Since the author also requests remuneration, we would ask these

W >> Winn Schwartau >> Since the author also requests remuneration, we would ask these

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53

"Goot. In the global Network there is no way to predict where
the next information packet will be sent. Will it start here,"
the Dutchman motioned to his far left, "or here? There's no way
to know. All we can say, just as in physics, is that there is a
probability of data being transferred between any two points.
Chance. And we can also view the Network in operation as both a
wave and a particle."

"Wait," stopped Scott. "You've just gone over my head, but I get
the point, I think. You and your associates really believe that
this global Network is an entity unto itself and that it is
growing and evolving on its own as we speak?"

"Ya, exactly. You see, no one person is responsible for the
Network, its growth or its care. Like the brain, many different
regions control their own piece of the Network. And, the Network
can still function normally even if pieces of it are disconnect-
ed. The split brain studies."

"And you're the caretakers for the Network?" doubted Scott.

"No. As I said we all have our reasons. The common denominator
is that we treat the Network as an incredibly powerful organism
about which we know very, very little. That is our function - to
learn."

"What is it that you do? For a living?"

"Ah, ya. I am Professor of Technological Sociology at the Uni-
versity of Amsterdam. The original proposal for my research came
from personal beliefs and concerns; about the way the human race
has to learn to cope in the face of great technology leaps. NATO
is funding the research."

"NATO," exclaimed Scott. "They fund hacking?"

"No," laughed the Dutchman. "They know that hacking is necessary
to gather the raw data my research requires, so they pretend not
to notice or care. What we are trying to do is predict what the
Baby, the global Network will look and act like when it grows
up."

"Isn't crystal ball gazing easier?"

"Ya, it may be," the Dutchman agreed. "But now, why don't you
look around? I am sure you will find it most educational."

The Dutchman asked again about the Spook. "Is he really here in
Amsterdam?" Yup! "And he said he'd be here today?" Yup! "The
Spook, at the conference? He hasn't made an appearance in years."
Well, that's what he told me, he'd be here.

Scott profusely thanked his host and assured him that yes, he
would ask for anything he needed. Thank you. Kirk had been
vindicated, thought Scott who had expected a group of pimply
faced adolescents with nerd shirts to be bouncing around like
Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale.

Scott slowly explored the tables loaded with various types of
computer gear. IBM clones were the most common, but an assort-
ment of older machines, a CP/M or two, even a Commodore PET
proved that expensive new equipment was not needed to become a
respected hacker. Scott reminded himself that this group was the
elite of hackerdom. These were the Hacker's Hackers.

In his discussions with Kirk, Scott figured he would see some of
the tools of the trade. But he had no idea of the level of
sophistication that was openly, and perhaps, illegally, being
demonstrated. Then again, maybe that's why they hold their
Hacker Ho Downs in Amsterdam.

Scott learned something very critical early on.

"Once you let one of us inside your computer, it's all over. The
system is ours." The universal claim by hackers.

Scott no longer had any trouble accepting that. "So the securi-
ty guy's job," one short balding middle aged American hacker
said, "is to keep us out. I'm a cracker." What's that? "The
cracker is kind of like a safecracker, or lock picker. It's my
job to figure out how to get into the computers." Scott had to
stifle a giggle when he found out that this slight man's handle
was appropriately Waldo.

Waldo went on to explain that he was a henpecked CPA who needed a
hobby that would bore his wife to tears. So he locked himself in
the basement, far away from her, and got hooked on computers. He
found that rummaging through other computers was an amusing
alternative to watching Honeymooner reruns while his wife
kvetched. After a while, he said he discovered that he had a
talent for cracking through the front doors of computers. On the
professional hacker circuit that made Waldo a valuable commodity.
The way it works, he explained, was that he would trade access
codes for outlines of the contents of the computers. If he
wanted to look further, he maintained a complete indexing system
on the contents of thousands of computers world wide. He admit-
ted it was the only exciting part of his life. "The most fun a
CPA has," he said calmly, "is cutting up client's credit cards.
But me," he added proudly, "I've been in and out of the IRS
computers more times than Debbie did it in Dallas."

"The IRS computers? You've been in there?"

"Where else does a CPA go, but to the scene of the crime." Waldo
laughed at his joke. "At first it was a game, but once I got
into the IRS backplane, which connects the various IRS districts
together, the things I found scared me. No one is in control
over there. No one. They abuse taxpayers, basically honest
taxpayers who are genuinely in trouble and need some understand-
ing by their government. Instead they are on the receiving end of
a vicious attack by a low level government paper slave who gets
his thrills by seizing property. The IRS is immune from due
process." Scott immediately thought of Tyrone and his constitu-
tional ravings the other night.

"The IRS's motto is, 'guilty until we cash the check'. And IRS
management ignores it. Auditors are on a quota basis, and if
they don't recover their allotted amounts of back taxes, they can
kiss their jobs goodbye." The innocent looking Waldo, too, had
found a cause, a raison d'tre, for hacking away at government
computers.

"You know that for a fact?" Asked Scott. This alone was a major
story. Such a policy was against everything the Constitution
stood for. Waldo nodded and claimed to have seen the internal
policy memoranda. Who was in charge? Essentially, said Waldo,
no one. It was anarchy.

"They have the worst security of any agency that should by all
rights have the best. It's a crime against American citizens.
Our rights and our privacy have shriveled to nothing." Waldo,
the small CPA, extolled the virtues of fighting the system from
within. From within he could battle the computers that had
become the system.

"Have you ever, shall I say, fixed files in the IRS computers?"

"Many times," Waldo said proudly. "For my clients who were being
screwed, sometimes I am asked to help. It's all part of the
job," he said of his beloved avocation.

"How many systems have you cracked?" Asked Scott, visibly im-
pressed.

"I am," Waldo said modestly, "the best. I have cracked 1187
systems in 3 years. 1040 was my personal goal for a while, then
1099, but it's kind of open ended now."

"That's almost one a day?"

"You could look at it like that, but sometimes you can get into
10 or twenty in one day. You gotta remember," Waldo said with
pride, "a lot of homework goes into this. You just don't decide
one day to crack a system. You have to plan it."

"So how do you do it?"

"O.K., it's really pretty simple. D'you speak software?"

"Listen, you make it real simple, and I won't interrupt. OK?"

"Interrupt. Hah! That's a good one. Here, let me show you on the
computer," Waldo said as he leaned over to peck at the keyboard.
"The first step to getting into computers is to find where they
are located, electronically speaking, O.K.?" Scott agreed that
you needed the address of the bank before you could rob it.

"So what we do is search for computers by running a program, like
an exchange autodialer. Here, look here," Waldo said pointing at
the computer screen. "We select the area code here, let's say
203, that's Connecticut. Then we pick the prefix, the first
three numbers, that's the local exchange. So let's choose 968,"
he entered the numbers carefully. "That's Stamford. By the way,
I wrote this software myself." Waldo spoke of his software as a
proud father would of his first born son. Scott patted him on
the back, urging him to continue.

"So we ask the computer to call every number in the 203-968 area
sequentially. When the number is answered, my computer records
whether a voice, a live person answered, or a computer answered
or if it was a fax machine." Scott never had imagined that
hacking was so systematic.

"Then, the computer records its findings and we have a complete
list of every computer in that area," Waldo concluded.

"That's 10,000 phone calls," Scott realized. "It must cost a
fortune and take forever?"

"Nah, not a dime. The phone company has a hole. It takes my
program less than a second to record the response and we're off
to the next call. It's all free, courtesy of TPC," Waldo
bragged.

"TPC?" Questioned Scott.

"The Phone Company," Waldo chuckled.

"I don't see how you can do the entire country that way, 10,000
calls at a shot. In New York there must be ten million phones."

"Yes," agreed Waldo, "it is a never ending job. Phone numbers
change, computers come and go, security gets better. But you
have to remember, there are a lot of other people out there doing
the same thing, and we all pool our information. You could ask
for the number to almost any computer in the world, and someone
in our group, somewhere, will have the number and likely the
passwords."

"Jesus . . ."

"I run my program at night, every night, when I sleep. On a good
night, if the calls are connected quickly enough, I can go
through about a thousand phone numbers. I figure roughly a month
per prefix."

"I am amazed, simply amazed. Truly impressed," said Scott. "You
know, you always kind of imagine these things are possible, but
until it stares you in the face it's black magic."

"You wanna know the best part?" Waldo said teasingly. "I get
paid for it, too." Waldo crouched over and spoke to Scott secre-
tively. "Not everyone here approves, but, I sell lists to junk
fax mail-order houses. They want the fax lists. On a good night
I can clear a couple hundred while my modem does the dialing."

The underground culture of Scott's day, demonstrating against the
war, getting gassed while marching by George Washington Universi-
ty, getting thrown out of a Nixon rally at Madison Square Garden
seemed so innocent in comparison. He continued to be in awe of
the possible applications for a technology not as benign as its
creators had intended.

Scott met other hackers; they were proud of the term even with
the current negative connotations it carried. He saw how system-
ic attacks against the front door to computers were the single
biggest challenge to hackers; the proverbial chase before the
catch, the romance to many.

At another tabletop laden with computers Scott learned that there
are programs designed to try passwords according to certain
rules. Some try every possible combination of letters and num-
bers, although that is considered an antique method of brute
force. More sophisticated hackers use advanced algorithms which
try to open the computer with 'likely' passwords. It was all
very scientific, the approach to the problem, thought Scott.

He met communications gurus who knew more about the switching
networks inside the phone company than AT&T engineers. They had
complete diagrams and function calls and source code for even the
latest software revisions on the 4ESS and the new 5ESS switches.
"Once you're into the phone computers," one phone phreak ex-
tolled, "you have an immense amount of power at your fingertips.
Incredible. Let me give you an example."

The speaker was another American, one that Scott would have
classified as an ex-Berkeley-hippie still living in the past.
His dirty shoulder length hair capped a skinny frame which held
his jeans up so poorly that there was no question where the sun
didn't shine.

"You know that the phone company is part of the Tri-Lateral
Commission, working with Kissinger and the Queen of England to
control the world. Right?" His frazzled speech was matched by
an annoying habit of sweeping his stringy hair off his face every
few words. "It's up to us to stop them."

Scott listened politely as Janis, (who adopted the moniker from
his favorite singer) rewrote history with tortured explanations
of how the phone company is the hidden seat of the American
government, and how they have been lying to the public for dec-
ades. And the Rockefellers are involved too, he assured Scott.

"They could declare martial law, today, and take over the coun-
try. Those who control the communications control the power," he
oracled. "Did you know," he took Scott into his confidence,
"that phones are always on and they have computers recording
everything you say and do in your own home. That's illegal!"
Janis bellowed. Not to mention crazy, thought Scott.

One of Janis' associates came over to rescue Scott. "Sorry, he's
a little enthusiastic and has some trouble communicating on the
Earthly plane." Alva, as he called himself, explained coherent-
ly that with some of the newer security systems in place, it is
necessary to manipulate the phone company switches to learn
system passwords.

"For example, when we broke into a Bell computer that used CI-
CIMS, it was tough to crack. But now they've added new security
that, in itself, is flawless, albeit crackable," Alva explained.
"Once you get past the passwords, which is trivial, the system
asks you three unique questions about yourself for final identi-
fication. Pretty smart, huh?" Scott agreed with Alva, a voice
of apparent moderation. "However, we were already in the phone
switch computer, so we programmed in forwarding instructions for
all calls that dialed that particular computer. We then inter-
cepted the call and connected it to our computer, where we emu-
late the security system, and watched the questions and answers
go back and forth. After a few hours, you have a hundred differ-
ent passwords to use. There are a dozen other ways to do it, of
course."

"Of course," Scott said sarcastically. Is nothing sacred? Not
in this world it's not. All's fair in love, war and hacking.

The time flew as Scott learned what a tightly knitted clique the
hackers were. The ethos 'honor among thieves' held true here as
it did in many adolescent societies, most recently the American
Old West. As a group, perhaps even a subculture, they were
arduously taming new territory, each with their own vision of a
private digital homestead. Each one taking on the system in
their own way, they still needed each other, thus they looked
aside if another's techno-social behavior was personally dis-
tasteful. The Network was big enough for everyone. A working
anarchy that heralded the standard of John Paul Jones as their
sole commandment: Don't Tread On Me.

He saw tapping devices that allowed the interception of computer
data which traveled over phone lines. Line Monitors and Sniffers
were commercially available, and legal; equipment that was nomi-
nally designed to troubleshoot networks. In the hands of a hack-
er, though, it graduated from being a tool of repair to an
offensive weapon.

Small hand held radios were capable of listening in to the in-
creasingly popular remote RF networks which do not require wires.
Cellular phone eavesdropping devices permitted the owner to scan
and focus on the conversation of his choice. Scott examined the
electronic gear to find a manufacturer's identification.

"Don't bother, my friend," said a long haired German youth of
about twenty.

"Excuse me?"

"I see you are looking for marks, yes?"

"Well, yes. I wanted to see who made these . . ."

"I make them, he makes them, we all make them," he said almost
giddily. "This is not available from Radio Shack," he giggled.
"Who needs them from the establishment when they are so easy to
build."

Scott knew that electronics was indeed a garage operation and
that many high tech initiatives had begun in entrepreneur's
basements. The thought of home hobbyists building equipment
which the military defends against was anathema to Scott. He
merely shook his head and moved on, thanking the makers of the
eavesdropping machines for their demonstrations.

Over in a dimly lit corner, dimmer than elsewhere, Scott saw a
number of people fiddling with an array of computers and equip-
ment that looked surprisingly familiar. As he approached he
experienced an immediate rush of dja vu. This was the same
type of equipment that he had seen on the van before it was blown
up a couple of months ago. Tempest busting, he thought.

The group was speaking in German, but they were more than glad to
switch to English for Scott's benefit. They sensed his interest
as he poked around the assorted monitors and antennas and test
equipment.

"Ah, you are interested in Van Eck?" asked one of the German
hackers. They maintained a clean cut appearance, and through
discussion Scott learned that they were funded as part of a
university research project in Frankfurt.

Scott watched and listened as they set up a compelling demonstra-
tion. First, one computer screen displayed a complex graphic
picture. Several yards away another computer displayed a foggy
image that cleared as one of the students adjusted the antenna
attached to the computer.

"Aha! Lock!" one of them said, announcing that the second comput-
er would now display everything that the first computer did. The
group played with color and black and white graphics, word proc-
essing screens and spreadsheets. Each time, in a matter of
seconds, they 'locked' into the other computer successfully.

Scott was duly impressed and asked them why they were putting
effort into such research. "Very simple," the apparent leader of
the Frankfurt group said. "This work is classified in both your
country and mine, so we do not have access to the answers we
need. So, we build our own and now it's no more classified. You
see?"

"Why do you need it?"

"To protect against it," they said in near unison. "The next
step is to build efficient methods to fight the Van Eck."

"Doesn't Tempest do that?"

"Tempest?" the senior student said. "Ha! It makes the computer
weigh a thousand pounds and the monitor hard to read. There are
better ways to defend. To defend we must first know how to
attack. That's basic."

"Let me ask you something," Scott said to the group after their
lengthy demonstration. "Do you know anything about electromag-
netic pulses? Strong ones?"

"Ya. You mean like from a nuclear bomb?"

"Yes, but smaller and designed to only hurt computers."

"Oh, ya. We have wanted to build one, but it is beyond our
means."

"Well," Scott said smugly, "someone is building them and setting
them off."

"Your stock exchange. We thought that the American government
did it to prove they could."

An hour of ensuing discussion taught Scott that the technology
that the DoD and the NSA so desperately spent billions to keep
secret and proprietary was in common use. To most engineers, and
Scott could easily relate, every problem has an answer. The
challenge is to accomplish the so-called impossible. The engi-
neer's pride.

Jon, the Flying Dutchman finally rescued Scott's stomach from
implosion. "How about lunch? A few of the guys want to meet
you. Give you a heavy dose of propaganda," he threatened.

"Thank God! I'm famished and haven't touched the stuff all day.
Love to, it's on me," Scott offered. He could see Doug having a
cow. How could he explain a thousand dollar dinner for a hundred
hungry hackers?

"Say that too loud," cautioned the bearded Dutchman, "and you'll
have to buy the restaurant. Hacking isn't very high on the pay
scale."

"Be easy on me, I gotta justify lunch for an army to my boss, or
worse yet, the beancounters." Dutchman didn't catch the idiom.
"Never mind, let's keep it to a small regiment, all right?"

He never figured out how it landed on his shoulders, but Scott
ended up with the responsibility of picking a restaurant and
successfully guiding the group there. And Dutchman had skipped
out without notifying anyone. Damned awkward, thought Scott. He
assumed control, limited though it was, and led them to the only
restaurant he knew, the Sarang Mas. The group blindly and happi-
ly followed. They even let him order the food, so he did his
very best to impress them by ordering without looking at the
menu. He succeeded, with his savant phonetic memory, to order
exactly what he had the night prior, but this time he asked for
vastly greater portions.

As they were sating their pallets, and commenting on what a
wonderful choice this restaurant was, Scott popped the same
question to which he had previously been unable to receive a
concise answer. Now that he had met this bunch, he would ask
again, and if lucky, someone might respond and actually be com-
prehensible.

"I've been asking the same question since I got into this whole
hacking business," Scott said savoring goat parts and sounding
quite nonchalant. "And I've never gotten a straight answer. Why
do you hack?" He asked. "Other than the philosophical credo of
Network is Life, why do you hack?" Scott looked into their eyes.
"Or are you just plain nosy?"

"I bloody well am!" said the one called Pinball who spoke with a
thick Liverpudlian accent. His jeans were in tatters, in no
better shape than his sneakers. The short pudgy man was mid-
twenty-ish and his tall crewcut was in immediate need of reshap-
ing.

"Nosy? That's why you hack?" Asked Scott in disbelief.

"Yeah, that's it, mate. It's great fun. A game the size of
life." Pinball looked at Scott as if to say, that's it. No
hidden meaning, it's just fun. He swallowed more of the exqui-
site food.

"Sounds like whoever dies with the most hacks wins," Scott said
facetiously.

"Right. You got it, mate." Pinball never looked up from his food
while talking.

Scott scanned his luncheon companions for reaction. A couple of
grunts, no objection. What an odd assortment, Scott thought. At
least the Flying Dutchman had been kind enough to assemble an
English speaking group for Scott's benefit.

"We each have our reasons to hack," said the one who called
himself Che2. By all appearance Che2 seemed more suited to a BMW
than a revolutionary cabal. He was a well bred American, dressed
casually but expensively. "We may not agree with each other, or
anyone, but we have an underlying understanding that permits us
to cooperate."

"I can tell you why I hack," said the sole German representative
at the table who spoke impeccable English with a thick accent "I
am a professional ethicist. It is people like me who help gov-
ernments formulate rules that decide who lives and who dies in
emergency situations. The right or wrong of weapons of mass
destruction. Ethics is a social moving target that must con-
stantly be re-examined as we as a civilized people grow and
strive to maintain our innate humanity."

"So you equate hacking and ethics, in the same breath?" Scott
asked.

"I certainly do," said the middle aged German hacker known as
Solon. "I am part of a group that promotes the Hacker Ethic. It
is really quite simple, if you would be interested." Scott urged
him to continue. "We have before us, as a world, a marvelous
opportunity, to create a set of rules, behavior and attitudes
towards this magnificent technology that blossoms before our
eyes. That law is the Ethic, some call it the Code." Kirk had
called it the Code, too.

"The Code is quite a crock," interrupted a tall slender man with
disheveled white hair who spoke with an upper crust, ever so
proper British accent. "Unless everybody follows it, from A to
Zed, it simply won't work. There can be no exceptions. Other-
wise my friends, we will find ourselves in a technological Lord
of the Flies."