DnA 3-5: Essay by "Tao" (Term Paper) on Hackers
PUBLISHER'S NOTES: (Pazuzu) This is the unedited text of a term paper written by a user named "Tao", which is basically about myself, Arclight, and even DnA Itself. The actual text has not been changed, but comments have been inserted and are enclosed in square brackets ("[" and "]").
Ever since I managed to learn how to operate my modem I have been calling out to local Bulletin Board Systems and explore from the comfort of my home. Bulletin Board Systems are usually home computers that people leave on 24 hours a day running a particular software that allows other modem users to call in and leave messages to other users who call that board or send and receive files. This is one form of telecommunication, an industry that is growing exponentially as more and more people purchase home PCs and use the modem.
One day while I was doing a daily message run I ran into a new vocabulary word that I have never heard before. The word is phreak (MOTOWN L.A.). What the heck is a phreak? I asked around and found out that it is a form of abuse that certain pcs' users, particularly cyberpunks/hackers, do to get free long distance phone calls. I was also introduce to a whole new field of crimes. I found out just how rampant and destructive it is to companies that works in these industries such as software and telecommunications. I found out about a small group of anarchist out to change the [ ^^^^^ Small? Far from it my friend, we number in the thousands!]
whole industries.
I looked around for more information on this phreaking thing and discovered that phreaking is a federal crime that the phone industries say that it is causing them millions of dollars in damages each years. Phreaking is also closely relate to other computer crimes such as software piracy, cellular phone crimes, and [ ^^^^^^ Piracy a crime? Hardly.]
stealing secret information for other criminals. "Phones are to hackers what blood vessels are to Dracula" (Flanagan). Since most of these other crimes rely calling long distance that cost quite a that bundle to the criminals, phreakers who know how to get free calls or develop devices to get free, untraceable, phone calls are in hot demand.
Software pirates also phreak. To get copyrighted software around quickly to other pirates they must do modem transfer. Many couriers who ship these "new warez" around compete with one another to see who can get something on a Bulletin Board System first. This would require making many long distances calls to get a warez across country. Only by phreaking and depriving the phone companies of their payments for their services would these pirates [ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Excuse me, but since when does the phone company provide any "services"?]
be able to avoid the extravagant costs that they would have paid normally.
The Cellular phones services that companies such as AT&T offer is also harm by phreakers. These phreakers would get phone codes, mobile identification numbers (MIN) or electronic serial numbers (ESN) (Flanagan), from insiders who work for the companies and reprogram a cellular so that they can use that phone while the owners get billed. Then sell it to others such as drug dealers for a large sum. The drug dealers benefit because they would be able to call internationally to nations such as Colombia and pay less than they would normally be charge. The cellular phones are also very appealing to the dealers because their calls would be untraceable (Flanagan) by federal agencies because they never had to release their identity to the telephone companies.
Phreaking also allows cyberpunks to get onto networks either look around or crash the system and cause the networks to lose business, money, and time in trying to repair the damages. Private systems could also be hack and secret information copied and sold to others. An example of this is a hacker stealing an East German Stasi bomb recipe and selling it to a Turkish Mafia in 1989 (Flanagan). Another example is when a hacker from West Germany who broke into the US computer systems and stole vital secrets and sold it to the Soviet. Other cyberpunks crash academic networks such as the Internet that have access to Universities records and change their grades.
This makes me wonder if these cyberpunks ever have any feeling of guilt and regret about their destructive actions. With their intelligence minds they must also realize the destructive effect that they do to the telecommunication industries. I then conduct a few interviews to determine their motives and thoughts. Two of them I got from a Bulletin Board System, Digital Decay, set up as a central information center for other cyberpunks in this area. Using aliases to conceal their true identity they replied to my message in the same day I wrote it.
The first person that I interviewed goes by the handle Pazuzu. Pazuzu is a 22 year old programmer who has been modeming since 10. Pazuzu also is an old hand at phreaking. I then asked him if he feels guilty about ripping off the corporations. Damages to these corporations usually go up to the tens of thousands and sometime even millions. Pazuzu wrote, "No, not ever. Reason is that I am not hurting ANYONE. Sure it's true that maybe, somewhere, sometime I have a cut into the profits of some huge, nameless, faceless, emotionless corporation, but that's not the same as hurting a HUMAN BEING." With this attitude in mind Pazuzu continues to phreak without his conscious bothering him.
The next person that I interviewed goes by the handle of The Stainless Steel Rat. He is a hacker for 5 years since 7th grade. I also asked him if he feels uncomfortable after a phreaking spree. The Stainless Steel Rat replied, "Nope. Every thing is covered. The person I'm abusing loses nothing, as the phone company or insurance company covers it. My actions are of little value. GTE making billions for instance can easily brush off $1000 over a YEAR time span. Same goes with most LD carriers." This statement is similar to that of Pazuzu. The Stainless Steel Rat believes that he is not doing any damages to these companies because they are so big. He believes that he is helping people all over because the long distance charges are too high and if they were lower then phreaking would not exist.
The third person I asked was Arclight. He is the System Operator of Digital Decay. This person is more into anarchy and explosives but also phreak because he lacks funds to support his modeming hobby. Arclight hack to "satisfy my curiosity. Nothing angers me more than having things kept from me, the old 'You don't need to know that' crap. I feel that I do need to know, that's it's my duty to find out." The search for knowledge requires many long distance calls and phreaking become a necessary to avoid the bills..
These three cyberpunks have established a group called DnA [ ^^^^^ We are not a group.]
that stands for Death and Anarchy. They release computer text files in volumes like magazines. In it they described their goals to revived the hacking scene and get more people into phreaking. A field that went down a while ago when the government staged a series of bust that scared much cyberpunks underground. This magazine gives information on how to make different devices to phreak, rob a house, make bombs, ect (DnA). The phrase "Screw the Fedz" was written throughout the articles that included the opinions of the writers. One such type of devices to help phreaking is a red box. To make the red box you need to buy an auto dialer and a crystal with a certain type of tone. You then replace the crystal in the auto dialer with the new crystal, go to a pay phone and use the box on the receiver. The pay phone works by sending in different tones to the telephone company whenever a nickel, dime, or quarter are place into the coin receiver. The red box reproduces the same tone as the phone would if you were to drop a quarter. Play the same tone over and over for a minute or so would give the operator the impression that you have spent several dollars and enable you to make a long distance call for a while (Redbox.txt). To protect themselves from being trace even after they hang up, these cyberpunks also developed a way to send a surge of electricity into the phone lines to eradicate stop the tracer.
These cyberpunks usually have an anti-institution attitude and always looking for ways to disrupt it. This goes from phreaking to making bombs and threatening to blow up buildings. Some even believe that they can disable up an entire area code by sending in a large charge of electricity into the connections. They always want to learn new tricks on how to bypass security and the government. The telephone system becomes a tool for them to use to tap other computers therefor making phreaking a require tactic to avoid the cost that goes with this type of hobby.
These three cyberpunks that I have interviewed envision themselves as modern day Robin Hood out to crush the oligopoly that phone companies have. There are many companies not in the telecommunication industries that get hurt also. An example is a company subscribe a PBX code so that it's workers can call on company's business without having to pay the extravagant rates. The cost to the company is usually acceptable. However, cyberpunks would hack the PBX systems and steal the codes. These codes would sometimes be pass around or sold to others. These people would use this code to make calls all over the world. The company that subscribed to the code would get a bill that goes up to the millions as Toshiba got in 1991 (Barron's). While it is true that, by an act of Congress (Barron's), the company is not require to pay for these fraudulent bills, the cost and time wasted with all the paper works and sometime even lawsuits harm the company. This is devastating to a small, growing company with a low profit margin. [Nope. All they have to do is say "fuck you, I ain't payin' it."]
These types of damages are usually overlook by phreakers because they still believe that they are only hurting the large phone companies.
The FBI and security forces of corporations such as AT&T is trying to crack down on these high tech criminals without much success at curving the crime rate in this field(Brennan). [Yep. And they more they tighten their reins, the more of us that will slip through their fingers.]
Computer crimes are growing rapidly as we enter the information age and many turns to phreaking to solve their financial needs when they use the modem. This result in raids on computer users and Bulletin Systems and the confiscation of all computer equipment found. The agents did not return the computer equipment but kept as a warning to the cyberpunks and his friends. This strategy has many loop holes. A few innocent computer users that have not broken the law also suffer at the FBI ruthlessness. They suffer the loss of thousands of dollars of computer equipment. The FBI usually does not return the equipment unless these people take court actions against them and when the equipment is return it is usually at such a later date that it becomes out of date and quite useless. One such example is the Rusty & Eddie BBS bust. This board has been up for a few years and has over 100 phone lines and thousands of registered users. This board was raid because copyrighted software was found on the board. The System Operator and his assistance usually do not have time to check all programs that get uploaded by their users and sometimes illegal software gets overlooked for a short time before it is found and removed (Fedbust.txt). This bust result in the confiscation of almost half a million dollar of computer equipment and deprived the users who paid the registration fee access to the system until the operators finally brought court actions down and regain their equipment. The fight against computer crimes has escalated and the law has exercise their power excessively. This only gives the cyberpunks and anarchist more reason to fight the government and other large institution and seek ways to circumvent it.
A new age of information is approaching. Many believe that by the year 2000 computers will have infiltrate almost all American homes and telecommunication would become common. Banking and other business transaction would be done at home more frequently and even little children would be computer literate enough to use their as windows to the world. This new age also brings new crimes. The war on computer crimes is escalating and many innocent people, both the users and companies, are suffering. The software and the phone [ ^^^^^^^^^ Bullshit. Know your rights, or else you won't have any.]
companies lower the cost to the consumers or there would always be people willing to phreak and pirate.
