DnA 4-10: History of the Underground
Introduction
Hiya folx, I would like to congratulate you for picking up this most humble copy of DnA. Anywayz, you might be wondering what this nifty article is all about. Well, since DnA is mainly concerned with bringing back the H/P scene, I thought it would be nice to write an article that explores the roots of it all, starting from the very beginning of the scene, up until today. Now, I am certainly no expert in the field of H/P, but it is weird what one can find right in their public library... for both the novice or expert H/P, I'm sure you'll find this article informative and very stimulating to read (And if you don't think so, then my hat goes fuckoff to you)
Chronology
1865
- U.S. Secret Service (USSS) founded
1876
- Alexander Graham Bell invents telephone
1878
- First teenage males flung off phone system by enraged authorities
1939
- 'Futuerians' science-fiction group raided by Secret Service
1960
- The appearance of the Captain Crunch whistler which produced the 2600-cycle tone used in payphone phreaking
1961
- First known instance of theft of LD telephone service in which engineers discovered a Blue Box
1971
- Yippie phone phreaks start YIPL/TAP magazine (Youth International Party Line/Technological Assistance Program)
- Esquire magazine published the article 'The Secrets of the Little Blue Box' in October, the first account of phreaking in a mass- circulation publication
1972
- Ramparts magazine seized in blue-box rip-off scandel
1978
- Ward Christensen and Randy Seuss create first personal computer BBS
1982
- William Gibson coins term 'cyberspace'
- '414 gang' raided
1984
- Congress passes Comprehensive Crime Control Act giving USSS jurisdiction over credit card fraud and computer fraud
- LoD (Legion Of Doom) formed
- 2600 magazine founded
- Whole Earth Software Catalog published
1985
- First plice 'sting' BBS established
- Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link computer conference (WELL) goes on-line
1986
- Computer Fraud and Abuse Act passed
- Electronic Communication and Privacy Act passed
1987
- Chicago federal prosecutors form Computer Fraud and Abuse Task Force
1988
- July - Secret Service covertly videotapes 'SummerCon' hacker convention
- September - Prophet cracks BellSouth AIMSX computer network and d/l's E911 Document to his own computer and to Jolnet
- AT&T Corporate Informationn Security informed of Prophet's action
- October - Bellcore Security informed of Prophet's action
1989
- January - Prophet u/l's E911 Document to Knight Lightning
- February 25 - Knight Lightning publishes E911 Document in Phrack
- May - Chicago Task Force raids and arrests Kyrie
- June - NuPrometheus League distributes Apple Computer proprietary software
- June 13 - Florida probation office crossed with phone-sex line and switching-station stunt
- July - Fry Guy raided by USSS and Chicago Computer Fraud and Abuse Task Force
- Secret Service raids Prophet, Leftist, and Urvile in Georgia
1990
- January 15 - Martin Luther King Day Crash strikes AT&T long-distance system nationwide
- January 18-19 - Chicago Task Force raids Knight Lightning in St. Louis
- January 24 - USSS and New York State Police raid Phiber Optik, Acid Phreak, and Scorpion in New York City
- February 1 - USSS raids Terminus in Maryland
- February 3 - Chicago Task Force raids Richard Andrews' home
- February 6 - Chicago Task Force raids Richard Andre's business
- USSS arrests Terminus, Prophet, Leftist, and Urvile
- February 9 - Chicago Task Force arrests Knight Lightning
- February 20 - AT&T Security shuts down public-access 'attctc' computer in Dallas
- February 21 - Chicago Task Force raids Robert Izenberg in Austin
- March 1 - Chicago Task Force raids Steve Jackson Games, Inc., Mentor and Erik Bloodaxe in Austin
- May 7-9 - USSS and Arizona Organized Crime and Racketeering Unit conduct Operation Sundevil raids in Cincinnati, Detroit, LA, Miami, Newark, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Richmond, Tucson, San Diego, San Jose, and San Francisco
- May - FBI interviews John Perry Barlow re NuPrometheus case
- June - Mitch Kapor and Barlow found Electronic Frontier Foundation; Barlow publishes Crime And Puzzlement manifesto
- July 24-27 - Trial of Knight Lightning
1991
- February - CPSR Roundtable in Washington, D.C.
- March 25-28 - Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference in San Francisco
- May 1 - Electronic Frontier Foundation, Steve Jackson, and others file suit against members of Chicago Task Force
- July 1-2 - Switching station phone software crash affects Washington, LA, Pittsburgh, San Francisco
- September 17 - AT&T phone crash affects New York City and three airports
(This was taken from The Hacker Crackdown)
Fun Fact: Did you know that Steve Wozniak, one of the original founders of Apple computers, started his career by manufacturing blue boxes?
Now
‹‹ ‹
› fl‹ fl‹flfi›
€ fi›€flfl‹ ‹fl fl‹€
€‹‹fl € fi›‹fl fl›Presents
PHREAKERS/HACKERS LEGEND & LORE <PART 1>
Ok, well, since the extent of this article is far to great to complete in one text file (besides the fact I'm to fuckin lazy), I'll be writing part two of this in the next issue of DnA. Anywayz, this is what I'll be covering in this first half:
- A brief overview of the Underground, how it all started, etc.
- Early founders, frontiersmen, fathers, etc. of the Underground
- And any other stuph I decide is interesting
Credits & Disclaimers
Well, as you might already know, neither I, or any other person out there could store all this shit in their head without dying first. So logically I got the info from some books I checked out from the library and some text filez I grabbed off some boards. Maybe you'ld care if you knew I plagiarized some stuph or maybe you wouldn't. To tell you the truth, I wouldn't give a fuck if you did. But I think it would be unfair to those people who want to read the original sources for further enjoyment, so here is a list of books and text files I leeched my info from:
Mungo, Paul "Approaching Zero"
New York: Random House, 1992
Sterling, Bruce "The Hacker Crackdown"
New York: Bantam Books, 1992
Landreth, Bill "Out of the Inner Circle"
Washington: Microsoft Press, 1984
The Jolly Roger's Cookbook v3.0
Phrack Magazine Æ---ø
√-- All issues are good reading
2600 Magazine Æ-----Ÿ
Becuz this file contains absolutely NOTHING illegal it in, I would like to give a message to any government officials trying to fuck with me... Good Luck Mutherfucker!!! Muhahahahahaha....
The History
Ok, enough bullshit, here's how it all went down. Back in the early sixties, in a time of hippies, marjiana, and anarchy, the first traces of the UG (Underground) were established. Members of the original UG were bent on liberating technology from the controls of state and industry. Since then, things have changed, and even the term UG has lossed it's meaning. I've frequently heard people refer to ]<-rAd warezzZZzz d00dz as part of the UG. No, these people are wrong. These people may be part of THEIR UG, but they are not part of the real UG, the H/P one.
Contrary to belief, the UG did not begin with computers and 300 baud modems, but instead with a fad that later became known as phreaking - a jumble of the words freak, phone, and free. Phreaking back then was simply a pastime, nothing more than screwing around with Ma Bell for free LD calls. Phreakers had been carrying on their clandestine underworld for almost a decade, forming an UG community of electronic pirates long before the American public had ever heard of them. As you can see, that was probably the major difference that seperates the old UG with the new one. The original UG was exactly what it tried to be, secret. Nowadayz, almost any Christams modemer could by a 19.2 modem, get on all the ]<-rAd boards out there, d/l a couple of text filez that teach them how to phreak, and then go and brag about their experiences to other lamerz on their PD boards. I must admit, I DO call some PD boards becuz of active message subs, but like Pazuzu mentioned in DnA issue 2, Cyberpunks and PD do not mix... there is no end to this atrocity.
The Phreakers
One of the legends surrounding the first phreaker, or certainly one of the oldest, to publicise his knowledge was said to have been a guy under the handle of Mark Bernay. Bernay traveled up and down the coast of California, posting stickers in phone booths, inviting everyone to share his discovery of the mysteries of loop-around-pairs. Bernay himself found out about loop- around-pairs from a friendly telephone company engineer (find out more about these loop-around-pairs on your own time) And according to Bell Telephone Co, the first known incident of theft of LD telephone service by and electronic device was discovered in 1961, after a local office manager in the company's Pacific Northwest division noticed inordinately lengthy calls to an out-of-area directory-information number. When some of their engineers went to investigate, they found what they described as "a strange-looking device on a blue metal chassis" attached to a phone, which they immediantly dubbed a blue box (For more interesting reading on the blue box, try looking for an article called "Secrets of the Little Blue Box" in the October 1971 issue of Esquire, I doubt you'll find it, but don't hesitate to try)
NOTE: Mind you, the color of the boxes were only incidental, and there are no definite definitions for each. What may be a Blue box in California, could be a Red box in New York, and vice versa. If you really are interested in these things, just call your favorite H/P support board. They will more than likely have plenty of filez on this subject available for d/l.
Joe Engressia, the original whistling phreak, was blind, and was able to produce perfect 2600-cycle tones simply from his mouth (If you don't know what a 2600-cycle tone does, pleaze don't worry, I'll explain them at the end of this article) When he was eight, he was accidentally introduced to the theory of multifrequency tones, though he didn't realize it at the time. While listening to an out-of-service tape in Los Angeles, he began whistling and the phone went dead. He then tried it again, and the same thing happened. He phoned his local office and asked why he is disconnected when he whistles. The engineer explained to him about something known as talk-off, a phenomenon that happens occasionally when someone begins whistling and accidentally hits a 2600-cycle tone. This causes the line to think that the caller had hung up, and cause it to disconnect. Joe didn't understand this then, but within a few years, he probably knew more than the engineer.
Well, one of Joe's friends at that time was probably one of the most famous phreakers known today. Almost everybody has heard of the man called John Draper, better known as Captain Crunch. His handle represented the cereal, which at one point in the late 1960's, had included a tiny plastic whistle in each box that could be use to phreak calls.
NOTE: The potential of the little whistle was said to have been discovered purely by accident... something fairly common in the UG. The toy was tuned to a high-A note that closely reproduced the 2600-cycle tone used by Bell in its LD lines. Kids showing off their new toy to someone in another city would sometimes find that the phone went dead, which caused Bell to spend a few weeks looking for the source of the problem.
Becuz most phreakers at that time taught themselves to program in some kind of computing language, they had a legitamite skill that they exploited into their life. Even C. Crunch wrote software for the Apple II. At the time, in 1979, he was charged on a second phreaking offense and sent to Northampton State Prison in Pennsylvania. While on a rehabilitation course that allowed him access to a computer he developed a program called EasyWriter, one of the first wordprocessing packages, which for a short time became the second best-selling program in America. He went on to write other applications, marked under the "Captain Software" label.
Well, that about wraps up some of the earlier phreakers of that time. The next part of this article will focus on some more phreakers and hackers of more recent times, along with the origin of LoD and other P/H groups. If you have any complaints or suggestions, mail me at Digital Decay. Ok, well, I hope you learned something you didn't know before, and even if you didn't, at least you only wasted 20 minutes of your time...
kriME 'rD
Greets
Arclight - For running the ]<-rAdest H/P board!!! =)
Avatar - Nice chatting with you... even if you were confusing...
Nighthawk - kill the group... it's officially DEAD
Dark Avenger - so, how's PLASM?? Hahahahaha...
…-----------------------------------------------------------------ª
| (714)871-2057 Digital Decay BBS (714)871-2057 |
| Bringing you the finest in Information |
| 340 Megs/ 15+ Megs textfiles/ 1000+ virii |
| Virii/Nags/Hack/Phreak/Etc |
| Call Now! |
»-----------------------------------------------------------------º
…-[ General System Info ]-------------------------------------------------ª
| |
| Name: DnA Systems, Inc. |
| Number: 714-646-9180 @ 0.3 thru 14.4 kbps |
| |
«-[ System Operators ]----------------------------------------------------∂
| |
| Pazuzu > Owner, Founder, SysGod |
| Lestat de Lioncourt > Partner in Crime, VIColumn Evangelist |
| Vandal > Chaos Magician, Occult Area Curator |
| |
«-[ Affiliations ] -------------------------------------------------------∂
| |
| DnA Electronic Magazine World Distribution Headquarters |
| The Sixth Column World Headquarters |
| CyberCrime International Network SoCal Region Coordinator |
| Platinum Network 714 Area Hub |
| |
Ã-[ Information Archived ]------------------------------------------------π
«-[ The Sixth Column InfoLibrary ]----------------------------------------∂
| |
| Literally THOUSANDS of Files of Info On: |
| |
| * The Law - What it REALLY means and how to use it to YOUR advantage |
| |
| * Radio Frequencies - You name it - we have it! |
| |
| * Government Atrocitites - Info on all kinds of serious abuses by |
| Governement agencies such as the BATF and the IRS |
| |
| * UFOs - MJ-12, Area 51 (Including GIFs!), much other UFO info |
| |
| * The Kennedy Assassinations |
| * The Philadelphia Experiment |
| * The Waco Massacre |
| |
| * Several issues of "The Connector" |
| |
«-[ Underground InfoLibrary ] --------------------------------------------∂
| |
| Large Collection of Utilities: |
| |
| * Hackers * Scanners * Tone Generators |
| * Dialers * All-in-one Kits |
| |
| Text Files On: |
| |
| * Phreaking * Hacking * Carding / Scams |
| * Anarchy / Destruction |
| |
| Magazines, Newsletters, InfoJournals: |
| |
| * Phrack * LOD/H * P/HUN |
| * BIOC * VAS * Computer Underground Digest |
| |
| Virus / Trojan Info: |
| |
| * 370+ Live Virii / Source Code |
| * Construction Kits |
| * Text Files: 40-Hex, Crypt Newsletters, Phalcon/Skism Guides, |
| more, more more... |
| |
«-[ Occult InfoLibrary ]--------------------------------------------------∂
| |
| Rapidly Expanding Occult InfoBase: |
| |
| * A. Crowley - HUGE Collection of Crowley's Works |
| * Liber KKK (Chaos Magick) |
| * Discordian Theories |
| * Temple ov Psychick Youth (T.O.P.Y.) |
| * MORE! |
| |
«-[ Technical InfoLibrary ]-----------------------------------------------∂
| |
| * Full MCC Linux Distribution On-Line |
| * Plenty of Linux Apps / Utils / Info / Etc |
| * Lots of Internet Info On-Line |
| |
Ã-------------------------------------------------------------------------π
| 714 646 9180 * 714 646 9180 * 714 646 9180 * 714 646 9180 |
| 714 646 9180 * 714 646 9180 * 714 646 9180 * 714 646 9180 |
| 714 646 9180 * 714 646 9180 * 714 646 9180 * 714 646 9180 |
»-------------------------------------------------------------------------º
