Phoenix Rising BBS/phoenixrising.zip/phoenixrising/misc/mob.txt

Text File | 1992-03-04 | 9KB | 176 lines

 <-> Hackers in the MOB <->


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     According  to Schmidt,  the dollar amounts are only part  of
the story,  GTE Telemail,  an electronic mail system,  was broken
into  by  at least four gangs of hackers,  he says.   "They  were
raising hell.  The system got shut down one time for a day.  None
of these people have been charged,  nor have any of the 414s been
charged yet.

     "We have a major problem with hackers, phreaks and thieves,"
says  Schmidt,  who  estimates that 75% of criminal  hackers  are
teenagers  and  the other 25% are adults using  teenagers  to  do
their dirty work for them.

     "Adults are masterminding some of this activity.   There are
industrial  spies,  people  playing  the stock  market  with  the
information- just  about  any  theft or fraud you can do  with  a
computer.   There  are no foreign agents or organized crime  yet,
but it's inevitable," he says.   "I believe there are some people
out there now with possible organized-crime connections.

     "It's an epidemic.   In practically every upper-middle class
high school this is going on.   I know of a high-school  computer
class  in a school in the north Dallas suburbs where the kids are
trying  everything  they  can  think  of  to  get  into  the  CIA
computers."

     "It's  a  strange culture," says SRI's Parker,  "a  rite  of
passage  among technology-oriented youth.   The inner  circle  of
hackers say they do it primarily for educational purposes and for
curiosity.   They  want to find out what all those computers  are
being used for.   There's a meritocracy in the culture,  each one
trying to out do the other.   The one who provides the most phone
numbers and passwords to computer systems rises to the top of the
hackers.

      "For  the most part it's malicious mischief,"  Parker says.
"They rationalize that they're not really breaking any laws, just
'visiting' computers.   But that's hard to believe when they also
say  they've got to do their hacking before they turn 18 so  they
don't come under adult jurisdiction.   After 18,  they have to do
it vicariously through surrogates.   They are some grand old  men
of  hacking who egg on the younger ones...  There have been  some
cases  of  a  Fagin complex- a gang of kids led by  one  or  more
adults- in Los Angeles."

      Who are the hackers and what secret knowledge do they have?

     A 17-year-old youth in Beverly Hills,  California, announced
himself  to  other  hackers  on a bulletin  board  in  this  way:
"Interests  include  exotic  weapons,   chemicals,  nerve  gases,
proprietary information from Pacific Telephone..."

     Prized secret knowledge includes the two area codes in North
America  that have not yet installed electronic switching  system
central-office  equipment.   Using this information you can  call
those  areas  and  use  a blue box to  blow  the  central  office
equipment,  and  then call anywhere in the world without  charge.
Other  secret information lets you avoid being traced when you do
this.

     A  knowledge of the phone systems lets hackers share one  of
the  technological  privileges usually available  only  to  large
corporate customers: long-distance conference calls connecting up
to  59  hackers.   Schmidt  estimates  there are  three  or  four
conference calls made every night.   The hackers swap more inside
information during the phone calls.

     Thanks  to packet-switching networks and the fact that  they
don't have to pay long-distance charfus,  time and distance  mean
almost nothing to hackers.  Desktop microcompters hook into phone
lines  via  modems  make it easy to obtain  copyrighted  software
without human intervention.

     "Software piracy exists only because they can do it over the
phone long distance without paying for it," Schmidt says.   "some
stuff  gets sent through the mail,  but very little.   There  are
bulletin  boards  that exist solely for the purpose  of  pirating
software.   A program called ASCII Express Professional (AE  Pro)
for  the  Apple  was  designed  specifically  for  modem-to-modem
transfers.  You can make a copy of anything on that computer.  It
can be copyrighted stuff- WordStar, anything.  There are probably
about  three  dozen  boards  like  that.   Some  boards  exchange
information on breaking onto mainframes.

     "In 1982 the FBI really didn't know what to do with all this
information,"  Schmidt says.   "There isn't a national  computer-
crime  statue.   And  unless there's  $20,000  involved,  federal
prosecutors won't touch it."

     Since then, the public and federal prosecutors' interest has
picked  up.   The  film War Games and the arrest of 414 group  in
Milwaukee  "created a lot of interest on Congress and with  other
people," FBI instructor Lewis says. "But, for ourselves it didn't
really have any impact."

     "We'd been providing the training already," says Jim  Barko,
FBI  unit  chief  of  the EFCTU (economic  and  financial  crimes
training  unit).   He says public interest may make it easier  to
fight computer crime.   "There are more people interested in this
particular  area  now as a problem.   War  Games  identified  the
problem.   But  I think it was just circumstantial that the movie
came out when it did."

     Despite  the help of knowledgeable informants like  Schmidt,
tracking  down hackers can be frustrating business for  the  FBI.
SRI's  Parker  explains  some  of the  pitfalls  of  going  after
hackers:  "Some  FBI  agents  are very  discouraged  about  doing
something  about  the hacking thing.   The cost of  investigation
relative  to the seriousness of each case is just too  high,"  he
says.   "Also, federal regulations from the Department of Justice
make it almost impossible for the FBI to deal with a juvenile."

     An FBI agent cannot question a  juvenile without his parents
or a  guardian being present.   The FBI  approach has been mostly
to  support  lhe local police because local police are  the  only
ones who can deal with juveniles.   Another difficulty the agency
faces is the regulations about its jurisdiction.

     "There  has  to  be  an attack on  a  government  agency,  a
government contractor or a government-insured institution for the
FBI to have clear-cut jurisdiction," Parker says.

     The FBI gets called into a case only after a crime has  been
detected by the complaining party.   The FBI has done a generally
competent  job of investigating those crimes it was called in  to
investigate,  in Parker's view.   But the federal agency's job is
not  to  help  government or financial  institutions  attempt  to
prevent  crimes,  nor is its function to detect the crimes in the
first place.

     "We're  not  out detecting any type of crime,"  says  Lewis.
"We   like  to  think  we  can  prevent  them.    We   can   make
recommendations.  But  do  we detect bank robberies or  are  they
reported  to  us?    Or  kidnapping- do  we  detect  those?    Or
skyjacking?   There must be some evidence of crime,  a crime over
which  the  FBI  has jurisdiction.   Then we open a  case."   And
despite the spate of arrests and crackdowns last summer, it looks
like the FBI will have its hands full in the future:  The hackers
have  not  gone  away.   Like mice running  through  the  utility
passages  of  a large office building,  they  create  damage  and
inconvenience,  but  are  tolerated  as long  as  their  nuisance
remains bearable.

     That status could change at any time, however.

     Meanwhile,  little  electronic "sting" operations similar to
Abscam keep the element of danger on the hacker's game.   An  Air
Force  telephone  network  called AUTOVON  (a  private  telephone
system  connecting  computers on every Air Force installation  in
the  world),  was reportedly cracked by a hacker last last  year.
The  hacker  published  lists of AUTOVON dialups  on  a  bulletin
board.

     The  breach  came  to the attention `oo  the  Department  of
Defense on late 1983, but apparently nothing was done to stop the
hackers.   Then, in January, the AUTOVON number was answered in a
sultry  female voice.   We wish to thank one and all for allowing
us  to make a record of all calls for the past few  months.   You
will be hearing from us real soon.  Have a happy New Year."

     That's a New Year's message calculated to give any hacker  a
chill.

-End of file-

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