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- Hackers in The Mist
- by
- Roger Blake
- (e-mail: rblake@ripco.com)
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- December 2, 1994
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- Anthropology C99
- Independent Study
- Northwestern University
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- Abstract:
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- In this article I explore the culture of computer hackers.
- Through interviews and time spent with hackers, I have come to
- appreciate their respect for information. In this culture
- information is looked upon as the key to status, wealth, and
- power. Hackers use information to gain status within their
- group, and power over their environment. Whether in someone's
- head or on a disk, information is the means by which hacker
- society is stratified.
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- Table of Contents:
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- Abstract
- Table of Contents
- Forward
- The Project
- The Researcher
- The Target Culture
- Why Hackers Hack
- Who Are Hackers?
- Profile of a Hacker
- What Hackers do When they are not Hacking
- The Hacker Personality
- What Hackers Do
- System Hacking
- Packet Sniffing
- Password Guessing
- Phreaking
- The Blue Box
- The Red Box
- Hacking Without Using Machines
- Social Engineering
- Trashing
- A Closer Look at Status
- What is Elite?
- The Information Economy
- How do Hackers Become Elite?
- Conclusion
- Afterward
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- Appendix: Works Cited
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- Hackers in The Mist
- Forward:
-
- The Project:
- Welcome to the computer age! In the few short decades since
- the advent of personal computing, human lives (at least in the
- Western setting) have been changed dramatically. Everything from
- a short trip to the supermarket to a common telephone call is
- somehow involved with computer technology. Even this article,
- which a few short years ago would have been written by hand or on
- a typewriter, is being written with help from a computer.
- Computers are everywhere, and effect our lives in dramatic ways.
- Computers and information technology are being integrated
- into all aspects of the human experience. Communication on every
- level is being sped up due to the influence of information
- technology. Today, whole societies with rituals and
- cultures all their own are forming themselves with the aid of
- computers. Face-to-face interaction is no longer necessary for
- social interaction. In that sense, computers are even
- revolutionalizing the way that individuals interact in a cultural
- context.
- In an attempt to understand exactly how the information
- revolution is affecting human culture, I chose to study a
- culture which exists primarily on-line. This research project
- deals with hackers, the seedy underbelly of cyberspace. I have
- spent time around these people, both on-line and in person, and
- have seen what they are capable of. Not only are they one of the
- most potentially powerful "on-line cultures", but probably one of
- the most intriguing as well.
- I am an avid computer user. The machines themselves, with
- all their bugs and quirks, can be quite interesting. What can be
- even more interesting is how people interact with these
- "thinking machines." People react to computers in different
- ways -- sometimes fear and sometimes acceptance. In the
- case of hackers, the interaction with computers is so seemingly
- irrational that it is a puzzle unto itself. With my research, I
- sought to understand why it is that people would go to such great
- lengths to gain an elite level of technological proficiency. I
- ended up gaining a better appreciation for how the changing face
- of information effecting our lives.
-
- The Researcher:
- In a lot of ways, this project is a reaction to my previous
- experiences as an ethnographer. As part of the degree
- requirements for the Anthropology Department at Northwestern
- University, I studied a religious group not far from where I
- lived. Although they were very nice people, I never felt
- like I had all that much common ground with them. I was only
- nineteen at the time, and the median age for the individuals in
- that target culture was around fifty. To make matters worse, I
- had to overcome my natural shyness to talk to a group of people
- with whom I did not feel like I had anything in common.
- With the hackers, on the other hand, I already had some
- common ground. Like the hackers, I gain much pleasure from
- computer use, and consequently spend large amounts of time on-
- line. I was also the same age as many of the hackers I was
- studying. There was no menacing generation gap between me and my
- target culture this time. All and all, I felt generally more
- comfortable around this target culture.
- Of course, there is an added advantage for the shy
- researcher in studying "on-line" cultures. It is much less
- threatening to approach people within the friendly confines of
- cyberspace, then it would be in person. Doing fieldwork in
- cyberspace is well suited to my personality.
- Similarly, I am personally well equipped to deal with the
- digital universe. I am familiar with all major operating
- systems, especially including Unix. Many other researchers would
- have had to spend valuable time acquainting themselves with the
- subtle intricacies of computer manipulation. However, since this
- is what I do with my free time, I do not have to waste research
- time learning the my way around.
- Of course, another added attraction of this project is that
- it allowed me to bring together two parts of my life. In my
- youth, I spent many late night hours, in front of a computer
- screen, calling BBSes (computer bulletein board systems). This
- project has allowed me to integrate my admiration for digital
- communities everywhere with my study of anthropology. While
- doing this project I was allowed to be ananthropologist and a
- computer user at the same time. In many ways, it was almost like
- not doing work. I could bask in the digital landscape and get
- academic credit for it. What fun!
- I enjoy working with computers, so in that sense my personal
- equation was a benefit. However, I did have the typical
- preconceived notions of my sub-culture. I was presently
- surprised to find hackers much more friendly then I had expected.
- For the most part they are pleasant company. They were also
- generally less menacing then I had previously imagined. During
- the course of this project, I was only threatened once, and
- apparently not very seriously. The hackers I have had contact
- with were not the malicious sociopaths that one might expect. I
- was not sure what to expect from this target culture, but I was
- happy to find out that hackers can be very pleasant company.
-
- The Target Culture:
- During the course of this project, I was fortunate enough to
- spend time with a gang of hackers, concentrated in the Chicago
- area. They call themselves L0CK, which is an acronym for Legion
- of Codez Kidz (the 0 is intentionally substituted for an 'o').
- There are about ten members of this gang, all of whom I have at
- least spoken with.
- L0CK is not the only hacker gang populating the digital
- landscape, however, they were the only gang I had access to.
- Although I did have contact with hackers from other gangs, it was
- difficult to develoup a rapport with any other gangs. L0CK was
- in my hometown, and so was I. Developing a rapport took some
- time, and face-to-face interaction, which proximity allowed, was
- invaluable. Trust doen not come naturally to people who are
- doing illegal activities, and hackers are no exception. I do not
- think I could have gotten as good a rapport going with another
- gang without face-to-face interaction.
- For the most part, I am not aliasing hackers. In this
- culture, there is a custom of assigning oneself a handle. I
- am using the handles of my informants as opposed to aliasing
- aliases. Many hackers like to brag, so using their name in an
- article such as this, is, for them, just doing their bragging for
- them.
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- Why Hackers Hack:
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- For the most part this article will concern itself with
- hacker motivation. Why do hackers go through all the trouble to
- do what they do? Most people in society do not spend the time to
- break into computer systems. It does not have much appeal to
- them. Why then do certain people spend so much of their time and
- energy accomplishing these feats of technological wizardry?
- There are probably as many answers to that question as there
- are hackers (maybe more). It is important to realize that these
- people are individuals with their own hopes, fears, desires, and
- everything else that comes with being human. However, there are
- general patterns to the motivation behind the computer hacker's
- drive to manipulate technology. The problem of hacker motivation
- is probably one of the more interesting questions concerning this
- sub-culture.
- In order to put hacker motivation into an intellectual
- framework, I fell back on some basic anthropological theory. Max
- Weber believed that social stratification was based on three
- factors: wealth, power, and prestige (1922). Although having one
- of these factors does not necessarily entail having the other
- two, it does help.
- Weber's tri-partite system is very useful for explaining
- social status. However, in the 'computer age' it would almost be
- necessary to make some sort of addendum. Information is a very
- real part of the system that Weber presented. Hackers use
- information in order to get wealth, power, and prestige.
- Hackers rarely use information to gain wealth. This is not
- considered socially acceptable. As Sarlo reminded me in an
- interview, carding (using stolen credit card numbers for profit)
- is "poisen to the underground," and "doesn't make you a hacker,
- it makes you an idiot (Sarlo 1994: 12)." They do, however, use
- it within their group to stratify themselves. Hackers with the
- most information gain the highest prestige within the community.
- They also gain a great deal of power from that information. Most
- people can not cancel the phone service of those who upset them.
- To a truly proficient hacker, this is not a very difficult
- problem. Hacking involves the accumulation of knowledge, which
- is accompanied by the greater status and power.
-
- Who Are Hackers?
- Who exactly are these techno-wiz kids who could potentially
- have our technologically dependant civilization by the throat?
- Where did they come from, and how did they get to be that way?
- Could my son or daughter be a hacker? In order to understand
- this culture, it is important to consider who hackers are.
-
- Profile of a Hacker:
- One of my informants lent me a book entitled Information
- Warfare, by Winn Schwartau. He did not seem to have much regard
- for most of the contents of the book, but he pointed out one
- chapter in particular, which he believed had some truth to it.
- That chapter presented two profiles of a hacker, one from the
- hackers point of view and the other from the point of view of a
- clinical psychologist (Schwartau 1994: 196).
- According to the hackers with which Schwartau had contact,
- hackers tend to share certain characteristics in common. They
- are mostly male, between the ages of twelve and twenty-eight.
- Most are highly intelligent, but never did very well in school.
- Also, according to Schwartau, hackers consider themselves misfits
- and misunderstood. They have a history of dysfunctionalism in
- their families, and finally, they have trouble getting dates.
- From what I have seen of hackers, and my informants agree, this
- profile, is not very far from the truth.
- The youngest hackers I met were in high school, maybe
- fourteen or fifteen. It is hard to get any real information out
- of hackers, but this much is difficult to hide. The oldest
- hacker I met was, at least, in his late twenties. By his own
- admission, this is quite old for a hacker. Most hackers this old
- tend to move on, as has the relatively old hacker I spoke with.
- The hackers I met in person tended to be in there late teens and
- early twenties.
- Hackers in general, tend to come off as being quite
- intelligent. To get any sort of respect as a hacker, technical
- proficiency has to be demonstrated. Intelligence is almost a
- prerequisite for being a successful hacker. Hackers deal with
- technology, and it's manipulation. The successful manipulation
- of technology, or even people, by its very nature takes quite a
- bit of intelligence. Hackers seem to be, and most likely are, a
- very intelligent group.
- Although hackers are intelligent, it is interesting to note
- that very many of them are not university educated. Many of them
- do have some university background, but overall, a surprising
- number of them are self taught. Bloot commented that, "most
- hackers don't think that college has anything to offer them
- (Bloot 1994: 2)."
- As far as the family life of a hacker is concerned, it is
- really hard to say with any certainty. No one ever mentioned, to
- me any family problems. However, instances of abuse or other
- domestic problems are seldom discussed with prying outsiders,
- like ethnographic researchers. In an interview, DataPimp said "A
- lot of hackers lost control over their lives when they were kids.
- Not to many had control over their own lives. They found refuge
- in a place where they had total control [computing] (Datapimp
- 1994: 4)."
- Hackers are quick to identify themselves as a group which
- does not have the best social skills. In a usenet post
- advertising a hacker meeting there was a very appropriate quote
- which illustrates this aspect of hacker identity. The post read
- "Bask in the STUDLYNESS of untanned, skinny malnutritioned and
- socially maladroit computer hackers - LIVE!" This quote was of
- course, meant as a joke, hackers do seem to believe this about
- themselves.
- Although, hackers characterize themselves as 'socially
- maladroit' I did find them pleasant company. It is hard to
- believe that any group with that poor of a set of social skills
- would ever accomplish anything by means of social engineering.
- Although there are undoubtably some hackers with poor social
- skills, this is not always the case. Of course, from a
- researchers stand point, this is hard to evaluate. Most people
- who suffer from shyness are not going to try to make any kind of
- impression on a researcher. It is possible that the great
- majority of hackers are extremely 'socially maladroit,' and that
- I only met the out going ones.
- Hacking seems to be a predominantly white teen-age male
- phenomenon. I have met several hackers in person, and all of
- them have been of European descent. I might have met hackers of
- other races while on-line, however one of the most prominent
- features of IRC is that no one can see anyone else. I have been
- told that there are hackers of other races, but I have not met
- any. There does not seem to be any reason why hacking should be
- a uniquely white phenomenon. There just does not seem to be an
- abundance of minority hackers.
- One very surprising fact, was the abundance of female
- hackers. Although, all the hackers I met were white, a
- significant portion, about ten to fifteen percent, were female.
- Female hackers are a minority, but they do exist. This was very
- surprising to me, because most people do not think of women as
- getting involved in anything computer related. Fortunately,
- women are making advances in all facets of our society, and
- hackerdom is no exception.
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- What Hackers do When They are not Hacking:
- Almost no one hacks professionally. There are a few hackers
- who eventually become security consultants, and get to hack for a
- living. However, this fate is reserved mostly for either the
- most accomplished hackers or the most indited. Very few members
- of the underground are hackers primarily. In many ways it is
- kind of like a hobby.
- Although there are instances of companies hiring hackers to
- beef up their own security, this is relatively rare. What is
- even more rare, is when a company will hire hackers for corporate
- espionage. Although these events make for exciting fiction,
- reality, unfortunately, is rarely that interesting.
- Most hackers work in the computer field either as a part of
- a company, or more commonly as a freelance consultant. Since
- hacking requires a great deal of technical proficiency, and that
- very proficiency is quite a marketable trait. Hackers are very
- employable people when they are not accomplishing some
- technological feat of wizardry.
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- The Hacker Personality:
- Schwartau presents hackers as suffering from some sort of
- "clinical narcissistic personality disorder (Schwartau 1994:
- 196)." Although this might be a component of certain hackers'
- personalities, this is an uneasy generalization of what hackers
- are like, as well as their motivation. However, it is generally
- possible to put hackers into two very opposite groups, the
- paranoid, and the talkative. This is more of a spectrum in which
- individual hackers might fall, then an actual grouping. For the
- most part, all the hackers I had contact with would fall
- somewhere in between these two extremes.
- Paranoid hackers have some very good reasons to be paranoid.
- Not only does their own government want them stopped, but several
- of their friends could destroy their lives with little or no
- effort. Trying to keep ahead of the FBI, the Secret Service, and
- most of all, your own associates, can get rather taxing, and
- paranoia is an understandable result. A very talkative hacker,
- who calls himself Guido Sanchez had this to say about paranoid
- hackers, during a tape recorded interview:
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- There are paranoid hackers out there, like a couple people that
- we know, that are so paranoid about giving out their real
- information. Like when I say... They are fun to have fun with.
- "Yeah, hey who are you doing, Mr. Smith, hahaha, of 666
- Psychopath." They get really freaked out. Once you realize, I
- could care less if you knew my real information because, I mean
- as long as you knew how to react to it. Talkative hackers, on
- the other hand, are wonderful for interviewing. Talkative
- hackers love to brag, and the curious researcher is an all too
- willing outlet for that bragging (Sanchez 1994: 8).
-
- What Hackers Do:
- According to Guido Sanchez, hacking is "using your knowledge
- of usually technology, sometimes people, and human nature. It's
- using your technology to get things that no one else normally
- could (Sanchez 1994: 1)." Hacking any sort of system, whether it
- is electronic or social, results in the hacker gaining some sort
- of control, and therefore power, over that system. Knowledge of
- how a system functions is converted into power over that system.
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- System Hacking:
- For the most part, computer hackers gain unauthorized access
- into computers running Unix. The reason for this is simple.
- Most mainframe computers, which are accessible either by modem or
- network run the Unix operating system. The fact that Unix is so
- widely used makes it's own downfall. Many people use Unix,
- therefore many people have knowledge of it. That knowledge can,
- of course, be used to manipulate the system, and even take it
- over.
- There are several means of gaining control over a computer
- system, and several more are being discovered every day. As
- individuals learn more about Unix, more and more security holes
- are uncovered. Every day, hackers come up with a new ways of
- turning information (knowledge) into control of a computer system
- and the power with people invest in it.
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- Packet sniffing:
- One of the easiest ways of gaining acces to a computer is to
- do what is known as packet sniffing. This procedure involves
- listening to data transmissions and logging the interesting ones
- to a disk. On any computer network, such as The Internet, when
- data goes from one computer to another it has to pass through
- several other computers as well. Hackers will often use software
- to listen for key strings of characters such as 'login:' or
- 'password' and use that to collect passwords.
- Any time someone uses telnet to login remotely into a
- computer, their password is vulnerable. I have seen packet
- sniffing logs and can honestly say that this is a safe and
- effective means of collecting people's passwords. No account is
- secure, unless it is never accessed (and even then it is not very
- secure).
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- Password Guessing:
- Once a hacker has access to a system they will often try to
- decode the password file. In Unix the password file is kept in
- the '/etc' directory. In most modern Unix systems the passwords
- are shadowed. What that means is that the password is not kept
- in the actual password file, but is hidden somewhere else. This
- is only a problem to the novice hacker.
- More advance hackers will often try to copy the password
- file by using the send mail port on Unix (port 25). This port
- does not have any security on it, because it is expected to
- receive file transmissions in the form of e-mail from any
- computer on earth. I do not quite understand how this works, but
- I have seen hackers use this port to capture a shadowed password
- file.
- Once a password file, or a copy of it, is obtained, it is
- mostly useless in it's raw state. Passwords are encrypted in a
- very complicated way, which makes them impractical to decode by
- conventional means. This is where password guessing comes into
- play.
- Software packages such as Crack and CrackerJack, will go
- through password files and try to guess people's individual
- passwords. Password guessers employ large dictionary files,
- which are multi-megabyte lists of words. The words compared
- against the encrypted password file until matches are made. Once
- the program makes a match, it is logged, and the hacker has
- access to yet another account.
- Roger Safian, security 'expert' for Northwestern University,
- has run password guessers on his own system and had good results
- (Safian 1994: 1). According to Safian, he managed to gain the
- passwords for over two thousand accounts in under one weekend.
- Actual hackers I have spoken with have also affirmed the relative
- merits of password guessing software.
- Protecting one's self from password guessing is very
- difficult. The word lists that password guessers draw from are
- so exhaustive as to encompass several different languages. The
- best thing to do is not to chose a word or combination of words
- as a password. Combining letters with numbers also helps, but in
- the end, there is not much that can be done. A good password
- guesser, run long enough, will try every alpha numeric
- combination. The only thing a user can hope for is to have a
- password that the hacker will give up on before it is guessed.
- Password guessing can take a long time with odd passwords.
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- Phreaking:
- In modern Western culture, the telephone is relied upon. It
- is so much a part of every day existence, that it is only noticed
- by it's absence. The various phone companies who regulate this
- institution have a great deal of power and influence over our
- lives (not to mention influence with law enforcement agencies).
- There is a wealth of power available to those who have the
- knowledge to manipulate the telephone system.
- Phreaking is the practice of intentionally misusing, from
- the phone companies perspective, telephone technology. Although
- phreaking is practiced by most hackers, unlike other hacks, it
- does not, for the most part, destroy the illusion of privacy in
- America. However, it is a form of hacking that is widely
- practiced, and very intriguing to anyone who has gotten really
- high phone bills.
- Most phreaking is done with what are called boxes. A box is
- any means by which phreaking is accomplished. Usually, a box is
- some sort of gadget which is inside a literal box, but this is
- not always true. The beige box, which is a procedure, is the
- only box which is not an object.
- Boxes are differentiated from each other by descriptive
- adjectives, which are usually colors. Usually, the boxes get
- named after what the first one looked like, or what the inventor
- chooses. The first blue box, for example, was blue, and the
- chasse of the first cheese box originally held cheese.
-
- The Blue Box:
- This is an old favorite of phreakers everywhere. This box
- used to be very popular with college students, especially at
- technical schools. As a matter of fact, Steve Wosniak and Steve
- Jobs, were originally in the business of making and selling blue
- boxes while still in college. Fortunately, they have since moved
- on to more reputable aspects of the computer industry.
- This box allows the user to make free phone calls anywhere
- in the world, from any phone in the United States. It uses a
- system of tones to trick the telephone system into letting the
- user seize trunk lines. Trunk lines are large phone lines from
- which all the individual phone lines stem from. Once a trunk
- line is seized, out-going phone calls can be made with no one to
- bill them to.
- A blue box emits DTMF tones, which are the same tones which
- are heard when dialing a normal phone. It also emits another
- tone, whose frequency is 2600hrz. This tone is what actually
- allows the user to make free phone calls.
- Using a blue box is relatively simple. First, pick up the
- receiver of a phone and dial a toll free number (any number in
- the 800 area code). United States law requires these numbers, as
- well as directory assistance, to be accessible from any public
- pay phone. While the phone is ringing, play the 2600hrz sound
- into the receiver. This will make the switching equipment think
- that you have hung up the phone. Do not really hang up the
- phone, or you will have to start all over.
- At this point, you have control over a trunk line, and you
- can use the other tones on the blue box to dial the number you
- are trying to reach. The billing equipment will not keep notice
- this call, because the 2600hrz tone is the same tone that the
- switching equipment uses to signal an end of a call. As far as
- the billing equipment is concerned, you have already hung up the
- phone!
- Be warned about the safety of using blue boxes. In the past
- few years, most RBOCs (Regional Bell Owned Companies) have taken
- steps to monitor blue boxing. Although, blue boxes still 'work,'
- the calls made are also logged by telephone company computers.
- The phone company will know the general area from which the call
- was originated and also the number which was dialed. Telco
- security officials check these logs, and will question anyone who
- receives telephone calls that were blue boxed. Either stay away
- from blue boxes, or only call people who have very short
- memories.
-
- The Red Box:
- The red box works specifically on pay phones. Each time a
- coin is put into a pay phone that phone relays an acoustic signal
- to a telephone company computer. Pay phone use sounds to tell a
- computer how much money has been deposited into it. A red box,
- emulates those tones thus fooling that computer into thinking
- that the user has deposited money into the pay phone.
- Like a blue box, the red box produces tones which must be
- played into the receiver of the telephone. This box is very
- simple to use. Simply, pick up the phone play the correct amount
- of tones into the receiver, and dial. Unlike a blue box, this
- box can only be used from a pay phone. Although this may be
- slightly inconvenient, it is a generally safer method of
- phreaking.
- Red boxes are similar to use, as well as make. Radio Shack
- sells 'pocket dialers' which can be easily modified into red
- boxes. Personally, I find it a bit hard to believe that anyone
- buys pocket dialers for any other purpose. Why would anyone need
- to buy a device which allows push button phones to be dialed? In
- any case, a look inside one of these devices will give an
- indication as to how easy they are to modify. All that has to be
- done is replace the quartz crystal (which is conveniently placed
- all by itself for easy access) with a 6.5535 megahrz crystal.
- If one chooses to use a modified Radio Shack pocket dialer,
- just press the '*' key to emulate a nickel being deposited. To
- emulate a dime press that same key twice, and to emulate a
- quarter press it five times. If pressing a key so many times is
- inconvenient, remember that radio shack has provided a memory
- function in their auto dialers. Instead of pressing the '*' key
- five times in rapid succession, just program one of the phone
- numbers as '*****' to emulate a quarter.
- Red boxing is a relatively safe and easy means of phreaking.
- However, at this point in time, phone companies are taking
- measures to make red boxes useless. Pay phones, called phortress
- phones, do not accept tonal input from the receiver unless the
- proper amount of money has been deposited. Of course, unscrewing
- the receiver and touching a piece of metal to the ends of the
- speaker there will take care of that problem (that measure was
- used in the movie War Games, however, the film makers left out
- the part about the red or blue boxes). Also, phone companies are
- starting to introduce payphones that differentiate between real
- coin tones and red box tones.
-
- Hacking Without Using Machines:
- Social Engineering:
- Social engineering is the practice of conning people. For
- the most part people are manipulated in order to gain information
- or some sort of access. This is a highly valued skill amongst
- hackers, and a quite useful one as well. Instead of performing
- some near super-human feat of arcane Unix trickery, it is often
- times easier just to ask someone for their password.
- A surprising amount of critical information can be gained
- from conversations with people. Most tech-support personal, for
- example, do not expect to have hackers on the other end of the
- phone. A clever hacker can impersonate a frustrated user and get
- such information as dial-ups and publicly accessible logins. To
- most users, this information is relatively benign. However, to a
- certain portion of the computer literate population, this
- information can be used to gain control over computer systems
- and the data with which they are entrusted.
-
- Trashing:
- Another way of gaining valuable information, and the power
- that goes with it, is by trashing. Trashing is the practice of
- going through another's refuse in order to gain information.
- Hackers actually get together in groups and go through people's
- dumpsters. I can personally vouch for the effectiveness of this
- means of information gathering. L0Ck allowed me to participate
- in a trashing session, and I was amazed as to what people were
- willing to throw out (Field Notes 1994: 5).
- The hackers and I set out to go trashing at around 9:00pm on
- a Friday night. The trash in question belonged to local Internet
- provider, called XYZ Communications (an alias) located in
- downtown Chicago. There were about ten hackers and myself, and
- it took us about a half hour to sift through an entire dumpster.
- Much to my surprise, we found several users passwords which
- had been written down and discarded. Even more shockingly, we
- found many credit card numbers of subscribers to this Internet
- provider. Apparently, XYZ Communications has a subscribe by fax
- service whereby the subscribers are asked to fax in their credit
- card numbers. Once these faxes are processed they are discarded,
- and hackers, or anyone else, can come by and gather a slew of
- credit card numbers with expiration dates. For me, this
- experience was a rude awakening. How many people had I given my
- credit card number to, and who had it now? All of this was very
- unsettling, and proved the power of trashing as a means of
- information gathering.
- The hacker gang I was with was compiling the credit card
- numbers for a prank against XYZ Communication. They were trying
- to alter the XYZ's computers so that when subscribers were looked
- up by someone using the finger command in Unix, a message would
- displayed about the relative safety of subscribing to XYZ. Along
- with that message, the the subscriber's type of credit card and
- expiration would also be displayed.
- The hackers with which I have had contact, considered a
- prank a worthy use of credit information. Although manipulation
- of credit card data for personal gain (called carding), would
- seem to make sense as a hack, this is not socially acceptable in
- this sub-culture. Carding is the reason behind most hacker
- arrests and is considered to be very foolish. The secret service
- is willing to overlook a surprising amount of hacking, but no law
- enforcement agency is willing to overlook a credit card thief.
-
- A Closer Look at Status:
-
- Since this article is about hackers being motivated by a
- drive towards high status, it becomes necessary to examine that
- high status itself. In order to understand what hackers are
- working towards the folk term elite must be understood.
-
- What is Elite?
- Elite was initially a code word for underground computer
- bulletin boards. As Guido Sanchez, hacker and operator of an
- underground bulletin board, said, "I guess the code word for a
- pirate bulletin board would be an elite bulletin board. You call
- up and you would say 'hey, can I have elite access?' You know,
- 'cause I guess they suspected that law enforcement wouldn't know
- how to say 'elite' in a new user application (Sanchez 1994: 1)."
- Back in the earlier days of underground BBSing (calling up
- computer bulletin boards), elite was synonymous with the illicit
- activities which would occur in the confines of certain bulletin
- boards. If someone were to ask for elite access, they would be
- asking for access to illicit sections of bulletin boards.
- The Golden Era of Hacking has long since passed on.
- According to Datapimp it lasted from 1984 to 1988 (Datapimp 1994:
- 8). Although BBSing is still a popular pastime, especially
- amongst hackers, the term elite is no longer primarily associated
- with illicit activities. According to maxEpoo, an elite hacker,
- the term elite now is "a synonym to "cool" more or less (maxEpoo
- 1994: 2)." He also went on the explain that elitness is "a
- combination of status and how good you are at what you do
- (maxEpoo 1994: 2)." In this sub-culture people are judged,
- ideally, on their technical proficiency. If you want to be
- considered 'cool' in hacker social circles it is necessary to be
- somewhat technically proficient. Elitness is therefore dependant
- upon technical proficiency.
-
- The Information Economy:
- In hacker circles elitness is measured by the amount of
- knowledge one has. Knowledge, which is all too easily turned
- into power, is also, in the case of hackers, turned into status.
- An elite hacker is one who possess a great deal of knowledge.
- This knowledge is either in their head or in the form of computer
- data.
- Since knowledge is seen as the key to elitness (high
- status), it is very highly valued. So much so, in fact, that an
- information economy has developed on-line. This is how Guido
- Sanchez, who operates his own Bulletin Board described the
- information economy:
-
- "It's a commodity system, with the pirates, with the adult text
- file people, with the virus community. I mean, I had a board
- called Nun-Beaters Anonymous, which is still up, that had all
- these viruses on it for free, and usually you would have to get a
- hundred file points, which is basically, you upload something,
- you get so many file points. A hundred file points was supposed
- to be a lot, and then you get to download a virus. That's how it
- was on most boards. So many people took advantage of that. I
- mean they just downloaded three hundred viruses from my board and
- then just put it up on their own board, and I just completely
- flooded the market. And most local boards still have the
- original NBA package of viruses. I think even Ripco did that
- with text files. And it turned into such a commodity market.
- Most people don't even read the text files. They say 'oh yeah,
- there's that new text file,' and they don't even read the thing.
- They just use it as commodities to show how elite they are
- (Sanchez 1994: 6)."
-
- Hackers realize the value of information, and they go to
- great lengths to possess it. Whether it be sifting through
- someone's trash (trashing), or risking your freedom by trying to
- break into government databases. Information is of such great
- value to these people that an economy of information has
- developed. Sarlo echoed the above sentiment by saying, "Yeah,
- and basically, if you look at money, that's all that money is is
- information. It is a unit of information, so you know 'OK, so
- I'm this rich...' It's basically a conceptual (Sarlo 1994: 6)."
- It is not very difficult to see parallels to the information
- economy in other aspects of life, apart from computing. For
- example, as a college student, I pay a great deal of money for
- the privilege of obtaining information. My tuition is, in
- essence, a monetary sum attached to the quantity and quality of
- information I am supposed to obtain. Data can be given a
- monetary value and be traded like any other commodity.
-
- How do hackers become elite?
- Elitness is an acquired status. Elitness is a knowledge and
- the technical proficiency which comes with it translated as
- status. This technical proficiency has to be demonstrated in
- some way or another in order for an individual to be considered
- elite. A hacker must some how acquire a knowledge base and then
- demonstrate this knowledge to his or her cohorts.
- Usually, knowledge of general computer related subjects is
- picked up the same way non-hackers might learn it. Hackers learn
- about computers through books, classes, and personal
- experimentation. Knowledge of hacking, in particular, comes from
- other hackers, either through conversation or text files traded
- on bulletin boards. Hackers usually get that knowledge by
- experimenting or by asking other hackers. Chanda Lier, for
- example, being a female got others to give her hacking
- information quite easily. According to an interview in Phrack (a
- hacker magazine) "She was dumbfounded, and being female, there
- were 30 guys on the conference ready and willing to provide her
- with information as to origins of loops, conferences, boxing,
- etc. Scott (Hack-Man) later filled her in on the rest, gave her
- more numbers and such and that's where it [her career in the
- computer underground] all began (Phrack 23)."
- Hackers are often unwilling to give advice to those who are
- not already technically proficient. MaxEpoo described his rise
- to elitness by saying, "initially, when I first started, I got
- mine [elitness] from bullshitting people into believing I was
- already a very good hacker/whatever. Eventually people got word
- and I just moved up from there... I was actually very out of 'the
- know', but I got inside info from people who thought I was
- 'elite' or cool (maxEpoo 1994: 2)" As in the cases of maxEpoo
- and Chanda Leir some social engineering (either in the form of
- feminine wiles or social engineering) was required to get more
- knowledge.
-
- Conclusion:
- Hackers want to become elite. Everyone wants high status,
- and in hacker culture high status is measured by the amount of
- information one has. Since, in this culture, information is the
- key to status, and information is also a means to get power (the
- old adage knowledge is power is very true in hacker circles), an
- information economy has developed. Hackers trade information in
- hopes of getting more information and thus becoming more elite.
- Elitness/high status is based in information.
-
- Afterward:
-
- Hackers hack for a variety of different reasons. They are,
- after all, human beings with all the personal baggage that goes
- with that status. Not all hackers are alike. Some hack for
- prestige, some for intellectual curiosity, and some for reasons I
- probably cannot imagine. Intentional Misuse, for example,
- expressed that his hacking is much more "passive" then that of
- most hackers (apparently some hackers are into machismo) (Misuse
- 1994: 1). With regards to his own hacking, Guido Sanchez said,
- "There's somethings that I'll hack for. I'll hack for women; I'll
- hack to get inside a girl's pants, but I won't hack for America,
- ok? Now, I'm not exactly sure why that is... (Sanchez 1994: 2)"
- MaxEpoo compared his own hacking to playing a sport, except that
- people "don't get arrested for playing most sports (maxEpoo 1994:
- 3)." Hackers are human beings, and although I have tried to
- express their hacking as a prestige/power/wealth gaining
- enterprise, it is important to realize that hackers have their
- own reasons.
- Although elitness a part of hacker culture, it is far from
- being the only thing. Computer technology has sped up
- communication so much that cultural history can now travel at the
- speed of light. As Datapimp said "it's hard to do write anything
- on us cause we can literally change from day to day (Datapimp
- 1994: 7)." Hackers have lightning fast communication at their
- finger-tips. By the time pen meets paper, or even fingers meet
- keyboard, any ethnographic data is pretty much out of date.
- Hackers, when I knew them, were a really good example of how
- data can be translated into status, power, and wealth. They used
- their knowledge to get status in the form of prestige from other
- hackers. They also used their knowledge to get power over their
- environment (hacking systems that normally have power over most
- people, like the phone system). Finally, knowledge was even able
- to be translated into money with lucrative consulting jobs. Not
- only is knowledge power, but it can also be prestige and wealth
- too.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
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-
-
-
-
- Works Cited
-
-
- Blootin
- 1994/11/25 interviewed by Roger Blake, at Willard Hall
-
- Datapimp
- 1994/11/12 interviewed by Roger Blake, on IRC
-
- Intentional Misuse
- 1994/12/1 interviewed by Roger Blake, at the 3rd Coast Cafe
-
- maxEpoo
- 1994/11/30 interviewed by Roger Blake, on IRC
-
- Phrack Magazine
- 1989/2/25 Issue 24, available via
- ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/CuD/Phrack
-
- Safian, Roger
- 1994/10/26 interviewed by Roger Blake, in his office
-
- Sanchez, Guido
- 1994/10/16 interviewed by Roger Blake, in Burger King
-
- Sarlo,
- 1994/10/16 interviewed by Roger Blake, in Burger King
-
- Schwartau, Winn
- 1994, Information Warfare, Thunder's Mouth Press
-
-
-