer-related offenses. Her name had been -on the Sundevil press release (though modestly ranked -well after the local federal prosecuting attorney and -the head of the Phoenix Secret Service office). - -As public commentary, and controversy, began to mount -about the Hacker Crackdown, this Arizonan state official -began to take a higher and higher public profile. -Though uttering almost nothing specific about -the Sundevil operation itself, she coined some -of the most striking soundbites of the growing propaganda war: -"Agents are operating in good faith, and I don't think -you can say that for the hacker community," was one. -Another was the memorable "I am not a mad dog prosecutor" -(Houston Chronicle, Sept 2, 1990.) In the meantime, -the Secret Service maintained its usual extreme discretion; -the Chicago Unit, smarting from the backlash -of the Steve Jackson scandal, had gone completely to earth. - -As I collated my growing pile of newspaper clippings, -Gail Thackeray ranked as a comparative fount of public -knowledge on police operations. - -I decided that I had to get to know Gail Thackeray. -I wrote to her at the Arizona Attorney General's Office. -Not only did she kindly reply to me, but, to my astonishment, -she knew very well what "cyberpunk" science fiction was. - -Shortly after this, Gail Thackeray lost her job. -And I temporarily misplaced my own career as -a science-fiction writer, to become a full-time -computer-crime journalist. In early March, 1991, -I flew to Phoenix, Arizona, to interview Gail Thackeray -for my book on the hacker crackdown. - -# - -"Credit cards didn't used to cost anything to get," -says Gail Thackeray. "Now they cost forty bucks-- -and that's all just to cover the costs from RIP-OFF ARTISTS." - -Electronic nuisance criminals are parasites. -One by one they're not much harm, no big deal. -But they never come just one by one. They come in swarms, -heaps, legions, sometimes whole subcultures. And they bite. -Every time we buy a credit card today, we lose a little financial -vitality to a particular species of bloodsucker. - -What, in her expert opinion, are the worst forms of electronic crime, -I ask, consulting my notes. Is it--credit card fraud? Breaking into -ATM bank machines? Phone-phreaking? Computer intrusions? -Software viruses? Access-code theft? Records tampering? -Software piracy? Pornographic bulletin boards? -Satellite TV piracy? Theft of cable service? -It's a long list. By the time I reach the end -of it I feel rather depressed. - -"Oh no," says Gail Thackeray, leaning forward over the table, -her whole body gone stiff with energetic indignation, -"the biggest damage is telephone fraud. Fake sweepstakes, -fake charities. Boiler-room con operations. You could pay off -the national debt with what these guys steal. . . . -They target old people, they get hold of credit ratings -and demographics, they rip off the old and the weak." -The words come tumbling out of her. - -It's low-tech stuff, your everyday boiler-room fraud. -Grifters, conning people out of money over the phone, -have been around for decades. This is where the word "phony" came from! - -It's just that it's so much EASIER now, horribly facilitated by advances -in technology and the byzantine structure of the modern phone system. -The same professional fraudsters do it over and over, Thackeray tells me, -they hide behind dense onion-shells of fake companies. . . fake holding -corporations nine or ten layers deep, registered all over the map. -They get a phone installed under a false name in an empty safe-house. -And then they call-forward everything out of that phone to yet -another phone, a phone that may even be in another STATE. -And they don't even pay the charges on their phones; -after a month or so, they just split; set up somewhere else -in another Podunkville with the same seedy crew of veteran phone-crooks. -They buy or steal commercial credit card reports, slap them on the PC, -have a program pick out people over sixty-five who pay a lot to charities. -A whole subculture living off this, merciless folks on the con. - -"The `light-bulbs for the blind' people," Thackeray muses, -with a special loathing. "There's just no end to them." - -We're sitting in a downtown diner in Phoenix, Arizona. -It's a tough town, Phoenix. A state capital seeing some hard times. -Even to a Texan like myself, Arizona state politics seem rather baroque. -There was, and remains, endless trouble over the Martin Luther King holiday, -the sort of stiff-necked, foot-shooting incident for which Arizona politics -seem famous. There was Evan Mecham, the eccentric Republican millionaire -governor who was impeached, after reducing state government to a -ludicrous shambles. Then there was the national Keating scandal, -involving Arizona savings and loans, in which both of Arizona's -U.S. senators, DeConcini and McCain, played sadly prominent roles. - -And the very latest is the bizarre AzScam case, -in which state legislators were videotaped, -eagerly taking cash from an informant of the Phoenix city -police department, who was posing as a Vegas mobster. - -"Oh," says Thackeray cheerfully. "These people are amateurs here, -they thought they were finally getting to play with the big boys. -They don't have the least idea how to take a bribe! -It's not institutional corruption. It's not like back in Philly." - -Gail Thackeray was a former prosecutor in Philadelphia. -Now she's a former assistant attorney general of the State of Arizona. -Since moving to Arizona in 1986, she had worked under the aegis -of Steve Twist, her boss in the Attorney General's office. -Steve Twist wrote Arizona's pioneering computer crime laws -and naturally took an interest in seeing them enforced. -It was a snug niche, and Thackeray's Organized Crime and -Racketeering Unit won a national reputation for ambition -and technical knowledgeability. . . . Until the latest -election in Arizona. Thackeray's boss ran for the top -job, and lost. The victor, the new Attorney General, -apparently went to some pains to eliminate the bureaucratic -traces of his rival, including his pet group--Thackeray's group. -Twelve people got their walking papers. - -Now Thackeray's painstakingly assembled computer lab -sits gathering dust somewhere in the glass-and-concrete -Attorney General's HQ on 1275 Washington Street. -Her computer-crime books, her painstakingly garnered -back issues of phreak and hacker zines, all bought -at her own expense--are piled in boxes somewhere. -The State of Arizona is simply not particularly -interested in electronic racketeering at the moment. - -At the moment of our interview, Gail Thackeray, -officially unemployed, is working out of the county -sheriff's office, living on her savings, and prosecuting -several cases--working 60-hour weeks, just as always-- -for no pay at all. "I'm trying to train people," -she mutters. - -Half her life seems to be spent training people--merely pointing out, -to the naive and incredulous (such as myself) that this stuff -is ACTUALLY GOING ON OUT THERE. It's a small world, computer crime. -A young world. Gail Thackeray, a trim blonde Baby-Boomer who favors -Grand Canyon white-water rafting to kill some slow time, -is one of the world's most senior, most veteran "hacker-trackers." -Her mentor was Donn Parker, the California think-tank theorist -who got it all started `way back in the mid-70s, the "grandfather -of the field," "the great bald eagle of computer crime." - -And what she has learned, Gail Thackeray teaches. Endlessly. -Tirelessly. To anybody. To Secret Service agents and state police, -at the Glynco, Georgia federal training center. To local police, -on "roadshows" with her slide projector and notebook. -To corporate security personnel. To journalists. To parents. - -Even CROOKS look to Gail Thackeray for advice. -Phone-phreaks call her at the office. They know very -well who she is. They pump her for information -on what the cops are up to, how much they know. -Sometimes whole CROWDS of phone phreaks, -hanging out on illegal conference calls, will call Gail -Thackeray up. They taunt her. And, as always, -they boast. Phone-phreaks, real stone phone-phreaks, -simply CANNOT SHUT UP. They natter on for hours. - -Left to themselves, they mostly talk about the intricacies -of ripping-off phones; it's about as interesting as listening -to hot-rodders talk about suspension and distributor-caps. -They also gossip cruelly about each other. And when talking -to Gail Thackeray, they incriminate themselves. "I have tapes," -Thackeray says coolly. - -Phone phreaks just talk like crazy. "Dial-Tone" out in Alabama -has been known to spend half-an-hour simply reading stolen -phone-codes aloud into voice-mail answering machines. -Hundreds, thousands of numbers, recited in a monotone, -without a break--an eerie phenomenon. When arrested, -it's a rare phone phreak who doesn't inform at endless length -on everybody he knows. - -Hackers are no better. What other group of criminals, -she asks rhetorically, publishes newsletters and holds conventions? -She seems deeply nettled by the sheer brazenness of this behavior, -though to an outsider, this activity might make one wonder -whether hackers should be considered "criminals" at all. -Skateboarders have magazines, and they trespass a lot. -Hot rod people have magazines and they break speed limits -and sometimes kill people. . . . - -I ask her whether it would be any loss to society if phone phreaking -and computer hacking, as hobbies, simply dried up and blew away, -so that nobody ever did it again. - -She seems surprised. "No," she says swiftly. "Maybe a little. . . -in the old days. . .the MIT stuff. . . . But there's a lot of wonderful, -legal stuff you can do with computers now, you don't have to break into -somebody else's just to learn. You don't have that excuse. -You can learn all you like." - -Did you ever hack into a system? I ask. - -The trainees do it at Glynco. Just to demonstrate system vulnerabilities. -She's cool to the notion. Genuinely indifferent. - -"What kind of computer do you have?" - -"A Compaq 286LE," she mutters. - -"What kind do you WISH you had?" - -At this question, the unmistakable light of true hackerdom flares in -Gail Thackeray's eyes. She becomes tense, animated, the words pour out: -"An Amiga 2000 with an IBM card and Mac emulation! The most common hacker -machines are Amigas and Commodores. And Apples." If she had the Amiga, -she enthuses, she could run a whole galaxy of seized computer-evidence disks -on one convenient multifunctional machine. A cheap one, too. Not like the -old Attorney General lab, where they had an ancient CP/M machine, -assorted Amiga flavors and Apple flavors, a couple IBMS, all the -utility software. . .but no Commodores. The workstations down -at the Attorney General's are Wang dedicated word-processors. -Lame machines tied in to an office net--though at least they get -on- line to the Lexis and Westlaw legal data services. - -I don't say anything. I recognize the syndrome, though. -This computer-fever has been running through segments of -our society for years now. It's a strange kind of lust: -K-hunger, Meg-hunger; but it's a shared disease; -it can kill parties dead, as conversation spirals into -the deepest and most deviant recesses of software releases -and expensive peripherals. . . . The mark of the hacker beast. -I have it too. The whole "electronic community," whatever the hell -that is, has it. Gail Thackeray has it. Gail Thackeray is a hacker cop. -My immediate reaction is a strong rush of indignant pity: -WHY DOESN'T SOMEBODY BUY THIS WOMAN HER AMIGA?! -It's not like she's asking for a Cray X-MP -supercomputer mainframe; an Amiga's a sweet little -cookie-box thing. We're losing zillions in organized fraud; -prosecuting and defending a single hacker case in court can cost -a hundred grand easy. How come nobody can come up with four lousy grand -so this woman can do her job? For a hundred grand we could buy every -computer cop in America an Amiga. There aren't that many of 'em. - -Computers. The lust, the hunger, for computers. -The loyalty they inspire, the intense sense of possessiveness. -The culture they have bred. I myself am sitting in downtown Phoenix, -Arizona because it suddenly occurred to me that the police might-- -just MIGHT--come and take away my computer. The prospect of this, -the mere IMPLIED THREAT, was unbearable. It literally changed my life. -It was changing the lives of many others. Eventually it would change -everybody's life. - -Gail Thackeray was one of the top computer-crime people in America. -And I was just some novelist, and yet I had a better computer than hers. -PRACTICALLY EVERYBODY I KNEW had a better computer than Gail Thackeray -and her feeble laptop 286. It was like sending the sheriff in to clean -up Dodge City and arming her with a slingshot cut from an old rubber tire. - -But then again, you don't need a howitzer to enforce the law. -You can do a lot just with a badge. With a badge alone, -you can basically wreak havoc, take a terrible vengeance on wrongdoers. -Ninety percent of "computer crime investigation" is just "crime investigation:" -names, places, dossiers, modus operandi, search warrants, victims, -complainants, informants. . . . - -What will computer crime look like in ten years? Will it get better? -Did "Sundevil" send 'em reeling back in confusion? - -It'll be like it is now, only worse, she tells me with perfect conviction. -Still there in the background, ticking along, changing with the times: -the criminal underworld. It'll be like drugs are. Like our problems -with alcohol. All the cops and laws in the world never solved our problems -with alcohol. If there's something people want, a certain percentage -of them are just going to take it. Fifteen percent of the populace -will never steal. Fifteen percent will steal most anything not nailed down. -The battle is for the hearts and minds of the remaining seventy percent. - -And criminals catch on fast. If there's not "too steep a learning curve"-- -if it doesn't require a baffling amount of expertise and practice-- -then criminals are often some of the first through the gate of a -new technology. Especially if it helps them to hide. -They have tons of cash, criminals. The new communications tech-- -like pagers, cellular phones, faxes, Federal Express--were pioneered -by rich corporate people, and by criminals. In the early years -of pagers and beepers, dope dealers were so enthralled this technology -that owing a beeper was practically prima facie evidence of cocaine dealing. -CB radio exploded when the speed limit hit 55 and breaking the highway law -became a national pastime. Dope dealers send cash by Federal Express, -despite, or perhaps BECAUSE OF, the warnings in FedEx offices that tell you -never to try this. Fed Ex uses X-rays and dogs on their mail, -to stop drug shipments. That doesn't work very well. - -Drug dealers went wild over cellular phones. -There are simple methods of faking ID on cellular phones, -making the location of the call mobile, free of charge, -and effectively untraceable. Now victimized cellular -companies routinely bring in vast toll-lists of calls -to Colombia and Pakistan. - -Judge Greene's fragmentation of the phone company -is driving law enforcement nuts. Four thousand -telecommunications companies. Fraud skyrocketing. -Every temptation in the world available with a phone -and a credit card number. Criminals untraceable. -A galaxy of "new neat rotten things to do." - -If there were one thing Thackeray would like to have, -it would be an effective legal end-run through this new -fragmentation minefield. - -It would be a new form of electronic search warrant, -an "electronic letter of marque" to be issued by a judge. -It would create a new category of "electronic emergency." -Like a wiretap, its use would be rare, but it would cut -across state lines and force swift cooperation from all concerned. -Cellular, phone, laser, computer network, PBXes, AT&T, Baby Bells, -long-distance entrepreneurs, packet radio. Some document, -some mighty court-order, that could slice through four thousand -separate forms of corporate red-tape, and get her at once to -the source of calls, the source of email threats and viruses, -the sources of bomb threats, kidnapping threats. "From now on," -she says, "the Lindbergh baby will always die." - -Something that would make the Net sit still, if only for a moment. -Something that would get her up to speed. Seven league boots. -That's what she really needs. "Those guys move in nanoseconds -and I'm on the Pony Express." - -And then, too, there's the coming international angle. -Electronic crime has never been easy to localize, -to tie to a physical jurisdiction. And phone-phreaks -and hackers loathe boundaries, they jump them whenever they can. -The English. The Dutch. And the Germans, especially the ubiquitous -Chaos Computer Club. The Australians. They've all learned phone-phreaking -from America. It's a growth mischief industry. The multinational -networks are global, but governments and the police simply aren't. -Neither are the laws. Or the legal frameworks for citizen protection. - -One language is global, though--English. Phone phreaks speak English; -it's their native tongue even if they're Germans. English may have started -in England but now it's the Net language; it might as well be called "CNNese." - -Asians just aren't much into phone phreaking. They're the world masters -at organized software piracy. The French aren't into phone-phreaking either. -The French are into computerized industrial espionage. - -In the old days of the MIT righteous hackerdom, crashing systems -didn't hurt anybody. Not all that much, anyway. Not permanently. -Now the players are more venal. Now the consequences are worse. -Hacking will begin killing people soon. Already there are methods -of stacking calls onto 911 systems, annoying the police, and possibly -causing the death of some poor soul calling in with a genuine emergency. -Hackers in Amtrak computers, or air-traffic control computers, will kill -somebody someday. Maybe a lot of people. Gail Thackeray expects it. - -And the viruses are getting nastier. The "Scud" virus is the latest one out. -It wipes hard-disks. - -According to Thackeray, the idea that phone-phreaks are Robin Hoods is a fraud. -They don't deserve this repute. Basically, they pick on the weak. AT&T now -protects itself with the fearsome ANI (Automatic Number Identification) -trace capability. When AT&T wised up and tightened security generally, -the phreaks drifted into the Baby Bells. The Baby Bells lashed out in 1989 -and 1990, so the phreaks switched to smaller long-distance entrepreneurs. -Today, they are moving into locally owned PBXes and voice-mail systems, -which are full of security holes, dreadfully easy to hack. These victims -aren't the moneybags Sheriff of Nottingham or Bad King John, but small groups -of innocent people who find it hard to protect themselves, and who really -suffer from these depredations. Phone phreaks pick on the weak. They do it -for power. If it were legal, they wouldn't do it. They don't want service, -or knowledge, they want the thrill of power-tripping. There's plenty of -knowledge or service around if you're willing to pay. Phone phreaks don't pay, -they steal. It's because it is illegal that it feels like power, -that it gratifies their vanity. - -I leave Gail Thackeray with a handshake at the door of her office building-- -a vast International-Style office building downtown. The Sheriff's office -is renting part of it. I get the vague impression that quite a lot of the -building is empty--real estate crash. - -In a Phoenix sports apparel store, in a downtown mall, I meet -the "Sun Devil" himself. He is the cartoon mascot of -Arizona State University, whose football stadium, "Sundevil," -is near the local Secret Service HQ--hence the name Operation Sundevil. -The Sun Devil himself is named "Sparky." Sparky the Sun Devil is maroon -and bright yellow, the school colors. Sparky brandishes a three-tined -yellow pitchfork. He has a small mustache, pointed ears, a barbed tail, -and is dashing forward jabbing the air with the pitchfork, -with an expression of devilish glee. - -Phoenix was the home of Operation Sundevil. The Legion of Doom -ran a hacker bulletin board called "The Phoenix Project." -An Australian hacker named "Phoenix" once burrowed through -the Internet to attack Cliff Stoll, then bragged and boasted -about it to The New York Times. This net of coincidence -is both odd and meaningless. - -The headquarters of the Arizona Attorney General, Gail Thackeray's -former workplace, is on 1275 Washington Avenue. Many of the downtown -streets in Phoenix are named after prominent American presidents: -Washington, Jefferson, Madison. . . . - -After dark, all the employees go home to their suburbs. -Washington, Jefferson and Madison--what would be the -Phoenix inner city, if there were an inner city in this -sprawling automobile-bred town--become the haunts -of transients and derelicts. The homeless. The sidewalks -along Washington are lined with orange trees. -Ripe fallen fruit lies scattered like croquet balls -on the sidewalks and gutters. No one seems to be eating them. -I try a fresh one. It tastes unbearably bitter. - -The Attorney General's office, built in 1981 during the -Babbitt administration, is a long low two-story building -of white cement and wall-sized sheets of curtain-glass. -Behind each glass wall is a lawyer's office, quite open -and visible to anyone strolling by. Across the street -is a dour government building labelled simply ECONOMIC SECURITY, -something that has not been in great supply in the American -Southwest lately. - -The offices are about twelve feet square. They feature -tall wooden cases full of red-spined lawbooks; -Wang computer monitors; telephones; Post-it notes galore. -Also framed law diplomas and a general excess of bad -Western landscape art. Ansel Adams photos are a big favorite, -perhaps to compensate for the dismal specter of the parking lot, -two acres of striped black asphalt, which features gravel landscaping -and some sickly-looking barrel cacti. - -It has grown dark. Gail Thackeray has told me that the people -who work late here, are afraid of muggings in the parking lot. -It seems cruelly ironic that a woman tracing electronic racketeers -across the interstate labyrinth of Cyberspace should fear an assault -by a homeless derelict in the parking lot of her own workplace. - -Perhaps this is less than coincidence. Perhaps these two seemingly -disparate worlds are somehow generating one another. The poor and -disenfranchised take to the streets, while the rich and computer-equipped, -safe in their bedrooms, chatter over their modems. Quite often the derelicts -kick the glass out and break in to the lawyers' offices, if they see something -they need or want badly enough. - -I cross the parking lot to the street behind the Attorney General's office. -A pair of young tramps are bedding down on flattened sheets of cardboard, -under an alcove stretching over the sidewalk. One tramp wears a -glitter-covered T-shirt reading "CALIFORNIA" in Coca-Cola cursive. -His nose and cheeks look chafed and swollen; they glisten with -what seems to be Vaseline. The other tramp has a ragged long-sleeved -shirt and lank brown hair parted in the middle. They both wear blue jeans -coated in grime. They are both drunk. - -"You guys crash here a lot?" I ask them. - -They look at me warily. I am wearing black jeans, a black pinstriped -suit jacket and a black silk tie. I have odd shoes and a funny haircut. - -"It's our first time here," says the red-nosed tramp unconvincingly. -There is a lot of cardboard stacked here. More than any two people could use. - -"We usually stay at the Vinnie's down the street," says the brown-haired tramp, -puffing a Marlboro with a meditative air, as he sprawls with his head on -a blue nylon backpack. "The Saint Vincent's." - -"You know who works in that building over there?" I ask, pointing. - -The brown-haired tramp shrugs. "Some kind of attorneys, it says." - -We urge one another to take it easy. I give them five bucks. - -A block down the street I meet a vigorous workman who is wheeling along -some kind of industrial trolley; it has what appears to be a tank of -propane on it. - -We make eye contact. We nod politely. I walk past him. "Hey! -Excuse me sir!" he says. - -"Yes?" I say, stopping and turning. - -"Have you seen," the guy says rapidly, "a black guy, about 6'7", -scars on both his cheeks like this--" he gestures-- "wears a -black baseball cap on backwards, wandering around here anyplace?" - -"Sounds like I don't much WANT to meet him," I say. - -"He took my wallet," says my new acquaintance. -"Took it this morning. Y'know, some people would be -SCARED of a guy like that. But I'm not scared. -I'm from Chicago. I'm gonna hunt him down. -We do things like that in Chicago." - -"Yeah?" - -"I went to the cops and now he's got an APB out on his ass," -he says with satisfaction. "You run into him, you let me know." - -"Okay," I say. "What is your name, sir?" - -"Stanley. . . ." - -"And how can I reach you?" - -"Oh," Stanley says, in the same rapid voice, -"you don't have to reach, uh, me. -You can just call the cops. Go straight to the cops." -He reaches into a pocket and pulls out a greasy piece of pasteboard. -"See, here's my report on him." - -I look. The "report," the size of an index card, is labelled PRO-ACT: -Phoenix Residents Opposing Active Crime Threat. . . . or is it -Organized Against Crime Threat? In the darkening street it's hard -to read. Some kind of vigilante group? Neighborhood watch? -I feel very puzzled. - -"Are you a police officer, sir?" - -He smiles, seems very pleased by the question. - -"No," he says. - -"But you are a `Phoenix Resident?'" - -"Would you believe a homeless person," Stanley says. - -"Really? But what's with the. . . ." For the first time I take a close look -at Stanley's trolley. It's a rubber-wheeled thing of industrial metal, -but the device I had mistaken for a tank of propane is in fact a water-cooler. -Stanley also has an Army duffel-bag, stuffed tight as a sausage with clothing -or perhaps a tent, and, at the base of his trolley, a cardboard box and a -battered leather briefcase. - -"I see," I say, quite at a loss. For the first time I notice that Stanley -has a wallet. He has not lost his wallet at all. It is in his back pocket -and chained to his belt. It's not a new wallet. It seems to have seen -a lot of wear. - -"Well, you know how it is, brother," says Stanley. -Now that I know that he is homeless--A POSSIBLE -THREAT--my entire perception of him has changed -in an instant. His speech, which once seemed just -bright and enthusiastic, now seems to have a -dangerous tang of mania. "I have to do this!" -he assures me. "Track this guy down. . . . -It's a thing I do. . . you know. . .to keep myself together!" -He smiles, nods, lifts his trolley by its decaying rubber handgrips. - -"Gotta work together, y'know," Stanley booms, his face alight -with cheerfulness, "the police can't do everything!" -The gentlemen I met in my stroll in downtown Phoenix -are the only computer illiterates in this book. -To regard them as irrelevant, however, would be a grave mistake. - -As computerization spreads across society, the populace at large -is subjected to wave after wave of future shock. But, as a -necessary converse, the "computer community" itself is subjected -to wave after wave of incoming computer illiterates. -How will those currently enjoying America's digital bounty regard, -and treat, all this teeming refuse yearning to breathe free? -Will the electronic frontier be another Land of Opportunity-- -or an armed and monitored enclave, where the disenfranchised -snuggle on their cardboard at the locked doors of our houses of justice? - -Some people just don't get along with computers. They can't read. -They can't type. They just don't have it in their heads to master -arcane instructions in wirebound manuals. Somewhere, the process -of computerization of the populace will reach a limit. Some people-- -quite decent people maybe, who might have thrived in any other situation-- -will be left irretrievably outside the bounds. What's to be done with -these people, in the bright new shiny electroworld? How will they -be regarded, by the mouse-whizzing masters of cyberspace? With contempt? -Indifference? Fear? - -In retrospect, it astonishes me to realize how quickly poor Stanley -became a perceived threat. Surprise and fear are closely allied feelings. -And the world of computing is full of surprises. - -I met one character in the streets of Phoenix whose role in this book -is supremely and directly relevant. That personage was Stanley's giant -thieving scarred phantom. This phantasm is everywhere in this book. -He is the specter haunting cyberspace. - -Sometimes he's a maniac vandal ready to smash the phone system -for no sane reason at all. Sometimes he's a fascist fed, -coldly programming his mighty mainframes to destroy our Bill of Rights. -Sometimes he's a telco bureaucrat, covertly conspiring to register all modems -in the service of an Orwellian surveillance regime. Mostly, though, -this fearsome phantom is a "hacker." He's strange, he doesn't belong, -he's not authorized, he doesn't smell right, he's not keeping his proper place, -he's not one of us. The focus of fear is the hacker, for much the same -reasons that Stanley's fancied assailant is black. - -Stanley's demon can't go away, because he doesn't exist. -Despite singleminded and tremendous effort, he can't be arrested, -sued, jailed, or fired. The only constructive way to do ANYTHING -about him is to learn more about Stanley himself. This learning process -may be repellent, it may be ugly, it may involve grave elements of paranoiac -confusion, but it's necessary. Knowing Stanley requires something more -than class-crossing condescension. It requires more than steely -legal objectivity. It requires human compassion and sympathy. - -To know Stanley is to know his demon. If you know the other guy's demon, -then maybe you'll come to know some of your own. You'll be able to -separate reality from illusion. And then you won't do your cause, -and yourself, more harm than good. Like poor damned Stanley from Chicago did. - -# - -The Federal Computer Investigations Committee (FCIC) is the most important -and influential organization in the realm of American computer-crime. -Since the police of other countries have largely taken their computer-crime -cues from American methods, the FCIC might well be called the most important -computer crime group in the world. - -It is also, by federal standards, an organization of great unorthodoxy. -State and local investigators mix with federal agents. Lawyers, -financial auditors and computer-security programmers trade notes -with street cops. Industry vendors and telco security people show up -to explain their gadgetry and plead for protection and justice. -Private investigators, think-tank experts and industry pundits throw in -their two cents' worth. The FCIC is the antithesis of a formal bureaucracy. - -Members of the FCIC are obscurely proud of this fact; they recognize their -group as aberrant, but are entirely convinced that this, for them, -outright WEIRD behavior is nevertheless ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY -to get their jobs done. - -FCIC regulars --from the Secret Service, the FBI, the IRS, -the Department of Labor, the offices of federal attorneys, -state police, the Air Force, from military intelligence-- -often attend meetings, held hither and thither across the country, -at their own expense. The FCIC doesn't get grants. It doesn't -charge membership fees. It doesn't have a boss. It has no headquarters-- -just a mail drop in Washington DC, at the Fraud Division of the Secret Service. -It doesn't have a budget. It doesn't have schedules. It meets three times -a year--sort of. Sometimes it issues publications, but the FCIC -has no regular publisher, no treasurer, not even a secretary. -There are no minutes of FCIC meetings. Non-federal people are considered -"non-voting members," but there's not much in the way of elections. -There are no badges, lapel pins or certificates of membership. -Everyone is on a first-name basis. There are about forty of them. -Nobody knows how many, exactly. People come, people go-- -sometimes people "go" formally but still hang around anyway. -Nobody has ever exactly figured out what "membership" of this -"Committee" actually entails. - -Strange as this may seem to some, to anyone familiar with the social world -of computing, the "organization" of the FCIC is very recognizable. - -For years now, economists and management theorists have speculated -that the tidal wave of the information revolution would destroy rigid, -pyramidal bureaucracies, where everything is top-down and -centrally controlled. Highly trained "employees" would take on -much greater autonomy, being self-starting, and self-motivating, -moving from place to place, task to task, with great speed and fluidity. -"Ad-hocracy" would rule, with groups of people spontaneously knitting -together across organizational lines, tackling the problem at hand, -applying intense computer-aided expertise to it, and then vanishing -whence they came. - -This is more or less what has actually happened in the world of -federal computer investigation. With the conspicuous exception -of the phone companies, which are after all over a hundred years old, -practically EVERY organization that plays any important role in this book -functions just like the FCIC. The Chicago Task Force, the Arizona -Racketeering Unit, the Legion of Doom, the Phrack crowd, the -Electronic Frontier Foundation--they ALL look and act like "tiger teams" -or "user's groups." They are all electronic ad-hocracies leaping up -spontaneously to attempt to meet a need. - -Some are police. Some are, by strict definition, criminals. -Some are political interest-groups. But every single group -has that same quality of apparent spontaneity--"Hey, gang! -My uncle's got a barn--let's put on a show!" - -Every one of these groups is embarrassed by this "amateurism," -and, for the sake of their public image in a world of non-computer people, -they all attempt to look as stern and formal and impressive as possible. -These electronic frontier-dwellers resemble groups of nineteenth-century -pioneers hankering after the respectability of statehood. -There are however, two crucial differences in the historical experience -of these "pioneers" of the nineteeth and twenty-first centuries. - -First, powerful information technology DOES play into the hands of small, -fluid, loosely organized groups. There have always been "pioneers," -"hobbyists," "amateurs," "dilettantes," "volunteers," "movements," -"users' groups" and "blue-ribbon panels of experts" around. -But a group of this kind--when technically equipped to ship -huge amounts of specialized information, at lightning speed, -to its members, to government, and to the press--is simply -a different kind of animal. It's like the difference between -an eel and an electric eel. - -The second crucial change is that American society is currently -in a state approaching permanent technological revolution. -In the world of computers particularly, it is practically impossible -to EVER stop being a "pioneer," unless you either drop dead or -deliberately jump off the bus. The scene has never slowed down -enough to become well-institutionalized. And after twenty, thirty, -forty years the "computer revolution" continues to spread, -to permeate new corners of society. Anything that really works -is already obsolete. - -If you spend your entire working life as a "pioneer," the word "pioneer" -begins to lose its meaning. Your way of life looks less and less like -an introduction to something else" more stable and organized, -and more and more like JUST THE WAY THINGS ARE. A "permanent revolution" -is really a contradiction in terms. If "turmoil" lasts long enough, -it simply becomes A NEW KIND OF SOCIETY--still the same game of history, -but new players, new rules. - -Apply this to the world of late twentieth-century law enforcement, -and the implications are novel and puzzling indeed. Any bureaucratic -rulebook you write about computer-crime will be flawed when you write it, -and almost an antique by the time it sees print. The fluidity and fast -reactions of the FCIC give them a great advantage in this regard, -which explains their success. Even with the best will in the world -(which it does not, in fact, possess) it is impossible for an organization -the size of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to get up to speed -on the theory and practice of computer crime. If they tried to train all -their agents to do this, it would be SUICIDAL, as they would NEVER BE ABLE -TO DO ANYTHING ELSE. - -The FBI does try to train its agents in the basics of electronic crime, -at their base in Quantico, Virginia. And the Secret Service, along with -many other law enforcement groups, runs quite successful and well-attended -training courses on wire fraud, business crime, and computer intrusion -at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC, pronounced "fletsy") -in Glynco, Georgia. But the best efforts of these bureaucracies does not -remove the absolute need for a "cutting-edge mess" like the FCIC. - -For you see--the members of FCIC ARE the trainers of the rest -of law enforcement. Practically and literally speaking, -they are the Glynco computer-crime faculty by another name. -If the FCIC went over a cliff on a bus, the U.S. law enforcement -community would be rendered deaf dumb and blind in the world -of computer crime, and would swiftly feel a desperate need -to reinvent them. And this is no time to go starting from scratch. - -On June 11, 1991, I once again arrived in Phoenix, Arizona, -for the latest meeting of the Federal Computer Investigations Committee. -This was more or less the twentieth meeting of this stellar group. -The count was uncertain, since nobody could figure out whether to -include the meetings of "the Colluquy," which is what the FCIC -was called in the mid-1980s before it had even managed to obtain -the dignity of its own acronym. - -Since my last visit to Arizona, in May, the local AzScam bribery scandal -had resolved itself in a general muddle of humiliation. The Phoenix chief -of police, whose agents had videotaped nine state legislators up to no good, -had resigned his office in a tussle with the Phoenix city council over -the propriety of his undercover operations. - -The Phoenix Chief could now join Gail Thackeray and eleven of her closest -associates in the shared experience of politically motivated unemployment. -As of June, resignations were still continuing at the Arizona Attorney -General's office, which could be interpreted as either a New Broom -Sweeping Clean or a Night of the Long Knives Part II, depending on -your point of view. - -The meeting of FCIC was held at the Scottsdale Hilton Resort. -Scottsdale is a wealthy suburb of Phoenix, known as "Scottsdull" -to scoffing local trendies, but well-equipped with posh shopping-malls -and manicured lawns, while conspicuously undersupplied with homeless derelicts. -The Scottsdale Hilton Resort was a sprawling hotel in postmodern -crypto-Southwestern style. It featured a "mission bell tower" -plated in turquoise tile and vaguely resembling a Saudi minaret. - -Inside it was all barbarically striped Santa Fe Style decor. -There was a health spa downstairs and a large oddly-shaped -pool in the patio. A poolside umbrella-stand offered Ben and Jerry's -politically correct Peace Pops. - -I registered as a member of FCIC, attaining a handy discount rate, -then went in search of the Feds. Sure enough, at the back of the -hotel grounds came the unmistakable sound of Gail Thackeray -holding forth. - -Since I had also attended the Computers Freedom and Privacy conference -(about which more later), this was the second time I had seen Thackeray -in a group of her law enforcement colleagues. Once again I was struck -by how simply pleased they seemed to see her. It was natural that she'd -get SOME attention, as Gail was one of two women in a group of some thirty men; -but there was a lot more to it than that. - -Gail Thackeray personifies the social glue of the FCIC. They could give -a damn about her losing her job with the Attorney General. They were sorry -about it, of course, but hell, they'd all lost jobs. If they were the kind -of guys who liked steady boring jobs, they would never have gotten into -computer work in the first place. - -I wandered into her circle and was immediately introduced to five strangers. -The conditions of my visit at FCIC were reviewed. I would not quote -anyone directly. I would not tie opinions expressed to the agencies -of the attendees. I would not (a purely hypothetical example) -report the conversation of a guy from the Secret Service talking -quite civilly to a guy from the FBI, as these two agencies NEVER -talk to each other, and the IRS (also present, also hypothetical) -NEVER TALKS TO ANYBODY. - -Worse yet, I was forbidden to attend the first conference. And I didn't. -I have no idea what the FCIC was up to behind closed doors that afternoon. -I rather suspect that they were engaging in a frank and thorough confession -of their errors, goof-ups and blunders, as this has been a feature of every -FCIC meeting since their legendary Memphis beer-bust of 1986. Perhaps the -single greatest attraction of FCIC is that it is a place where you can go, -let your hair down, and completely level with people who actually comprehend -what you are talking about. Not only do they understand you, but they -REALLY PAY ATTENTION, they are GRATEFUL FOR YOUR INSIGHTS, and they -FORGIVE YOU, which in nine cases out of ten is something even your -boss can't do, because as soon as you start talking "ROM," "BBS," -or "T-1 trunk," his eyes glaze over. - -I had nothing much to do that afternoon. The FCIC were beavering away -in their conference room. Doors were firmly closed, windows too dark -to peer through. I wondered what a real hacker, a computer intruder, -would do at a meeting like this. - -The answer came at once. He would "trash" the place. Not reduce the place -to trash in some orgy of vandalism; that's not the use of the term in the -hacker milieu. No, he would quietly EMPTY THE TRASH BASKETS and silently -raid any valuable data indiscreetly thrown away. - -Journalists have been known to do this. (Journalists hunting information -have been known to do almost every single unethical thing that hackers -have ever done. They also throw in a few awful techniques all their own.) -The legality of `trashing' is somewhat dubious but it is not in fact -flagrantly illegal. It was, however, absurd to contemplate trashing the FCIC. -These people knew all about trashing. I wouldn't last fifteen seconds. - -The idea sounded interesting, though. I'd been hearing a lot about -the practice lately. On the spur of the moment, I decided I would try -trashing the office ACROSS THE HALL from the FCIC, an area which had -nothing to do with the investigators. - -The office was tiny; six chairs, a table. . . . Nevertheless, it was open, -so I dug around in its plastic trash can. - -To my utter astonishment, I came up with the torn scraps of a SPRINT -long-distance phone bill. More digging produced a bank statement -and the scraps of a hand-written letter, along with gum, cigarette ashes, -candy wrappers and a day-old-issue of USA TODAY. - -The trash went back in its receptacle while the scraps of data went into -my travel bag. I detoured through the hotel souvenir shop for some -Scotch tape and went up to my room. - -Coincidence or not, it was quite true. Some poor soul had, in fact, -thrown a SPRINT bill into the hotel's trash. Date May 1991, -total amount due: $252.36. Not a business phone, either, -but a residential bill, in the name of someone called Evelyn -(not her real name). Evelyn's records showed a ## PAST DUE BILL ##! -Here was her nine-digit account ID. Here was a stern computer-printed warning: - -"TREAT YOUR FONCARD AS YOU WOULD ANY CREDIT CARD. TO SECURE AGAINST FRAUD, -NEVER GIVE YOUR FONCARD NUMBER OVER THE PHONE UNLESS YOU INITIATED THE CALL. -IF YOU RECEIVE SUSPICIOUS CALLS PLEASE NOTIFY CUSTOMER SERVICE IMMEDIATELY!" - -I examined my watch. Still plenty of time left for the FCIC to carry on. -I sorted out the scraps of Evelyn's SPRINT bill and re-assembled them with -fresh Scotch tape. Here was her ten-digit FONCARD number. Didn't seem -to have the ID number necessary to cause real fraud trouble. - -I did, however, have Evelyn's home phone number. And the phone numbers -for a whole crowd of Evelyn's long-distance friends and acquaintances. -In San Diego, Folsom, Redondo, Las Vegas, La Jolla, Topeka, and Northampton -Massachusetts. Even somebody in Australia! - -I examined other documents. Here was a bank statement. It was Evelyn's -IRA account down at a bank in San Mateo California (total balance $1877.20). -Here was a charge-card bill for $382.64. She was paying it off bit by bit. - -Driven by motives that were completely unethical and prurient, -I now examined the handwritten notes. They had been torn fairly -thoroughly, so much so that it took me almost an entire five minutes -to reassemble them. - -They were drafts of a love letter. They had been written on -the lined stationery of Evelyn's employer, a biomedical company. -Probably written at work when she should have been doing something else. - -"Dear Bob," (not his real name) "I guess in everyone's life there comes -a time when hard decisions have to be made, and this is a difficult one -for me--very upsetting. Since you haven't called me, and I don't understand -why, I can only surmise it's because you don't want to. I thought I would -have heard from you Friday. I did have a few unusual problems with my phone -and possibly you tried, I hope so. - -"Robert, you asked me to `let go'. . . ." - -The first note ended. UNUSUAL PROBLEMS WITH HER PHONE? -I looked swiftly at the next note. - -"Bob, not hearing from you for the whole weekend has left me very perplexed. . . ." - -Next draft. - -"Dear Bob, there is so much I don't understand right now, and I wish I did. -I wish I could talk to you, but for some unknown reason you have elected not -to call--this is so difficult for me to understand. . . ." - -She tried again. - -"Bob, Since I have always held you in such high esteem, I had every hope that -we could remain good friends, but now one essential ingredient is missing-- -respect. Your ability to discard people when their purpose is served is -appalling to me. The kindest thing you could do for me now is to leave me -alone. You are no longer welcome in my heart or home. . . ." - -Try again. - -"Bob, I wrote a very factual note to you to say how much respect I had lost -for you, by the way you treat people, me in particular, so uncaring and cold. -The kindest thing you can do for me is to leave me alone entirely, -as you are no longer welcome in my heart or home. I would appreciate it -if you could retire your debt to me as soon as possible--I wish no link -to you in any way. Sincerely, Evelyn." - -Good heavens, I thought, the bastard actually owes her money! -I turned to the next page. - -"Bob: very simple. GOODBYE! No more mind games--no more fascination-- -no more coldness--no more respect for you! It's over--Finis. Evie" - -There were two versions of the final brushoff letter, but they read about -the same. Maybe she hadn't sent it. The final item in my illicit and -shameful booty was an envelope addressed to "Bob" at his home address, -but it had no stamp on it and it hadn't been mailed. - -Maybe she'd just been blowing off steam because her rascal boyfriend -had neglected to call her one weekend. Big deal. Maybe they'd kissed -and made up, maybe she and Bob were down at Pop's Chocolate Shop now, -sharing a malted. Sure. - -Easy to find out. All I had to do was call Evelyn up. With a half-clever -story and enough brass-plated gall I could probably trick the truth out of her. -Phone-phreaks and hackers deceive people over the phone all the time. -It's called "social engineering." Social engineering is a very common practice -in the underground, and almost magically effective. Human beings are almost -always the weakest link in computer security. The simplest way to learn -Things You Are Not Meant To Know is simply to call up and exploit the -knowledgeable people. With social engineering, you use the bits of specialized -knowledge you already have as a key, to manipulate people into believing -that you are legitimate. You can then coax, flatter, or frighten them into -revealing almost anything you want to know. Deceiving people (especially -over the phone) is easy and fun. Exploiting their gullibility is very -gratifying; it makes you feel very superior to them. - -If I'd been a malicious hacker on a trashing raid, I would now have Evelyn -very much in my power. Given all this inside data, it wouldn't take much -effort at all to invent a convincing lie. If I were ruthless enough, -and jaded enough, and clever enough, this momentary indiscretion of hers-- -maybe committed in tears, who knows--could cause her a whole world of -confusion and grief. - -I didn't even have to have a MALICIOUS motive. Maybe I'd be "on her side," -and call up Bob instead, and anonymously threaten to break both his kneecaps -if he didn't take Evelyn out for a steak dinner pronto. It was still -profoundly NONE OF MY BUSINESS. To have gotten this knowledge at all -was a sordid act and to use it would be to inflict a sordid injury. - -To do all these awful things would require exactly zero high-tech expertise. -All it would take was the willingness to do it and a certain amount -of bent imagination. - -I went back downstairs. The hard-working FCIC, who had labored forty-five -minutes over their schedule, were through for the day, and adjourned to the -hotel bar. We all had a beer. - -I had a chat with a guy about "Isis," or rather IACIS, -the International Association of Computer Investigation Specialists. -They're into "computer forensics," the techniques of picking computer- -systems apart without destroying vital evidence. IACIS, currently run -out of Oregon, is comprised of investigators in the U.S., Canada, Taiwan -and Ireland. "Taiwan and Ireland?" I said. Are TAIWAN and IRELAND -really in the forefront of this stuff? Well not exactly, my informant -admitted. They just happen to have been the first ones to have caught -on by word of mouth. Still, the international angle counts, because this -is obviously an international problem. Phone-lines go everywhere. - -There was a Mountie here from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. -He seemed to be having quite a good time. Nobody had flung this -Canadian out because he might pose a foreign security risk. -These are cyberspace cops. They still worry a lot about "jurisdictions," -but mere geography is the least of their troubles. - -NASA had failed to show. NASA suffers a lot from computer intrusions, -in particular from Australian raiders and a well-trumpeted Chaos -Computer Club case, and in 1990 there was a brief press flurry -when it was revealed that one of NASA's Houston branch-exchanges -had been systematically ripped off by a gang of phone-phreaks. -But the NASA guys had had their funding cut. They were stripping everything. - -Air Force OSI, its Office of Special Investigations, is the ONLY federal -entity dedicated full-time to computer security. They'd been expected -to show up in force, but some of them had cancelled--a Pentagon budget pinch. - -As the empties piled up, the guys began joshing around and telling war-stories. -"These are cops," Thackeray said tolerantly. "If they're not talking shop -they talk about women and beer." - -I heard the story about the guy who, asked for "a copy" of a computer disk, -PHOTOCOPIED THE LABEL ON IT. He put the floppy disk onto the glass plate -of a photocopier. The blast of static when the copier worked completely -erased all the real information on the disk. - -Some other poor souls threw a whole bag of confiscated diskettes -into the squad-car trunk next to the police radio. The powerful radio -signal blasted them, too. - -We heard a bit about Dave Geneson, the first computer prosecutor, -a mainframe-runner in Dade County, turned lawyer. Dave Geneson -was one guy who had hit the ground running, a signal virtue -in making the transition to computer-crime. It was generally -agreed that it was easier to learn the world of computers first, -then police or prosecutorial work. You could take certain computer -people and train 'em to successful police work--but of course they -had to have the COP MENTALITY. They had to have street smarts. -Patience. Persistence. And discretion. You've got to make sure -they're not hot-shots, show-offs, "cowboys." - -Most of the folks in the bar had backgrounds in military intelligence, -or drugs, or homicide. It was rudely opined that "military intelligence" -was a contradiction in terms, while even the grisly world of homicide -was considered cleaner than drug enforcement. One guy had been 'way -undercover doing dope-work in Europe for four years straight. -"I'm almost recovered now," he said deadpan, with the acid black humor -that is pure cop. "Hey, now I can say FUCKER without putting MOTHER -in front of it." - -"In the cop world," another guy said earnestly, "everything is good and bad, -black and white. In the computer world everything is gray." - -One guy--a founder of the FCIC, who'd been with the group -since it was just the Colluquy--described his own introduction -to the field. He'd been a Washington DC homicide guy called in -on a "hacker" case. From the word "hacker," he naturally assumed -he was on the trail of a knife-wielding marauder, and went to the -computer center expecting blood and a body. When he finally figured -out what was happening there (after loudly demanding, in vain, -that the programmers "speak English"), he called headquarters -and told them he was clueless about computers. They told him nobody -else knew diddly either, and to get the hell back to work. - -So, he said, he had proceeded by comparisons. By analogy. By metaphor. -"Somebody broke in to your computer, huh?" Breaking and entering; -I can understand that. How'd he get in? "Over the phone-lines." -Harassing phone-calls, I can understand that! What we need here -is a tap and a trace! - -It worked. It was better than nothing. And it worked a lot faster -when he got hold of another cop who'd done something similar. -And then the two of them got another, and another, and pretty soon -the Colluquy was a happening thing. It helped a lot that everybody -seemed to know Carlton Fitzpatrick, the data-processing trainer in Glynco. - -The ice broke big-time in Memphis in '86. The Colluquy had attracted -a bunch of new guys--Secret Service, FBI, military, other feds, heavy guys. -Nobody wanted to tell anybody anything. They suspected that if word got back -to the home office they'd all be fired. They passed an uncomfortably -guarded afternoon. - -The formalities got them nowhere. But after the formal session was over, -the organizers brought in a case of beer. As soon as the participants -knocked it off with the bureaucratic ranks and turf-fighting, everything -changed. "I bared my soul," one veteran reminisced proudly. By nightfall -they were building pyramids of empty beer-cans and doing everything -but composing a team fight song. - -FCIC were not the only computer-crime people around. There was DATTA -(District Attorneys' Technology Theft Association), though they mostly -specialized in chip theft, intellectual property, and black-market cases. -There was HTCIA (High Tech Computer Investigators Association), -also out in Silicon Valley, a year older than FCIC and featuring -brilliant people like Donald Ingraham. There was LEETAC -(Law Enforcement Electronic Technology Assistance Committee) -in Florida, and computer-crime units in Illinois and Maryland -and Texas and Ohio and Colorado and Pennsylvania. But these were -local groups. FCIC were the first to really network nationally -and on a federal level. - -FCIC people live on the phone lines. Not on bulletin board systems-- -they know very well what boards are, and they know that boards aren't secure. -Everyone in the FCIC has a voice-phone bill like you wouldn't believe. -FCIC people have been tight with the telco people for a long time. -Telephone cyberspace is their native habitat. - -FCIC has three basic sub-tribes: the trainers, the security people, -and the investigators. That's why it's called an "Investigations -Committee" with no mention of the term "computer-crime"--the dreaded -"C-word." FCIC, officially, is "an association of agencies rather -than individuals;" unofficially, this field is small enough that -the influence of individuals and individual expertise is paramount. -Attendance is by invitation only, and most everyone in FCIC considers -himself a prophet without honor in his own house. - -Again and again I heard this, with different terms but identical -sentiments. "I'd been sitting in the wilderness talking to myself." -"I was totally isolated." "I was desperate." "FCIC is the best -thing there is about computer crime in America." "FCIC is what -really works." "This is where you hear real people telling you -what's really happening out there, not just lawyers picking nits." -"We taught each other everything we knew." - -The sincerity of these statements convinces me that this is true. -FCIC is the real thing and it is invaluable. It's also very sharply -at odds with the rest of the traditions and power structure -in American law enforcement. There probably hasn't been anything -around as loose and go-getting as the FCIC since the start of the -U.S. Secret Service in the 1860s. FCIC people are living like -twenty-first-century people in a twentieth-century environment, -and while there's a great deal to be said for that, there's also -a great deal to be said against it, and those against it happen -to control the budgets. - -I listened to two FCIC guys from Jersey compare life histories. -One of them had been a biker in a fairly heavy-duty gang in the 1960s. -"Oh, did you know so-and-so?" said the other guy from Jersey. -"Big guy, heavyset?" - -"Yeah, I knew him." - -"Yeah, he was one of ours. He was our plant in the gang." - -"Really? Wow! Yeah, I knew him. Helluva guy." - -Thackeray reminisced at length about being tear-gassed blind -in the November 1969 antiwar protests in Washington Circle, -covering them for her college paper. "Oh yeah, I was there," -said another cop. "Glad to hear that tear gas hit somethin'. -Haw haw haw." He'd been so blind himself, he confessed, -that later that day he'd arrested a small tree. - -FCIC are an odd group, sifted out by coincidence and necessity, -and turned into a new kind of cop. There are a lot of specialized -cops in the world--your bunco guys, your drug guys, your tax guys, -but the only group that matches FCIC for sheer isolation are probably -the child-pornography people. Because they both deal with conspirators -who are desperate to exchange forbidden data and also desperate to hide; -and because nobody else in law enforcement even wants to hear about it. - -FCIC people tend to change jobs a lot. They tend not to get the equipment -and training they want and need. And they tend to get sued quite often. - -As the night wore on and a band set up in the bar, the talk grew darker. -Nothing ever gets done in government, someone opined, until there's -a DISASTER. Computing disasters are awful, but there's no denying -that they greatly help the credibility of FCIC people. The Internet Worm, -for instance. "For years we'd been warning about that--but it's nothing -compared to what's coming." They expect horrors, these people. -They know that nothing will really get done until there is a horror. - -# - -Next day we heard an extensive briefing from a guy who'd been a computer cop, -gotten into hot water with an Arizona city council, and now installed -computer networks for a living (at a considerable rise in pay). -He talked about pulling fiber-optic networks apart. - -Even a single computer, with enough peripherals, is a literal -"network"--a bunch of machines all cabled together, generally -with a complexity that puts stereo units to shame. FCIC people -invent and publicize methods of seizing computers and maintaining -their evidence. Simple things, sometimes, but vital rules of thumb -for street cops, who nowadays often stumble across a busy computer -in the midst of a drug investigation or a white-collar bust. -For instance: Photograph the system before you touch it. -Label the ends of all the cables before you detach anything. -"Park" the heads on the disk drives before you move them. -Get the diskettes. Don't put the diskettes in magnetic fields. -Don't write on diskettes with ballpoint pens. Get the manuals. -Get the printouts. Get the handwritten notes. Copy data before -you look at it, and then examine the copy instead of the original. - -Now our lecturer distributed copied diagrams of a typical LAN -or "Local Area Network", which happened to be out of Connecticut. -ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-NINE desktop computers, each with its own -peripherals. Three "file servers." Five "star couplers" -each with thirty-two ports. One sixteen-port coupler -off in the corner office. All these machines talking to each other, -distributing electronic mail, distributing software, distributing, -quite possibly, criminal evidence. All linked by high-capacity -fiber-optic cable. A bad guy--cops talk a about "bad guys" ---might be lurking on PC #47 lot or #123 and distributing -his ill doings onto some dupe's "personal" machine in -another office--or another floor--or, quite possibly, -two or three miles away! Or, conceivably, the evidence might -be "data-striped"--split up into meaningless slivers stored, -one by one, on a whole crowd of different disk drives. - -The lecturer challenged us for solutions. I for one was utterly clueless. -As far as I could figure, the Cossacks were at the gate; there were probably -more disks in this single building than were seized during the entirety -of Operation Sundevil. - -"Inside informant," somebody said. Right. There's always the human angle, -something easy to forget when contemplating the arcane recesses of high -technology. Cops are skilled at getting people to talk, and computer people, -given a chair and some sustained attention, will talk about their computers -till their throats go raw. There's a case on record of a single question-- -"How'd you do it?"--eliciting a forty-five-minute videotaped confession -from a computer criminal who not only completely incriminated himself -but drew helpful diagrams. - -Computer people talk. Hackers BRAG. Phone-phreaks -talk PATHOLOGICALLY--why else are they stealing phone-codes, -if not to natter for ten hours straight to their friends -on an opposite seaboard? Computer-literate people do -in fact possess an arsenal of nifty gadgets and techniques -that would allow them to conceal all kinds of exotic skullduggery, -and if they could only SHUT UP about it, they could probably -get away with all manner of amazing information-crimes. -But that's just not how it works--or at least, -that's not how it's worked SO FAR. - -Most every phone-phreak ever busted has swiftly implicated his mentors, -his disciples, and his friends. Most every white-collar computer-criminal, -smugly convinced that his clever scheme is bulletproof, swiftly learns -otherwise when, for the first time in his life, an actual no-kidding -policeman leans over, grabs the front of his shirt, looks him right -in the eye and says: "All right, ASSHOLE--you and me are going downtown!" -All the hardware in the world will not insulate your nerves from -these actual real-life sensations of terror and guilt. - -Cops know ways to get from point A to point Z without thumbing -through every letter in some smart-ass bad-guy's alphabet. -Cops know how to cut to the chase. Cops know a lot of things -other people don't know. - -Hackers know a lot of things other people don't know, too. -Hackers know, for instance, how to sneak into your computer -through the phone-lines. But cops can show up RIGHT ON YOUR DOORSTEP -and carry off YOU and your computer in separate steel boxes. -A cop interested in hackers can grab them and grill them. -A hacker interested in cops has to depend on hearsay, -underground legends, and what cops are willing to publicly reveal. -And the Secret Service didn't get named "the SECRET Service" -because they blab a lot. - -Some people, our lecturer informed us, were under the mistaken -impression that it was "impossible" to tap a fiber-optic line. -Well, he announced, he and his son had just whipped up a -fiber-optic tap in his workshop at home. He passed it around -the audience, along with a circuit-covered LAN plug-in card -so we'd all recognize one if we saw it on a case. We all had a look. - -The tap was a classic "Goofy Prototype"--a thumb-length rounded -metal cylinder with a pair of plastic brackets on it. -From one end dangled three thin black cables, each of which ended -in a tiny black plastic cap. When you plucked the safety-cap -off the end of a cable, you could see the glass fiber-- -no thicker than a pinhole. - -Our lecturer informed us that the metal cylinder was a -"wavelength division multiplexer." Apparently, what one did -was to cut the fiber-optic cable, insert two of the legs into -the cut to complete the network again, and then read any passing data -on the line by hooking up the third leg to some kind of monitor. -Sounded simple enough. I wondered why nobody had thought of it before. -I also wondered whether this guy's son back at the workshop had any -teenage friends. - -We had a break. The guy sitting next to me was wearing a giveaway -baseball cap advertising the Uzi submachine gun. We had a desultory chat -about the merits of Uzis. Long a favorite of the Secret Service, -it seems Uzis went out of fashion with the advent of the Persian Gulf War, -our Arab allies taking some offense at Americans toting Israeli weapons. -Besides, I was informed by another expert, Uzis jam. The equivalent weapon -of choice today is the Heckler & Koch, manufactured in Germany. - -The guy with the Uzi cap was a forensic photographer. He also did a lot -of photographic surveillance work in computer crime cases. He used to, -that is, until the firings in Phoenix. He was now a private investigator and, -with his wife, ran a photography salon specializing in weddings and portrait -photos. At--one must repeat--a considerable rise in income. - -He was still FCIC. If you were FCIC, and you needed to talk -to an expert about forensic photography, well, there he was, -willing and able. If he hadn't shown up, people would have missed him. - -Our lecturer had raised the point that preliminary investigation -of a computer system is vital before any seizure is undertaken. -It's vital to understand how many machines are in there, what kinds -there are, what kind of operating system they use, how many people -use them, where the actual data itself is stored. To simply barge into -an office demanding "all the computers" is a recipe for swift disaster. - -This entails some discreet inquiries beforehand. In fact, what it -entails is basically undercover work. An intelligence operation. -SPYING, not to put too fine a point on it. - -In a chat after the lecture, I asked an attendee whether "trashing" might work. - -I received a swift briefing on the theory and practice of "trash covers." -Police "trash covers," like "mail covers" or like wiretaps, require the -agreement of a judge. This obtained, the "trashing" work of cops is just -like that of hackers, only more so and much better organized. So much so, -I was informed, that mobsters in Phoenix make extensive use of locked -garbage cans picked up by a specialty high-security trash company. - -In one case, a tiger team of Arizona cops had trashed a local residence -for four months. Every week they showed up on the municipal garbage truck, -disguised as garbagemen, and carried the contents of the suspect cans off -to a shade tree, where they combed through the garbage--a messy task, -especially considering that one of the occupants was undergoing -kidney dialysis. All useful documents were cleaned, dried and examined. -A discarded typewriter-ribbon was an especially valuable source of data, -as its long one-strike ribbon of film contained the contents of every -letter mailed out of the house. The letters were neatly retyped by -a police secretary equipped with a large desk-mounted magnifying glass. - -There is something weirdly disquieting about the whole subject of -"trashing"-- an unsuspected and indeed rather disgusting mode of -deep personal vulnerability. Things that we pass by every day, -that we take utterly for granted, can be exploited with so little work. -Once discovered, the knowledge of these vulnerabilities tend to spread. - -Take the lowly subject of MANHOLE COVERS. The humble manhole cover -reproduces many of the dilemmas of computer-security in miniature. -Manhole covers are, of course, technological artifacts, access-points -to our buried urban infrastructure. To the vast majority of us, -manhole covers are invisible. They are also vulnerable. For many years now, -the Secret Service has made a point of caulking manhole covers along all routes -of the Presidential motorcade. This is, of course, to deter terrorists from -leaping out of underground ambush or, more likely, planting remote-control -car-smashing bombs beneath the street. - -Lately, manhole covers have seen more and more criminal exploitation, -especially in New York City. Recently, a telco in New York City -discovered that a cable television service had been sneaking into -telco manholes and installing cable service alongside the phone-lines-- -WITHOUT PAYING ROYALTIES. New York companies have also suffered a -general plague of (a) underground copper cable theft; (b) dumping of garbage, -including toxic waste, and (c) hasty dumping of murder victims. - -Industry complaints reached the ears of an innovative New England -industrial-security company, and the result was a new product known -as "the Intimidator," a thick titanium-steel bolt with a precisely machined -head that requires a special device to unscrew. All these "keys" have registered -serial numbers kept on file with the manufacturer. There are now some -thousands of these "Intimidator" bolts being sunk into American pavements -wherever our President passes, like some macabre parody of strewn roses. -They are also spreading as fast as steel dandelions around US military bases -and many centers of private industry. - -Quite likely it has never occurred to you to peer under a manhole cover, -perhaps climb down and walk around down there with a flashlight, just to see -what it's like. Formally speaking, this might be trespassing, but if you -didn't hurt anything, and didn't make an absolute habit of it, nobody would -really care. The freedom to sneak under manholes was likely a freedom -you never intended to exercise. - -You now are rather less likely to have that freedom at all. -You may never even have missed it until you read about it here, -but if you're in New York City it's gone, and elsewhere it's likely going. -This is one of the things that crime, and the reaction to -crime, does to us. - -The tenor of the meeting now changed as the Electronic Frontier Foundation -arrived. The EFF, whose personnel and history will be examined in detail -in the next chapter, are a pioneering civil liberties group who arose in -direct response to the Hacker Crackdown of 1990. - -Now Mitchell Kapor, the Foundation's president, and Michael Godwin, -its chief attorney, were confronting federal law enforcement MANO A MANO -for the first time ever. Ever alert to the manifold uses of publicity, -Mitch Kapor and Mike Godwin had brought their own journalist in tow: -Robert Draper, from Austin, whose recent well-received book about -ROLLING STONE magazine was still on the stands. Draper was on assignment -for TEXAS MONTHLY. - -The Steve Jackson/EFF civil lawsuit against the Chicago Computer Fraud -and Abuse Task Force was a matter of considerable regional interest in Texas. -There were now two Austinite journalists here on the case. In fact, -counting Godwin (a former Austinite and former journalist) there were -three of us. Lunch was like Old Home Week. - -Later, I took Draper up to my hotel room. We had a long frank talk -about the case, networking earnestly like a miniature freelance-journo -version of the FCIC: privately confessing the numerous blunders -of journalists covering the story, and trying hard to figure out -who was who and what the hell was really going on out there. -I showed Draper everything I had dug out of the Hilton trashcan. -We pondered the ethics of "trashing" for a while, and agreed -that they were dismal. We also agreed that finding a SPRINT -bill on your first time out was a heck of a coincidence. - -First I'd "trashed"--and now, mere hours later, I'd bragged to someone else. -Having entered the lifestyle of hackerdom, I was now, unsurprisingly, -following its logic. Having discovered something remarkable through -a surreptitious action, I of course HAD to "brag," and to drag the passing -Draper into my iniquities. I felt I needed a witness. Otherwise nobody -would have believed what I'd discovered. . . . - -Back at the meeting, Thackeray cordially, if rather tentatively, -introduced Kapor and Godwin to her colleagues. Papers were distributed. -Kapor took center stage. The brilliant Bostonian high-tech entrepreneur, -normally the hawk in his own administration and quite an effective -public speaker, seemed visibly nervous, and frankly admitted as much. -He began by saying he consided computer-intrusion to be morally wrong, -and that the EFF was not a "hacker defense fund," despite what had appeared -in print. Kapor chatted a bit about the basic motivations of his group, -emphasizing their good faith and willingness to listen and seek common ground -with law enforcement--when, er, possible. - -Then, at Godwin's urging, Kapor suddenly remarked that EFF's own Internet -machine had been "hacked" recently, and that EFF did not consider -this incident amusing. - -After this surprising confession, things began to loosen up -quite rapidly. Soon Kapor was fielding questions, parrying objections, -challenging definitions, and juggling paradigms with something akin -to his usual gusto. - -Kapor seemed to score quite an effect with his shrewd and skeptical analysis -of the merits of telco "Caller-ID" services. (On this topic, FCIC and EFF -have never been at loggerheads, and have no particular established earthworks -to defend.) Caller-ID has generally been promoted as a privacy service -for consumers, a presentation Kapor described as a "smokescreen," -the real point of Caller-ID being to ALLOW CORPORATE CUSTOMERS TO BUILD -EXTENSIVE COMMERCIAL DATABASES ON EVERYBODY WHO PHONES OR FAXES THEM. -Clearly, few people in the room had considered this possibility, -except perhaps for two late-arrivals from US WEST RBOC security, -who chuckled nervously. - -Mike Godwin then made an extensive presentation on -"Civil Liberties Implications of Computer Searches and Seizures." -Now, at last, we were getting to the real nitty-gritty here, -real political horse-trading. The audience listened with close -attention, angry mutters rising occasionally: "He's trying to -teach us our jobs!" "We've been thinking about this for years! -We think about these issues every day!" "If I didn't seize the works, -I'd be sued by the guy's victims!" "I'm violating the law if I leave -ten thousand disks full of illegal PIRATED SOFTWARE and STOLEN CODES!" -"It's our job to make sure people don't trash the Constitution-- -we're the DEFENDERS of the Constitution!" "We seize stuff when -we know it will be forfeited anyway as restitution for the victim!" - -"If it's forfeitable, then don't get a search warrant, get a -forfeiture warrant," Godwin suggested coolly. He further remarked -that most suspects in computer crime don't WANT to see their computers -vanish out the door, headed God knew where, for who knows how long. -They might not mind a search, even an extensive search, but they want -their machines searched on-site. - -"Are they gonna feed us?" somebody asked sourly. - -"How about if you take copies of the data?" Godwin parried. - -"That'll never stand up in court." - -"Okay, you make copies, give THEM the copies, and take the originals." - -Hmmm. - -Godwin championed bulletin-board systems as repositories of First Amendment -protected free speech. He complained that federal computer-crime training -manuals gave boards a bad press, suggesting that they are hotbeds of crime -haunted by pedophiles and crooks, whereas the vast majority of the nation's -thousands of boards are completely innocuous, and nowhere near so -romantically suspicious. - -People who run boards violently resent it when their systems are seized, -and their dozens (or hundreds) of users look on in abject horror. -Their rights of free expression are cut short. Their right to associate -with other people is infringed. And their privacy is violated as their -private electronic mail becomes police property. - -Not a soul spoke up to defend the practice of seizing boards. -The issue passed in chastened silence. Legal principles aside-- -(and those principles cannot be settled without laws passed or -court precedents)--seizing bulletin boards has become public-relations -poison for American computer police. - -And anyway, it's not entirely necessary. If you're a cop, you can get 'most -everything you need from a pirate board, just by using an inside informant. -Plenty of vigilantes--well, CONCERNED CITIZENS--will inform police the moment -they see a pirate board hit their area (and will tell the police all about it, -in such technical detail, actually, that you kinda wish they'd shut up). -They will happily supply police with extensive downloads or printouts. -It's IMPOSSIBLE to keep this fluid electronic information out of the -hands of police. - -Some people in the electronic community become enraged at the prospect -of cops "monitoring" bulletin boards. This does have touchy aspects, -as Secret Service people in particular examine bulletin boards with -some regularity. But to expect electronic police to be deaf dumb -and blind in regard to this particular medium rather flies in the face -of common sense. Police watch television, listen to radio, read newspapers -and magazines; why should the new medium of boards be different? -Cops can exercise the same access to electronic information -as everybody else. As we have seen, quite a few computer -police maintain THEIR OWN bulletin boards, including anti-hacker -"sting" boards, which have generally proven quite effective. - -As a final clincher, their Mountie friends in Canada (and colleagues -in Ireland and Taiwan) don't have First Amendment or American -constitutional restrictions, but they do have phone lines, -and can call any bulletin board in America whenever they please. -The same technological determinants that play into the hands of hackers, -phone phreaks and software pirates can play into the hands of police. -"Technological determinants" don't have ANY human allegiances. -They're not black or white, or Establishment or Underground, -or pro-or-anti anything. - -Godwin complained at length about what he called "the Clever Hobbyist -hypothesis" --the assumption that the "hacker" you're busting is clearly -a technical genius, and must therefore by searched with extreme thoroughness. -So: from the law's point of view, why risk missing anything? Take the works. -Take the guy's computer. Take his books. Take his notebooks. -Take the electronic drafts of his love letters. Take his Walkman. -Take his wife's computer. Take his dad's computer. Take his kid -sister's computer. Take his employer's computer. Take his compact disks-- -they MIGHT be CD-ROM disks, cunningly disguised as pop music. -Take his laser printer--he might have hidden something vital in the -printer's 5meg of memory. Take his software manuals and hardware -documentation. Take his science-fiction novels and his simulation- -gaming books. Take his Nintendo Game-Boy and his Pac-Man arcade game. -Take his answering machine, take his telephone out of the wall. -Take anything remotely suspicious. - -Godwin pointed out that most "hackers" are not, in fact, clever -genius hobbyists. Quite a few are crooks and grifters who don't -have much in the way of technical sophistication; just some rule-of-thumb -rip-off techniques. The same goes for most fifteen-year-olds who've -downloaded a code-scanning program from a pirate board. There's no -real need to seize everything in sight. It doesn't require an entire -computer system and ten thousand disks to prove a case in court. - -What if the computer is the instrumentality of a crime? someone demanded. - -Godwin admitted quietly that the doctrine of seizing the instrumentality -of a crime was pretty well established in the American legal system. - -The meeting broke up. Godwin and Kapor had to leave. Kapor was testifying -next morning before the Massachusetts Department Of Public Utility, -about ISDN narrowband wide-area networking. - -As soon as they were gone, Thackeray seemed elated. -She had taken a great risk with this. Her colleagues had not, -in fact, torn Kapor and Godwin's heads off. She was very proud of them, -and told them so. - -"Did you hear what Godwin said about INSTRUMENTALITY OF A CRIME?" -she exulted, to nobody in particular. "Wow, that means -MITCH ISN'T GOING TO SUE ME." - -# - -America's computer police are an interesting group. -As a social phenomenon they are far more interesting, -and far more important, than teenage phone phreaks -and computer hackers. First, they're older and wiser; -not dizzy hobbyists with leaky morals, but seasoned adult -professionals with all the responsibilities of public service. -And, unlike hackers, they possess not merely TECHNICAL -power alone, but heavy-duty legal and social authority. - -And, very interestingly, they are just as much at -sea in cyberspace as everyone else. They are not -happy about this. Police are authoritarian by nature, -and prefer to obey rules and precedents. (Even those police -who secretly enjoy a fast ride in rough territory will soberly -disclaim any "cowboy" attitude.) But in cyberspace there ARE -no rules and precedents. They are groundbreaking pioneers, -Cyberspace Rangers, whether they like it or not. - -In my opinion, any teenager enthralled by computers, -fascinated by the ins and outs of computer security, -and attracted by the lure of specialized forms of knowledge and power, -would do well to forget all about "hacking" and set his (or her) -sights on becoming a fed. Feds can trump hackers at almost every -single thing hackers do, including gathering intelligence, -undercover disguise, trashing, phone-tapping, building dossiers, -networking, and infiltrating computer systems--CRIMINAL computer systems. -Secret Service agents know more about phreaking, coding and carding -than most phreaks can find out in years, and when it comes to viruses, -break-ins, software bombs and trojan horses, Feds have direct access to red-hot -confidential information that is only vague rumor in the underground. - -And if it's an impressive public rep you're after, there are few people -in the world who can be so chillingly impressive as a well-trained, -well-armed United States Secret Service agent. - -Of course, a few personal sacrifices are necessary in order to obtain -that power and knowledge. First, you'll have the galling discipline -of belonging to a large organization; but the world of computer crime -is still so small, and so amazingly fast-moving, that it will remain -spectacularly fluid for years to come. The second sacrifice is that -you'll have to give up ripping people off. This is not a great loss. -Abstaining from the use of illegal drugs, also necessary, will be a boon -to your health. - -A career in computer security is not a bad choice for a young man -or woman today. The field will almost certainly expand drastically -in years to come. If you are a teenager today, by the time you -become a professional, the pioneers you have read about in this book -will be the grand old men and women of the field, swamped by their many -disciples and successors. Of course, some of them, like William P. Wood -of the 1865 Secret Service, may well be mangled in the whirring machinery -of legal controversy; but by the time you enter the computer-crime field, -it may have stabilized somewhat, while remaining entertainingly challenging. - -But you can't just have a badge. You have to win it. First, there's the -federal law enforcement training. And it's hard--it's a challenge. -A real challenge--not for wimps and rodents. - -Every Secret Service agent must complete gruelling courses at the -Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. (In fact, Secret Service -agents are periodically re-trained during their entire careers.) - -In order to get a glimpse of what this might be like, -I myself travelled to FLETC. - -# - -The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center is a 1500-acre facility -on Georgia's Atlantic coast. It's a milieu of marshgrass, seabirds, -damp, clinging sea-breezes, palmettos, mosquitos, and bats. -Until 1974, it was a Navy Air Base, and still features a working runway, -and some WWII vintage blockhouses and officers' quarters. -The Center has since benefitted by a forty-million-dollar retrofit, -but there's still enough forest and swamp on the facility for the -Border Patrol to put in tracking practice. - -As a town, "Glynco" scarcely exists. The nearest real town is Brunswick, -a few miles down Highway 17, where I stayed at the aptly named Marshview -Holiday Inn. I had Sunday dinner at a seafood restaurant called "Jinright's," -where I feasted on deep-fried alligator tail. This local favorite was -a heaped basket of bite-sized chunks of white, tender, almost fluffy -reptile meat, steaming in a peppered batter crust. Alligator makes -a culinary experience that's hard to forget, especially when liberally -basted with homemade cocktail sauce from a Jinright squeeze-bottle. - -The crowded clientele were tourists, fishermen, local black folks -in their Sunday best, and white Georgian locals who all seemed -to bear an uncanny resemblance to Georgia humorist Lewis Grizzard. - -The 2,400 students from 75 federal agencies who make up the FLETC -population scarcely seem to make a dent in the low-key local scene. -The students look like tourists, and the teachers seem to have taken -on much of the relaxed air of the Deep South. My host was Mr. Carlton -Fitzpatrick, the Program Coordinator of the Financial Fraud Institute. -Carlton Fitzpatrick is a mustached, sinewy, well-tanned Alabama native -somewhere near his late forties, with a fondness for chewing tobacco, -powerful computers, and salty, down-home homilies. We'd met before, -at FCIC in Arizona. - -The Financial Fraud Institute is one of the nine divisions at FLETC. -Besides Financial Fraud, there's Driver & Marine, Firearms, -and Physical Training. These are specialized pursuits. -There are also five general training divisions: Basic Training, -Operations, Enforcement Techniques, Legal Division, and Behavioral Science. - -Somewhere in this curriculum is everything necessary to turn green college -graduates into federal agents. First they're given ID cards. Then they get -the rather miserable-looking blue coveralls known as "smurf suits." -The trainees are assigned a barracks and a cafeteria, and immediately -set on FLETC's bone-grinding physical training routine. Besides the -obligatory daily jogging--(the trainers run up danger flags beside -the track when the humidity rises high enough to threaten heat stroke)-- -here's the Nautilus machines, the martial arts, the survival skills. . . . - -The eighteen federal agencies who maintain on-site academies at FLETC -employ a wide variety of specialized law enforcement units, some of them -rather arcane. There's Border Patrol, IRS Criminal Investigation Division, -Park Service, Fish and Wildlife, Customs, Immigration, Secret Service and -the Treasury's uniformed subdivisions. . . . If you're a federal cop -and you don't work for the FBI, you train at FLETC. This includes people -as apparently obscure as the agents of the Railroad Retirement Board -Inspector General. Or the Tennessee Valley Authority Police, -who are in fact federal police officers, and can and do arrest criminals -on the federal property of the Tennessee Valley Authority. - -And then there are the computer-crime people. All sorts, all backgrounds. -Mr. Fitzpatrick is not jealous of his specialized knowledge. Cops all over, -in every branch of service, may feel a need to learn what he can teach. -Backgrounds don't matter much. Fitzpatrick himself was originally a -Border Patrol veteran, then became a Border Patrol instructor at FLETC. -His Spanish is still fluent--but he found himself strangely fascinated -when the first computers showed up at the Training Center. Fitzpatrick -did have a background in electrical engineering, and though he never -considered himself a computer hacker, he somehow found himself writing -useful little programs for this new and promising gizmo. - -He began looking into the general subject of computers and crime, -reading Donn Parker's books and articles, keeping an ear cocked -for war stories, useful insights from the field, the up-and-coming -people of the local computer-crime and high-technology units. . . . -Soon he got a reputation around FLETC as the resident "computer expert," -and that reputation alone brought him more exposure, more experience-- -until one day he looked around, and sure enough he WAS a federal -computer-crime expert. - -In fact, this unassuming, genial man may be THE federal computer-crime expert. -There are plenty of very good computer people, and plenty of very good -federal investigators, but the area where these worlds of expertise overlap -is very slim. And Carlton Fitzpatrick has been right at the center of that -since 1985, the first year of the Colluquy, a group which owes much to -his influence. - -He seems quite at home in his modest, acoustic-tiled office, -with its Ansel Adams-style Western photographic art, a gold-framed -Senior Instructor Certificate, and a towering bookcase crammed with -three-ring binders with ominous titles such as Datapro Reports on -Information Security and CFCA Telecom Security '90. - -The phone rings every ten minutes; colleagues show up at the door -to chat about new developments in locksmithing or to shake their heads -over the latest dismal developments in the BCCI global banking scandal. - -Carlton Fitzpatrick is a fount of computer-crime war-stories, -related in an acerbic drawl. He tells me the colorful tale -of a hacker caught in California some years back. He'd been -raiding systems, typing code without a detectable break, -for twenty, twenty-four, thirty-six hours straight. Not just -logged on--TYPING. Investigators were baffled. Nobody -could do that. Didn't he have to go to the bathroom? -Was it some kind of automatic keyboard-whacking device -that could actually type code? - -A raid on the suspect's home revealed a situation of astonishing squalor. -The hacker turned out to be a Pakistani computer-science student who had -flunked out of a California university. He'd gone completely underground -as an illegal electronic immigrant, and was selling stolen phone-service -to stay alive. The place was not merely messy and dirty, but in a state -of psychotic disorder. Powered by some weird mix of culture shock, -computer addiction, and amphetamines, the suspect had in fact been sitting -in front of his computer for a day and a half straight, with snacks and -drugs at hand on the edge of his desk and a chamber-pot under his chair. - -Word about stuff like this gets around in the hacker-tracker community. - -Carlton Fitzpatrick takes me for a guided tour by car around the -FLETC grounds. One of our first sights is the biggest indoor -firing range in the world. There are federal trainees in there, -Fitzpatrick assures me politely, blasting away with a wide variety -of automatic weapons: Uzis, Glocks, AK-47s. . . . He's willing to -take me inside. I tell him I'm sure that's really interesting, -but I'd rather see his computers. Carlton Fitzpatrick seems quite -surprised and pleased. I'm apparently the first journalist he's ever -seen who has turned down the shooting gallery in favor of microchips. - -Our next stop is a favorite with touring Congressmen: the three-mile -long FLETC driving range. Here trainees of the Driver & Marine Division -are taught high-speed pursuit skills, setting and breaking road-blocks, -diplomatic security driving for VIP limousines. . . . A favorite FLETC -pastime is to strap a passing Senator into the passenger seat beside a -Driver & Marine trainer, hit a hundred miles an hour, then take it right into -"the skid-pan," a section of greased track where two tons of Detroit iron -can whip and spin like a hockey puck. - -Cars don't fare well at FLETC. First they're rifled again and again -for search practice. Then they do 25,000 miles of high-speed -pursuit training; they get about seventy miles per set -of steel-belted radials. Then it's off to the skid pan, -where sometimes they roll and tumble headlong in the grease. -When they're sufficiently grease-stained, dented, and creaky, -they're sent to the roadblock unit, where they're battered without pity. -And finally then they're sacrificed to the Bureau of Alcohol, -Tobacco and Firearms, whose trainees learn the ins and outs -of car-bomb work by blowing them into smoking wreckage. - -There's a railroad box-car on the FLETC grounds, and a large -grounded boat, and a propless plane; all training-grounds for searches. -The plane sits forlornly on a patch of weedy tarmac next to an eerie -blockhouse known as the "ninja compound," where anti-terrorism specialists -practice hostage rescues. As I gaze on this creepy paragon of modern -low-intensity warfare, my nerves are jangled by a sudden staccato outburst -of automatic weapons fire, somewhere in the woods to my right. -"Nine-millimeter," Fitzpatrick judges calmly. - -Even the eldritch ninja compound pales somewhat compared -to the truly surreal area known as "the raid-houses." -This is a street lined on both sides with nondescript -concrete-block houses with flat pebbled roofs. -They were once officers' quarters. Now they are training grounds. -The first one to our left, Fitzpatrick tells me, has been specially -adapted for computer search-and-seizure practice. Inside it has been -wired for video from top to bottom, with eighteen pan-and-tilt -remotely controlled videocams mounted on walls and in corners. -Every movement of the trainee agent is recorded live by teachers, -for later taped analysis. Wasted movements, hesitations, possibly lethal -tactical mistakes--all are gone over in detail. - -Perhaps the weirdest single aspect of this building is its front door, -scarred and scuffed all along the bottom, from the repeated impact, -day after day, of federal shoe-leather. - -Down at the far end of the row of raid-houses some people are practicing -a murder. We drive by slowly as some very young and rather nervous-looking -federal trainees interview a heavyset bald man on the raid-house lawn. -Dealing with murder takes a lot of practice; first you have to learn -to control your own instinctive disgust and panic, then you have to learn -to control the reactions of a nerve-shredded crowd of civilians, -some of whom may have just lost a loved one, some of whom may be murderers-- -quite possibly both at once. - -A dummy plays the corpse. The roles of the bereaved, the morbidly curious, -and the homicidal are played, for pay, by local Georgians: waitresses, -musicians, most anybody who needs to moonlight and can learn a script. -These people, some of whom are FLETC regulars year after year, -must surely have one of the strangest jobs in the world. - -Something about the scene: "normal" people in a weird situation, -standing around talking in bright Georgia sunshine, unsuccessfully -pretending that something dreadful has gone on, while a dummy lies -inside on faked bloodstains. . . . While behind this weird masquerade, -like a nested set of Russian dolls, are grim future realities of real death, -real violence, real murders of real people, that these young agents -will really investigate, many times during their careers. . . . -Over and over. . . . Will those anticipated murders look like this, -feel like this--not as "real" as these amateur actors are trying to -make it seem, but both as "real," and as numbingly unreal, as watching -fake people standing around on a fake lawn? Something about this scene -unhinges me. It seems nightmarish to me, Kafkaesque. I simply don't -know how to take it; my head is turned around; I don't know whether to laugh, -cry, or just shudder. - -When the tour is over, Carlton Fitzpatrick and I talk about computers. -For the first time cyberspace seems like quite a comfortable place. -It seems very real to me suddenly, a place where I know what I'm talking about, -a place I'm used to. It's real. "Real." Whatever. - -Carlton Fitzpatrick is the only person I've met in cyberspace circles -who is happy with his present equipment. He's got a 5 Meg RAM PC with -a 112 meg hard disk; a 660 meg's on the way. He's got a Compaq 386 desktop, -and a Zenith 386 laptop with 120 meg. Down the hall is a NEC Multi-Sync 2A -with a CD-ROM drive and a 9600 baud modem with four com-lines. -There's a training minicomputer, and a 10-meg local mini just for the Center, -and a lab-full of student PC clones and half-a-dozen Macs or so. -There's a Data General MV 2500 with 8 meg on board and a 370 meg disk. - -Fitzpatrick plans to run a UNIX board on the Data General when he's -finished beta-testing the software for it, which he wrote himself. -It'll have E-mail features, massive files on all manner of computer-crime -and investigation procedures, and will follow the computer-security -specifics of the Department of Defense "Orange Book." He thinks -it will be the biggest BBS in the federal government. - -Will it have Phrack on it? I ask wryly. - -Sure, he tells me. Phrack, TAP, Computer Underground Digest, -all that stuff. With proper disclaimers, of course. - -I ask him if he plans to be the sysop. Running a system that size is very -time-consuming, and Fitzpatrick teaches two three-hour courses every day. - -No, he says seriously, FLETC has to get its money worth out of the instructors. -He thinks he can get a local volunteer to do it, a high-school student. - -He says a bit more, something I think about an Eagle Scout law-enforcement -liaison program, but my mind has rocketed off in disbelief. - -"You're going to put a TEENAGER in charge of a federal security BBS?" -I'm speechless. It hasn't escaped my notice that the FLETC Financial -Fraud Institute is the ULTIMATE hacker-trashing target; there is stuff in here, -stuff of such utter and consummate cool by every standard of the -digital underground. . . . - -I imagine the hackers of my acquaintance, fainting dead-away from -forbidden-knowledge greed-fits, at the mere prospect of cracking -the superultra top-secret computers used to train the Secret Service -in computer-crime. . . . - -"Uhm, Carlton," I babble, "I'm sure he's a really nice kid and all, -but that's a terrible temptation to set in front of somebody who's, -you know, into computers and just starting out. . . ." - -"Yeah," he says, "that did occur to me." For the first time I begin -to suspect that he's pulling my leg. - -He seems proudest when he shows me an ongoing project called JICC, -Joint Intelligence Control Council. It's based on the services provided -by EPIC, the El Paso Intelligence Center, which supplies data and intelligence -to the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Customs Service, the Coast Guard, -and the state police of the four southern border states. Certain EPIC files -can now be accessed by drug-enforcement police of Central America, -South America and the Caribbean, who can also trade information -among themselves. Using a telecom program called "White Hat," -written by two brothers named Lopez from the Dominican Republic, -police can now network internationally on inexpensive PCs. -Carlton Fitzpatrick is teaching a class of drug-war agents -from the Third World, and he's very proud of their progress. -Perhaps soon the sophisticated smuggling networks of the -Medellin Cartel will be matched by a sophisticated computer -network of the Medellin Cartel's sworn enemies. They'll track boats, -track contraband, track the international drug-lords who now leap over -borders with great ease, defeating the police through the clever use -of fragmented national jurisdictions. - -JICC and EPIC must remain beyond the scope of this book. -They seem to me to be very large topics fraught with complications -that I am not fit to judge. I do know, however, that the international, -computer-assisted networking of police, across national boundaries, -is something that Carlton Fitzpatrick considers very important, -a harbinger of a desirable future. I also know that networks -by their nature ignore physical boundaries. And I also know -that where you put communications you put a community, -and that when those communities become self-aware -they will fight to preserve themselves and to expand their influence. -I make no judgements whether this is good or bad. -It's just cyberspace; it's just the way things are. - -I asked Carlton Fitzpatrick what advice he would have for -a twenty-year-old who wanted to shine someday in the world -of electronic law enforcement. - -He told me that the number one rule was simply not to be -scared of computers. You don't need to be an obsessive -"computer weenie," but you mustn't be buffaloed just because -some machine looks fancy. The advantages computers give -smart crooks are matched by the advantages they give smart cops. -Cops in the future will have to enforce the law "with their heads, -not their holsters." Today you can make good cases without ever -leaving your office. In the future, cops who resist the computer -revolution will never get far beyond walking a beat. - -I asked Carlton Fitzpatrick if he had some single message for the public; -some single thing that he would most like the American public to know -about his work. - -He thought about it while. "Yes," he said finally. "TELL me the rules, -and I'll TEACH those rules!" He looked me straight in the eye. -"I do the best that I can." - - - -PART FOUR: THE CIVIL LIBERTARIANS - - -The story of the Hacker Crackdown, as we have followed it thus far, -has been technological, subcultural, criminal and legal. -The story of the Civil Libertarians, though it partakes -of all those other aspects, is profoundly and thoroughly POLITICAL. - -In 1990, the obscure, long-simmering struggle over the ownership -and nature of cyberspace became loudly and irretrievably public. -People from some of the oddest corners of American society suddenly -found themselves public figures. Some of these people found this -situation much more than they had ever bargained for. They backpedalled, -and tried to retreat back to the mandarin obscurity of their cozy -subcultural niches. This was generally to prove a mistake. - -But the civil libertarians seized the day in 1990. They found themselves -organizing, propagandizing, podium-pounding, persuading, touring, -negotiating, posing for publicity photos, submitting to interviews, -squinting in the limelight as they tried a tentative, but growingly -sophisticated, buck-and-wing upon the public stage. - -It's not hard to see why the civil libertarians should have -this competitive advantage. - -The hackers of the digital underground are an hermetic elite. -They find it hard to make any remotely convincing case for -their actions in front of the general public. Actually, -hackers roundly despise the "ignorant" public, and have never -trusted the judgement of "the system." Hackers do propagandize, -but only among themselves, mostly in giddy, badly spelled manifestos -of class warfare, youth rebellion or naive techie utopianism. -Hackers must strut and boast in order to establish and preserve -their underground reputations. But if they speak out too loudly -and publicly, they will break the fragile surface-tension of the underground, -and they will be harrassed or arrested. Over the longer term, -most hackers stumble, get busted, get betrayed, or simply give up. -As a political force, the digital underground is hamstrung. - -The telcos, for their part, are an ivory tower under protracted seige. -They have plenty of money with which to push their calculated public image, -but they waste much energy and goodwill attacking one another with -slanderous and demeaning ad campaigns. The telcos have suffered -at the hands of politicians, and, like hackers, they don't trust -the public's judgement. And this distrust may be well-founded. -Should the general public of the high-tech 1990s come to understand -its own best interests in telecommunications, that might well pose -a grave threat to the specialized technical power and authority -that the telcos have relished for over a century. The telcos do -have strong advantages: loyal employees, specialized expertise, -influence in the halls of power, tactical allies in law enforcement, -and unbelievably vast amounts of money. But politically speaking, they lack -genuine grassroots support; they simply don't seem to have many friends. - -Cops know a lot of things other people don't know. -But cops willingly reveal only those aspects of their -knowledge that they feel will meet their institutional -purposes and further public order. Cops have respect, -they have responsibilities, they have power in the streets -and even power in the home, but cops don't do particularly -well in limelight. When pressed, they will step out in the -public gaze to threaten bad-guys, or to cajole prominent citizens, -or perhaps to sternly lecture the naive and misguided. -But then they go back within their time-honored fortress -of the station-house, the courtroom and the rule-book. - -The electronic civil libertarians, however, have proven to be -born political animals. They seemed to grasp very early on -the postmodern truism that communication is power. Publicity is power. -Soundbites are power. The ability to shove one's issue onto the public -agenda--and KEEP IT THERE--is power. Fame is power. Simple personal -fluency and eloquence can be power, if you can somehow catch the -public's eye and ear. - -The civil libertarians had no monopoly on "technical power"-- -though they all owned computers, most were not particularly -advanced computer experts. They had a good deal of money, -but nowhere near the earthshaking wealth and the galaxy -of resources possessed by telcos or federal agencies. -They had no ability to arrest people. They carried -out no phreak and hacker covert dirty-tricks. - -But they really knew how to network. - -Unlike the other groups in this book, the civil libertarians -have operated very much in the open, more or less right -in the public hurly-burly. They have lectured audiences galore -and talked to countless journalists, and have learned to -refine their spiels. They've kept the cameras clicking, -kept those faxes humming, swapped that email, -run those photocopiers on overtime, licked envelopes -and spent small fortunes on airfare and long-distance. -In an information society, this open, overt, obvious activity -has proven to be a profound advantage. - -In 1990, the civil libertarians of cyberspace assembled -out of nowhere in particular, at warp speed. This "group" -(actually, a networking gaggle of interested parties -which scarcely deserves even that loose term) has almost nothing -in the way of formal organization. Those formal civil libertarian -organizations which did take an interest in cyberspace issues, -mainly the Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility -and the American Civil Liberties Union, were carried along -by events in 1990, and acted mostly as adjuncts, -underwriters or launching-pads. - -The civil libertarians nevertheless enjoyed the greatest success -of any of the groups in the Crackdown of 1990. At this writing, -their future looks rosy and the political initiative is firmly in their hands. -This should be kept in mind as we study the highly unlikely lives -and lifestyles of the people who actually made this happen. - -# - -In June 1989, Apple Computer, Inc., of Cupertino, -California, had a problem. Someone had illicitly copied -a small piece of Apple's proprietary software, software -which controlled an internal chip driving the Macintosh -screen display. This Color QuickDraw source code was -a closely guarded piece of Apple's intellectual property. -Only trusted Apple insiders were supposed to possess it. - -But the "NuPrometheus League" wanted things otherwise. -This person (or persons) made several illicit copies -of this source code, perhaps as many as two dozen. -He (or she, or they) then put those illicit floppy disks -into envelopes and mailed them to people all over America: -people in the computer industry who were associated with, -but not directly employed by, Apple Computer. - -The NuPrometheus caper was a complex, highly ideological, -and very hacker-like crime. Prometheus, it will be recalled, -stole the fire of the Gods and gave this potent gift to the -general ranks of downtrodden mankind. A similar god-in-the-manger -attitude was implied for the corporate elite of Apple Computer, -while the "Nu" Prometheus had himself cast in the role of rebel demigod. -The illicitly copied data was given away for free. - -The new Prometheus, whoever he was, escaped the -fate of the ancient Greek Prometheus, who was chained -to a rock for centuries by the vengeful gods while an eagle -tore and ate his liver. On the other hand, NuPrometheus -chickened out somewhat by comparison with his role model. -The small chunk of Color QuickDraw code he had filched -and replicated was more or less useless to Apple's -industrial rivals (or, in fact, to anyone else). -Instead of giving fire to mankind, it was more as if -NuPrometheus had photocopied the schematics for part of a Bic lighter. -The act was not a genuine work of industrial espionage. -It was best interpreted as a symbolic, deliberate slap -in the face for the Apple corporate heirarchy. - -Apple's internal struggles were well-known in the industry. Apple's founders, -Jobs and Wozniak, had both taken their leave long since. Their raucous core -of senior employees had been a barnstorming crew of 1960s Californians, -many of them markedly less than happy with the new button-down multimillion -dollar regime at Apple. Many of the programmers and developers who had -invented the Macintosh model in the early 1980s had also taken their leave of -the company. It was they, not the current masters of Apple's corporate fate, -who had invented the stolen Color QuickDraw code. The NuPrometheus stunt -was well-calculated to wound company morale. - -Apple called the FBI. The Bureau takes an interest in high-profile -intellectual-property theft cases, industrial espionage and theft -of trade secrets. These were likely the right people to call, -and rumor has it that the entities responsible were in fact discovered -by the FBI, and then quietly squelched by Apple management. NuPrometheus -was never publicly charged with a crime, or prosecuted, or jailed. -But there were no further illicit releases of Macintosh internal software. -Eventually the painful issue of NuPrometheus was allowed to fade. - -In the meantime, however, a large number of puzzled bystanders -found themselves entertaining surprise guests from the FBI. - -One of these people was John Perry Barlow. Barlow is a most unusual man, -difficult to describe in conventional terms. He is perhaps best known as -a songwriter for the Grateful Dead, for he composed lyrics for -"Hell in a Bucket," "Picasso Moon," "Mexicali Blues," "I Need a Miracle," -and many more; he has been writing for the band since 1970. - -Before we tackle the vexing question as to why a rock lyricist -should be interviewed by the FBI in a computer-crime case, -it might be well to say a word or two about the Grateful Dead. -The Grateful Dead are perhaps the most successful and long-lasting -of the numerous cultural emanations from the Haight-Ashbury district -of San Francisco, in the glory days of Movement politics and -lysergic transcendance. The Grateful Dead are a nexus, a veritable -whirlwind, of applique decals, psychedelic vans, tie-dyed T-shirts, -earth-color denim, frenzied dancing and open and unashamed drug use. -The symbols, and the realities, of Californian freak power surround -the Grateful Dead like knotted macrame. - -The Grateful Dead and their thousands of Deadhead devotees -are radical Bohemians. This much is widely understood. -Exactly what this implies in the 1990s is rather more problematic. - -The Grateful Dead are among the world's most popular -and wealthy entertainers: number 20, according to Forbes magazine, -right between M.C. Hammer and Sean Connery. In 1990, this jeans-clad -group of purported raffish outcasts earned seventeen million dollars. -They have been earning sums much along this line for quite some time now. - -And while the Dead are not investment bankers or three-piece-suit -tax specialists--they are, in point of fact, hippie musicians-- -this money has not been squandered in senseless Bohemian excess. -The Dead have been quietly active for many years, funding various -worthy activities in their extensive and widespread cultural community. - -The Grateful Dead are not conventional players in the American -power establishment. They nevertheless are something of a force -to be reckoned with. They have a lot of money and a lot of friends -in many places, both likely and unlikely. - -The Dead may be known for back-to-the-earth environmentalist rhetoric, -but this hardly makes them anti-technological Luddites. On the contrary, -like most rock musicians, the Grateful Dead have spent their entire adult -lives in the company of complex electronic equipment. They have funds to burn -on any sophisticated tool and toy that might happen to catch their fancy. -And their fancy is quite extensive. - -The Deadhead community boasts any number of recording engineers, -lighting experts, rock video mavens, electronic technicians -of all descriptions. And the drift goes both ways. Steve Wozniak, -Apple's co-founder, used to throw rock festivals. Silicon Valley rocks out. - -These are the 1990s, not the 1960s. Today, for a surprising number of people -all over America, the supposed dividing line between Bohemian and technician -simply no longer exists. People of this sort may have a set of windchimes -and a dog with a knotted kerchief 'round its neck, but they're also quite -likely to own a multimegabyte Macintosh running MIDI synthesizer software -and trippy fractal simulations. These days, even Timothy Leary himself, -prophet of LSD, does virtual-reality computer-graphics demos in -his lecture tours. - -John Perry Barlow is not a member of the Grateful Dead. He is, however, -a ranking Deadhead. - -Barlow describes himself as a "techno-crank." A vague term like -"social activist" might not be far from the mark, either. -But Barlow might be better described as a "poet"--if one keeps in mind -Percy Shelley's archaic definition of poets as "unacknowledged legislators -of the world." - -Barlow once made a stab at acknowledged legislator status. In 1987, -he narrowly missed the Republican nomination for a seat in the -Wyoming State Senate. Barlow is a Wyoming native, the third-generation -scion of a well-to-do cattle-ranching family. He is in his early forties, -married and the father of three daughters. - -Barlow is not much troubled by other people's narrow notions of consistency. -In the late 1980s, this Republican rock lyricist cattle rancher sold his ranch -and became a computer telecommunications devotee. - -The free-spirited Barlow made this transition with ease. He genuinely -enjoyed computers. With a beep of his modem, he leapt from small-town -Pinedale, Wyoming, into electronic contact with a large and lively crowd -of bright, inventive, technological sophisticates from all over the world. -Barlow found the social milieu of computing attractive: its fast-lane pace, -its blue-sky rhetoric, its open-endedness. Barlow began dabbling in -computer journalism, with marked success, as he was a quick study, -and both shrewd and eloquent. He frequently travelled to San Francisco -to network with Deadhead friends. There Barlow made extensive contacts -throughout the Californian computer community, including friendships -among the wilder spirits at Apple. - -In May 1990, Barlow received a visit from a local Wyoming agent of the FBI. -The NuPrometheus case had reached Wyoming. - -Barlow was troubled to find himself under investigation in an -area of his interests once quite free of federal attention. -He had to struggle to explain the very nature of computer-crime -to a headscratching local FBI man who specialized in cattle-rustling. -Barlow, chatting helpfully and demonstrating the wonders of his modem -to the puzzled fed, was alarmed to find all "hackers" generally under -FBI suspicion as an evil influence in the electronic community. -The FBI, in pursuit of a hacker called "NuPrometheus," were tracing -attendees of a suspect group called the Hackers Conference. - -The Hackers Conference, which had been started in 1984, was a -yearly Californian meeting of digital pioneers and enthusiasts. -The hackers of the Hackers Conference had little if anything to do -with the hackers of the digital underground. On the contrary, -the hackers of this conference were mostly well-to-do Californian -high-tech CEOs, consultants, journalists and entrepreneurs. -(This group of hackers were the exact sort of "hackers" -most likely to react with militant fury at any criminal -degradation of the term "hacker.") - -Barlow, though he was not arrested or accused of a crime, -and though his computer had certainly not gone out the door, -was very troubled by this anomaly. He carried the word to the Well. - -Like the Hackers Conference, "the Well" was an emanation of the -Point Foundation. Point Foundation, the inspiration of a wealthy -Californian 60s radical named Stewart Brand, was to be a major -launch-pad of the civil libertarian effort. - -Point Foundation's cultural efforts, like those of their fellow Bay Area -Californians the Grateful Dead, were multifaceted and multitudinous. -Rigid ideological consistency had never been a strong suit of the -Whole Earth Catalog. This Point publication had enjoyed a strong -vogue during the late 60s and early 70s, when it offered hundreds -of practical (and not so practical) tips on communitarian living, -environmentalism, and getting back-to-the-land. The Whole Earth Catalog, -and its sequels, sold two and half million copies and won a -National Book Award. - -With the slow collapse of American radical dissent, the Whole Earth Catalog -had slipped to a more modest corner of the cultural radar; but in its -magazine incarnation, CoEvolution Quarterly, the Point Foundation -continued to offer a magpie potpourri of "access to tools and ideas." - -CoEvolution Quarterly, which started in 1974, was never a widely -popular magazine. Despite periodic outbreaks of millenarian fervor, -CoEvolution Quarterly failed to revolutionize Western civilization -and replace leaden centuries of history with bright new Californian paradigms. -Instead, this propaganda arm of Point Foundation cakewalked a fine line between -impressive brilliance and New Age flakiness. CoEvolution Quarterly carried -no advertising, cost a lot, and came out on cheap newsprint with modest -black-and-white graphics. It was poorly distributed, and spread mostly -by subscription and word of mouth. - -It could not seem to grow beyond 30,000 subscribers. -And yet--it never seemed to shrink much, either. -Year in, year out, decade in, decade out, some strange -demographic minority accreted to support the magazine. -The enthusiastic readership did not seem to have much -in the way of coherent politics or ideals. It was sometimes -hard to understand what held them together (if the often bitter -debate in the letter-columns could be described as "togetherness"). - -But if the magazine did not flourish, it was resilient; it got by. -Then, in 1984, the birth-year of the Macintosh computer, -CoEvolution Quarterly suddenly hit the rapids. Point Foundation -had discovered the computer revolution. Out came the Whole Earth -Software Catalog of 1984, arousing headscratching doubts among -the tie-dyed faithful, and rabid enthusiasm among the nascent -"cyberpunk" milieu, present company included. Point Foundation -started its yearly Hackers Conference, and began to take an -extensive interest in the strange new possibilities of -digital counterculture. CoEvolution Quarterlyfolded its teepee, -replaced by Whole Earth Software Review and eventually by Whole Earth -Review (the magazine's present incarnation, currently under -the editorship of virtual-reality maven Howard Rheingold). - -1985 saw the birth of the "WELL"--the "Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link." -The Well was Point Foundation's bulletin board system. - -As boards went, the Well was an anomaly from the beginning, -and remained one. It was local to San Francisco. -It was huge, with multiple phonelines and enormous files -of commentary. Its complex UNIX-based software might be -most charitably described as "user-opaque." It was run on -a mainframe out of the rambling offices of a non-profit -cultural foundation in Sausalito. And it was crammed with -fans of the Grateful Dead. - -Though the Well was peopled by chattering hipsters of the Bay Area -counterculture, it was by no means a "digital underground" board. -Teenagers were fairly scarce; most Well users (known as "Wellbeings") -were thirty- and forty-something Baby Boomers. They tended to work -in the information industry: hardware, software, telecommunications, -media, entertainment. Librarians, academics, and journalists were -especially common on the Well, attracted by Point Foundation's -open-handed distribution of "tools and ideas." - -There were no anarchy files on the Well, scarcely a -dropped hint about access codes or credit-card theft. -No one used handles. Vicious "flame-wars" were held to -a comparatively civilized rumble. Debates were sometimes sharp, -but no Wellbeing ever claimed that a rival had disconnected his phone, -trashed his house, or posted his credit card numbers. - -The Well grew slowly as the 1980s advanced. It charged a modest sum -for access and storage, and lost money for years--but not enough to hamper -the Point Foundation, which was nonprofit anyway. By 1990, the Well -had about five thousand users. These users wandered about a gigantic -cyberspace smorgasbord of "Conferences", each conference itself consisting -of a welter of "topics," each topic containing dozens, sometimes hundreds -of comments, in a tumbling, multiperson debate that could last for months -or years on end. - - -In 1991, the Well's list of conferences looked like this: - - -CONFERENCES ON THE WELL - -WELL "Screenzine" Digest (g zine) - -Best of the WELL - vintage material - (g best) - -Index listing of new topics in all conferences - (g newtops) - -Business - Education ----------------------- - -Apple Library Users Group(g alug) Agriculture (g agri) -Brainstorming (g brain) Classifieds (g cla) -Computer Journalism (g cj) Consultants (g consult) -Consumers (g cons) Design (g design) -Desktop Publishing (g desk) Disability (g disability) -Education (g ed) Energy (g energy91) -Entrepreneurs (g entre) Homeowners (g home) -Indexing (g indexing) Investments (g invest) -Kids91 (g kids) Legal (g legal) -One Person Business (g one) -Periodical/newsletter (g per) -Telecomm Law (g tcl) The Future (g fut) -Translators (g trans) Travel (g tra) -Work (g work) - -Electronic Frontier Foundation (g eff) -Computers, Freedom & Privacy (g cfp) -Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (g cpsr) - -Social - Political - Humanities ---------------------------------- - -Aging (g gray) AIDS (g aids) -Amnesty International (g amnesty) Archives (g arc) -Berkeley (g berk) Buddhist (g wonderland) -Christian (g cross) Couples (g couples) -Current Events (g curr) Dreams (g dream) -Drugs (g dru) East Coast (g east) -Emotional Health@@@@ (g private) Erotica (g eros) -Environment (g env) Firearms (g firearms) -First Amendment (g first) Fringes of Reason (g fringes) -Gay (g gay) Gay (Private)# (g gaypriv) -Geography (g geo) German (g german) -Gulf War (g gulf) Hawaii (g aloha) -Health (g heal) History (g hist) -Holistic (g holi) Interview (g inter) -Italian (g ital) Jewish (g jew) -Liberty (g liberty) Mind (g mind) -Miscellaneous (g misc) Men on the WELL@@ (g mow) -Network Integration (g origin) Nonprofits (g non) -North Bay (g north) Northwest (g nw) -Pacific Rim (g pacrim) Parenting (g par) -Peace (g pea) Peninsula (g pen) -Poetry (g poetry) Philosophy (g phi) -Politics (g pol) Psychology (g psy) -Psychotherapy (g therapy) Recovery## (g recovery) -San Francisco (g sanfran) Scams (g scam) -Sexuality (g sex) Singles (g singles) -Southern (g south) Spanish (g spanish) -Spirituality (g spirit) Tibet (g tibet) -Transportation (g transport) True Confessions (g tru) -Unclear (g unclear) WELL Writer's Workshop@@@(g www) -Whole Earth (g we) Women on the WELL@(g wow) -Words (g words) Writers (g wri) - -@@@@Private Conference - mail wooly for entry -@@@Private conference - mail sonia for entry -@@Private conference - mail flash for entry -@ Private conference - mail reva for entry -# Private Conference - mail hudu for entry -## Private Conference - mail dhawk for entry - -Arts - Recreation - Entertainment ------------------------------------ -ArtCom Electronic Net (g acen) -Audio-Videophilia (g aud) -Bicycles (g bike) Bay Area Tonight@@(g bat) -Boating (g wet) Books (g books) -CD's (g cd) Comics (g comics) -Cooking (g cook) Flying (g flying) -Fun (g fun) Games (g games) -Gardening (g gard) Kids (g kids) -Nightowls@ (g owl) Jokes (g jokes) -MIDI (g midi) Movies (g movies) -Motorcycling (g ride) Motoring (g car) -Music (g mus) On Stage (g onstage) -Pets (g pets) Radio (g rad) -Restaurant (g rest) Science Fiction (g sf) -Sports (g spo) Star Trek (g trek) -Television (g tv) Theater (g theater) -Weird (g weird) Zines/Factsheet Five(g f5) -@Open from midnight to 6am -@@Updated daily - -Grateful Dead -------------- -Grateful Dead (g gd) Deadplan@ (g dp) -Deadlit (g deadlit) Feedback (g feedback) -GD Hour (g gdh) Tapes (g tapes) -Tickets (g tix) Tours (g tours) - -@Private conference - mail tnf for entry - -Computers ------------ -AI/Forth/Realtime (g realtime) Amiga (g amiga) -Apple (g app) Computer Books (g cbook) -Art & Graphics (g gra) Hacking (g hack) -HyperCard (g hype) IBM PC (g ibm) -LANs (g lan) Laptop (g lap) -Macintosh (g mac) Mactech (g mactech) -Microtimes (g microx) Muchomedia (g mucho) -NeXt (g next) OS/2 (g os2) -Printers (g print) Programmer's Net (g net) -Siggraph (g siggraph) Software Design (g sdc) -Software/Programming (g software) -Software Support (g ssc) -Unix (g unix) Windows (g windows) -Word Processing (g word) - -Technical - Communications ----------------------------- -Bioinfo (g bioinfo) Info (g boing) -Media (g media) NAPLPS (g naplps) -Netweaver (g netweaver) Networld (g networld) -Packet Radio (g packet) Photography (g pho) -Radio (g rad) Science (g science) -Technical Writers (g tec) Telecommunications(g tele) -Usenet (g usenet) Video (g vid) -Virtual Reality (g vr) - -The WELL Itself ---------------- -Deeper (g deeper) Entry (g ent) -General (g gentech) Help (g help) -Hosts (g hosts) Policy (g policy) -System News (g news) Test (g test) - -The list itself is dazzling, bringing to the untutored eye -a dizzying impression of a bizarre milieu of mountain-climbing -Hawaiian holistic photographers trading true-life confessions -with bisexual word-processing Tibetans. - -But this confusion is more apparent than real. Each of these conferences -was a little cyberspace world in itself, comprising dozens and perhaps -hundreds of sub-topics. Each conference was commonly frequented by -a fairly small, fairly like-minded community of perhaps a few dozen people. -It was humanly impossible to encompass the entire Well (especially since -access to the Well's mainframe computer was billed by the hour). -Most long-time users contented themselves with a few favorite -topical neighborhoods, with the occasional foray elsewhere -for a taste of exotica. But especially important news items, -and hot topical debates, could catch the attention of the entire -Well community. - -Like any community, the Well had its celebrities, and John Perry Barlow, -the silver-tongued and silver-modemed lyricist of the Grateful Dead, -ranked prominently among them. It was here on the Well that Barlow -posted his true-life tale of computer-crime encounter with the FBI. - -The story, as might be expected, created a great stir. The Well was -already primed for hacker controversy. In December 1989, Harper's magazine -had hosted a debate on the Well about the ethics of illicit computer intrusion. -While over forty various computer-mavens took part, Barlow proved a star -in the debate. So did "Acid Phreak" and "Phiber Optik," a pair of young -New York hacker-phreaks whose skills at telco switching-station intrusion -were matched only by their apparently limitless hunger for fame. -The advent of these two boldly swaggering outlaws in the precincts -of the Well created a sensation akin to that of Black Panthers -at a cocktail party for the radically chic. - -Phiber Optik in particular was to seize the day in 1990. -A devotee of the 2600 circle and stalwart of the New York -hackers' group "Masters of Deception," Phiber Optik was -a splendid exemplar of the computer intruder as committed dissident. -The eighteen-year-old Optik, a high-school dropout and part-time -computer repairman, was young, smart, and ruthlessly obsessive, -a sharp-dressing, sharp-talking digital dude who was utterly -and airily contemptuous of anyone's rules but his own. -By late 1991, Phiber Optik had appeared in Harper's, -Esquire, The New York Times, in countless public debates -and conventions, even on a television show hosted by Geraldo Rivera. - -Treated with gingerly respect by Barlow and other Well mavens, -Phiber Optik swiftly became a Well celebrity. Strangely, despite -his thorny attitude and utter single-mindedness, Phiber Optik seemed -to arouse strong protective instincts in most of the people who met him. -He was great copy for journalists, always fearlessly ready to swagger, -and, better yet, to actually DEMONSTRATE some off-the-wall digital stunt. -He was a born media darling. - -Even cops seemed to recognize that there was something peculiarly unworldly -and uncriminal about this particular troublemaker. He was so bold, -so flagrant, so young, and so obviously doomed, that even those -who strongly disapproved of his actions grew anxious for his welfare, -and began to flutter about him as if he were an endangered seal pup. - -In January 24, 1990 (nine days after the Martin Luther King Day Crash), -Phiber Optik, Acid Phreak, and a third NYC scofflaw named Scorpion were -raided by the Secret Service. Their computers went out the door, -along with the usual blizzard of papers, notebooks, compact disks, -answering machines, Sony Walkmans, etc. Both Acid Phreak and -Phiber Optik were accused of having caused the Crash. - -The mills of justice ground slowly. The case eventually fell into -the hands of the New York State Police. Phiber had lost his machinery -in the raid, but there were no charges filed against him for over a year. -His predicament was extensively publicized on the Well, where it caused -much resentment for police tactics. It's one thing to merely hear about -a hacker raided or busted; it's another to see the police attacking someone -you've come to know personally, and who has explained his motives at length. -Through the Harper's debate on the Well, it had become clear to the -Wellbeings that Phiber Optik was not in fact going to "hurt anything." -In their own salad days, many Wellbeings had tasted tear-gas in pitched -street-battles with police. They were inclined to indulgence for -acts of civil disobedience. - -Wellbeings were also startled to learn of the draconian thoroughness -of a typical hacker search-and-seizure. It took no great stretch of -imagination for them to envision themselves suffering much the same treatment. - -As early as January 1990, sentiment on the Well had already begun to sour, -and people had begun to grumble that "hackers" were getting a raw deal -from the ham-handed powers-that-be. The resultant issue of Harper's -magazine posed the question as to whether computer-intrusion was a "crime" -at all. As Barlow put it later: "I've begun to wonder if we wouldn't -also regard spelunkers as desperate criminals if AT&T owned all the caves." - -In February 1991, more than a year after the raid on his home, -Phiber Optik was finally arrested, and was charged with first-degree -Computer Tampering and Computer Trespass, New York state offenses. -He was also charged with a theft-of-service misdemeanor, involving a complex -free-call scam to a 900 number. Phiber Optik pled guilty to the misdemeanor -charge, and was sentenced to 35 hours of community service. - -This passing harassment from the unfathomable world of straight people -seemed to bother Optik himself little if at all. Deprived of his computer -by the January search-and-seizure, he simply bought himself a portable -computer so the cops could no longer monitor the phone where he lived -with his Mom, and he went right on with his depredations, sometimes on -live radio or in front of television cameras. - -The crackdown raid may have done little to dissuade Phiber Optik, -but its galling affect on the Wellbeings was profound. As 1990 rolled on, -the slings and arrows mounted: the Knight Lightning raid, -the Steve Jackson raid, the nation-spanning Operation Sundevil. -The rhetoric of law enforcement made it clear that there was, -in fact, a concerted crackdown on hackers in progress. - -The hackers of the Hackers Conference, the Wellbeings, and their ilk, -did not really mind the occasional public misapprehension of "hacking;" -if anything, this membrane of differentiation from straight society -made the "computer community" feel different, smarter, better. -They had never before been confronted, however, by a concerted -vilification campaign. - -Barlow's central role in the counter-struggle was one of the major -anomalies of 1990. Journalists investigating the controversy -often stumbled over the truth about Barlow, but they commonly -dusted themselves off and hurried on as if nothing had happened. -It was as if it were TOO MUCH TO BELIEVE that a 1960s freak -from the Grateful Dead had taken on a federal law enforcement operation -head-to-head and ACTUALLY SEEMED TO BE WINNING! - -Barlow had no easily detectable power-base for a political struggle -of this kind. He had no formal legal or technical credentials. -Barlow was, however, a computer networker of truly stellar brilliance. -He had a poet's gift of concise, colorful phrasing. He also had a -journalist's shrewdness, an off-the-wall, self-deprecating wit, -and a phenomenal wealth of simple personal charm. - -The kind of influence Barlow possessed is fairly common currency -in literary, artistic, or musical circles. A gifted critic can -wield great artistic influence simply through defining -the temper of the times, by coining the catch-phrases -and the terms of debate that become the common currency of the period. -(And as it happened, Barlow WAS a part-time art critic, -with a special fondness for the Western art of Frederic Remington.) - -Barlow was the first commentator to adopt William Gibson's -striking science-fictional term "cyberspace" as a synonym -for the present-day nexus of computer and telecommunications networks. -Barlow was insistent that cyberspace should be regarded as -a qualitatively new world, a "frontier." According to Barlow, -the world of electronic communications, now made visible through -the computer screen, could no longer be usefully regarded -as just a tangle of high-tech wiring. Instead, it had become -a PLACE, cyberspace, which demanded a new set of metaphors, -a new set of rules and behaviors. The term, as Barlow employed it, -struck a useful chord, and this concept of cyberspace was picked up -by Time, Scientific American, computer police, hackers, and even -Constitutional scholars. "Cyberspace" now seems likely to become -a permanent fixture of the language. - -Barlow was very striking in person: a tall, craggy-faced, bearded, -deep-voiced Wyomingan in a dashing Western ensemble of jeans, jacket, -cowboy boots, a knotted throat-kerchief and an ever-present Grateful Dead -cloisonne lapel pin. - -Armed with a modem, however, Barlow was truly in his element. -Formal hierarchies were not Barlow's strong suit; he rarely missed -a chance to belittle the "large organizations and their drones," -with their uptight, institutional mindset. Barlow was very much -of the free-spirit persuasion, deeply unimpressed by brass-hats -and jacks-in-office. But when it came to the digital grapevine, -Barlow was a cyberspace ad-hocrat par excellence. - -There was not a mighty army of Barlows. There was only one Barlow, -and he was a fairly anomolous individual. However, the situation only -seemed to REQUIRE a single Barlow. In fact, after 1990, many people -must have concluded that a single Barlow was far more than -they'd ever bargained for. - -Barlow's querulous mini-essay about his encounter with the FBI -struck a strong chord on the Well. A number of other free spirits -on the fringes of Apple Computing had come under suspicion, -and they liked it not one whit better than he did. - -One of these was Mitchell Kapor, the co-inventor of the spreadsheet -program "Lotus 1-2-3" and the founder of Lotus Development Corporation. -Kapor had written-off the passing indignity of being fingerprinted -down at his own local Boston FBI headquarters, but Barlow's post -made the full national scope of the FBI's dragnet clear to Kapor. -The issue now had Kapor's full attention. As the Secret Service -swung into anti-hacker operation nationwide in 1990, Kapor watched -every move with deep skepticism and growing alarm. - -As it happened, Kapor had already met Barlow, who had interviewed Kapor -for a California computer journal. Like most people who met Barlow, -Kapor had been very taken with him. Now Kapor took it upon himself -to drop in on Barlow for a heart-to-heart talk about the situation. - -Kapor was a regular on the Well. Kapor had been a devotee of the -Whole Earth Catalogsince the beginning, and treasured a complete run -of the magazine. And Kapor not only had a modem, but a private jet. -In pursuit of the scattered high-tech investments of Kapor Enterprises Inc., -his personal, multi-million dollar holding company, Kapor commonly crossed -state lines with about as much thought as one might give to faxing a letter. - -The Kapor-Barlow council of June 1990, in Pinedale, Wyoming, was the start -of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Barlow swiftly wrote a manifesto, -"Crime and Puzzlement," which announced his, and Kapor's, intention -to form a political organization to "raise and disburse funds for education, -lobbying, and litigation in the areas relating to digital speech and the -extension of the Constitution into Cyberspace." - -Furthermore, proclaimed the manifesto, the foundation would -"fund, conduct, and support legal efforts to demonstrate -that the Secret Service has exercised prior restraint on publications, -limited free speech, conducted improper seizure of equipment and data, -used undue force, and generally conducted itself in a fashion which -is arbitrary, oppressive, and unconstitutional." - -"Crime and Puzzlement" was distributed far and wide through computer -networking channels, and also printed in the Whole Earth Review. -The sudden declaration of a coherent, politicized counter-strike -from the ranks of hackerdom electrified the community. Steve Wozniak -(perhaps a bit stung by the NuPrometheus scandal) swiftly offered -to match any funds Kapor offered the Foundation. - -John Gilmore, one of the pioneers of Sun Microsystems, immediately offered -his own extensive financial and personal support. Gilmore, an ardent -libertarian, was to prove an eloquent advocate of electronic privacy issues, -especially freedom from governmental and corporate computer-assisted -surveillance of private citizens. - -A second meeting in San Francisco rounded up further allies: -Stewart Brand of the Point Foundation, virtual-reality pioneers -Jaron Lanier and Chuck Blanchard, network entrepreneur and venture -capitalist Nat Goldhaber. At this dinner meeting, the activists settled on -a formal title: the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Incorporated. -Kapor became its president. A new EFF Conference was opened on -the Point Foundation's Well, and the Well was declared -"the home of the Electronic Frontier Foundation." - -Press coverage was immediate and intense. Like their -nineteenth-century spiritual ancestors, Alexander Graham Bell -and Thomas Watson, the high-tech computer entrepreneurs -of the 1970s and 1980s--people such as Wozniak, Jobs, Kapor, -Gates, and H. Ross Perot, who had raised themselves by their bootstraps -to dominate a glittering new industry--had always made very good copy. - -But while the Wellbeings rejoiced, the press in general seemed -nonplussed by the self-declared "civilizers of cyberspace." -EFF's insistence that the war against "hackers" involved grave -Constitutional civil liberties issues seemed somewhat farfetched, -especially since none of EFF's organizers were lawyers -or established politicians. The business press in particular -found it easier to seize on the apparent core of the story-- -that high-tech entrepreneur Mitchell Kapor had established -a "defense fund for hackers." Was EFF a genuinely important -political development--or merely a clique of wealthy eccentrics, -dabbling in matters better left to the proper authorities? -The jury was still out. - -But the stage was now set for open confrontation. -And the first and the most critical battle was the -hacker show-trial of "Knight Lightning." - -# - -It has been my practice throughout this book to refer to hackers -only by their "handles." There is little to gain by giving -the real names of these people, many of whom are juveniles, -many of whom have never been convicted of any crime, and many -of whom had unsuspecting parents who have already suffered enough. - -But the trial of Knight Lightning on July 24-27, 1990, -made this particular "hacker" a nationally known public figure. -It can do no particular harm to himself or his family if I repeat -the long-established fact that his name is Craig Neidorf (pronounced NYE-dorf). - -Neidorf's jury trial took place in the United States District Court, -Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, with the -Honorable Nicholas J. Bua presiding. The United States of America -was the plaintiff, the defendant Mr. Neidorf. The defendant's attorney -was Sheldon T. Zenner of the Chicago firm of Katten, Muchin and Zavis. - -The prosecution was led by the stalwarts of the Chicago Computer Fraud -and Abuse Task Force: William J. Cook, Colleen D. Coughlin, and -David A. Glockner, all Assistant United States Attorneys. -The Secret Service Case Agent was Timothy M. Foley. - -It will be recalled that Neidorf was the co-editor of an underground hacker -"magazine" called Phrack. Phrack was an entirely electronic publication, -distributed through bulletin boards and over electronic networks. -It was amateur publication given away for free. Neidorf had never made -any money for his work in Phrack. Neither had his unindicted co-editor -"Taran King" or any of the numerous Phrack contributors. - -The Chicago Computer Fraud and Abuse Task Force, however, -had decided to prosecute Neidorf as a fraudster. -To formally admit that Phrack was a "magazine" -and Neidorf a "publisher" was to open a prosecutorial -Pandora's Box of First Amendment issues. To do this -was to play into the hands of Zenner and his EFF advisers, -which now included a phalanx of prominent New York civil rights -lawyers as well as the formidable legal staff of Katten, Muchin and Zavis. -Instead, the prosecution relied heavily on the issue of access device fraud: -Section 1029 of Title 18, the section from which the Secret Service drew -its most direct jurisdiction over computer crime. - -Neidorf's alleged crimes centered around the E911 Document. -He was accused of having entered into a fraudulent scheme with the Prophet, -who, it will be recalled, was the Atlanta LoD member who had illicitly -copied the E911 Document from the BellSouth AIMSX system. - -The Prophet himself was also a co-defendant in the Neidorf case, -part-and-parcel of the alleged "fraud scheme" to "steal" BellSouth's -E911 Document (and to pass the Document across state lines, -which helped establish the Neidorf trial as a federal case). -The Prophet, in the spirit of full co-operation, had agreed -to testify against Neidorf. - -In fact, all three of the Atlanta crew stood ready to testify against Neidorf. -Their own federal prosecutors in Atlanta had charged the Atlanta Three with: -(a) conspiracy, (b) computer fraud, (c) wire fraud, (d) access device fraud, -and (e) interstate transportation of stolen property (Title 18, Sections 371, -1030, 1343, 1029, and 2314). - -Faced with this blizzard of trouble, Prophet and Leftist had ducked -any public trial and had pled guilty to reduced charges--one conspiracy -count apiece. Urvile had pled guilty to that odd bit of Section 1029 -which makes it illegal to possess "fifteen or more" illegal access devices -(in his case, computer passwords). And their sentences were scheduled -for September 14, 1990--well after the Neidorf trial. As witnesses, -they could presumably be relied upon to behave. - -Neidorf, however, was pleading innocent. Most everyone else caught up -in the crackdown had "cooperated fully" and pled guilty in hope -of reduced sentences. (Steve Jackson was a notable exception, -of course, and had strongly protested his innocence from the -very beginning. But Steve Jackson could not get a day in court-- -Steve Jackson had never been charged with any crime in the first place.) - -Neidorf had been urged to plead guilty. But Neidorf was a political science -major and was disinclined to go to jail for "fraud" when he had not made -any money, had not broken into any computer, and had been publishing -a magazine that he considered protected under the First Amendment. - -Neidorf's trial was the ONLY legal action of the entire Crackdown -that actually involved bringing the issues at hand out for a public test -in front of a jury of American citizens. - -Neidorf, too, had cooperated with investigators. He had voluntarily -handed over much of the evidence that had led to his own indictment. -He had already admitted in writing that he knew that the E911 Document -had been stolen before he had "published" it in Phrack--or, from the -prosecution's point of view, illegally transported stolen property by wire -in something purporting to be a "publication." - -But even if the "publication" of the E911 Document was not held to be a crime, -that wouldn't let Neidorf off the hook. Neidorf had still received -the E911 Document when Prophet had transferred it to him from Rich Andrews' -Jolnet node. On that occasion, it certainly hadn't been "published"-- -it was hacker booty, pure and simple, transported across state lines. - -The Chicago Task Force led a Chicago grand jury to indict Neidorf -on a set of charges that could have put him in jail for thirty years. -When some of these charges were successfully challenged before Neidorf -actually went to trial, the Chicago Task Force rearranged his -indictment so that he faced a possible jail term of over sixty years! -As a first offender, it was very unlikely that Neidorf would in fact -receive a sentence so drastic; but the Chicago Task Force clearly -intended to see Neidorf put in prison, and his conspiratorial "magazine" -put permanently out of commission. This was a federal case, and Neidorf -was charged with the fraudulent theft of property worth almost -eighty thousand dollars. - -William Cook was a strong believer in high-profile prosecutions -with symbolic overtones. He often published articles on his work -in the security trade press, arguing that "a clear message had -to be sent to the public at large and the computer community -in particular that unauthorized attacks on computers and the theft -of computerized information would not be tolerated by the courts." - -The issues were complex, the prosecution's tactics somewhat unorthodox, -but the Chicago Task Force had proved sure-footed to date. "Shadowhawk" -had been bagged on the wing in 1989 by the Task Force, and sentenced -to nine months in prison, and a $10,000 fine. The Shadowhawk case involved -charges under Section 1030, the "federal interest computer" section. - -Shadowhawk had not in fact been a devotee of "federal-interest" computers -per se. On the contrary, Shadowhawk, who owned an AT&T home computer, -seemed to cherish a special aggression toward AT&T. He had bragged on -the underground boards "Phreak Klass 2600" and "Dr. Ripco" of his skills -at raiding AT&T, and of his intention to crash AT&T's national phone system. -Shadowhawk's brags were noticed by Henry Kluepfel of Bellcore Security, -scourge of the outlaw boards, whose relations with the Chicago Task Force -were long and intimate. - -The Task Force successfully established that Section 1030 applied to -the teenage Shadowhawk, despite the objections of his defense attorney. -Shadowhawk had entered a computer "owned" by U.S. Missile Command -and merely "managed" by AT&T. He had also entered an AT&T computer -located at Robbins Air Force Base in Georgia. Attacking AT&T was -of "federal interest" whether Shadowhawk had intended it or not. - -The Task Force also convinced the court that a piece of AT&T -software that Shadowhawk had illicitly copied from Bell Labs, -the "Artificial Intelligence C5 Expert System," was worth a cool -one million dollars. Shadowhawk's attorney had argued that -Shadowhawk had not sold the program and had made no profit from -the illicit copying. And in point of fact, the C5 Expert System -was experimental software, and had no established market value -because it had never been on the market in the first place. -AT&T's own assessment of a "one million dollar" figure for its -own intangible property was accepted without challenge -by the court, however. And the court concurred with -the government prosecutors that Shadowhawk showed clear -"intent to defraud" whether he'd gotten any money or not. -Shadowhawk went to jail. - -The Task Force's other best-known triumph had been the conviction -and jailing of "Kyrie." Kyrie, a true denizen of the digital -criminal underground, was a 36-year-old Canadian woman, -convicted and jailed for telecommunications fraud in Canada. -After her release from prison, she had fled the wrath of Canada Bell -and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and eventually settled, -very unwisely, in Chicago. - -"Kyrie," who also called herself "Long Distance Information," -specialized in voice-mail abuse. She assembled large numbers -of hot long-distance codes, then read them aloud into a series -of corporate voice-mail systems. Kyrie and her friends were -electronic squatters in corporate voice-mail systems, -using them much as if they were pirate bulletin boards, -then moving on when their vocal chatter clogged the system -and the owners necessarily wised up. Kyrie's camp followers -were a loose tribe of some hundred and fifty phone-phreaks, -who followed her trail of piracy from machine to machine, -ardently begging for her services and expertise. - -Kyrie's disciples passed her stolen credit-card numbers, -in exchange for her stolen "long distance information." -Some of Kyrie's clients paid her off in cash, by scamming -credit-card cash advances from Western Union. - -Kyrie travelled incessantly, mostly through airline tickets -and hotel rooms that she scammed through stolen credit cards. -Tiring of this, she found refuge with a fellow female phone -phreak in Chicago. Kyrie's hostess, like a surprising number -of phone phreaks, was blind. She was also physically disabled. -Kyrie allegedly made the best of her new situation by applying for, -and receiving, state welfare funds under a false identity as -a qualified caretaker for the handicapped. - -Sadly, Kyrie's two children by a former marriage had also vanished -underground with her; these pre-teen digital refugees had no legal -American identity, and had never spent a day in school. - -Kyrie was addicted to technical mastery and enthralled by her own -cleverness and the ardent worship of her teenage followers. -This foolishly led her to phone up Gail Thackeray in Arizona, -to boast, brag, strut, and offer to play informant. -Thackeray, however, had already learned far more -than enough about Kyrie, whom she roundly despised -as an adult criminal corrupting minors, a "female Fagin." -Thackeray passed her tapes of Kyrie's boasts to the Secret Service. - -Kyrie was raided and arrested in Chicago in May 1989. -She confessed at great length and pled guilty. - -In August 1990, Cook and his Task Force colleague Colleen Coughlin -sent Kyrie to jail for 27 months, for computer and telecommunications fraud. -This was a markedly severe sentence by the usual wrist-slapping standards -of "hacker" busts. Seven of Kyrie's foremost teenage disciples were also -indicted and convicted. The Kyrie "high-tech street gang," as Cook -described it, had been crushed. Cook and his colleagues had been -the first ever to put someone in prison for voice-mail abuse. -Their pioneering efforts had won them attention and kudos. - -In his article on Kyrie, Cook drove the message home to the readers -of Security Management magazine, a trade journal for corporate -security professionals. The case, Cook said, and Kyrie's stiff sentence, -"reflect a new reality for hackers and computer crime victims in the -'90s. . . . Individuals and corporations who report computer -and telecommunications crimes can now expect that their cooperation -with federal law enforcement will result in meaningful punishment. -Companies and the public at large must report computer-enhanced -crimes if they want prosecutors and the course to protect their rights -to the tangible and intangible property developed and stored on computers." - -Cook had made it his business to construct this "new reality for hackers." -He'd also made it his business to police corporate property rights -to the intangible. - -Had the Electronic Frontier Foundation been a "hacker defense fund" -as that term was generally understood, they presumably would have stood up -for Kyrie. Her 1990 sentence did indeed send a "message" that federal heat -was coming down on "hackers." But Kyrie found no defenders at EFF, -or anywhere else, for that matter. EFF was not a bail-out fund -for electronic crooks. - -The Neidorf case paralleled the Shadowhawk case in certain ways. -The victim once again was allowed to set the value of the "stolen" property. -Once again Kluepfel was both investigator and technical advisor. -Once again no money had changed hands, but the "intent to defraud" was central. - -The prosecution's case showed signs of weakness early on. The Task Force -had originally hoped to prove Neidorf the center of a nationwide -Legion of Doom criminal conspiracy. The Phrack editors threw physical -get-togethers every summer, which attracted hackers from across the country; -generally two dozen or so of the magazine's favorite contributors and readers. -(Such conventions were common in the hacker community; 2600 Magazine, -for instance, held public meetings of hackers in New York, every month.) -LoD heavy-dudes were always a strong presence at these Phrack-sponsored -"Summercons." - -In July 1988, an Arizona hacker named "Dictator" attended Summercon -in Neidorf's home town of St. Louis. Dictator was one of Gail Thackeray's -underground informants; Dictator's underground board in Phoenix was -a sting operation for the Secret Service. Dictator brought an undercover -crew of Secret Service agents to Summercon. The agents bored spyholes -through the wall of Dictator's hotel room in St Louis, and videotaped -the frolicking hackers through a one-way mirror. As it happened, -however, nothing illegal had occurred on videotape, other than the -guzzling of beer by a couple of minors. Summercons were social events, -not sinister cabals. The tapes showed fifteen hours of raucous laughter, -pizza-gobbling, in-jokes and back-slapping. - -Neidorf's lawyer, Sheldon Zenner, saw the Secret Service tapes -before the trial. Zenner was shocked by the complete harmlessness -of this meeting, which Cook had earlier characterized as a sinister -interstate conspiracy to commit fraud. Zenner wanted to show the -Summercon tapes to the jury. It took protracted maneuverings -by the Task Force to keep the tapes from the jury as "irrelevant." - -The E911 Document was also proving a weak reed. It had originally -been valued at $79,449. Unlike Shadowhawk's arcane Artificial Intelligence -booty, the E911 Document was not software--it was written in English. -Computer-knowledgeable people found this value--for a twelve-page -bureaucratic document--frankly incredible. In his "Crime and Puzzlement" -manifesto for EFF, Barlow commented: "We will probably never know how -this figure was reached or by whom, though I like to imagine an appraisal -team consisting of Franz Kafka, Joseph Heller, and Thomas Pynchon." - -As it happened, Barlow was unduly pessimistic. The EFF did, in fact, -eventually discover exactly how this figure was reached, and by whom-- -but only in 1991, long after the Neidorf trial was over. - -Kim Megahee, a Southern Bell security manager, -had arrived at the document's value by simply adding up -the "costs associated with the production" of the E911 Document. -Those "costs" were as follows: - -1. A technical writer had been hired to research and write the E911 Document. - 200 hours of work, at $35 an hour, cost : $7,000. A Project Manager had - overseen the technical writer. 200 hours, at $31 an hour, made: $6,200. - -2. A week of typing had cost $721 dollars. A week of formatting had - cost $721. A week of graphics formatting had cost $742. - -3. Two days of editing cost $367. - -4. A box of order labels cost five dollars. - -5. Preparing a purchase order for the Document, including typing - and the obtaining of an authorizing signature from within the - BellSouth bureaucracy, cost $129. - -6. Printing cost $313. Mailing the Document to fifty people - took fifty hours by a clerk, and cost $858. - -7. Placing the Document in an index took two clerks an hour each, - totalling $43. - -Bureaucratic overhead alone, therefore, was alleged to have cost -a whopping $17,099. According to Mr. Megahee, the typing -of a twelve-page document had taken a full week. Writing it -had taken five weeks, including an overseer who apparently -did nothing else but watch the author for five weeks. -Editing twelve pages had taken two days. Printing and mailing -an electronic document (which was already available on the -Southern Bell Data Network to any telco employee who needed it), -had cost over a thousand dollars. - -But this was just the beginning. There were also the HARDWARE EXPENSES. -Eight hundred fifty dollars for a VT220 computer monitor. -THIRTY-ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS for a sophisticated VAXstation II computer. -Six thousand dollars for a computer printer. TWENTY-TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS -for a copy of "Interleaf" software. Two thousand five hundred dollars -for VMS software. All this to create the twelve-page Document. - -Plus ten percent of the cost of the software and the hardware, for maintenance. -(Actually, the ten percent maintenance costs, though mentioned, had been left -off the final $79,449 total, apparently through a merciful oversight). - -Mr. Megahee's letter had been mailed directly to William Cook himself, -at the office of the Chicago federal attorneys. The United States Government -accepted these telco figures without question. - -As incredulity mounted, the value of the E911 Document was officially -revised downward. This time, Robert Kibler of BellSouth Security -estimated the value of the twelve pages as a mere $24,639.05--based, -purportedly, on "R&D costs." But this specific estimate, -right down to the nickel, did not move the skeptics at all; -in fact it provoked open scorn and a torrent of sarcasm. - -The financial issues concerning theft of proprietary information -have always been peculiar. It could be argued that BellSouth -had not "lost" its E911 Document at all in the first place, -and therefore had not suffered any monetary damage from this "theft." -And Sheldon Zenner did in fact argue this at Neidorf's trial-- -that Prophet's raid had not been "theft," but was better understood -as illicit copying. - -The money, however, was not central to anyone's true purposes in this trial. -It was not Cook's strategy to convince the jury that the E911 Document -was a major act of theft and should be punished for that reason alone. -His strategy was to argue that the E911 Document was DANGEROUS. -It was his intention to establish that the E911 Document was "a road-map" -to the Enhanced 911 System. Neidorf had deliberately and recklessly -distributed a dangerous weapon. Neidorf and the Prophet did not care -(or perhaps even gloated at the sinister idea) that the E911 Document -could be used by hackers to disrupt 911 service, "a life line for every -person certainly in the Southern Bell region of the United States, -and indeed, in many communities throughout the United States," -in Cook's own words. Neidorf had put people's lives in danger. - -In pre-trial maneuverings, Cook had established that the E911 Document -was too hot to appear in the public proceedings of the Neidorf trial. -The JURY ITSELF would not be allowed to ever see this Document, -lest it slip into the official court records, and thus into the hands -of the general public, and, thus, somehow, to malicious hackers -who might lethally abuse it. - -Hiding the E911 Document from the jury may have been a -clever legal maneuver, but it had a severe flaw. There were, -in point of fact, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people, -already in possession of the E911 Document, just as Phrack -had published it. Its true nature was already obvious -to a wide section of the interested public (all of whom, -by the way, were, at least theoretically, party to -a gigantic wire-fraud conspiracy). Most everyone -in the electronic community who had a modem and any -interest in the Neidorf case already had a copy of the Document. -It had already been available in Phrack for over a year. - -People, even quite normal people without any particular -prurient interest in forbidden knowledge, did not shut their eyes -in terror at the thought of beholding a "dangerous" document -from a telephone company. On the contrary, they tended to trust -their own judgement and simply read the Document for themselves. -And they were not impressed. - -One such person was John Nagle. Nagle was a forty-one-year-old -professional programmer with a masters' degree in computer science -from Stanford. He had worked for Ford Aerospace, where he had invented -a computer-networking technique known as the "Nagle Algorithm," -and for the prominent Californian computer-graphics firm "Autodesk," -where he was a major stockholder. - -Nagle was also a prominent figure on the Well, much respected -for his technical knowledgeability. - -Nagle had followed the civil-liberties debate closely, -for he was an ardent telecommunicator. He was no particular friend -of computer intruders, but he believed electronic publishing -had a great deal to offer society at large, and attempts -to restrain its growth, or to censor free electronic expression, -strongly roused his ire. - -The Neidorf case, and the E911 Document, were both being discussed -in detail on the Internet, in an electronic publication called Telecom Digest. -Nagle, a longtime Internet maven, was a regular reader of Telecom Digest. -Nagle had never seen a copy of Phrack, but the implications of the case -disturbed him. - -While in a Stanford bookstore hunting books on robotics, -Nagle happened across a book called The Intelligent Network. -Thumbing through it at random, Nagle came across an entire chapter -meticulously detailing the workings of E911 police emergency systems. -This extensive text was being sold openly, and yet in Illinois -a young man was in danger of going to prison for publishing -a thin six-page document about 911 service. - -Nagle made an ironic comment to this effect in Telecom Digest. -From there, Nagle was put in touch with Mitch Kapor, -and then with Neidorf's lawyers. - -Sheldon Zenner was delighted to find a computer telecommunications expert -willing to speak up for Neidorf, one who was not a wacky teenage "hacker." -Nagle was fluent, mature, and respectable; he'd once had a federal -security clearance. - -Nagle was asked to fly to Illinois to join the defense team. - -Having joined the defense as an expert witness, Nagle read the entire -E911 Document for himself. He made his own judgement about its potential -for menace. - -The time has now come for you yourself, the reader, to have a look -at the E911 Document. This six-page piece of work was the pretext -for a federal prosecution that could have sent an electronic publisher -to prison for thirty, or even sixty, years. It was the pretext -for the search and seizure of Steve Jackson Games, a legitimate publisher -of printed books. It was also the formal pretext for the search -and seizure of the Mentor's bulletin board, "Phoenix Project," -and for the raid on the home of Erik Bloodaxe. It also had much -to do with the seizure of Richard Andrews' Jolnet node -and the shutdown of Charles Boykin's AT&T node. -The E911 Document was the single most important piece -of evidence in the Hacker Crackdown. There can be no real -and legitimate substitute for the Document itself. - - -==Phrack Inc.== - -Volume Two, Issue 24, File 5 of 13 - -Control Office Administration -Of Enhanced 911 Services For -Special Services and Account Centers - -by the Eavesdropper - -March, 1988 - - -Description of Service -~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -The control office for Emergency 911 service is assigned in -accordance with the existing standard guidelines to one of -the following centers: - -o Special Services Center (SSC) -o Major Accounts Center (MAC) -o Serving Test Center (STC) -o Toll Control Center (TCC) - -The SSC/MAC designation is used in this document interchangeably -for any of these four centers. The Special Services Centers (SSCs) -or Major Account Centers (MACs) have been designated as the trouble -reporting contact for all E911 customer (PSAP) reported troubles. -Subscribers who have trouble on an E911 call will continue -to contact local repair service (CRSAB) who will refer the -trouble to the SSC/MAC, when appropriate. - -Due to the critical nature of E911 service, the control -and timely repair of troubles is demanded. As the primary -E911 customer contact, the SSC/MAC is in the unique position -to monitor the status of the trouble and insure its resolution. - -System Overview -~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -The number 911 is intended as a nationwide universal -telephone number which provides the public with direct -access to a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP). A PSAP -is also referred to as an Emergency Service Bureau (ESB). -A PSAP is an agency or facility which is authorized by a -municipality to receive and respond to police, fire and/or -ambulance services. One or more attendants are located -at the PSAP facilities to receive and handle calls of an -emergency nature in accordance with the local municipal -requirements. - -An important advantage of E911 emergency service is -improved (reduced) response times for emergency -services. Also close coordination among agencies -providing various emergency services is a valuable -capability provided by E911 service. - -1A ESS is used as the tandem office for the E911 network to -route all 911 calls to the correct (primary) PSAP designated -to serve the calling station. The E911 feature was -developed primarily to provide routing to the correct PSAP -for all 911 calls. Selective routing allows a 911 call -originated from a particular station located in a particular -district, zone, or town, to be routed to the primary PSAP -designated to serve that customer station regardless of -wire center boundaries. Thus, selective routing eliminates -the problem of wire center boundaries not coinciding with -district or other political boundaries. - -The services available with the E911 feature include: - -Forced Disconnect Default Routing -Alternative Routing Night Service -Selective Routing Automatic Number -Identification (ANI) -Selective Transfer Automatic Location -Identification (ALI) - - -Preservice/Installation Guidelines -~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -When a contract for an E911 system has been signed, it is -the responsibility of Network Marketing to establish an -implementation/cutover committee which should include -a representative from the SSC/MAC. Duties of the E911 -Implementation Team include coordination of all phases -of the E911 system deployment and the formation of an -on-going E911 maintenance subcommittee. - -Marketing is responsible for providing the following -customer specific information to the SSC/MAC prior to -the start of call through testing: - -o All PSAP's (name, address, local contact) -o All PSAP circuit ID's -o 1004 911 service request including PSAP details on each PSAP - (1004 Section K, L, M) -o Network configuration -o Any vendor information (name, telephone number, equipment) - -The SSC/MAC needs to know if the equipment and sets -at the PSAP are maintained by the BOCs, an independent -company, or an outside vendor, or any combination. -This information is then entered on the PSAP profile sheets -and reviewed quarterly for changes, additions and deletions. - -Marketing will secure the Major Account Number (MAN) -and provide this number to Corporate Communications -so that the initial issue of the service orders carry -the MAN and can be tracked by the SSC/MAC via CORDNET. -PSAP circuits are official services by definition. - -All service orders required for the installation of the E911 -system should include the MAN assigned to the city/county -which has purchased the system. - -In accordance with the basic SSC/MAC strategy for provisioning, -the SSC/MAC will be Overall Control Office (OCO) for all Node -to PSAP circuits (official services) and any other services -for this customer. Training must be scheduled for all SSC/MAC -involved personnel during the pre-service stage of the project. - -The E911 Implementation Team will form the on-going -maintenance subcommittee prior to the initial -implementation of the E911 system. This sub-committee -will establish post implementation quality assurance -procedures to ensure that the E911 system continues to -provide quality service to the customer. -Customer/Company training, trouble reporting interfaces -for the customer, telephone company and any involved -independent telephone companies needs to be addressed -and implemented prior to E911 cutover. These functions -can be best addressed by the formation of a sub- -committee of the E911 Implementation Team to set up -guidelines for and to secure service commitments of -interfacing organizations. A SSC/MAC supervisor should -chair this subcommittee and include the following -organizations: - -1) Switching Control Center - - E911 translations - - Trunking - - End office and Tandem office hardware/software -2) Recent Change Memory Administration Center - - Daily RC update activity for TN/ESN translations - - Processes validity errors and rejects -3) Line and Number Administration - - Verification of TN/ESN translations -4) Special Service Center/Major Account Center - - Single point of contact for all PSAP and Node to host troubles - - Logs, tracks & statusing of all trouble reports - - Trouble referral, follow up, and escalation - - Customer notification of status and restoration - - Analyzation of "chronic" troubles - - Testing, installation and maintenance of E911 circuits -5) Installation and Maintenance (SSIM/I&M) - - Repair and maintenance of PSAP equipment and Telco owned sets -6) Minicomputer Maintenance Operations Center - - E911 circuit maintenance (where applicable) -7) Area Maintenance Engineer - - Technical assistance on voice (CO-PSAP) network related E911 troubles - - -Maintenance Guidelines -~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -The CCNC will test the Node circuit from the 202T at the -Host site to the 202T at the Node site. Since Host to Node -(CCNC to MMOC) circuits are official company services, -the CCNC will refer all Node circuit troubles to the -SSC/MAC. The SSC/MAC is responsible for the testing -and follow up to restoration of these circuit troubles. - -Although Node to PSAP circuit are official services, the -MMOC will refer PSAP circuit troubles to the appropriate -SSC/MAC. The SSC/MAC is responsible for testing and -follow up to restoration of PSAP circuit troubles. - -The SSC/MAC will also receive reports from -CRSAB/IMC(s) on subscriber 911 troubles when they are -not line troubles. The SSC/MAC is responsible for testing -and restoration of these troubles. - -Maintenance responsibilities are as follows: - -SCC@ Voice Network (ANI to PSAP) -@SCC responsible for tandem switch - -SSIM/I&M PSAP Equipment (Modems, CIU's, sets) -Vendor PSAP Equipment (when CPE) -SSC/MAC PSAP to Node circuits, and tandem to - PSAP voice circuits (EMNT) -MMOC Node site (Modems, cables, etc) - -Note: All above work groups are required to resolve troubles -by interfacing with appropriate work groups for resolution. - -The Switching Control Center (SCC) is responsible for -E911/1AESS translations in tandem central offices. -These translations route E911 calls, selective transfer, -default routing, speed calling, etc., for each PSAP. -The SCC is also responsible for troubleshooting on -the voice network (call originating to end office tandem equipment). - -For example, ANI failures in the originating offices would -be a responsibility of the SCC. - -Recent Change Memory Administration Center (RCMAC) performs -the daily tandem translation updates (recent change) -for routing of individual telephone numbers. - -Recent changes are generated from service order activity -(new service, address changes, etc.) and compiled into -a daily file by the E911 Center (ALI/DMS E911 Computer). - -SSIM/I&M is responsible for the installation and repair of -PSAP equipment. PSAP equipment includes ANI Controller, -ALI Controller, data sets, cables, sets, and other peripheral -equipment that is not vendor owned. SSIM/I&M is responsible -for establishing maintenance test kits, complete with spare parts -for PSAP maintenance. This includes test gear, data sets, -and ANI/ALI Controller parts. - -Special Services Center (SSC) or Major Account Center -(MAC) serves as the trouble reporting contact for all -(PSAP) troubles reported by customer. The SSC/MAC -refers troubles to proper organizations for handling and -tracks status of troubles, escalating when necessary. -The SSC/MAC will close out troubles with customer. -The SSC/MAC will analyze all troubles and tracks "chronic" -PSAP troubles. - -Corporate Communications Network Center (CCNC) will -test and refer troubles on all node to host circuits. -All E911 circuits are classified as official company property. - -The Minicomputer Maintenance Operations Center -(MMOC) maintains the E911 (ALI/DMS) computer -hardware at the Host site. This MMOC is also responsible -for monitoring the system and reporting certain PSAP -and system problems to the local MMOC's, SCC's or -SSC/MAC's. The MMOC personnel also operate software -programs that maintain the TN data base under the -direction of the E911 Center. The maintenance of the -NODE computer (the interface between the PSAP and the -ALI/DMS computer) is a function of the MMOC at the -NODE site. The MMOC's at the NODE sites may also be -involved in the testing of NODE to Host circuits. -The MMOC will also assist on Host to PSAP and data network -related troubles not resolved through standard trouble -clearing procedures. - -Installation And Maintenance Center (IMC) is responsible -for referral of E911 subscriber troubles that are not subscriber -line problems. - -E911 Center - Performs the role of System Administration -and is responsible for overall operation of the E911 -computer software. The E911 Center does A-Z trouble -analysis and provides statistical information on the -performance of the system. - -This analysis includes processing PSAP inquiries (trouble -reports) and referral of network troubles. The E911 Center -also performs daily processing of tandem recent change -and provides information to the RCMAC for tandem input. -The E911 Center is responsible for daily processing -of the ALI/DMS computer data base and provides error files, -etc. to the Customer Services department for investigation and correction. -The E911 Center participates in all system implementations and on-going -maintenance effort and assists in the development of procedures, -training and education of information to all groups. - -Any group receiving a 911 trouble from the SSC/MAC should -close out the trouble with the SSC/MAC or provide a status -if the trouble has been referred to another group. -This will allow the SSC/MAC to provide a status back -to the customer or escalate as appropriate. - -Any group receiving a trouble from the Host site (MMOC -or CCNC) should close the trouble back to that group. - -The MMOC should notify the appropriate SSC/MAC -when the Host, Node, or all Node circuits are down so that -the SSC/MAC can reply to customer reports that may be -called in by the PSAPs. This will eliminate duplicate -reporting of troubles. On complete outages the MMOC -will follow escalation procedures for a Node after two (2) -hours and for a PSAP after four (4) hours. Additionally the -MMOC will notify the appropriate SSC/MAC when the -Host, Node, or all Node circuits are down. - -The PSAP will call the SSC/MAC to report E911 troubles. -The person reporting the E911 trouble may not have a -circuit I.D. and will therefore report the PSAP name and -address. Many PSAP troubles are not circuit specific. In -those instances where the caller cannot provide a circuit -I.D., the SSC/MAC will be required to determine the -circuit I.D. using the PSAP profile. Under no circumstances -will the SSC/MAC Center refuse to take the trouble. -The E911 trouble should be handled as quickly as possible, -with the SSC/MAC providing as much assistance as -possible while taking the trouble report from the caller. - -The SSC/MAC will screen/test the trouble to determine the -appropriate handoff organization based on the following criteria: - -PSAP equipment problem: SSIM/I&M -Circuit problem: SSC/MAC -Voice network problem: SCC (report trunk group number) -Problem affecting multiple PSAPs (No ALI report from -all PSAPs): Contact the MMOC to check for NODE or -Host computer problems before further testing. - -The SSC/MAC will track the status of reported troubles -and escalate as appropriate. The SSC/MAC will close out -customer/company reports with the initiating contact. -Groups with specific maintenance responsibilities, -defined above, will investigate "chronic" troubles upon -request from the SSC/MAC and the ongoing maintenance subcommittee. - -All "out of service" E911 troubles are priority one type reports. -One link down to a PSAP is considered a priority one trouble -and should be handled as if the PSAP was isolated. - -The PSAP will report troubles with the ANI controller, ALI -controller or set equipment to the SSC/MAC. - -NO ANI: Where the PSAP reports NO ANI (digital -display screen is blank) ask if this condition exists on all -screens and on all calls. It is important to differentiate -between blank screens and screens displaying 911-00XX, -or all zeroes. - -When the PSAP reports all screens on all calls, ask if there -is any voice contact with callers. If there is no voice -contact the trouble should be referred to the SCC -immediately since 911 calls are not getting through which -may require alternate routing of calls to another PSAP. - -When the PSAP reports this condition on all screens -but not all calls and has voice contact with callers, -the report should be referred to SSIM/I&M for dispatch. -The SSC/MAC should verify with the SCC that ANI -is pulsing before dispatching SSIM. - -When the PSAP reports this condition on one screen for -all calls (others work fine) the trouble should be referred -to SSIM/I&M for dispatch, because the trouble is isolated to -one piece of equipment at the customer premise. - -An ANI failure (i.e. all zeroes) indicates that the ANI has -not been received by the PSAP from the tandem office or -was lost by the PSAP ANI controller. The PSAP may -receive "02" alarms which can be caused by the ANI -controller logging more than three all zero failures on the -same trunk. The PSAP has been instructed to report this -condition to the SSC/MAC since it could indicate an -equipment trouble at the PSAP which might be affecting -all subscribers calling into the PSAP. When all zeroes are -being received on all calls or "02" alarms continue, a tester -should analyze the condition to determine the appropriate -action to be taken. The tester must perform cooperative -testing with the SCC when there appears to be a problem -on the Tandem-PSAP trunks before requesting dispatch. - -When an occasional all zero condition is reported, -the SSC/MAC should dispatch SSIM/I&M to routine -equipment on a "chronic" troublesweep. - -The PSAPs are instructed to report incidental ANI failures -to the BOC on a PSAP inquiry trouble ticket (paper) that -is sent to the Customer Services E911 group and forwarded -to E911 center when required. This usually involves only a -particular telephone number and is not a condition that -would require a report to the SSC/MAC. Multiple ANI -failures which our from the same end office (XX denotes -end office), indicate a hard trouble condition may exist -in the end office or end office tandem trunks. The PSAP will -report this type of condition to the SSC/MAC and the -SSC/MAC should refer the report to the SCC responsible -for the tandem office. NOTE: XX is the ESCO (Emergency -Service Number) associated with the incoming 911 trunks -into the tandem. It is important that the C/MAC tell the -SCC what is displayed at the PSAP (i.e. 911-0011) which -indicates to the SCC which end office is in trouble. - -Note: It is essential that the PSAP fill out inquiry form -on every ANI failure. - -The PSAP will report a trouble any time an address is not -received on an address display (screen blank) E911 call. -(If a record is not in the 911 data base or an ANI failure -is encountered, the screen will provide a display noticing -such condition). The SSC/MAC should verify with the PSAP -whether the NO ALI condition is on one screen or all screens. - -When the condition is on one screen (other screens -receive ALI information) the SSC/MAC will request -SSIM/I&M to dispatch. - -If no screens are receiving ALI information, there is usually -a circuit trouble between the PSAP and the Host computer. -The SSC/MAC should test the trouble and refer for restoral. - -Note: If the SSC/MAC receives calls from multiple -PSAP's, all of which are receiving NO ALI, there is a -problem with the Node or Node to Host circuits or the -Host computer itself. Before referring the trouble the -SSC/MAC should call the MMOC to inquire if the Node -or Host is in trouble. - -Alarm conditions on the ANI controller digital display at -the PSAP are to be reported by the PSAP's. These alarms -can indicate various trouble conditions so the SSC/MAC -should ask the PSAP if any portion of the E911 system -is not functioning properly. - -The SSC/MAC should verify with the PSAP attendant that -the equipment's primary function is answering E911 calls. -If it is, the SSC/MAC should request a dispatch SSIM/I&M. -If the equipment is not primarily used for E911, -then the SSC/MAC should advise PSAP to contact their CPE vendor. - -Note: These troubles can be quite confusing when the -PSAP has vendor equipment mixed in with equipment -that the BOC maintains. The Marketing representative -should provide the SSC/MAC information concerning any -unusual or exception items where the PSAP should -contact their vendor. This information should be included -in the PSAP profile sheets. - -ANI or ALI controller down: When the host computer sees -the PSAP equipment down and it does not come back up, -the MMOC will report the trouble to the SSC/MAC; -the equipment is down at the PSAP, a dispatch will be required. - -PSAP link (circuit) down: The MMOC will provide the -SSC/MAC with the circuit ID that the Host computer -indicates in trouble. Although each PSAP has two circuits, -when either circuit is down the condition must be treated -as an emergency since failure of the second circuit will -cause the PSAP to be isolated. - -Any problems that the MMOC identifies from the Node -location to the Host computer will be handled directly -with the appropriate MMOC(s)/CCNC. - -Note: The customer will call only when a problem is -apparent to the PSAP. When only one circuit is down to -the PSAP, the customer may not be aware there is a -trouble, even though there is one link down, -notification should appear on the PSAP screen. -Troubles called into the SSC/MAC from the MMOC -or other company employee should not be closed out -by calling the PSAP since it may result in the -customer responding that they do not have a trouble. -These reports can only be closed out by receiving -information that the trouble was fixed and by checking -with the company employee that reported the trouble. -The MMOC personnel will be able to verify that the -trouble has cleared by reviewing a printout from the host. - -When the CRSAB receives a subscriber complaint -(i.e., cannot dial 911) the RSA should obtain as much -information as possible while the customer is on the line. - -For example, what happened when the subscriber dialed 911? -The report is automatically directed to the IMC for subscriber line testing. -When no line trouble is found, the IMC will refer the trouble condition -to the SSC/MAC. The SSC/MAC will contact Customer Services E911 Group -and verify that the subscriber should be able to call 911 and obtain the ESN. -The SSC/MAC will verify the ESN via 2SCCS. When both verifications match, -the SSC/MAC will refer the report to the SCC responsible for the 911 tandem -office for investigation and resolution. The MAC is responsible for tracking -the trouble and informing the IMC when it is resolved. - - -For more information, please refer to E911 Glossary of Terms. -End of Phrack File -_____________________________________ - - -The reader is forgiven if he or she was entirely unable to read -this document. John Perry Barlow had a great deal of fun at its expense, -in "Crime and Puzzlement:" "Bureaucrat-ese of surpassing opacity. . . . -To read the whole thing straight through without entering coma requires -either a machine or a human who has too much practice thinking like one. -Anyone who can understand it fully and fluidly had altered his consciousness -beyond the ability to ever again read Blake, Whitman, or Tolstoy. . . . -the document contains little of interest to anyone who is not a student -of advanced organizational sclerosis." - -With the Document itself to hand, however, exactly as it was published -(in its six-page edited form) in Phrack, the reader may be able to verify -a few statements of fact about its nature. First, there is no software, -no computer code, in the Document. It is not computer-programming language -like FORTRAN or C++, it is English; all the sentences have nouns and verbs -and punctuation. It does not explain how to break into the E911 system. -It does not suggest ways to destroy or damage the E911 system. - -There are no access codes in the Document. There are no computer passwords. -It does not explain how to steal long distance service. It does not explain -how to break in to telco switching stations. There is nothing in it about -using a personal computer or a modem for any purpose at all, good or bad. - -Close study will reveal that this document is not about machinery. -The E911 Document is about ADMINISTRATION. It describes how one creates -and administers certain units of telco bureaucracy: -Special Service Centers and Major Account Centers (SSC/MAC). -It describes how these centers should distribute responsibility -for the E911 service, to other units of telco bureaucracy, -in a chain of command, a formal hierarchy. It describes -who answers customer complaints, who screens calls, -who reports equipment failures, who answers those reports, -who handles maintenance, who chairs subcommittees, -who gives orders, who follows orders, WHO tells WHOM what to do. -The Document is not a "roadmap" to computers. -The Document is a roadmap to PEOPLE. - -As an aid to breaking into computer systems, the Document is USELESS. -As an aid to harassing and deceiving telco people, however, the Document -might prove handy (especially with its Glossary, which I have not included). -An intense and protracted study of this Document and its Glossary, -combined with many other such documents, might teach one to speak like -a telco employee. And telco people live by SPEECH--they live by phone -communication. If you can mimic their language over the phone, -you can "social-engineer" them. If you can con telco people, you can -wreak havoc among them. You can force them to no longer trust one another; -you can break the telephonic ties that bind their community; you can make -them paranoid. And people will fight harder to defend their community -than they will fight to defend their individual selves. - -This was the genuine, gut-level threat posed by Phrack magazine. -The real struggle was over the control of telco language, -the control of telco knowledge. It was a struggle to defend the social -"membrane of differentiation" that forms the walls of the telco -community's ivory tower --the special jargon that allows telco -professionals to recognize one another, and to exclude charlatans, -thieves, and upstarts. And the prosecution brought out this fact. -They repeatedly made reference to the threat posed to telco professionals -by hackers using "social engineering." - -However, Craig Neidorf was not on trial for learning to speak like -a professional telecommunications expert. Craig Neidorf was on trial -for access device fraud and transportation of stolen property. -He was on trial for stealing a document that was purportedly -highly sensitive and purportedly worth tens of thousands of dollars. - -# - -John Nagle read the E911 Document. He drew his own conclusions. -And he presented Zenner and his defense team with an overflowing box -of similar material, drawn mostly from Stanford University's -engineering libraries. During the trial, the defense team--Zenner, -half-a-dozen other attorneys, Nagle, Neidorf, and computer-security -expert Dorothy Denning, all pored over the E911 Document line-by-line. - -On the afternoon of July 25, 1990, Zenner began to cross-examine -a woman named Billie Williams, a service manager for Southern Bell -in Atlanta. Ms. Williams had been responsible for the E911 Document. -(She was not its author--its original "author" was a Southern Bell -staff manager named Richard Helms. However, Mr. Helms should not bear -the entire blame; many telco staff people and maintenance personnel -had amended the Document. It had not been so much "written" by a -single author, as built by committee out of concrete-blocks of jargon.) - -Ms. Williams had been called as a witness for the prosecution, -and had gamely tried to explain the basic technical structure -of the E911 system, aided by charts. - -Now it was Zenner's turn. He first established that the -"proprietary stamp" that BellSouth had used on the E911 Document -was stamped on EVERY SINGLE DOCUMENT that BellSouth wrote-- -THOUSANDS of documents. "We do not publish anything other -than for our own company," Ms. Williams explained. -"Any company document of this nature is considered proprietary." -Nobody was in charge of singling out special high-security publications -for special high-security protection. They were ALL special, -no matter how trivial, no matter what their subject matter-- -the stamp was put on as soon as any document was written, -and the stamp was never removed. - -Zenner now asked whether the charts she had been using to explain -the mechanics of E911 system were "proprietary," too. -Were they PUBLIC INFORMATION, these charts, all about PSAPs, -ALIs, nodes, local end switches? Could he take the charts out -in the street and show them to anybody, "without violating -some proprietary notion that BellSouth has?" - -Ms Williams showed some confusion, but finally areed that the charts were, -in fact, public. - -"But isn't this what you said was basically what appeared in Phrack?" - -Ms. Williams denied this. - -Zenner now pointed out that the E911 Document as published in Phrack -was only half the size of the original E911 Document (as Prophet -had purloined it). Half of it had been deleted--edited by Neidorf. - -Ms. Williams countered that "Most of the information that is -in the text file is redundant." - -Zenner continued to probe. Exactly what bits of knowledge in the Document -were, in fact, unknown to the public? Locations of E911 computers? -Phone numbers for telco personnel? Ongoing maintenance subcommittees? -Hadn't Neidorf removed much of this? - -Then he pounced. "Are you familiar with Bellcore Technical Reference -Document TR-TSY-000350?" It was, Zenner explained, officially titled -"E911 Public Safety Answering Point Interface Between 1-1AESS Switch -and Customer Premises Equipment." It contained highly detailed -and specific technical information about the E911 System. -It was published by Bellcore and publicly available for about $20. - -He showed the witness a Bellcore catalog which listed thousands -of documents from Bellcore and from all the Baby Bells, BellSouth included. -The catalog, Zenner pointed out, was free. Anyone with a credit card -could call the Bellcore toll-free 800 number and simply order any -of these documents, which would be shipped to any customer without question. -Including, for instance, "BellSouth E911 Service Interfaces to -Customer Premises Equipment at a Public Safety Answering Point." - -Zenner gave the witness a copy of "BellSouth E911 Service Interfaces," -which cost, as he pointed out, $13, straight from the catalog. -"Look at it carefully," he urged Ms. Williams, "and tell me -if it doesn't contain about twice as much detailed information -about the E911 system of BellSouth than appeared anywhere in Phrack." - -"You want me to. . . ." Ms. Williams trailed off. "I don't understand." - -"Take a careful look," Zenner persisted. "Take a look at that document, -and tell me when you're done looking at it if, indeed, it doesn't contain -much more detailed information about the E911 system than appeared in Phrack." - -"Phrack wasn't taken from this," Ms. Williams said. - -"Excuse me?" said Zenner. - -"Phrack wasn't taken from this." - -"I can't hear you," Zenner said. - -"Phrack was not taken from this document. I don't understand -your question to me." - -"I guess you don't," Zenner said. - -At this point, the prosecution's case had been gutshot. -Ms. Williams was distressed. Her confusion was quite genuine. -Phrack had not been taken from any publicly available Bellcore document. -Phrack's E911 Document had been stolen from her own company's computers, -from her own company's text files, that her own colleagues had written, -and revised, with much labor. - -But the "value" of the Document had been blown to smithereens. -It wasn't worth eighty grand. According to Bellcore it was worth -thirteen bucks. And the looming menace that it supposedly posed -had been reduced in instants to a scarecrow. Bellcore itself -was selling material far more detailed and "dangerous," -to anybody with a credit card and a phone. - -Actually, Bellcore was not giving this information to just anybody. -They gave it to ANYBODY WHO ASKED, but not many did ask. -Not many people knew that Bellcore had a free catalog and an 800 number. -John Nagle knew, but certainly the average teenage phreak didn't know. -"Tuc," a friend of Neidorf's and sometime Phrack contributor, knew, -and Tuc had been very helpful to the defense, behind the scenes. -But the Legion of Doom didn't know--otherwise, they would never -have wasted so much time raiding dumpsters. Cook didn't know. -Foley didn't know. Kluepfel didn't know. The right hand -of Bellcore knew not what the left hand was doing. The right -hand was battering hackers without mercy, while the left hand -was distributing Bellcore's intellectual property to anybody -who was interested in telephone technical trivia--apparently, -a pathetic few. - -The digital underground was so amateurish and poorly organized -that they had never discovered this heap of unguarded riches. -The ivory tower of the telcos was so wrapped-up in the fog -of its own technical obscurity that it had left all the -windows open and flung open the doors. No one had even noticed. - -Zenner sank another nail in the coffin. He produced a printed issue -of Telephone Engineer & Management, a prominent industry journal -that comes out twice a month and costs $27 a year. This particular issue -of TE&M, called "Update on 911," featured a galaxy of technical details -on 911 service and a glossary far more extensive than Phrack's. - -The trial rumbled on, somehow, through its own momentum. -Tim Foley testified about his interrogations of Neidorf. -Neidorf's written admission that he had known the E911 Document -was pilfered was officially read into the court record. - -An interesting side issue came up: "Terminus" had once passed Neidorf -a piece of UNIX AT&T software, a log-in sequence, that had been cunningly -altered so that it could trap passwords. The UNIX software itself was -illegally copied AT&T property, and the alterations "Terminus" had made to it, -had transformed it into a device for facilitating computer break-ins. Terminus -himself would eventually plead guilty to theft of this piece of software, -and the Chicago group would send Terminus to prison for it. But it was -of dubious relevance in the Neidorf case. Neidorf hadn't written the program. -He wasn't accused of ever having used it. And Neidorf wasn't being charged -with software theft or owning a password trapper. - -On the next day, Zenner took the offensive. The civil libertarians -now had their own arcane, untried legal weaponry to launch into action-- -the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, 18 US Code, -Section 2701 et seq. Section 2701 makes it a crime to intentionally -access without authorization a facility in which an electronic communication -service is provided--it is, at heart, an anti-bugging and anti-tapping law, -intended to carry the traditional protections of telephones into other -electronic channels of communication. While providing penalties for amateur -snoops, however, Section 2703 of the ECPA also lays some formal difficulties -on the bugging and tapping activities of police. - -The Secret Service, in the person of Tim Foley, had served Richard Andrews -with a federal grand jury subpoena, in their pursuit of Prophet, -the E911 Document, and the Terminus software ring. But according to -the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, a "provider of remote -computing service" was legally entitled to "prior notice" from -the government if a subpoena was used. Richard Andrews and his -basement UNIX node, Jolnet, had not received any "prior notice." -Tim Foley had purportedly violated the ECPA and committed -an electronic crime! Zenner now sought the judge's permission -to cross-examine Foley on the topic of Foley's own electronic misdeeds. - -Cook argued that Richard Andrews' Jolnet was a privately owned -bulletin board, and not within the purview of ECPA. Judge Bua -granted the motion of the government to prevent cross-examination -on that point, and Zenner's offensive fizzled. This, however, -was the first direct assault on the legality of the actions -of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Task Force itself-- -the first suggestion that they themselves had broken the law, -and might, perhaps, be called to account. - -Zenner, in any case, did not really need the ECPA. -Instead, he grilled Foley on the glaring contradictions in -the supposed value of the E911 Document. He also brought up -the embarrassing fact that the supposedly red-hot E911 Document -had been sitting around for months, in Jolnet, with Kluepfel's knowledge, -while Kluepfel had done nothing about it. - -In the afternoon, the Prophet was brought in to testify -for the prosecution. (The Prophet, it will be recalled, -had also been indicted in the case as partner in a fraud -scheme with Neidorf.) In Atlanta, the Prophet had already -pled guilty to one charge of conspiracy, one charge of wire fraud -and one charge of interstate transportation of stolen property. -The wire fraud charge, and the stolen property charge, -were both directly based on the E911 Document. - -The twenty-year-old Prophet proved a sorry customer, -answering questions politely but in a barely audible mumble, -his voice trailing off at the ends of sentences. -He was constantly urged to speak up. - -Cook, examining Prophet, forced him to admit that -he had once had a "drug problem," abusing amphetamines, -marijuana, cocaine, and LSD. This may have established -to the jury that "hackers" are, or can be, seedy lowlife characters, -but it may have damaged Prophet's credibility somewhat. -Zenner later suggested that drugs might have damaged Prophet's memory. -The interesting fact also surfaced that Prophet had never -physically met Craig Neidorf. He didn't even know -Neidorf's last name--at least, not until the trial. - -Prophet confirmed the basic facts of his hacker career. -He was a member of the Legion of Doom. He had abused codes, -he had broken into switching stations and re-routed calls, -he had hung out on pirate bulletin boards. He had raided -the BellSouth AIMSX computer, copied the E911 Document, -stored it on Jolnet, mailed it to Neidorf. He and Neidorf -had edited it, and Neidorf had known where it came from. - -Zenner, however, had Prophet confirm that Neidorf was not a member -of the Legion of Doom, and had not urged Prophet to break into -BellSouth computers. Neidorf had never urged Prophet to defraud anyone, -or to steal anything. Prophet also admitted that he had never known Neidorf -to break in to any computer. Prophet said that no one in the Legion of Doom -considered Craig Neidorf a "hacker" at all. Neidorf was not a UNIX maven, -and simply lacked the necessary skill and ability to break into computers. -Neidorf just published a magazine. - -On Friday, July 27, 1990, the case against Neidorf collapsed. -Cook moved to dismiss the indictment, citing "information currently -available to us that was not available to us at the inception of the trial." -Judge Bua praised the prosecution for this action, which he described as -"very responsible," then dismissed a juror and declared a mistrial. - -Neidorf was a free man. His defense, however, had cost himself -and his family dearly. Months of his life had been consumed in anguish; -he had seen his closest friends shun him as a federal criminal. -He owed his lawyers over a hundred thousand dollars, despite -a generous payment to the defense by Mitch Kapor. - -Neidorf was not found innocent. The trial was simply dropped. -Nevertheless, on September 9, 1991, Judge Bua granted Neidorf's -motion for the "expungement and sealing" of his indictment record. -The United States Secret Service was ordered to delete and destroy -all fingerprints, photographs, and other records of arrest -or processing relating to Neidorf's indictment, including -their paper documents and their computer records. - -Neidorf went back to school, blazingly determined to become a lawyer. -Having seen the justice system at work, Neidorf lost much of his enthusiasm -for merely technical power. At this writing, Craig Neidorf is working -in Washington as a salaried researcher for the American Civil Liberties Union. - -# - -The outcome of the Neidorf trial changed the EFF -from voices-in-the-wilderness to the media darlings -of the new frontier. - -Legally speaking, the Neidorf case was not a sweeping triumph -for anyone concerned. No constitutional principles had been established. -The issues of "freedom of the press" for electronic publishers remained -in legal limbo. There were public misconceptions about the case. -Many people thought Neidorf had been found innocent and relieved -of all his legal debts by Kapor. The truth was that the government -had simply dropped the case, and Neidorf's family had gone deeply -into hock to support him. - -But the Neidorf case did provide a single, devastating, public sound-bite: -THE FEDS SAID IT WAS WORTH EIGHTY GRAND, AND IT WAS ONLY WORTH THIRTEEN BUCKS. - -This is the Neidorf case's single most memorable element. No serious report -of the case missed this particular element. Even cops could not read this -without a wince and a shake of the head. It left the public credibility -of the crackdown agents in tatters. - -The crackdown, in fact, continued, however. Those two charges -against Prophet, which had been based on the E911 Document, -were quietly forgotten at his sentencing--even though Prophet -had already pled guilty to them. Georgia federal prosecutors -strongly argued for jail time for the Atlanta Three, insisting on -"the need to send a message to the community," "the message that -hackers around the country need to hear." - -There was a great deal in their sentencing memorandum -about the awful things that various other hackers had done -(though the Atlanta Three themselves had not, in fact, -actually committed these crimes). There was also much -speculation about the awful things that the Atlanta Three -MIGHT have done and WERE CAPABLE of doing (even though -they had not, in fact, actually done them). -The prosecution's argument carried the day. -The Atlanta Three were sent to prison: -Urvile and Leftist both got 14 months each, -while Prophet (a second offender) got 21 months. - -The Atlanta Three were also assessed staggering fines as "restitution": -$233,000 each. BellSouth claimed that the defendants had "stolen" -"approximately $233,880 worth" of "proprietary computer access information"-- -specifically, $233,880 worth of computer passwords and connect addresses. -BellSouth's astonishing claim of the extreme value of its own computer -passwords and addresses was accepted at face value by the Georgia court. -Furthermore (as if to emphasize its theoretical nature) this enormous sum -was not divvied up among the Atlanta Three, but each of them had to pay -all of it. - -A striking aspect of the sentence was that the Atlanta Three were -specifically forbidden to use computers, except for work or under supervision. -Depriving hackers of home computers and modems makes some sense if one -considers hackers as "computer addicts," but EFF, filing an amicus brief -in the case, protested that this punishment was unconstitutional-- -it deprived the Atlanta Three of their rights of free association -and free expression through electronic media. - -Terminus, the "ultimate hacker," was finally sent to prison for a year -through the dogged efforts of the Chicago Task Force. His crime, -to which he pled guilty, was the transfer of the UNIX password trapper, -which was officially valued by AT&T at $77,000, a figure which aroused -intense skepticism among those familiar with UNIX "login.c" programs. - -The jailing of Terminus and the Atlanta Legionnaires of Doom, however, -did not cause the EFF any sense of embarrassment or defeat. -On the contrary, the civil libertarians were rapidly gathering strength. - -An early and potent supporter was Senator Patrick Leahy, -Democrat from Vermont, who had been a Senate sponsor -of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Even before -the Neidorf trial, Leahy had spoken out in defense of hacker-power -and freedom of the keyboard: "We cannot unduly inhibit the inquisitive -13-year-old who, if left to experiment today, may tomorrow develop -the telecommunications or computer technology to lead the United States -into the 21st century. He represents our future and our best hope -to remain a technologically competitive nation." - -It was a handsome statement, rendered perhaps rather more effective -by the fact that the crackdown raiders DID NOT HAVE any Senators -speaking out for THEM. On the contrary, their highly secretive -actions and tactics, all "sealed search warrants" here and -"confidential ongoing investigations" there, might have won -them a burst of glamorous publicity at first, but were crippling -them in the on-going propaganda war. Gail Thackeray was reduced -to unsupported bluster: "Some of these people who are loudest -on the bandwagon may just slink into the background," -she predicted in Newsweek--when all the facts came out, -and the cops were vindicated. - -But all the facts did not come out. Those facts that did, -were not very flattering. And the cops were not vindicated. -And Gail Thackeray lost her job. By the end of 1991, -William Cook had also left public employment. - -1990 had belonged to the crackdown, but by '91 its agents -were in severe disarray, and the libertarians were on a roll. -People were flocking to the cause. - -A particularly interesting ally had been Mike Godwin of Austin, Texas. -Godwin was an individual almost as difficult to describe as Barlow; -he had been editor of the student newspaper of the University of Texas, -and a computer salesman, and a programmer, and in 1990 was back -in law school, looking for a law degree. - -Godwin was also a bulletin board maven. He was very well-known -in the Austin board community under his handle "Johnny Mnemonic," -which he adopted from a cyberpunk science fiction story by William Gibson. -Godwin was an ardent cyberpunk science fiction fan. As a fellow Austinite -of similar age and similar interests, I myself had known Godwin socially -for many years. When William Gibson and myself had been writing our -collaborative SF novel, The Difference Engine, Godwin had been our -technical advisor in our effort to link our Apple word-processors -from Austin to Vancouver. Gibson and I were so pleased by his generous -expert help that we named a character in the novel "Michael Godwin" -in his honor. - -The handle "Mnemonic" suited Godwin very well. His erudition -and his mastery of trivia were impressive to the point of stupor; -his ardent curiosity seemed insatiable, and his desire to debate -and argue seemed the central drive of his life. Godwin had even -started his own Austin debating society, wryly known as the -"Dull Men's Club." In person, Godwin could be overwhelming; -a flypaper-brained polymath who could not seem to let any idea go. -On bulletin boards, however, Godwin's closely reasoned, -highly grammatical, erudite posts suited the medium well, -and he became a local board celebrity. - -Mike Godwin was the man most responsible for the public national exposure -of the Steve Jackson case. The Izenberg seizure in Austin had received -no press coverage at all. The March 1 raids on Mentor, Bloodaxe, and -Steve Jackson Games had received a brief front-page splash in the -front page of the Austin American-Statesman, but it was confused -and ill-informed: the warrants were sealed, and the Secret Service -wasn't talking. Steve Jackson seemed doomed to obscurity. -Jackson had not been arrested; he was not charged with any crime; -he was not on trial. He had lost some computers in an ongoing -investigation--so what? Jackson tried hard to attract attention -to the true extent of his plight, but he was drawing a blank; -no one in a position to help him seemed able to get a mental grip -on the issues. - -Godwin, however, was uniquely, almost magically, qualified -to carry Jackson's case to the outside world. Godwin was -a board enthusiast, a science fiction fan, a former journalist, -a computer salesman, a lawyer-to-be, and an Austinite. -Through a coincidence yet more amazing, in his last year -of law school Godwin had specialized in federal prosecutions -and criminal procedure. Acting entirely on his own, Godwin made -up a press packet which summarized the issues and provided useful -contacts for reporters. Godwin's behind-the-scenes effort -(which he carried out mostly to prove a point in a local board debate) -broke the story again in the Austin American-Statesman and then in Newsweek. - -Life was never the same for Mike Godwin after that. As he joined the growing -civil liberties debate on the Internet, it was obvious to all parties involved -that here was one guy who, in the midst of complete murk and confusion, -GENUINELY UNDERSTOOD EVERYTHING HE WAS TALKING ABOUT. The disparate elements -of Godwin's dilettantish existence suddenly fell together as neatly as -the facets of a Rubik's cube. - -When the time came to hire a full-time EFF staff attorney, -Godwin was the obvious choice. He took the Texas bar exam, -left Austin, moved to Cambridge, became a full-time, professional, -computer civil libertarian, and was soon touring the nation on behalf -of EFF, delivering well-received addresses on the issues to crowds -as disparate as academics, industrialists, science fiction fans, -and federal cops. - -Michael Godwin is currently the chief legal counsel of -the Electronic Frontier Foundation in Cambridge, Massachusetts. - -# - -Another early and influential participant in the controversy -was Dorothy Denning. Dr. Denning was unique among investigators -of the computer underground in that she did not enter the debate -with any set of politicized motives. She was a professional -cryptographer and computer security expert whose primary interest -in hackers was SCHOLARLY. She had a B.A. and M.A. in mathematics, -and a Ph.D. in computer science from Purdue. She had worked for SRI -International, the California think-tank that was also the home of -computer-security maven Donn Parker, and had authored an influential text -called Cryptography and Data Security. In 1990, Dr. Denning was working for -Digital Equipment Corporation in their Systems Reseach Center. Her husband, -Peter Denning, was also a computer security expert, working for NASA's -Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science. He had edited the -well-received Computers Under Attack: Intruders, Worms and Viruses. - -Dr. Denning took it upon herself to contact the digital underground, -more or less with an anthropological interest. There she discovered -that these computer-intruding hackers, who had been characterized -as unethical, irresponsible, and a serious danger to society, -did in fact have their own subculture and their own rules. -They were not particularly well-considered rules, but they were, -in fact, rules. Basically, they didn't take money and they -didn't break anything. - -Her dispassionate reports on her researches did a great deal -to influence serious-minded computer professionals--the sort -of people who merely rolled their eyes at the cyberspace -rhapsodies of a John Perry Barlow. - -For young hackers of the digital underground, meeting Dorothy Denning -was a genuinely mind-boggling experience. Here was this neatly coiffed, -conservatively dressed, dainty little personage, who reminded most -hackers of their moms or their aunts. And yet she was an IBM systems -programmer with profound expertise in computer architectures -and high-security information flow, who had personal friends -in the FBI and the National Security Agency. - -Dorothy Denning was a shining example of the American mathematical -intelligentsia, a genuinely brilliant person from the central ranks -of the computer-science elite. And here she was, gently questioning -twenty-year-old hairy-eyed phone-phreaks over the deeper ethical -implications of their behavior. - -Confronted by this genuinely nice lady, most hackers sat up very straight -and did their best to keep the anarchy-file stuff down to a faint whiff -of brimstone. Nevertheless, the hackers WERE in fact prepared to seriously -discuss serious issues with Dorothy Denning. They were willing to speak -the unspeakable and defend the indefensible, to blurt out their convictions -that information cannot be owned, that the databases of governments and large -corporations were a threat to the rights and privacy of individuals. - -Denning's articles made it clear to many that "hacking" -was not simple vandalism by some evil clique of psychotics. -"Hacking" was not an aberrant menace that could be charmed away -by ignoring it, or swept out of existence by jailing a few ringleaders. -Instead, "hacking" was symptomatic of a growing, primal struggle over -knowledge and power in the age of information. - -Denning pointed out that the attitude of hackers were at least partially -shared by forward-looking management theorists in the business community: -people like Peter Drucker and Tom Peters. Peter Drucker, in his book -The New Realities, had stated that "control of information by the government -is no longer possible. Indeed, information is now transnational. -Like money, it has no `fatherland.'" - -And management maven Tom Peters had chided large corporations for uptight, -proprietary attitudes in his bestseller, Thriving on Chaos: -"Information hoarding, especially by politically motivated, -power-seeking staffs, had been commonplace throughout American industry, -service and manufacturing alike. It will be an impossible -millstone aroung the neck of tomorrow's organizations." - -Dorothy Denning had shattered the social membrane of the -digital underground. She attended the Neidorf trial, -where she was prepared to testify for the defense as an expert witness. -She was a behind-the-scenes organizer of two of the most important -national meetings of the computer civil libertarians. Though not -a zealot of any description, she brought disparate elements of the -electronic community into a surprising and fruitful collusion. - -Dorothy Denning is currently the Chair of the Computer Science Department -at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. - -# - -There were many stellar figures in the civil libertarian community. -There's no question, however, that its single most influential figure -was Mitchell D. Kapor. Other people might have formal titles, -or governmental positions, have more experience with crime, -or with the law, or with the arcanities of computer security -or constitutional theory. But by 1991 Kapor had transcended -any such narrow role. Kapor had become "Mitch." - -Mitch had become the central civil-libertarian ad-hocrat. -Mitch had stood up first, he had spoken out loudly, directly, -vigorously and angrily, he had put his own reputation, -and his very considerable personal fortune, on the line. -By mid-'91 Kapor was the best-known advocate of his cause -and was known PERSONALLY by almost every single human being in America -with any direct influence on the question of civil liberties in cyberspace. -Mitch had built bridges, crossed voids, changed paradigms, forged metaphors, -made phone-calls and swapped business cards to such spectacular effect -that it had become impossible for anyone to take any action in the -"hacker question" without wondering what Mitch might think-- -and say--and tell his friends. - -The EFF had simply NETWORKED the situation into an entirely new status quo. -And in fact this had been EFF's deliberate strategy from the beginning. -Both Barlow and Kapor loathed bureaucracies and had deliberately -chosen to work almost entirely through the electronic spiderweb of -"valuable personal contacts." - -After a year of EFF, both Barlow and Kapor had every reason -to look back with satisfaction. EFF had established its own Internet node, -"eff.org," with a well-stocked electronic archive of documents on -electronic civil rights, privacy issues, and academic freedom. -EFF was also publishing EFFector, a quarterly printed journal, -as well as EFFector Online, an electronic newsletter with -over 1,200 subscribers. And EFF was thriving on the Well. - -EFF had a national headquarters in Cambridge and a full-time staff. -It had become a membership organization and was attracting -grass-roots support. It had also attracted the support -of some thirty civil-rights lawyers, ready and eager -to do pro bono work in defense of the Constitution in Cyberspace. - -EFF had lobbied successfully in Washington and in Massachusetts -to change state and federal legislation on computer networking. -Kapor in particular had become a veteran expert witness, -and had joined the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board -of the National Academy of Science and Engineering. - -EFF had sponsored meetings such as "Computers, Freedom and Privacy" -and the CPSR Roundtable. It had carried out a press offensive that, -in the words of EFFector, "has affected the climate of opinion about -computer networking and begun to reverse the slide into -`hacker hysteria' that was beginning to grip the nation." - -It had helped Craig Neidorf avoid prison. - -And, last but certainly not least, the Electronic Frontier Foundation -had filed a federal lawsuit in the name of Steve Jackson, -Steve Jackson Games Inc., and three users of the Illuminati -bulletin board system. The defendants were, and are, -the United States Secret Service, William Cook, Tim Foley, -Barbara Golden and Henry Kleupfel. - -The case, which is in pre-trial procedures in an Austin federal court -as of this writing, is a civil action for damages to redress -alleged violations of the First and Fourth Amendments to the -United States Constitution, as well as the Privacy Protection Act -of 1980 (42 USC 2000aa et seq.), and the Electronic Communications -Privacy Act (18 USC 2510 et seq and 2701 et seq). - -EFF had established that it had credibility. It had also established -that it had teeth. - -In the fall of 1991 I travelled to Massachusetts to speak personally -with Mitch Kapor. It was my final interview for this book. - -# - -The city of Boston has always been one of the major intellectual centers -of the American republic. It is a very old city by American standards, -a place of skyscrapers overshadowing seventeenth-century graveyards, -where the high-tech start-up companies of Route 128 co-exist with the -hand-wrought pre-industrial grace of "Old Ironsides," the USS CONSTITUTION. - -The Battle of Bunker Hill, one of the first and bitterest armed clashes -of the American Revolution, was fought in Boston's environs. Today there is -a monumental spire on Bunker Hill, visible throughout much of the city. -The willingness of the republican revolutionaries to take up arms and fire -on their oppressors has left a cultural legacy that two full centuries -have not effaced. Bunker Hill is still a potent center of American political -symbolism, and the Spirit of '76 is still a potent image for those who seek -to mold public opinion. - -Of course, not everyone who wraps himself in the flag is necessarily -a patriot. When I visited the spire in September 1991, it bore a huge, -badly-erased, spray-can grafitto around its bottom reading -"BRITS OUT--IRA PROVOS." Inside this hallowed edifice was -a glass-cased diorama of thousands of tiny toy soldiers, -rebels and redcoats, fighting and dying over the green hill, -the riverside marshes, the rebel trenchworks. Plaques indicated the -movement of troops, the shiftings of strategy. The Bunker Hill Monument -is occupied at its very center by the toy soldiers of a military -war-game simulation. - -The Boston metroplex is a place of great universities, -prominent among the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, -where the term "computer hacker" was first coined. The Hacker Crackdown -of 1990 might be interpreted as a political struggle among American cities: -traditional strongholds of longhair intellectual liberalism, -such as Boston, San Francisco, and Austin, versus the bare-knuckle -industrial pragmatism of Chicago and Phoenix (with Atlanta and New York -wrapped in internal struggle). - -The headquarters of the Electronic Frontier Foundation is on -155 Second Street in Cambridge, a Bostonian suburb north -of the River Charles. Second Street has weedy sidewalks of dented, -sagging brick and elderly cracked asphalt; large street-signs warn -"NO PARKING DURING DECLARED SNOW EMERGENCY." This is an old area -of modest manufacturing industries; the EFF is catecorner from the -Greene Rubber Company. EFF's building is two stories of red brick; -its large wooden windows feature gracefully arched tops and stone sills. - -The glass window beside the Second Street entrance bears three sheets -of neatly laser-printed paper, taped against the glass. They read: -ON Technology. EFF. KEI. - -"ON Technology" is Kapor's software company, which currently specializes -in "groupware" for the Apple Macintosh computer. "Groupware" is intended -to promote efficient social interaction among office-workers linked -by computers. ON Technology's most successful software products to date -are "Meeting Maker" and "Instant Update." - -"KEI" is Kapor Enterprises Inc., Kapor's personal holding company, -the commercial entity that formally controls his extensive investments -in other hardware and software corporations. - -"EFF" is a political action group--of a special sort. - -Inside, someone's bike has been chained to the handrails -of a modest flight of stairs. A wall of modish glass brick -separates this anteroom from the offices. Beyond the brick, -there's an alarm system mounted on the wall, a sleek, complex little -number that resembles a cross between a thermostat and a CD player. -Piled against the wall are box after box of a recent special issue -of Scientific American, "How to Work, Play, and Thrive in Cyberspace," -with extensive coverage of electronic networking techniques -and political issues, including an article by Kapor himself. -These boxes are addressed to Gerard Van der Leun, EFF's -Director of Communications, who will shortly mail those magazines -to every member of the EFF. - -The joint headquarters of EFF, KEI, and ON Technology, -which Kapor currently rents, is a modestly bustling place. -It's very much the same physical size as Steve Jackson's gaming company. -It's certainly a far cry from the gigantic gray steel-sided railway -shipping barn, on the Monsignor O'Brien Highway, that is owned -by Lotus Development Corporation. - -Lotus is, of course, the software giant that Mitchell Kapor founded -in the late 70s. The software program Kapor co-authored, -"Lotus 1-2-3," is still that company's most profitable product. -"Lotus 1-2-3" also bears a singular distinction in the -digital underground: it's probably the most pirated piece -of application software in world history. - -Kapor greets me cordially in his own office, down a hall. -Kapor, whose name is pronounced KAY-por, is in his early forties, -married and the father of two. He has a round face, high forehead, -straight nose, a slightly tousled mop of black hair peppered with gray. -His large brown eyes are wideset, reflective, one might almost say soulful. -He disdains ties, and commonly wears Hawaiian shirts and tropical prints, -not so much garish as simply cheerful and just that little bit anomalous. - -There is just the whiff of hacker brimstone about Mitch Kapor. -He may not have the hard-riding, hell-for-leather, guitar-strumming -charisma of his Wyoming colleague John Perry Barlow, but there's -something about the guy that still stops one short. He has the air -of the Eastern city dude in the bowler hat, the dreamy, -Longfellow-quoting poker shark who only HAPPENS to know -the exact mathematical odds against drawing to an inside straight. -Even among his computer-community colleagues, who are hardly known -for mental sluggishness, Kapor strikes one forcefully as a very -intelligent man. He speaks rapidly, with vigorous gestures, -his Boston accent sometimes slipping to the sharp nasal tang -of his youth in Long Island. - -Kapor, whose Kapor Family Foundation does much of his philanthropic work, -is a strong supporter of Boston's Computer Museum. Kapor's interest -in the history of his industry has brought him some remarkable curios, -such as the "byte" just outside his office door. This "byte"-- -eight digital bits--has been salvaged from the wreck of an -electronic computer of the pre-transistor age. It's a standing gunmetal -rack about the size of a small toaster-oven: with eight slots -of hand-soldered breadboarding featuring thumb-sized vacuum tubes. -If it fell off a table it could easily break your foot, -but it was state-of-the-art computation in the 1940s. -(It would take exactly 157,184 of these primordial toasters -to hold the first part of this book.) - -There's also a coiling, multicolored, scaly dragon that some -inspired techno-punk artist has cobbled up entirely out of transistors, -capacitors, and brightly plastic-coated wiring. - -Inside the office, Kapor excuses himself briefly to do a little -mouse-whizzing housekeeping on his personal Macintosh IIfx. -If its giant screen were an open window, an agile person -could climb through it without much trouble at all. -There's a coffee-cup at Kapor's elbow, a memento of his -recent trip to Eastern Europe, which has a black-and-white -stencilled photo and the legend CAPITALIST FOOLS TOUR. -It's Kapor, Barlow, and two California venture-capitalist luminaries -of their acquaintance, four windblown, grinning Baby Boomer -dudes in leather jackets, boots, denim, travel bags, -standing on airport tarmac somewhere behind the formerly Iron Curtain. -They look as if they're having the absolute time of their lives. - -Kapor is in a reminiscent mood. We talk a bit about his youth-- -high school days as a "math nerd," Saturdays attending Columbia University's -high-school science honors program, where he had his first experience -programming computers. IBM 1620s, in 1965 and '66. "I was very interested," -says Kapor, "and then I went off to college and got distracted by drugs sex -and rock and roll, like anybody with half a brain would have then!" -After college he was a progressive-rock DJ in Hartford, Connecticut, -for a couple of years. - -I ask him if he ever misses his rock and roll days--if he ever wished -he could go back to radio work. - -He shakes his head flatly. "I stopped thinking about going back -to be a DJ the day after Altamont." - -Kapor moved to Boston in 1974 and got a job programming mainframes in COBOL. -He hated it. He quit and became a teacher of transcendental meditation. -(It was Kapor's long flirtation with Eastern mysticism that gave the -world "Lotus.") - -In 1976 Kapor went to Switzerland, where the Transcendental Meditation -movement had rented a gigantic Victorian hotel in St-Moritz. It was -an all-male group--a hundred and twenty of them--determined upon -Enlightenment or Bust. Kapor had given the transcendant his best shot. -He was becoming disenchanted by "the nuttiness in the organization." -"They were teaching people to levitate," he says, staring at the floor. -His voice drops an octave, becomes flat. "THEY DON'T LEVITATE." - -Kapor chose Bust. He went back to the States and acquired a degree -in counselling psychology. He worked a while in a hospital, -couldn't stand that either. "My rep was," he says "a very bright kid -with a lot of potential who hasn't found himself. Almost thirty. -Sort of lost." - -Kapor was unemployed when he bought his first personal computer--an Apple II. -He sold his stereo to raise cash and drove to New Hampshire to avoid the -sales tax. - -"The day after I purchased it," Kapor tells me, "I was hanging out -in a computer store and I saw another guy, a man in his forties, -well-dressed guy, and eavesdropped on his conversation with the salesman. -He didn't know anything about computers. I'd had a year programming. -And I could program in BASIC. I'd taught myself. So I went up to him, -and I actually sold myself to him as a consultant." He pauses. -"I don't know where I got the nerve to do this. It was uncharacteristic. -I just said, `I think I can help you, I've been listening, -this is what you need to do and I think I can do it for you.' -And he took me on! He was my first client! I became a computer -consultant the first day after I bought the Apple II." - -Kapor had found his true vocation. He attracted more clients -for his consultant service, and started an Apple users' group. - -A friend of Kapor's, Eric Rosenfeld, a graduate student at MIT, -had a problem. He was doing a thesis on an arcane form of -financial statistics, but could not wedge himself into the crowded queue -for time on MIT's mainframes. (One might note at this point that if -Mr. Rosenfeld had dishonestly broken into the MIT mainframes, -Kapor himself might have never invented Lotus 1-2-3 and -the PC business might have been set back for years!) -Eric Rosenfeld did have an Apple II, however, -and he thought it might be possible to scale the problem down. -Kapor, as favor, wrote a program for him in BASIC that did the job. - -It then occurred to the two of them, out of the blue, -that it might be possible to SELL this program. -They marketed it themselves, in plastic baggies, -for about a hundred bucks a pop, mail order. -"This was a total cottage industry by a marginal consultant," -Kapor says proudly. "That's how I got started, honest to God." - -Rosenfeld, who later became a very prominent figure on Wall Street, -urged Kapor to go to MIT's business school for an MBA. -Kapor did seven months there, but never got his MBA. -He picked up some useful tools--mainly a firm grasp -of the principles of accounting--and, in his own words, -"learned to talk MBA." Then he dropped out and went to Silicon Valley. - -The inventors of VisiCalc, the Apple computer's premier business program, -had shown an interest in Mitch Kapor. Kapor worked diligently for them -for six months, got tired of California, and went back to Boston -where they had better bookstores. The VisiCalc group had made -the critical error of bringing in "professional management." -"That drove them into the ground," Kapor says. - -"Yeah, you don't hear a lot about VisiCalc these days," I muse. - -Kapor looks surprised. "Well, Lotus. . . we BOUGHT it." - -"Oh. You BOUGHT it?" - -"Yeah." - -"Sort of like the Bell System buying Western Union?" - -Kapor grins. "Yep! Yep! Yeah, exactly!" - -Mitch Kapor was not in full command of the destiny of himself -or his industry. The hottest software commodities of the early 1980s -were COMPUTER GAMES--the Atari seemed destined to enter every teenage home -in America. Kapor got into business software simply because he didn't have -any particular feeling for computer games. But he was supremely fast -on his feet, open to new ideas and inclined to trust his instincts. -And his instincts were good. He chose good people to deal with-- -gifted programmer Jonathan Sachs (the co-author of Lotus 1-2-3). -Financial wizard Eric Rosenfeld, canny Wall Street analyst -and venture capitalist Ben Rosen. Kapor was the founder and CEO of Lotus, -one of the most spectacularly successful business ventures of the -later twentieth century. - -He is now an extremely wealthy man. I ask him if he actually -knows how much money he has. - -"Yeah," he says. "Within a percent or two." - -How much does he actually have, then? - -He shakes his head. "A lot. A lot. Not something I talk about. -Issues of money and class are things that cut pretty close to the bone." - -I don't pry. It's beside the point. One might presume, impolitely, -that Kapor has at least forty million--that's what he got the year -he left Lotus. People who ought to know claim Kapor has about -a hundred and fifty million, give or take a market swing -in his stock holdings. If Kapor had stuck with Lotus, -as his colleague friend and rival Bill Gates has stuck -with his own software start-up, Microsoft, then Kapor -would likely have much the same fortune Gates has-- -somewhere in the neighborhood of three billion, -give or take a few hundred million. Mitch Kapor -has all the money he wants. Money has lost whatever charm -it ever held for him--probably not much in the first place. -When Lotus became too uptight, too bureaucratic, too far -from the true sources of his own satisfaction, Kapor walked. -He simply severed all connections with the company and went out the door. -It stunned everyone--except those who knew him best. - -Kapor has not had to strain his resources to wreak a thorough -transformation in cyberspace politics. In its first year, -EFF's budget was about a quarter of a million dollars. -Kapor is running EFF out of his pocket change. - -Kapor takes pains to tell me that he does not consider himself -a civil libertarian per se. He has spent quite some time -with true-blue civil libertarians lately, and there's a -political-correctness to them that bugs him. They seem -to him to spend entirely too much time in legal nitpicking -and not enough vigorously exercising civil rights in the -everyday real world. - -Kapor is an entrepreneur. Like all hackers, he prefers his involvements -direct, personal, and hands-on. "The fact that EFF has a node on the -Internet is a great thing. We're a publisher. We're a distributor -of information." Among the items the eff.org Internet node carries -is back issues of Phrack. They had an internal debate about that in EFF, -and finally decided to take the plunge. They might carry other -digital underground publications--but if they do, he says, -"we'll certainly carry Donn Parker, and anything Gail Thackeray -wants to put up. We'll turn it into a public library, that has -the whole spectrum of use. Evolve in the direction of people making up -their own minds." He grins. "We'll try to label all the editorials." - -Kapor is determined to tackle the technicalities of the Internet -in the service of the public interest. "The problem with being a node -on the Net today is that you've got to have a captive technical specialist. -We have Chris Davis around, for the care and feeding of the balky beast! -We couldn't do it ourselves!" - -He pauses. "So one direction in which technology has to evolve -is much more standardized units, that a non-technical person -can feel comfortable with. It's the same shift as from minicomputers to PCs. -I can see a future in which any person can have a Node on the Net. -Any person can be a publisher. It's better than the media we now have. -It's possible. We're working actively." - -Kapor is in his element now, fluent, thoroughly in command in his material. -"You go tell a hardware Internet hacker that everyone should have a node -on the Net," he says, "and the first thing they're going to say is, -`IP doesn't scale!'" ("IP" is the interface protocol for the Internet. -As it currently exists, the IP software is simply not capable of -indefinite expansion; it will run out of usable addresses, it will saturate.) -"The answer," Kapor says, "is: evolve the protocol! Get the smart people -together and figure out what to do. Do we add ID? Do we add new protocol? -Don't just say, WE CAN'T DO IT." - -Getting smart people together to figure out what to do is a skill -at which Kapor clearly excels. I counter that people on the Internet -rather enjoy their elite technical status, and don't seem particularly -anxious to democratize the Net. - -Kapor agrees, with a show of scorn. "I tell them that this is the snobbery -of the people on the Mayflower looking down their noses at the people -who came over ON THE SECOND BOAT! Just because they got here a year, -or five years, or ten years before everybody else, that doesn't give -them ownership of cyberspace! By what right?" - -I remark that the telcos are an electronic network, too, -and they seem to guard their specialized knowledge pretty closely. - -Kapor ripostes that the telcos and the Internet are entirely -different animals. "The Internet is an open system, -everything is published, everything gets argued about, -basically by anybody who can get in. Mostly, it's exclusive -and elitist just because it's so difficult. Let's make it easier to use." - -On the other hand, he allows with a swift change of emphasis, -the so-called elitists do have a point as well. "Before people start coming in, -who are new, who want to make suggestions, and criticize the Net as -`all screwed up'. . . . They should at least take the time to understand -the culture on its own terms. It has its own history--show some respect -for it. I'm a conservative, to that extent." - -The Internet is Kapor's paradigm for the future of telecommunications. -The Internet is decentralized, non-hierarchical, almost anarchic. -There are no bosses, no chain of command, no secret data. -If each node obeys the general interface standards, -there's simply no need for any central network authority. - -Wouldn't that spell the doom of AT&T as an institution? I ask. - -That prospect doesn't faze Kapor for a moment. "Their big advantage, -that they have now, is that they have all of the wiring. -But two things are happening. Anyone with right-of-way -is putting down fiber--Southern Pacific Railroad, -people like that--there's enormous `dark fiber' laid in." -("Dark Fiber" is fiber-optic cable, whose enormous capacity -so exceeds the demands of current usage that much of the -fiber still has no light-signals on it--it's still `dark,' -awaiting future use.) - -"The other thing that's happening is the local-loop stuff -is going to go wireless. Everyone from Bellcore to the cable TV -companies to AT&T wants to put in these things called -`personal communication systems.' So you could have local competition-- -you could have multiplicity of people, a bunch of neighborhoods, -sticking stuff up on poles. And a bunch of other people laying in dark fiber. -So what happens to the telephone companies? There's enormous pressure -on them from both sides. - -"The more I look at this, the more I believe that in a post-industrial, -digital world, the idea of regulated monopolies is bad. People will -look back on it and say that in the 19th and 20th centuries -the idea of public utilities was an okay compromise. -You needed one set of wires in the ground. It was too economically -inefficient, otherwise. And that meant one entity running it. -But now, with pieces being wireless--the connections are going -to be via high-level interfaces, not via wires. I mean, ULTIMATELY -there are going to be wires--but the wires are just a commodity. -Fiber, wireless. You no longer NEED a utility." - -Water utilities? Gas utilities? - -Of course we still need those, he agrees. "But when what you're moving -is information, instead of physical substances, then you can play by -a different set of rules. We're evolving those rules now! -Hopefully you can have a much more decentralized system, -and one in which there's more competition in the marketplace. - -"The role of government will be to make sure that nobody cheats. -The proverbial `level playing field.' A policy that prevents monopolization. -It should result in better service, lower prices, more choices, -and local empowerment." He smiles. "I'm very big on local empowerment." - -Kapor is a man with a vision. It's a very novel vision which he -and his allies are working out in considerable detail and with great energy. -Dark, cynical, morbid cyberpunk that I am, I cannot avoid considering -some of the darker implications of "decentralized, nonhierarchical, -locally empowered" networking. - -I remark that some pundits have suggested that electronic networking--faxes, -phones, small-scale photocopiers--played a strong role in dissolving -the power of centralized communism and causing the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. - -Socialism is totally discredited, says Kapor, fresh back from -the Eastern Bloc. The idea that faxes did it, all by themselves, -is rather wishful thinking. - -Has it occurred to him that electronic networking might corrode -America's industrial and political infrastructure to the point -where the whole thing becomes untenable, unworkable--and the old order -just collapses headlong, like in Eastern Europe? - -"No," Kapor says flatly. "I think that's extraordinarily unlikely. -In part, because ten or fifteen years ago, I had similar hopes -about personal computers--which utterly failed to materialize." -He grins wryly, then his eyes narrow. "I'm VERY opposed to techno-utopias. -Every time I see one, I either run away, or try to kill it." - -It dawns on me then that Mitch Kapor is not trying to -make the world safe for democracy. He certainly is not -trying to make it safe for anarchists or utopians-- -least of all for computer intruders or electronic rip-off artists. -What he really hopes to do is make the world safe for -future Mitch Kapors. This world of decentralized, small-scale nodes, -with instant global access for the best and brightest, -would be a perfect milieu for the shoestring attic capitalism -that made Mitch Kapor what he is today. - -Kapor is a very bright man. He has a rare combination -of visionary intensity with a strong practical streak. -The Board of the EFF: John Barlow, Jerry Berman of the ACLU, -Stewart Brand, John Gilmore, Steve Wozniak, and Esther Dyson, -the doyenne of East-West computer entrepreneurism--share his gift, -his vision, and his formidable networking talents. -They are people of the 1960s, winnowed-out by its turbulence -and rewarded with wealth and influence. They are some of the best -and the brightest that the electronic community has to offer. -But can they do it, in the real world? Or are they only dreaming? -They are so few. And there is so much against them. - -I leave Kapor and his networking employees struggling cheerfully -with the promising intricacies of their newly installed Macintosh -System 7 software. The next day is Saturday. EFF is closed. -I pay a few visits to points of interest downtown. - -One of them is the birthplace of the telephone. - -It's marked by a bronze plaque in a plinth of black-and-white speckled granite. It sits in the -plaza of the John F. Kennedy Federal Building, the very place where Kapor was -once fingerprinted by the FBI. - -The plaque has a bas-relief picture of Bell's original telephone. -"BIRTHPLACE OF THE TELEPHONE," it reads. "Here, on June 2, 1875, -Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas A. Watson first transmitted sound over wires. - -"This successful experiment was completed in a fifth floor garret -at what was then 109 Court Street and marked the beginning of -world-wide telephone service." - -109 Court Street is long gone. Within sight of Bell's plaque, -across a street, is one of the central offices of NYNEX, -the local Bell RBOC, on 6 Bowdoin Square. - -I cross the street and circle the telco building, slowly, -hands in my jacket pockets. It's a bright, windy, New England -autumn day. The central office is a handsome 1940s-era megalith -in late Art Deco, eight stories high. - -Parked outside the back is a power-generation truck. -The generator strikes me as rather anomalous. Don't they -already have their own generators in this eight-story monster? -Then the suspicion strikes me that NYNEX must have heard -of the September 17 AT&T power-outage which crashed New York City. -Belt-and-suspenders, this generator. Very telco. - -Over the glass doors of the front entrance is a handsome bronze -bas-relief of Art Deco vines, sunflowers, and birds, entwining -the Bell logo and the legend NEW ENGLAND TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH COMPANY ---an entity which no longer officially exists. - -The doors are locked securely. I peer through the shadowed glass. -Inside is an official poster reading: - - -"New England Telephone a NYNEX Company - -ATTENTION - -"All persons while on New England Telephone -Company premises are required to visibly wear their -identification cards (C.C.P. Section 2, Page 1). - -"Visitors, vendors, contractors, and all others are -required to visibly wear a daily pass. - -"Thank you. - -Kevin C. Stanton. -Building Security Coordinator." - - -Outside, around the corner, is a pull-down ribbed metal security door, -a locked delivery entrance. Some passing stranger has grafitti-tagged -this door, with a single word in red spray-painted cursive: - -Fury - -# - -My book on the Hacker Crackdown is almost over now. -I have deliberately saved the best for last. - -In February 1991, I attended the CPSR Public Policy Roundtable, -in Washington, DC. CPSR, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, -was a sister organization of EFF, or perhaps its aunt, being older -and perhaps somewhat wiser in the ways of the world of politics. - -Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility began in 1981 -in Palo Alto, as an informal discussion group of Californian -computer scientists and technicians, united by nothing more -than an electronic mailing list. This typical high-tech -ad-hocracy received the dignity of its own acronym in 1982, -and was formally incorporated in 1983. - -CPSR lobbied government and public alike with an educational -outreach effort, sternly warning against any foolish -and unthinking trust in complex computer systems. -CPSR insisted that mere computers should never be -considered a magic panacea for humanity's social, -ethical or political problems. CPSR members were especially -troubled about the stability, safety, and dependability -of military computer systems, and very especially troubled -by those systems controlling nuclear arsenals. CPSR was -best-known for its persistent and well-publicized attacks on the -scientific credibility of the Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars"). - -In 1990, CPSR was the nation's veteran cyber-political activist group, -with over two thousand members in twenty- one local chapters across the US. -It was especially active in Boston, Silicon Valley, and Washington DC, -where its Washington office sponsored the Public Policy Roundtable. - -The Roundtable, however, had been funded by EFF, which had passed CPSR -an extensive grant for operations. This was the first large-scale, -official meeting of what was to become the electronic civil -libertarian community. - -Sixty people attended, myself included--in this instance, not so much -as a journalist as a cyberpunk author. Many of the luminaries -of the field took part: Kapor and Godwin as a matter of course. -Richard Civille and Marc Rotenberg of CPSR. Jerry Berman of the ACLU. -John Quarterman, author of The Matrix. Steven Levy, author of Hackers. -George Perry and Sandy Weiss of Prodigy Services, there to network -about the civil-liberties troubles their young commercial -network was experiencing. Dr. Dorothy Denning. Cliff Figallo, -manager of the Well. Steve Jackson was there, having finally -found his ideal target audience, and so was Craig Neidorf, -"Knight Lightning" himself, with his attorney, Sheldon Zenner. -Katie Hafner, science journalist, and co-author of Cyberpunk: -Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier. Dave Farber, -ARPAnet pioneer and fabled Internet guru. Janlori Goldman -of the ACLU's Project on Privacy and Technology. John Nagle -of Autodesk and the Well. Don Goldberg of the House Judiciary Committee. -Tom Guidoboni, the defense attorney in the Internet Worm case. -Lance Hoffman, computer-science professor at The George Washington -University. Eli Noam of Columbia. And a host of others no less distinguished. - -Senator Patrick Leahy delivered the keynote address, -expressing his determination to keep ahead of the curve -on the issue of electronic free speech. The address was -well-received, and the sense of excitement was palpable. -Every panel discussion was interesting--some were entirely -compelling. People networked with an almost frantic interest. - -I myself had a most interesting and cordial lunch discussion with -Noel and Jeanne Gayler, Admiral Gayler being a former director -of the National Security Agency. As this was the first known encounter -between an actual no-kidding cyberpunk and a chief executive of -America's largest and best-financed electronic espionage apparat, -there was naturally a bit of eyebrow-raising on both sides. - -Unfortunately, our discussion was off-the-record. In fact -all the discussions at the CPSR were officially off-the-record, -the idea being to do some serious networking in an atmosphere -of complete frankness, rather than to stage a media circus. - -In any case, CPSR Roundtable, though interesting and intensely valuable, -was as nothing compared to the truly mind-boggling event that transpired -a mere month later. - -# - -"Computers, Freedom and Privacy." Four hundred people from -every conceivable corner of America's electronic community. -As a science fiction writer, I have been to some weird gigs in my day, -but this thing is truly BEYOND THE PALE. Even "Cyberthon," -Point Foundation's "Woodstock of Cyberspace" where Bay Area -psychedelia collided headlong with the emergent world -of computerized virtual reality, was like a Kiwanis Club gig -compared to this astonishing do. - -The "electronic community" had reached an apogee. -Almost every principal in this book is in attendance. -Civil Libertarians. Computer Cops. The Digital Underground. -Even a few discreet telco people. Colorcoded dots -for lapel tags are distributed. Free Expression issues. -Law Enforcement. Computer Security. Privacy. Journalists. -Lawyers. Educators. Librarians. Programmers. -Stylish punk-black dots for the hackers and phone phreaks. -Almost everyone here seems to wear eight or nine dots, -to have six or seven professional hats. - -It is a community. Something like Lebanon perhaps, -but a digital nation. People who had feuded all year -in the national press, people who entertained the deepest -suspicions of one another's motives and ethics, are now -in each others' laps. "Computers, Freedom and Privacy" -had every reason in the world to turn ugly, and yet except -for small irruptions of puzzling nonsense from the -convention's token lunatic, a surprising bonhomie reigned. -CFP was like a wedding-party in which two lovers, -unstable bride and charlatan groom, tie the knot -in a clearly disastrous matrimony. - -It is clear to both families--even to neighbors and random guests-- -that this is not a workable relationship, and yet the young couple's -desperate attraction can brook no further delay. They simply cannot -help themselves. Crockery will fly, shrieks from their newlywed home -will wake the city block, divorce waits in the wings like a vulture -over the Kalahari, and yet this is a wedding, and there is going -to be a child from it. Tragedies end in death; comedies in marriage. -The Hacker Crackdown is ending in marriage. And there will be a child. - -From the beginning, anomalies reign. John Perry Barlow, -cyberspace ranger, is here. His color photo in -The New York Times Magazine, Barlow scowling -in a grim Wyoming snowscape, with long black coat, -dark hat, a Macintosh SE30 propped on a fencepost -and an awesome frontier rifle tucked under one arm, -will be the single most striking visual image -of the Hacker Crackdown. And he is CFP's guest of honor-- -along with Gail Thackeray of the FCIC! What on earth do -they expect these dual guests to do with each other? Waltz? - -Barlow delivers the first address. Uncharacteristically, -he is hoarse--the sheer volume of roadwork has worn him down. -He speaks briefly, congenially, in a plea for conciliation, -and takes his leave to a storm of applause. - -Then Gail Thackeray takes the stage. She's visibly nervous. -She's been on the Well a lot lately. Reading those Barlow posts. -Following Barlow is a challenge to anyone. In honor of the famous -lyricist for the Grateful Dead, she announces reedily, she is going to read-- -A POEM. A poem she has composed herself. - -It's an awful poem, doggerel in the rollicking meter of Robert W. Service's -The Cremation of Sam McGee, but it is in fact, a poem. It's the Ballad -of the Electronic Frontier! A poem about the Hacker Crackdown and the -sheer unlikelihood of CFP. It's full of in-jokes. The score or so cops -in the audience, who are sitting together in a nervous claque, -are absolutely cracking-up. Gail's poem is the funniest goddamn thing -they've ever heard. The hackers and civil-libs, who had this woman figured -for Ilsa She-Wolf of the SS, are staring with their jaws hanging loosely. -Never in the wildest reaches of their imagination had they figured -Gail Thackeray was capable of such a totally off-the-wall move. -You can see them punching their mental CONTROL-RESET buttons. -Jesus! This woman's a hacker weirdo! She's JUST LIKE US! -God, this changes everything! - -Al Bayse, computer technician for the FBI, had been the only cop -at the CPSR Roundtable, dragged there with his arm bent by -Dorothy Denning. He was guarded and tightlipped at CPSR Roundtable; -a "lion thrown to the Christians." - -At CFP, backed by a claque of cops, Bayse suddenly waxes eloquent -and even droll, describing the FBI's "NCIC 2000", a gigantic digital catalog -of criminal records, as if he has suddenly become some weird hybrid -of George Orwell and George Gobel. Tentatively, he makes an arcane -joke about statistical analysis. At least a third of the crowd laughs aloud. - -"They didn't laugh at that at my last speech," Bayse observes. -He had been addressing cops--STRAIGHT cops, not computer people. -It had been a worthy meeting, useful one supposes, but nothing like THIS. -There has never been ANYTHING like this. Without any prodding, -without any preparation, people in the audience simply begin to ask questions. -Longhairs, freaky people, mathematicians. Bayse is answering, politely, -frankly, fully, like a man walking on air. The ballroom's atmosphere -crackles with surreality. A female lawyer behind me breaks into a sweat -and a hot waft of surprisingly potent and musky perfume flows off -her pulse-points. - -People are giddy with laughter. People are interested, -fascinated, their eyes so wide and dark that they seem eroticized. -Unlikely daisy-chains form in the halls, around the bar, on the escalators: -cops with hackers, civil rights with FBI, Secret Service with phone phreaks. - -Gail Thackeray is at her crispest in a white wool sweater with a -tiny Secret Service logo. "I found Phiber Optik at the payphones, -and when he saw my sweater, he turned into a PILLAR OF SALT!" she chortles. - -Phiber discusses his case at much length with his arresting officer, -Don Delaney of the New York State Police. After an hour's chat, -the two of them look ready to begin singing "Auld Lang Syne." -Phiber finally finds the courage to get his worst complaint off his chest. -It isn't so much the arrest. It was the CHARGE. Pirating service -off 900 numbers. I'm a PROGRAMMER, Phiber insists. This lame charge -is going to hurt my reputation. It would have been cool to be busted -for something happening, like Section 1030 computer intrusion. -Maybe some kind of crime that's scarcely been invented yet. -Not lousy phone fraud. Phooey. - -Delaney seems regretful. He had a mountain of possible criminal charges -against Phiber Optik. The kid's gonna plead guilty anyway. He's a -first timer, they always plead. Coulda charged the kid with most anything, -and gotten the same result in the end. Delaney seems genuinely sorry -not to have gratified Phiber in this harmless fashion. Too late now. -Phiber's pled already. All water under the bridge. Whaddya gonna do? - -Delaney's got a good grasp on the hacker mentality. -He held a press conference after he busted a bunch of -Masters of Deception kids. Some journo had asked him: -"Would you describe these people as GENIUSES?" -Delaney's deadpan answer, perfect: "No, I would describe -these people as DEFENDANTS." Delaney busts a kid for -hacking codes with repeated random dialling. Tells the -press that NYNEX can track this stuff in no time flat nowadays, -and a kid has to be STUPID to do something so easy to catch. -Dead on again: hackers don't mind being thought of as Genghis Khan -by the straights, but if there's anything that really gets 'em -where they live, it's being called DUMB. - -Won't be as much fun for Phiber next time around. -As a second offender he's gonna see prison. -Hackers break the law. They're not geniuses, either. -They're gonna be defendants. And yet, Delaney muses over -a drink in the hotel bar, he has found it impossible to treat -them as common criminals. Delaney knows criminals. These kids, -by comparison, are clueless--there is just no crook vibe off of them, -they don't smell right, they're just not BAD. - -Delaney has seen a lot of action. He did Vietnam. -He's been shot at, he has shot people. He's a homicide -cop from New York. He has the appearance of a man who -has not only seen the shit hit the fan but has seen it splattered -across whole city blocks and left to ferment for years. -This guy has been around. - -He listens to Steve Jackson tell his story. The dreamy -game strategist has been dealt a bad hand. He has played -it for all he is worth. Under his nerdish SF-fan exterior -is a core of iron. Friends of his say Steve Jackson believes -in the rules, believes in fair play. He will never compromise -his principles, never give up. "Steve," Delaney says to -Steve Jackson, "they had some balls, whoever busted you. -You're all right!" Jackson, stunned, falls silent and -actually blushes with pleasure. - -Neidorf has grown up a lot in the past year. The kid is -a quick study, you gotta give him that. Dressed by his mom, -the fashion manager for a national clothing chain, -Missouri college techie-frat Craig Neidorf out-dappers -everyone at this gig but the toniest East Coast lawyers. -The iron jaws of prison clanged shut without him and now -law school beckons for Neidorf. He looks like a larval Congressman. - -Not a "hacker," our Mr. Neidorf. He's not interested -in computer science. Why should he be? He's not -interested in writing C code the rest of his life, -and besides, he's seen where the chips fall. -To the world of computer science he and Phrack -were just a curiosity. But to the world of law. . . . -The kid has learned where the bodies are buried. -He carries his notebook of press clippings wherever he goes. - -Phiber Optik makes fun of Neidorf for a Midwestern geek, -for believing that "Acid Phreak" does acid and listens to acid rock. -Hell no. Acid's never done ACID! Acid's into ACID HOUSE MUSIC. -Jesus. The very idea of doing LSD. Our PARENTS did LSD, ya clown. - -Thackeray suddenly turns upon Craig Neidorf the full lighthouse -glare of her attention and begins a determined half-hour attempt -to WIN THE BOY OVER. The Joan of Arc of Computer Crime is -GIVING CAREER ADVICE TO KNIGHT LIGHTNING! "Your experience -would be very valuable--a real asset," she tells him with -unmistakeable sixty-thousand-watt sincerity. Neidorf is fascinated. -He listens with unfeigned attention. He's nodding and saying yes ma'am. -Yes, Craig, you too can forget all about money and enter the glamorous -and horribly underpaid world of PROSECUTING COMPUTER CRIME! -You can put your former friends in prison--ooops. . . . - -You cannot go on dueling at modem's length indefinitely. -You cannot beat one another senseless with rolled-up press-clippings. -Sooner or later you have to come directly to grips. -And yet the very act of assembling here has changed -the entire situation drastically. John Quarterman, -author of The Matrix, explains the Internet at his symposium. -It is the largest news network in the world, it is growing -by leaps and bounds, and yet you cannot measure Internet because -you cannot stop it in place. It cannot stop, because there -is no one anywhere in the world with the authority to stop Internet. -It changes, yes, it grows, it embeds itself across the post-industrial, -postmodern world and it generates community wherever it -touches, and it is doing this all by itself. - -Phiber is different. A very fin de siecle kid, Phiber Optik. -Barlow says he looks like an Edwardian dandy. He does rather. -Shaven neck, the sides of his skull cropped hip-hop close, -unruly tangle of black hair on top that looks pomaded, -he stays up till four a.m. and misses all the sessions, -then hangs out in payphone booths with his acoustic coupler -gutsily CRACKING SYSTEMS RIGHT IN THE MIDST OF THE HEAVIEST -LAW ENFORCEMENT DUDES IN THE U.S., or at least PRETENDING to. . . . -Unlike "Frank Drake." Drake, who wrote Dorothy Denning out -of nowhere, and asked for an interview for his cheapo -cyberpunk fanzine, and then started grilling her on her ethics. -She was squirmin', too. . . . Drake, scarecrow-tall with his -floppy blond mohawk, rotting tennis shoes and black leather jacket -lettered ILLUMINATI in red, gives off an unmistakeable air -of the bohemian literatus. Drake is the kind of guy -who reads British industrial design magazines and appreciates -William Gibson because the quality of the prose is so tasty. -Drake could never touch a phone or a keyboard again, -and he'd still have the nose-ring and the blurry photocopied -fanzines and the sampled industrial music. He's a radical punk -with a desktop-publishing rig and an Internet address. -Standing next to Drake, the diminutive Phiber looks like he's -been physically coagulated out of phone-lines. Born to phreak. - -Dorothy Denning approaches Phiber suddenly. The two of them -are about the same height and body-build. Denning's blue eyes -flash behind the round window-frames of her glasses. -"Why did you say I was `quaint?'" she asks Phiber, quaintly. - -It's a perfect description but Phiber is nonplussed. . . -"Well, I uh, you know. . . ." - -"I also think you're quaint, Dorothy," I say, novelist to the rescue, -the journo gift of gab. . . . She is neat and dapper and yet there's -an arcane quality to her, something like a Pilgrim Maiden behind -leaded glass; if she were six inches high Dorothy Denning would look -great inside a china cabinet. . .The Cryptographeress. . . -The Cryptographrix. . .whatever. . . . Weirdly, Peter Denning looks -just like his wife, you could pick this gentleman out of a thousand guys -as the soulmate of Dorothy Denning. Wearing tailored slacks, -a spotless fuzzy varsity sweater, and a neatly knotted academician's tie. . . . -This fineboned, exquisitely polite, utterly civilized and hyperintelligent -couple seem to have emerged from some cleaner and finer parallel universe, -where humanity exists to do the Brain Teasers column in Scientific American. -Why does this Nice Lady hang out with these unsavory characters? - -Because the time has come for it, that's why. -Because she's the best there is at what she does. - -Donn Parker is here, the Great Bald Eagle of Computer Crime. . . . -With his bald dome, great height, and enormous Lincoln-like hands, -the great visionary pioneer of the field plows through the lesser mortals -like an icebreaker. . . . His eyes are fixed on the future with the -rigidity of a bronze statue. . . . Eventually, he tells his audience, -all business crime will be computer crime, because businesses will do -everything through computers. "Computer crime" as a category will vanish. - -In the meantime, passing fads will flourish and fail and evaporate. . . . -Parker's commanding, resonant voice is sphinxlike, everything is viewed -from some eldritch valley of deep historical abstraction. . . . -Yes, they've come and they've gone, these passing flaps in the world -of digital computation. . . . The radio-frequency emanation scandal. . . -KGB and MI5 and CIA do it every day, it's easy, but nobody else ever has. . . . -The salami-slice fraud, mostly mythical. . . . "Crimoids," he calls them. . . . -Computer viruses are the current crimoid champ, a lot less dangerous than -most people let on, but the novelty is fading and there's a crimoid vacuum at -the moment, the press is visibly hungering for something more outrageous. . . . -The Great Man shares with us a few speculations on the coming crimoids. . . . -Desktop Forgery! Wow. . . . Computers stolen just for the sake of the -information within them--data-napping! Happened in Britain a while ago, -could be the coming thing. . . . Phantom nodes in the Internet! - -Parker handles his overhead projector sheets with an ecclesiastical air. . . . -He wears a grey double-breasted suit, a light blue shirt, and a -very quiet tie of understated maroon and blue paisley. . . . -Aphorisms emerge from him with slow, leaden emphasis. . . . -There is no such thing as an adequately secure computer -when one faces a sufficiently powerful adversary. . . . -Deterrence is the most socially useful aspect of security. . . . -People are the primary weakness in all information systems. . . . -The entire baseline of computer security must be shifted upward. . . . -Don't ever violate your security by publicly describing -your security measures. . . . - -People in the audience are beginning to squirm, and yet -there is something about the elemental purity of this guy's -philosophy that compels uneasy respect. . . . Parker sounds -like the only sane guy left in the lifeboat, sometimes. -The guy who can prove rigorously, from deep moral principles, -that Harvey there, the one with the broken leg and the checkered past, -is the one who has to be, err. . .that is, Mr. Harvey is best placed -to make the necessary sacrifice for the security and indeed -the very survival of the rest of this lifeboat's crew. . . . -Computer security, Parker informs us mournfully, is a -nasty topic, and we wish we didn't have to have it. . . . -The security expert, armed with method and logic, must think--imagine-- -everything that the adversary might do before the adversary might -actually do it. It is as if the criminal's dark brain were an -extensive subprogram within the shining cranium of Donn Parker. -He is a Holmes whose Moriarty does not quite yet exist -and so must be perfectly simulated. - -CFP is a stellar gathering, with the giddiness of a wedding. -It is a happy time, a happy ending, they know their world -is changing forever tonight, and they're proud to have been there -to see it happen, to talk, to think, to help. - -And yet as night falls, a certain elegiac quality manifests itself, -as the crowd gathers beneath the chandeliers with their wineglasses -and dessert plates. Something is ending here, gone forever, -and it takes a while to pinpoint it. - -It is the End of the Amateurs. - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Hacker Crackdown, by Bruce Sterling - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HACKER CRACKDOWN *** - -***** This file should be named 101.txt or 101.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/101/ - - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be -renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one -owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and -you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission -and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the -General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and -distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the -PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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See the -# GNU General Public License for more details. -# -# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License -# along with this program. If not, see . -import os -import hashlib - -from twisted.internet import defer - -from test_soledad.util import BaseSoledadTest -from leap.soledad.client._db import adbapi -from leap.soledad.client._db import sqlcipher - - -class ASyncSQLCipherRetryTestCase(BaseSoledadTest): - - """ - Test asynchronous SQLCipher operation. - """ - - NUM_DOCS = 5000 - - def setUp(self): - BaseSoledadTest.setUp(self) - self._dbpool = self._get_dbpool() - - def tearDown(self): - self._dbpool.close() - BaseSoledadTest.tearDown(self) - - def _get_dbpool(self): - tmpdb = os.path.join(self.tempdir, "test.soledad") - opts = sqlcipher.SQLCipherOptions(tmpdb, "secret", create=True) - return adbapi.getConnectionPool(opts) - - def _get_sample(self): - if not getattr(self, "_sample", None): - dirname = os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(__file__)) - sample_file = os.path.join(dirname, "hacker_crackdown.txt") - with open(sample_file) as f: - self._sample = f.readlines() - return self._sample - - def test_concurrent_puts_fail_with_few_retries_and_small_timeout(self): - """ - Test if concurrent updates to the database with small timeout and - small number of retries fail with "database is locked" error. - - Many concurrent write attempts to the same sqlcipher database may fail - when the timeout is small and there are no retries. This test will - pass if any of the attempts to write the database fail. - - This test is much dependent on the environment and its result intends - to contrast with the test for the workaround for the "database is - locked" problem, which is addressed by the "test_concurrent_puts" test - below. - - If this test ever fails, it means that either (1) the platform where - you are running is it very powerful and you should try with an even - lower timeout value, or (2) the bug has been solved by a better - implementation of the underlying database pool, and thus this test - should be removed from the test suite. - """ - - old_timeout = adbapi.SQLCIPHER_CONNECTION_TIMEOUT - old_max_retries = adbapi.SQLCIPHER_MAX_RETRIES - - adbapi.SQLCIPHER_CONNECTION_TIMEOUT = 1 - adbapi.SQLCIPHER_MAX_RETRIES = 1 - - def _create_doc(doc): - return self._dbpool.runU1DBQuery("create_doc", doc) - - def _insert_docs(): - deferreds = [] - for i in range(self.NUM_DOCS): - payload = self._get_sample()[i] - chash = hashlib.sha256(payload).hexdigest() - doc = {"number": i, "payload": payload, 'chash': chash} - d = _create_doc(doc) - deferreds.append(d) - return defer.gatherResults(deferreds, consumeErrors=True) - - def _errback(e): - if e.value[0].getErrorMessage() == "database is locked": - adbapi.SQLCIPHER_CONNECTION_TIMEOUT = old_timeout - adbapi.SQLCIPHER_MAX_RETRIES = old_max_retries - return defer.succeed("") - raise Exception - - d = _insert_docs() - d.addCallback(lambda _: self._dbpool.runU1DBQuery("get_all_docs")) - d.addErrback(_errback) - return d - - def test_concurrent_puts(self): - """ - Test that many concurrent puts succeed. - - Currently, there's a known problem with the concurrent database pool - which is that many concurrent attempts to write to the database may - fail when the lock timeout is small and when there are no (or few) - retries. We currently workaround this problem by increasing the - timeout and the number of retries. - - Should this test ever fail, it probably means that the timeout and/or - number of retries should be increased for the platform you're running - the test. If the underlying database pool is ever fixed, then the test - above will fail and we should remove this comment from here. - """ - - def _create_doc(doc): - return self._dbpool.runU1DBQuery("create_doc", doc) - - def _insert_docs(): - deferreds = [] - for i in range(self.NUM_DOCS): - payload = self._get_sample()[i] - chash = hashlib.sha256(payload).hexdigest() - doc = {"number": i, "payload": payload, 'chash': chash} - d = _create_doc(doc) - deferreds.append(d) - return defer.gatherResults(deferreds, consumeErrors=True) - - def _count_docs(results): - _, docs = results - if self.NUM_DOCS == len(docs): - return defer.succeed("") - raise Exception - - d = _insert_docs() - d.addCallback(lambda _: self._dbpool.runU1DBQuery("get_all_docs")) - d.addCallback(_count_docs) - return d diff --git a/testing/tests/sqlcipher/test_backend.py b/testing/tests/sqlcipher/test_backend.py deleted file mode 100644 index 68f8f9f2..00000000 --- a/testing/tests/sqlcipher/test_backend.py +++ /dev/null @@ -1,677 +0,0 @@ -# -*- coding: utf-8 -*- -# test_sqlcipher.py -# Copyright (C) 2013 LEAP -# -# This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify -# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by -# the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or -# (at your option) any later version. -# -# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, -# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of -# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the -# GNU General Public License for more details. -# -# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License -# along with this program. If not, see . -""" -Test sqlcipher backend internals. -""" -import os -import pytest -import time -import threading -import sys - -# l2db stuff. -from leap.soledad.common.l2db import errors -from leap.soledad.common.l2db import query_parser - -# soledad stuff. -from leap.soledad.common.document import SoledadDocument -from leap.soledad.client._db.sqlite import SQLitePartialExpandDatabase -from leap.soledad.client._db.sqlcipher import SQLCipherDatabase -from leap.soledad.client._db.sqlcipher import SQLCipherOptions -from leap.soledad.client._db.sqlcipher import DatabaseIsNotEncrypted - -# u1db tests stuff. -from test_soledad import u1db_tests as tests -from test_soledad.u1db_tests import test_backends -from test_soledad.u1db_tests import test_open -from test_soledad.util import SQLCIPHER_SCENARIOS -from test_soledad.util import PASSWORD -from test_soledad.util import BaseSoledadTest - -from testscenarios import TestWithScenarios - -if sys.version_info[0] < 3: - from pysqlcipher import dbapi2 -else: - from pysqlcipher3 import dbapi2 - - -def sqlcipher_open(path, passphrase, create=True, document_factory=None): - return SQLCipherDatabase( - SQLCipherOptions(path, passphrase, create=create)) - - -# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -# The following tests come from `u1db.tests.test_common_backend`. -# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -class TestSQLCipherBackendImpl(tests.TestCase): - - def test__allocate_doc_id(self): - db = sqlcipher_open(':memory:', PASSWORD) - doc_id1 = db._allocate_doc_id() - self.assertTrue(doc_id1.startswith('D-')) - self.assertEqual(34, len(doc_id1)) - int(doc_id1[len('D-'):], 16) - self.assertNotEqual(doc_id1, db._allocate_doc_id()) - db.close() - - -# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -# The following tests come from `u1db.tests.test_backends`. -# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -class SQLCipherTests(TestWithScenarios, test_backends.AllDatabaseTests): - scenarios = SQLCIPHER_SCENARIOS - - -class SQLCipherDatabaseTests(TestWithScenarios, - test_backends.LocalDatabaseTests): - scenarios = SQLCIPHER_SCENARIOS - - -class SQLCipherValidateGenNTransIdTests( - TestWithScenarios, - test_backends.LocalDatabaseValidateGenNTransIdTests): - scenarios = SQLCIPHER_SCENARIOS - - -class SQLCipherValidateSourceGenTests( - TestWithScenarios, - test_backends.LocalDatabaseValidateSourceGenTests): - scenarios = SQLCIPHER_SCENARIOS - - -class SQLCipherWithConflictsTests( - TestWithScenarios, - test_backends.LocalDatabaseWithConflictsTests): - scenarios = SQLCIPHER_SCENARIOS - - -class SQLCipherIndexTests( - TestWithScenarios, test_backends.DatabaseIndexTests): - scenarios = SQLCIPHER_SCENARIOS - - -# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -# The following tests come from `u1db.tests.test_sqlite_backend`. -# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -@pytest.mark.usefixtures('method_tmpdir') -class TestSQLCipherDatabase(tests.TestCase): - """ - Tests from u1db.tests.test_sqlite_backend.TestSQLiteDatabase. - """ - - def test_atomic_initialize(self): - # This test was modified to ensure that db2.close() is called within - # the thread that created the database. - dbname = os.path.join(self.tempdir, 'atomic.db') - - t2 = None # will be a thread - - class SQLCipherDatabaseTesting(SQLCipherDatabase): - _index_storage_value = "testing" - - def __init__(self, dbname, ntry): - self._try = ntry - self._is_initialized_invocations = 0 - SQLCipherDatabase.__init__( - self, - SQLCipherOptions(dbname, PASSWORD)) - - def _is_initialized(self, c): - res = \ - SQLCipherDatabase._is_initialized(self, c) - if self._try == 1: - self._is_initialized_invocations += 1 - if self._is_initialized_invocations == 2: - t2.start() - # hard to do better and have a generic test - time.sleep(0.05) - return res - - class SecondTry(threading.Thread): - - outcome2 = [] - - def run(self): - try: - db2 = SQLCipherDatabaseTesting(dbname, 2) - except Exception as e: - SecondTry.outcome2.append(e) - else: - SecondTry.outcome2.append(db2) - - t2 = SecondTry() - db1 = SQLCipherDatabaseTesting(dbname, 1) - t2.join() - - self.assertIsInstance(SecondTry.outcome2[0], SQLCipherDatabaseTesting) - self.assertTrue(db1._is_initialized(db1._get_sqlite_handle().cursor())) - db1.close() - - -@pytest.mark.usefixtures('method_tmpdir') -class TestSQLCipherPartialExpandDatabase(tests.TestCase): - """ - Tests from u1db.tests.test_sqlite_backend.TestSQLitePartialExpandDatabase. - """ - - # The following tests had to be cloned from u1db because they all - # instantiate the backend directly, so we need to change that in order to - # our backend be instantiated in place. - - def setUp(self): - self.db = sqlcipher_open(':memory:', PASSWORD) - - def tearDown(self): - self.db.close() - - def test_default_replica_uid(self): - self.assertIsNot(None, self.db._replica_uid) - self.assertEqual(32, len(self.db._replica_uid)) - int(self.db._replica_uid, 16) - - def test__parse_index(self): - g = self.db._parse_index_definition('fieldname') - self.assertIsInstance(g, query_parser.ExtractField) - self.assertEqual(['fieldname'], g.field) - - def test__update_indexes(self): - g = self.db._parse_index_definition('fieldname') - c = self.db._get_sqlite_handle().cursor() - self.db._update_indexes('doc-id', {'fieldname': 'val'}, - [('fieldname', g)], c) - c.execute('SELECT doc_id, field_name, value FROM document_fields') - self.assertEqual([('doc-id', 'fieldname', 'val')], - c.fetchall()) - - def test_create_database(self): - raw_db = self.db._get_sqlite_handle() - self.assertNotEqual(None, raw_db) - - def test__set_replica_uid(self): - # Start from scratch, so that replica_uid isn't set. - self.assertIsNot(None, self.db._real_replica_uid) - self.assertIsNot(None, self.db._replica_uid) - self.db._set_replica_uid('foo') - c = self.db._get_sqlite_handle().cursor() - c.execute("SELECT value FROM u1db_config WHERE name='replica_uid'") - self.assertEqual(('foo',), c.fetchone()) - self.assertEqual('foo', self.db._real_replica_uid) - self.assertEqual('foo', self.db._replica_uid) - self.db._close_sqlite_handle() - self.assertEqual('foo', self.db._replica_uid) - - def test__open_database(self): - # SQLCipherDatabase has no _open_database() method, so we just pass - # (and test for the same funcionality on test_open_database_existing() - # below). - pass - - def test__open_database_with_factory(self): - # SQLCipherDatabase has no _open_database() method. - pass - - def test__open_database_non_existent(self): - path = self.tempdir + '/non-existent.sqlite' - self.assertRaises(errors.DatabaseDoesNotExist, - sqlcipher_open, - path, PASSWORD, create=False) - - def test__open_database_during_init(self): - # The purpose of this test is to ensure that _open_database() parallel - # db initialization behaviour is correct. As SQLCipherDatabase does - # not have an _open_database() method, we just do not implement this - # test. - pass - - def test__open_database_invalid(self): - # This test was modified to ensure that an empty database file will - # raise a DatabaseIsNotEncrypted exception instead of a - # dbapi2.OperationalError exception. - path1 = self.tempdir + '/invalid1.db' - with open(path1, 'wb') as f: - f.write("") - self.assertRaises(DatabaseIsNotEncrypted, - sqlcipher_open, path1, - PASSWORD) - with open(path1, 'wb') as f: - f.write("invalid") - self.assertRaises(dbapi2.DatabaseError, - sqlcipher_open, path1, - PASSWORD) - - def test_open_database_existing(self): - # In the context of SQLCipherDatabase, where no _open_database() - # method exists and thus there's no call to _which_index_storage(), - # this test tests for the same functionality as - # test_open_database_create() below. So, we just pass. - pass - - def test_open_database_with_factory(self): - # SQLCipherDatabase's constructor has no factory parameter. - pass - - def test_open_database_create(self): - # SQLCipherDatabas has no open_database() method, so we just test for - # the actual database constructor effects. - path = self.tempdir + '/new.sqlite' - db1 = sqlcipher_open(path, PASSWORD, create=True) - db2 = sqlcipher_open(path, PASSWORD, create=False) - self.assertIsInstance(db2, SQLCipherDatabase) - db1.close() - db2.close() - - def test_create_database_initializes_schema(self): - # This test had to be cloned because our implementation of SQLCipher - # backend is referenced with an index_storage_value that includes the - # word "encrypted". See u1db's sqlite_backend and our - # sqlcipher_backend for reference. - raw_db = self.db._get_sqlite_handle() - c = raw_db.cursor() - c.execute("SELECT * FROM u1db_config") - config = dict([(r[0], r[1]) for r in c.fetchall()]) - replica_uid = self.db._replica_uid - self.assertEqual({'sql_schema': '0', 'replica_uid': replica_uid, - 'index_storage': 'expand referenced encrypted'}, - config) - - def test_store_syncable(self): - doc = self.db.create_doc_from_json(tests.simple_doc) - # assert that docs are syncable by default - self.assertEqual(True, doc.syncable) - # assert that we can store syncable = False - doc.syncable = False - self.db.put_doc(doc) - self.assertEqual(False, self.db.get_doc(doc.doc_id).syncable) - # assert that we can store syncable = True - doc.syncable = True - self.db.put_doc(doc) - self.assertEqual(True, self.db.get_doc(doc.doc_id).syncable) - - def test__close_sqlite_handle(self): - raw_db = self.db._get_sqlite_handle() - self.db._close_sqlite_handle() - self.assertRaises(dbapi2.ProgrammingError, - raw_db.cursor) - - def test__get_generation(self): - self.assertEqual(0, self.db._get_generation()) - - def test__get_generation_info(self): - self.assertEqual((0, ''), self.db._get_generation_info()) - - def test_create_index(self): - self.db.create_index('test-idx', "key") - self.assertEqual([('test-idx', ["key"])], self.db.list_indexes()) - - def test_create_index_multiple_fields(self): - self.db.create_index('test-idx', "key", "key2") - self.assertEqual([('test-idx', ["key", "key2"])], - self.db.list_indexes()) - - def test__get_index_definition(self): - self.db.create_index('test-idx', "key", "key2") - # TODO: How would you test that an index is getting used for an SQL - # request? - self.assertEqual(["key", "key2"], - self.db._get_index_definition('test-idx')) - - def test_list_index_mixed(self): - # Make sure that we properly order the output - c = self.db._get_sqlite_handle().cursor() - # We intentionally insert the data in weird ordering, to make sure the - # query still gets it back correctly. - c.executemany("INSERT INTO index_definitions VALUES (?, ?, ?)", - [('idx-1', 0, 'key10'), - ('idx-2', 2, 'key22'), - ('idx-1', 1, 'key11'), - ('idx-2', 0, 'key20'), - ('idx-2', 1, 'key21')]) - self.assertEqual([('idx-1', ['key10', 'key11']), - ('idx-2', ['key20', 'key21', 'key22'])], - self.db.list_indexes()) - - def test_no_indexes_no_document_fields(self): - self.db.create_doc_from_json( - '{"key1": "val1", "key2": "val2"}') - c = self.db._get_sqlite_handle().cursor() - c.execute("SELECT doc_id, field_name, value FROM document_fields" - " ORDER BY doc_id, field_name, value") - self.assertEqual([], c.fetchall()) - - def test_create_extracts_fields(self): - doc1 = self.db.create_doc_from_json('{"key1": "val1", "key2": "val2"}') - doc2 = self.db.create_doc_from_json('{"key1": "valx", "key2": "valy"}') - c = self.db._get_sqlite_handle().cursor() - c.execute("SELECT doc_id, field_name, value FROM document_fields" - " ORDER BY doc_id, field_name, value") - self.assertEqual([], c.fetchall()) - self.db.create_index('test', 'key1', 'key2') - c.execute("SELECT doc_id, field_name, value FROM document_fields" - " ORDER BY doc_id, field_name, value") - self.assertEqual(sorted( - [(doc1.doc_id, "key1", "val1"), - (doc1.doc_id, "key2", "val2"), - (doc2.doc_id, "key1", "valx"), - (doc2.doc_id, "key2", "valy"), ]), sorted(c.fetchall())) - - def test_put_updates_fields(self): - self.db.create_index('test', 'key1', 'key2') - doc1 = self.db.create_doc_from_json( - '{"key1": "val1", "key2": "val2"}') - doc1.content = {"key1": "val1", "key2": "valy"} - self.db.put_doc(doc1) - c = self.db._get_sqlite_handle().cursor() - c.execute("SELECT doc_id, field_name, value FROM document_fields" - " ORDER BY doc_id, field_name, value") - self.assertEqual([(doc1.doc_id, "key1", "val1"), - (doc1.doc_id, "key2", "valy"), ], c.fetchall()) - - def test_put_updates_nested_fields(self): - self.db.create_index('test', 'key', 'sub.doc') - doc1 = self.db.create_doc_from_json(tests.nested_doc) - c = self.db._get_sqlite_handle().cursor() - c.execute("SELECT doc_id, field_name, value FROM document_fields" - " ORDER BY doc_id, field_name, value") - self.assertEqual([(doc1.doc_id, "key", "value"), - (doc1.doc_id, "sub.doc", "underneath"), ], - c.fetchall()) - - def test__ensure_schema_rollback(self): - path = self.tempdir + '/rollback.db' - - class SQLitePartialExpandDbTesting(SQLCipherDatabase): - - def _set_replica_uid_in_transaction(self, uid): - super(SQLitePartialExpandDbTesting, - self)._set_replica_uid_in_transaction(uid) - if fail: - raise Exception() - - db = SQLitePartialExpandDbTesting.__new__(SQLitePartialExpandDbTesting) - db._db_handle = dbapi2.connect(path) # db is there but not yet init-ed - fail = True - self.assertRaises(Exception, db._ensure_schema) - fail = False - db._initialize(db._db_handle.cursor()) - - def test_open_database_non_existent(self): - path = self.tempdir + '/non-existent.sqlite' - self.assertRaises(errors.DatabaseDoesNotExist, - sqlcipher_open, path, "123", - create=False) - - def test_delete_database_existent(self): - path = self.tempdir + '/new.sqlite' - db = sqlcipher_open(path, "123", create=True) - db.close() - SQLCipherDatabase.delete_database(path) - self.assertRaises(errors.DatabaseDoesNotExist, - sqlcipher_open, path, "123", - create=False) - - def test_delete_database_nonexistent(self): - path = self.tempdir + '/non-existent.sqlite' - self.assertRaises(errors.DatabaseDoesNotExist, - SQLCipherDatabase.delete_database, path) - - def test__get_indexed_fields(self): - self.db.create_index('idx1', 'a', 'b') - self.assertEqual(set(['a', 'b']), self.db._get_indexed_fields()) - self.db.create_index('idx2', 'b', 'c') - self.assertEqual(set(['a', 'b', 'c']), self.db._get_indexed_fields()) - - def test_indexed_fields_expanded(self): - self.db.create_index('idx1', 'key1') - doc1 = self.db.create_doc_from_json('{"key1": "val1", "key2": "val2"}') - self.assertEqual(set(['key1']), self.db._get_indexed_fields()) - c = self.db._get_sqlite_handle().cursor() - c.execute("SELECT doc_id, field_name, value FROM document_fields" - " ORDER BY doc_id, field_name, value") - self.assertEqual([(doc1.doc_id, 'key1', 'val1')], c.fetchall()) - - def test_create_index_updates_fields(self): - doc1 = self.db.create_doc_from_json('{"key1": "val1", "key2": "val2"}') - self.db.create_index('idx1', 'key1') - self.assertEqual(set(['key1']), self.db._get_indexed_fields()) - c = self.db._get_sqlite_handle().cursor() - c.execute("SELECT doc_id, field_name, value FROM document_fields" - " ORDER BY doc_id, field_name, value") - self.assertEqual([(doc1.doc_id, 'key1', 'val1')], c.fetchall()) - - def assertFormatQueryEquals(self, exp_statement, exp_args, definition, - values): - statement, args = self.db._format_query(definition, values) - self.assertEqual(exp_statement, statement) - self.assertEqual(exp_args, args) - - def test__format_query(self): - self.assertFormatQueryEquals( - "SELECT d.doc_id, d.doc_rev, d.content, count(c.doc_rev) FROM " - "document d, document_fields d0 LEFT OUTER JOIN conflicts c ON " - "c.doc_id = d.doc_id WHERE d.doc_id = d0.doc_id AND d0.field_name " - "= ? AND d0.value = ? GROUP BY d.doc_id, d.doc_rev, d.content " - "ORDER BY d0.value;", ["key1", "a"], - ["key1"], ["a"]) - - def test__format_query2(self): - self.assertFormatQueryEquals( - 'SELECT d.doc_id, d.doc_rev, d.content, count(c.doc_rev) FROM ' - 'document d, document_fields d0, document_fields d1, ' - 'document_fields d2 LEFT OUTER JOIN conflicts c ON c.doc_id = ' - 'd.doc_id WHERE d.doc_id = d0.doc_id AND d0.field_name = ? AND ' - 'd0.value = ? AND d.doc_id = d1.doc_id AND d1.field_name = ? AND ' - 'd1.value = ? AND d.doc_id = d2.doc_id AND d2.field_name = ? AND ' - 'd2.value = ? GROUP BY d.doc_id, d.doc_rev, d.content ORDER BY ' - 'd0.value, d1.value, d2.value;', - ["key1", "a", "key2", "b", "key3", "c"], - ["key1", "key2", "key3"], ["a", "b", "c"]) - - def test__format_query_wildcard(self): - self.assertFormatQueryEquals( - 'SELECT d.doc_id, d.doc_rev, d.content, count(c.doc_rev) FROM ' - 'document d, document_fields d0, document_fields d1, ' - 'document_fields d2 LEFT OUTER JOIN conflicts c ON c.doc_id = ' - 'd.doc_id WHERE d.doc_id = d0.doc_id AND d0.field_name = ? AND ' - 'd0.value = ? AND d.doc_id = d1.doc_id AND d1.field_name = ? AND ' - 'd1.value GLOB ? AND d.doc_id = d2.doc_id AND d2.field_name = ? ' - 'AND d2.value NOT NULL GROUP BY d.doc_id, d.doc_rev, d.content ' - 'ORDER BY d0.value, d1.value, d2.value;', - ["key1", "a", "key2", "b*", "key3"], ["key1", "key2", "key3"], - ["a", "b*", "*"]) - - def assertFormatRangeQueryEquals(self, exp_statement, exp_args, definition, - start_value, end_value): - statement, args = self.db._format_range_query( - definition, start_value, end_value) - self.assertEqual(exp_statement, statement) - self.assertEqual(exp_args, args) - - def test__format_range_query(self): - self.assertFormatRangeQueryEquals( - 'SELECT d.doc_id, d.doc_rev, d.content, count(c.doc_rev) FROM ' - 'document d, document_fields d0, document_fields d1, ' - 'document_fields d2 LEFT OUTER JOIN conflicts c ON c.doc_id = ' - 'd.doc_id WHERE d.doc_id = d0.doc_id AND d0.field_name = ? AND ' - 'd0.value >= ? AND d.doc_id = d1.doc_id AND d1.field_name = ? AND ' - 'd1.value >= ? AND d.doc_id = d2.doc_id AND d2.field_name = ? AND ' - 'd2.value >= ? AND d.doc_id = d0.doc_id AND d0.field_name = ? AND ' - 'd0.value <= ? AND d.doc_id = d1.doc_id AND d1.field_name = ? AND ' - 'd1.value <= ? AND d.doc_id = d2.doc_id AND d2.field_name = ? AND ' - 'd2.value <= ? GROUP BY d.doc_id, d.doc_rev, d.content ORDER BY ' - 'd0.value, d1.value, d2.value;', - ['key1', 'a', 'key2', 'b', 'key3', 'c', 'key1', 'p', 'key2', 'q', - 'key3', 'r'], - ["key1", "key2", "key3"], ["a", "b", "c"], ["p", "q", "r"]) - - def test__format_range_query_no_start(self): - self.assertFormatRangeQueryEquals( - 'SELECT d.doc_id, d.doc_rev, d.content, count(c.doc_rev) FROM ' - 'document d, document_fields d0, document_fields d1, ' - 'document_fields d2 LEFT OUTER JOIN conflicts c ON c.doc_id = ' - 'd.doc_id WHERE d.doc_id = d0.doc_id AND d0.field_name = ? AND ' - 'd0.value <= ? AND d.doc_id = d1.doc_id AND d1.field_name = ? AND ' - 'd1.value <= ? AND d.doc_id = d2.doc_id AND d2.field_name = ? AND ' - 'd2.value <= ? GROUP BY d.doc_id, d.doc_rev, d.content ORDER BY ' - 'd0.value, d1.value, d2.value;', - ['key1', 'a', 'key2', 'b', 'key3', 'c'], - ["key1", "key2", "key3"], None, ["a", "b", "c"]) - - def test__format_range_query_no_end(self): - self.assertFormatRangeQueryEquals( - 'SELECT d.doc_id, d.doc_rev, d.content, count(c.doc_rev) FROM ' - 'document d, document_fields d0, document_fields d1, ' - 'document_fields d2 LEFT OUTER JOIN conflicts c ON c.doc_id = ' - 'd.doc_id WHERE d.doc_id = d0.doc_id AND d0.field_name = ? AND ' - 'd0.value >= ? AND d.doc_id = d1.doc_id AND d1.field_name = ? AND ' - 'd1.value >= ? AND d.doc_id = d2.doc_id AND d2.field_name = ? AND ' - 'd2.value >= ? GROUP BY d.doc_id, d.doc_rev, d.content ORDER BY ' - 'd0.value, d1.value, d2.value;', - ['key1', 'a', 'key2', 'b', 'key3', 'c'], - ["key1", "key2", "key3"], ["a", "b", "c"], None) - - def test__format_range_query_wildcard(self): - self.assertFormatRangeQueryEquals( - 'SELECT d.doc_id, d.doc_rev, d.content, count(c.doc_rev) FROM ' - 'document d, document_fields d0, document_fields d1, ' - 'document_fields d2 LEFT OUTER JOIN conflicts c ON c.doc_id = ' - 'd.doc_id WHERE d.doc_id = d0.doc_id AND d0.field_name = ? AND ' - 'd0.value >= ? AND d.doc_id = d1.doc_id AND d1.field_name = ? AND ' - 'd1.value >= ? AND d.doc_id = d2.doc_id AND d2.field_name = ? AND ' - 'd2.value NOT NULL AND d.doc_id = d0.doc_id AND d0.field_name = ? ' - 'AND d0.value <= ? AND d.doc_id = d1.doc_id AND d1.field_name = ? ' - 'AND (d1.value < ? OR d1.value GLOB ?) AND d.doc_id = d2.doc_id ' - 'AND d2.field_name = ? AND d2.value NOT NULL GROUP BY d.doc_id, ' - 'd.doc_rev, d.content ORDER BY d0.value, d1.value, d2.value;', - ['key1', 'a', 'key2', 'b', 'key3', 'key1', 'p', 'key2', 'q', 'q*', - 'key3'], - ["key1", "key2", "key3"], ["a", "b*", "*"], ["p", "q*", "*"]) - - -# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -# The following tests come from `u1db.tests.test_open`. -# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - -class SQLCipherOpen(test_open.TestU1DBOpen): - - def test_open_no_create(self): - self.assertRaises(errors.DatabaseDoesNotExist, - sqlcipher_open, self.db_path, - PASSWORD, - create=False) - self.assertFalse(os.path.exists(self.db_path)) - - def test_open_create(self): - db = sqlcipher_open(self.db_path, PASSWORD, create=True) - self.addCleanup(db.close) - self.assertTrue(os.path.exists(self.db_path)) - self.assertIsInstance(db, SQLCipherDatabase) - - def test_open_with_factory(self): - db = sqlcipher_open(self.db_path, PASSWORD, create=True, - document_factory=SoledadDocument) - self.addCleanup(db.close) - doc = db.create_doc({}) - self.assertTrue(isinstance(doc, SoledadDocument)) - - def test_open_existing(self): - db = sqlcipher_open(self.db_path, PASSWORD) - self.addCleanup(db.close) - doc = db.create_doc_from_json(tests.simple_doc) - # Even though create=True, we shouldn't wipe the db - db2 = sqlcipher_open(self.db_path, PASSWORD, create=True) - self.addCleanup(db2.close) - doc2 = db2.get_doc(doc.doc_id) - self.assertEqual(doc, doc2) - - def test_open_existing_no_create(self): - db = sqlcipher_open(self.db_path, PASSWORD) - self.addCleanup(db.close) - db2 = sqlcipher_open(self.db_path, PASSWORD, create=False) - self.addCleanup(db2.close) - self.assertIsInstance(db2, SQLCipherDatabase) - - -# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -# Tests for actual encryption of the database -# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -class SQLCipherEncryptionTests(BaseSoledadTest): - - """ - Tests to guarantee SQLCipher is indeed encrypting data when storing. - """ - - def _delete_dbfiles(self): - for dbfile in [self.DB_FILE]: - if os.path.exists(dbfile): - os.unlink(dbfile) - - def setUp(self): - BaseSoledadTest.setUp(self) - self.DB_FILE = os.path.join(self.tempdir, 'test.db') - self._delete_dbfiles() - - def tearDown(self): - self._delete_dbfiles() - BaseSoledadTest.tearDown(self) - - def test_try_to_open_encrypted_db_with_sqlite_backend(self): - """ - SQLite backend should not succeed to open SQLCipher databases. - """ - db = sqlcipher_open(self.DB_FILE, PASSWORD) - doc = db.create_doc_from_json(tests.simple_doc) - db.close() - try: - # trying to open an encrypted database with the regular u1db - # backend should raise a DatabaseError exception. - SQLitePartialExpandDatabase(self.DB_FILE, - document_factory=SoledadDocument) - raise DatabaseIsNotEncrypted() - except dbapi2.DatabaseError: - # at this point we know that the regular U1DB sqlcipher backend - # did not succeed on opening the database, so it was indeed - # encrypted. - db = sqlcipher_open(self.DB_FILE, PASSWORD) - doc = db.get_doc(doc.doc_id) - self.assertEqual(tests.simple_doc, doc.get_json(), - 'decrypted content mismatch') - db.close() - - def test_try_to_open_raw_db_with_sqlcipher_backend(self): - """ - SQLCipher backend should not succeed to open unencrypted databases. - """ - db = SQLitePartialExpandDatabase(self.DB_FILE, - document_factory=SoledadDocument) - db.create_doc_from_json(tests.simple_doc) - db.close() - try: - # trying to open the a non-encrypted database with sqlcipher - # backend should raise a DatabaseIsNotEncrypted exception. - db = sqlcipher_open(self.DB_FILE, PASSWORD) - db.close() - raise dbapi2.DatabaseError( - "SQLCipher backend should not be able to open non-encrypted " - "dbs.") - except DatabaseIsNotEncrypted: - pass -- cgit v1.2.3