Terry Olsen wrote:
The hacker handle thread is pretty interesting. But what evil
things has anyone done? I can tell you about a couple of mine...
I was tempted to divulge some of my past hacker-day activities in the
"What was your handle" thread, but decided not to. But since you've
started this.. sure, why not..
Actually, now that I've gone through this personal history, I recall
now that my handle was MAD MAX for a little while in the beginning. I
then went by the handle "TELE-HACKER", which I chose because I did a
lot of hacking on TELENET.
This is a bit long, but it's all true as best I can remember it. A
couple things I'd like to say first...
ONE - Although I did a lot of hacking, I was not malicious. I had a
policy of being passive once I was in. Others that I knew WERE
malicious, and would start deleting disk packs and would continuously
spool "You have been hacked!" messages to all the printers. I guess I
wasn't quite that dumb, and that policy saved my ass on several
occasions.
TWO - I was stupid for doing a lot of this crap. I hope you don't hold
it against me now. Except for the two college stunts, I stopped
hacking and phreaking at age 18 (early 1988). By that time, I knew I
was lucky and I decided it was best to quit while I was ahead. And I
was damn lucky on several occasions. Things could have gone a lot
worse.
... It all started when I got a used Hayes MicroModem II ...
* Phreaking
After I installed the Hayes MicroModem II in my Apple //e, I started
calling BBS's, many of which were long distance. That first month, my
dad got a $600 phone bill. I quickly discovered phreaking from the
BBS's, and my parents never got a long distance charge again (from me,
anyways.) A little later, I got an AppleCat modem, and wrote my own
war dialers. Yes, the movie "Wargames" was a big inspiration. I
recall watching the movie constantly with one particular friend (or at
least playing it while we banged on the Apple keyboard.) Anyhow,
MetroPhone was the target of choice, as their access codes were only 5
digits long. The program was pretty simple - dial the MetroPhone
access number, enter a random 5-digit code, then dial a telenet access
number. If the code was good, then the call would go through and the
modem would get a carrier detect from the telenet system. Save the
code to a file and continue. I recall that I could get at least 2 or 3
new codes by letting that run overnight. (I was lucky enough to have
my own phone line, by the way..)
* Retaliation Virus
Similar to your "virus" program, I did the same thing. A friend of a
friend wanted to borrow my disks so he could copy them. I will refer
to him as "Mr.IDIOT" (he appears a couple more times below.) I was
pretty reluctant and I didn't really care for the guy, but my friend
and him begged, etc, so I finally gave in. I lent him my collection.
Several days later I wanted it back. I went over to his house to find
that my disks were all over the floor, out of their sleeves. I
collected them up and returned home. Turned out that about half of
them were unreadable. Some bent, some with fingerprints on the media.
Man, that made me mad. I mean, I really wanted to hurt the guy.
Avoiding my impulse to physically hurt him, I wrote a program that
would wipe all disks on the system when it was run. I got him to
download it off a BBS I was running, and he did run it. That was about
as much damage I did in retaliation. But as luck would have it, his
own stupidity would catch him later - see "The CIA" below.
* Crashing BBS's
There were only a couple times where I had the impulse to crash a BBS.
Honestly, I don't even recall the circumstances now. But I programmed
two types of programs to do it. The more complex was a program that
would connect and continuously create new user accounts until their
disk was full (remember, many BBS's ran off a pair of floppy disks).
The more simple program, but usually quite effective, was to simply
connect to the BBS and then start sending all the ascii codes $00 to
$FF continuously. Quite often, that would crash the BBS.
* Dumpster Diving
This was an activity I shared with a couple people. For the most part,
it was an exercise in the collection of credit card receipts. At one
point, I had a collection, but I never tried to use them. One friend I
knew, did try. He ordered some expensive piece of computer equiptment
and had it mailed to a house near his. This was during the summer, and
he timed it so that the package arrived when the neighbors in question
were not home. He then collected the box at night. I think he only
did it once, but at the time it was something I wasn't prepared to try.
* The Source
I had another friend that was a little strange. For example, he didn't
do drugs but he would tell me about how he would basically choke
himself (restricting blood to his head) while he held his breath. A
strange guy, but he was good at heart and was into Apple II's, but not
so much into programming. He liked getting on to "The Source" service
to have "hot chats" with others. He would adapt to be the opposite sex
as the person he was chatting with, though he did prefer to chat with
females at the other end. We used trial logins to get access The
Source and then would chat with someone. We programmed some macro's
into Proterm to send text strings like "SYSTEM ERROR: You were
disconnected. Please re-enter your account name" then "Please re-enter
your password" if they complied to the first prompt. Then we would say
"Hello? you still there? I got disconencted." or something like that
to try and play down what just happened. We got quite a few people to
fall for it, and got free account/passwords out of it.
* The FBI
Me and quite a few others in my area were adept at phreaking and
getting new codes. One day a message appeared on a local BBS that said
a new long distance company was available, gave some access numbers and
a few valid codes to use. It quickly became used by quite a few. I
forget the name of the "company", but it ended with "Star" if I recall.
Like "TeleStar" or something like that. After a couple months, and I
recall using it somewhat, I got a call from a friend. It was the very
last day of school, too. Summer break ahead. On the phone, my friend
said "Dude, I got home and there were FBI agents at my house. They
took my computer, all my disks, everything. They had a clipboard with
names on it, and yours was on it." When I asked him "What? Why are
they getting you?" he told me "TeleStar was fake. It was a sting
operation set up by the FBI to catch phreakers." I about crapped my
pants. I felt that sinking feeling in my gut, and I started to erase
all my phreaking disks. But nothing happened. No agents arrived at my
house. Apparently, they decided to make examples out of a few and did
not persue the entire list of offenders. I was lucky. That was the
day I stopped phreaking. My friend was pretty visible/high-profile in
our high school, as his father was a teacher there. My friend was
fined $5000 and didn't get his computer back for a year. I remember
him saying "Thank god they didn't find the credit cards", a collection
he had from late night dumpster diving. Yeah, good thing they didn't
find that.
* Walden (Free) Software
This was terrible and out-right theft. Sometimes you can be pretty
stupid as a teenager, and, on some occasions, I was no exception.
During the 80's, Walden Books opened up a chain of software stores
called "Walden Software". I applied and got a job at a Walden Software
store in our town. As a side note, I recall a man in his 40's who came
in a lot. I was told that we were not to sell him anything. Turned
out that he had purchased lots of software (not games, but the more
expensive stuff like Microsoft C, Turbo C/Pascal, Excel, etc) but
always returned it for a refund. They noticed that he had returned
EVERYTHING he purchased. They concluded he was copying it and getting
his money back. Anyhow, I was aquainted with some other kids at the
time, whom I met over BBS's, and invited them to visit the store for a
little 5-finger discount. I was told by the manager that *TWO*
employees have to witness a theft in order to confront the customer
about it. But on weekends it was usually just me and this manager
woman in the store. Next, I had my friends come into the store and I
acted like I did not know them. The manager walked out to go to the
bathroom and was gone for a good 5 minutes. I handed a couple Walden
Software bags to the guys and they went around stuffing it with all
sorts of software (Turbo C, games, and some other expensive software
packages.) They then walked out of the store with the bags stuffed. I
recall nearly crapping my pants because my friends were walking out of
the store at the same time the manager lady was coming back. They
walked right past each other, but I don't think the manager really
noticed the bags. If she had, I'm sure she would have really suspected
something. There was a ton of software/boxes in them. Probably one or
two thousand dollars worth. Anyhow, we got away with it. I met up
with the guys later that night, at a local park, and they had their car
trunk filled with software packages. I took my share and that was
that.
* TELENET
I don't know if they are still around these days, but Telenet was/is a
packet-switching network owned by GTE. They had local access numbers
across the USA. You would connect and get an "@" prompt. There were
basically two options from there. One was to enter "mail" to get into
the mail system, the other was to enter "C####" to connect to a
computer (#### is a number, where the first three characters were the
area code of the system.) For example "C2031" was the first system in
area code 203 (Connecticut). Sort of like a domain name, but it was
just a number. But they weren't all nicely numbered starting from 1.
Perhaps "C20396" would be the first one to connect to a computer in the
203 series. If not computer was connected, Telenet would send a "No
system at that address" error message (or something similar to that..
it's been a while). So I wrote a program that would connect and try
addresses in each area code. If it didn't get an error message, my
program would log the "welcome" message, that was displayed by the
remote system, to disk. Usually it was an identification of the system
(VAX/VMS, PrimeOS, etc) followed by a login prompt. I had also
discovered a lot of "default" passwords for getting into these systems,
like username/password "field" and "service" for getting into VMS
systems. (They were supposed to be changed after a system was
installed, but often they were not - and they had full admin
privledges!) We got into many systems that way. One special one was a
system owned by Black & Decker. It was cool because they had a "dial
out" program on their system that could be used to call other
computers! We called BBS's all over the country with it, and Black &
Decker picked up the tab! That lasted for several months (we didn't
noticibly abuse it), until "Mr.IDIOT" found out about it Within a few
days of his abuse, it was noticed and we were shut out.
Besides Black and Decker, I recall a VMS system we got into that turned
out to be part of a Hospital system. We sent emails to the admin
saying that we had broke into the system and that we would be happy to
help them increase security. We actually got a reply and they seemed
somewhat amused, at least initially, and did not shut us out right
away. But it was probably just another day or so and we were kicked
out. They patched the default field/service login and we hadn't
created any new accounts on that system.
As I said before, when you connect to telenet you can type in "mail" to
get into the mail system. You get a login prompt, and you can enter
the username and password "phones" to get into a national directory
listing of all the telenet access numbers. So one day I was sitting at
that mail login prompt and started entering random words for the
username and password. Cars/cars, houses/houses, people/people.. Boom-
people/people got me into People Magazine's email account. Some
writers would email their stories to them for publication. We thought
about modifying some stuff, to see if it ended up in the printed
edition, but we didn't. We read email and checked in on it now and
then for a period of several months. Then "Mr.IDIOT" got wind of it
and started using it. Mr.IDIOT decided that it would be a good idea to
do something stupid, true to his form. That leads into the next
story....
* The CIA
There I was, sitting (ironically enough) in computer class. As I was
sitting at a VT-220 terminal, a message popped up on the screen "Chris
- Report to the principal's office immediately." Huhhhh??? What could
this be about? I went to the principal's office and was met by a
couple police officers and two men from the CIA. "Please come in" one
of the CIA agents said. In the office was a little couch and table,
and on the table was a printout with some parts highlighted in yellow.
"What do you know about this?" I was asked. I looked at the printout
and started reading. Uh huh.. Telenet.. mail.. people's mail account.
A bomb threat, mentioning our high school. Nice. I looked up,
starting to get scared, and immediately came clean with them. "This is
people magazine's account. I was the one that got into it, but I
didn't write this message. But I know who did." I pointed, without
much remorse at all, to Mr.IDIOT. He left school that day in handcuffs
and I never saw him again. From what I heard, after the incident, his
parents put him into a private school for delinquint kids. As for me,
I never heard from the CIA again. They probably left me alone because
(A) I wasn't the person they were looking for, and (B) I basically
solved their case on the spot. They were only interested in the bomb
threat. That was basically the day I stopped hacking. Though, if you
keep reading, you'll notice that I did do a couple "stunts" in college.
When I later told this story to some friends, they were a little
incredulous that the CIA was involved. As I understood it, the CIA was
involved because it was a bomb threat and it was over state lines.
(People magazine, who reported it, versus our high school, in a
different state.) Whether or not that's why, I don't know - but it was
the CIA that showed up. In investigating it, the CIA was just being
methodical about it. Our high school was mentioned in the bomb threat,
so that's where they went. They talked to the principal and asked her
"Who in this school is capable of doing this?" The principal appealed
to the current high-school senior student in charge of the computer
room (a new one each year, and no, after this, I wasn't picked!). He
gave them a list of people he thought had the ability, and my name was
first on the list. Case closed.
* Breaking into the college computer...
Well, it was more taking advantage of an opportunity than actually
breaking in. I entered college in the fall in 1988. I quickly became
friends with a set of students that were good programmers. We all knew
who the "real" programmers were and who were the "Script Kiddies" (as
they might be called today.) One of my friends got into college at age
14 on a math scholarship, and is quite bright. I'm still friends with
him.. Anyhow, one of these friends worked as a teachers assistant and
computer lab monitor. I had already told him about some of my earlier
hacking stories, so he knew I was (at least) somewhat good at it. One
day, late afternoon, he called me from the computer lab. "Chris, Mr.
xyz left his account logged in. Do you know what to do?" (I won't use
Mr. xyz's real name, but he was an employee of the school's data
center.) "Yeah, I'll be right there." I said. When I got there, sure
enough, the guy left his account logged in. It was a VAX/VMS system
and Mr xyz had admin privledges. So I entered "SET DEFAULT/PRIV=ALL"
to get all privs, then proceeded to create a new admin account called
"kudos". Then I logged Mr. xyz out. It was basically for fun and to
see how long it took the admins to find and disable the account. We
would usually dial in remotely to check the account, or sometimes we
would go to a terminal (never the same one we were just using) and
login quickly to check it. We were very passive with it, because we
knew that if for some reason we did get caught, it wouldn't be as bad
as if we were actually up to "bad" things (like trying to get into
grades, deleting things, etc.) We had the account for a good six
months before the crap finally hit the fan.
It was about the middle of the Spring '89 semester when the fan was
hit. I was in the computer lab one evening doing some programming.
(Side note: I was warned a few times about CPU usage - I liked to write
Cellular Automata simulators and I would run them at night, fully using
one of the two CPU's on the system. I had it queued to start each
night and save/stop in the morning.. Heh..) At the end of my
programming that night, I logged out and went to another terminal
across the room. I think there was only one or two other people there
at the time, probably around 8pm. I logged into the "kudos" account to
see if it was still there. It was. I hardly logged into it that much
anymore. After I logged out, someone I had never seen before came into
the room. He was in his 40's, heavy set, with a beard. He walked
right up to me. "Are you Chris?" he asked. "Yeah..." I said, sort of
confused. "Please come with me." he said. We went to his office in
the data center, through one of the doors I never saw used before.
Like I said, I never saw this guy before, but it turned out he had a
Ph.D. and was the director of the data center. He proceeded to tell me
that he had detected the account when it was created but wanted to find
the culprit(s). He wrote software to log and analyze all the
logins/locations and correlate them to other student logins and
locations. Eventually, he narrowed the list of names down to me. As I
think about it, there wasn't a lot of students that dialed in to access
the system, but I was one of them, and the kudos account was accessed
that way too. That probably narrowed down the list quite a bit. Then
he probably noticed that the kudos account was usually accessed shortly
after my account logged out. Anyhow, he had me.
"Do you know the seriousness of this offence?" he asked me. No, I
didn't really know.. "You can be expelled from the school." he said.
Then I was surprised at his next line of questioning. "Who helped you
do this?" and "How did you get in?". Turned out that he did not
beleive, initially, that I was even capable of doing what was done.
That annoyed me a little, so I started telling him things like "It's
easy. I used to do it all the time in high school." then I told him
the story and the commands I used to do it. He had a hard time
beleiving me, but I told him that we had a PDP-11 in our high school
and it's all right there in the manuals. I think he was looking for a
deeper conspiracy than it was. Anyhow, whenever I get caught, I tend
to come clean with "the authorities" and not lie or be deceptive. They
usually appreciate that and tend to go easier on you than if you try
and lie and/or misdirect them. So me and my friend were caught. What
next?
Luck was on our side (or my friends, really.) My friend was well liked
by the faculty and they saw me as a promising student getting A's in
all math and computer classes. If they expelled me, they would have to
expel my friend too. One math teacher in particular stood up for us
and saved our asses. In the end, we were not expelled. We had to do
"community service" in the form of going to all the computer and math
classes and give a lecture on the importance of keeping your password
secret, not letting other people use your account(s), and ALWAYS ALWAYS
log off the system when you're done. Ya, we were lucky. We basically
got a slap on the wrist. Our saving grace was that we were completely
passive with the acocunt. We didn't try deleting things, getting into
other students directories, or trying to get into grades, etc. If we
had, we probably would have been kicked out of college.
* The last hack ...
My last hack was in college. At that time, I was using a 386/20 PC and
my dad used the Apple //e back at home for word processing. I wrote a
new war dialer in Turbo C and started scanning all the phone numbers in
our college town. There were a few systems that I got into, but
nothing exciting. Except for one. I found a VAX/VMS system with the
default accounts (Field/Service) open. I got in. Turned out it was
the local cable company. I played around with it for a few days,
exploring the system. At the time, I was living in a house off campus
with 5 other guys, on the third floor of a big house. It was actually
6 seperate rooms with a common hallway and bathroom. Most of us ate on
campus. Sometimes we played cards ("set back") into the wee hours of
the morning. Most of us, too, were into computers and programming.
One guy found out about the cable company login I had. He asked if he
could play around with it. He seemed like a half decent guy and I gave
him the phone number and login. As it turned out he was not the
passive type. This guy went into their system and started deleting
everything in sight. It didn't bring the system down, but it did cause
some problems. After he did it, he banged on my door to wake me up,
and told me what happened and that he was disconnected. When he tried
calling back, someone was picking up the phone. So he decided to go
down a couple streets and call the number from a payphone. He called
and some guy answered, but didn't say anything. He could hear
breathing, though. So he let the payphone receiver dangle and walked
away, saying he hoped that if any traces were done, it would lead to
there and not his own phone line. I recall the cable company
advertising some sort of Wrestling special to be broadcast about a week
from then. That wresting special was postponed, and I am pretty sure
it was because of what he did. As a side note, I also remember finding
a program on the system that would let you enter text to be
displayed/scrolled at the bottom of the TV screen for any particular
channel. But it was password protected itself, and I couldn't figure a
way into it. Probably for the best, because that would be VERY
tempting to use.
Well, that's what I remember..
// CHRIS