WHy Da WhOlE InTErNet DiDn'T WoRk oN sPETeMbEr 11, 1996

My hacker buddies and I were hanging out in the AOL chatroom on the 9th day of September. We had a room just for elite hackers like us, and we called it AOLHACKERS. The people who ran AOL were always bugging us not to create such channels, since they are ileegal, but we did it anywayz. We sate for hours being bored when one of my LeeT-BRoTHeRz (as we called each other) suggested that we try to CRASH THE WHOLE INTERNET. We all laughed madly. We started to work on an evil plot. The plan was this: We would send an annonymous email to AT&T and MCI, demanding to obtain 10 milion dollars in exchange for not crashing each of their networks. The 20 million dollar income would be split between the ten of us, giving 2 million to each person. It was the perfect plan. We started to collect many programs which would in case they were to fall back on the deal. One was a JAVA script which ran in the AOL Web Browser, one was a FORM, and one was a special program which interfaced to the internet directly. I don't want to talk about this one, because the programmer is in enough trouble as he is. (Thohz leet hackers know what i am talking about: PGP)

It was September 10. We ran our software for a full day. The software accessed AT&T and MCI communication satellites directly, and caudsed them to go into an infinite loop. The all day operation allowed us to access only 4 AT&T satellites and 1 MCI satellite. This cauded the internet to slowe down about 25%. Our normal 3K/sec speeds on the 28.8 we all owned only operated at 1K/sec. We intercepted lots of email passed through land lines and the remaining satellites concerning the slowness and some companies were even SHUT DOWN since their systems would not allow phone calls and long spanded computer networks for companies all around the world. We recieved a very harsh letter from both MCI and AT&T, claiming that they have the technology to track us down. If we didn't stop this non-sense, they would send the FBI after us. We brushed off the letter and send an even harsher letter, demanding 40 million dollars from each company. Several people in our hacker group resigned from the scam, and said in the frist place that they would never give such a large sum of money to anyone, and that we were at risk of being caught. A new hacker joined us, saying that he heard of what we were doing and wanted to help. Since several people left, we let him in.

On the 11th, we took out the remaining network satellites and landline systems. This caused TCP/IP traffic to a complete hault, except our packets and packets of those who we wanted in teh game. This would be our friends, AOL's very fast internet connection, and the MCI/AT&T offices to talk to us. there was no email sent to us this day.

On the 12th, the new hacker wanted everyone's mailing address, since he was going on a trip and wanted to send us all post cards. All the others have them out, and their phone numbers to call and let us know when he gets back. Before I gave him mine, I traced his internet connection with my AOL Web Browser. He was at the computer terminal with the IP address of 134.102.196.6. This was the IP address the FBI used in computer crime sting operations. He left the chatroom, and we all stayed on the modem.

On the 13th, the internet started working again. I joined our chatroom, and noticed that none of my friends were there. This never happens, since we all meet at the same times. To this day, I have never seen them again.

ELiTE AoL UsEr TRiBuNe
http://www.virii.org/users/commando/story1.html http://www.7thsphere.com/elite/story1.html