textfiles/news/leftist.txt

        This article appeared in the August 22,1990 Wall Street Journal

                                  Open Sesame
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       In the Arcane Culture Of Computer Hackers, Few Doors Stay Closed
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              Frank Darden Easily Broke Into BellSouth's Network
                           Trading Tips With Others
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                          Entering the Legion of Doom
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          By John R. Wilke, staff reporter of The Wall Street Journal


    ATLANTA- Frank Darden got his first  computer  at  the  age  of  16,  a
    Christmas  present  from his parents. Sitting on a desk in his bedroom,
    it opened a window on a world he found so consuming that he  quit  high
    school and spent most days and nights at the keyboard.

    His  parents  often  wondered what their son found so compelling in the
    endless hours he spent alone in  his  room.  Then  one  afternoon  last
    summer,  a dozen Secret Service agents burst into the family's suburban
    home.  Agents held Edward and Lou Darden at gunpoint  as  they  swarmed
    into  their  son's  room,  seizing  scores of disks mloads of files and
    three computers.

    When Frank got home an hour later, the terrified  young  man  confessed
    that  he  had  used  his  home computer to break into BellSouth Corp.'s
    telephone network.  In  February,  Mr.   Darden  and  two  others  were
    indicted on felony charges of conspiracy and wire fraud.

    "I  guess  now  my  parents  know  what I was doing in my room." says a
    remorseful  Mr.   Darden,  a   bright,   impatient   24-year-old   with
    shoulder-length hair and a tie-dyed T-shirt.

                             Just Passing Through

    Mr.   Darden  thus  became  another  of the growing number of "hackers"
    nabbed by federal agents. For a long time, these high-tech  trespassers
    operated  in  relative obscurity, using their computers and phone lines
    to go where few people were meant to go. But lately,  in  a  string  of
    highly  publicized  cases,  hacking  has moved towards the forefront of
    white-collar crime. Increasingly, banks, businesses, credit bureaus and
    telephone companies are discovering that someone, often in the dead  of
    night, has wandered into their computer systems- and left his mark.

    As  Mr.   Darden's  experience  reveals,  hacking has developed its own
    subculture, rich with literature and legend and peopled  by  electronic
    vandals,  voyeurs  and  explorers  known  by  fanciful code names. "Any
    business that has a computer hooked to a phone  is  vulnerable,"  warns
    Mr.   Darden,  who calls himself the "The Leftist." Before the bust, he
    was one of the best.

                                Starting Early

    An early target in the crackdown was  the  Legion  of  Doom,  an  elite
    clique  of  hackers  that  included  Mr. Darden and was targeted by the
    Secret Service because of its members' notable skills. "The  Legion  of
    Doom  had  the power to jeopardize the entire phonetwork," says Kent B.
    Alexander, an assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting Mr. Darden's case  in
    Atlanta.

    In  a Secret Service affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Atlanta,
    BellSouth investigators call the Legion of Doom  "a  severe  threat  to
    U.S.   financial  and  telecommunications  industries."  Federal agents
    suspect the Legion  was  responsible  for  software  "  time  bombs"  -
    destructive programs designed to shut down major switching hubs-planted
    in  telephone  company  computers in Denver, Atlanta and New Jersy last
    year.  The programs were defused before causing  damage,  investigators
    say,   but  the  intrusions,  which  weren't  disclosed  by  the  phone
    companies, could have knocked out service to hundreds of  thousands  of
    customer phone lines.

    The government sweep so far has bagged a motley band, mostly loners and
    young  rebels  in their teens or early twenties. In past cases, many of
    the hackers who have admitted breaking  into  computers  have  insisted
    that  they  didn't  damage the systems they penetrated. They did it for
    sport.

    "There's no thrill quite the same as getting into your  first  system,"
    says Phrack, an electronic magazine run out of a University of Missouri
    dorm  and  accessed  by  computer. Before it was shutdown in the latest
    sweep, Phrack (for phone-freak  hacking)  published  tips  on  cracking
    computer  security. One issue offers a "hacker's code of ethics," which
    advises, "Do not intentionally damage any system" or alter files "other
    than the ones you need to ensure your escape." Another rule: "Don't  be
    afraid  to be paranoid. Remember, you are braking the law." Mr.  Darden
    says he strictly adhered to the code.

    But the hackers' creed  means  nothing  in  court.  There,  hacking  is
    treated  much  like  any  other  form  of criminal trespass under a law
    Congress passed in 1988.  The law persuaded many hackers to  end  their
    illicit forays. But it turned other hobbyists into criminals.

    During  his  hacker days, Mr. Darden's world was an oddly solitary one.
    For hours on end he sat in front of the computer  screen,  finding  his
    only  human  contact  in  the  words  and  arcane code that arrived via
    computer from other hackers.  "Once he got into ubject,  there  was  no
    stopping,"   recalls  his  mother.   "he  was  always  studying  up  on
    something. He read encyclopedias as a pastime."

    Geography was meaningless; friends from around the world  were  just  a
    few  keystrokes  away,  thanks to modems that connect computers through
    the phone lines.  Mr.  Darden  says  he  has  struck  up  many  lasting
    friendships on-line with people he has never met in person.

    In  this silent, cerebral world, age is also irrelevant.  Only computer
    skills count.  Once on-line, a hacker can be anyone he or she wants  to
    be.  "No  one knows if you're fat, pimply, or scared to talk to girls,"
    says Sheldon Zenner, a Chicago attorney w recently defended  an  editor
    of  Phrack  on  felony  wire-fraud charges.  "Suddenly you're no longer
    just the shy adolescent, but Knight Lightning or The Prophet."

                                 Tough Choice

    "It's a compulsion for some of these people," adds Mr.  Alexander,  the
    Atlanta  prosecutor. "I'm convinced that if Lotus 1-2-3 was behind Door
    No.  1, and Cheryl Tiegs was standing behind Door No. 2, a hacker would
    go for the software.

    Mr. Darden recounts his hacking days with disapproval- and just a touch
    of pride.  He broke into his first system at the age of 17, dialing his
    way into a big  computer  at  Hayes  Microcomputer  Products  Inc.,  in
    Norcross,  Ga.,  and nosing around the system I didn't take anything, I
    was just trying to see if  it  could  be  done,"  he  says  now.  Hayes
    uncovered the breach and quickly tightened security, he says.

    Hacking sessions often stretched into the early morning hours. He would
    start  by  checking  lists  of  computer phone numbers collected by his
    computer the night before through  an  automatic  process  called  "war
    dialing."  That's  the  brute force approach to king, when the computer
    runs  through  the  night,  methodically  dialing  every  number  in  a
    telephone  exchange.  It records the number whenever it hits a "carrier
    tone" signaling a computer is on the other end.

    In a typical night of war dialing, in which the  computer  might  check
    thousands  of  numbers,  perhaps  100  computer  carrier tones would be
    unearthed, "each one a potential treasure chest," Mr. Darden  says.  He
    would  then  begin  calling down the "hit list" with his computer, each
    time trying to determine what kind of system was on the other end.  Fax
    machines  were  a  problem, because they emit a tone that sounds like a
    computer, so he wrote software that ignored them.

                             Hello, Are You There?

    Each kind of computer had a distinctive response to  his  call,  so  he
    would  tailor  his  approach  to  the  type  of  system he encountered.
    Computers that used the Unix software operating system were  especially
    easy  to  break  into,  while  Digital Equipment Corp.'s VAX computers,
    which have multiple levels of security, presented a  bigger  challenge.
    But he says he was fond of the VAX because of its widely used software.
    "For a hacker, the VAX is like putting on an old Jimi Hendrix record in
    a  bar-  it's  a  real  clasic."  Using purloined telephone credit-card
    numbers, which his computer generated through a trial and error, he got
    into computers all over the world, including an encounter  with  a  VAX
    that spoke Finnish.

    He  devised  password-cracking  programs  that  automated  the  hacking
    process. He also devised a program  that  let  him  capture  legitimate
    users'  passwords  as  they  logged  onto  the  system. When he found a
    password the  target  computer  recognized,  his  screen  wo  typically
    respond  with a prompt, such as a sign. "Once you get that, you have an
    open door," he says. Often he would play "cat-and-mouse games"  with  a
    company's  computer  operators.   "I'd  send a little greeting to their
    printer, to let them know I was there. It drove them crazy."

    Credit bureaus were a favorite target. And,  despite  the  warnings  of
    other  hackers  that it might give him away, his first move was to look
    up his own credit report. "Naturally, I didn't have one," he says.   He
    found his parents' report, and looked up ot s for friends.

    To  make  the  process  more efficient, and to show off, Mr. Darden and
    other hackers traded phone numbers and system-cracking tips  on  pirate
    "bulletin  boards"-  computer  systems  that store and forward text and
    electronic mail over phone  lines.  "Black  Ice"  is  one  such  board.
    Access was tightly limited to an elite circle.

                              No Busy Signal Here

    Mr.  Darden's  biggest thrill as a hacker- and ultimately his downfall-
    came when he broke into a big BellSouth computer  in  Atlanta  used  by
    technicians to maintain and control the phone system. He learned how to
    navigate  within  the  system  by  asking questions of BellSouth's own
    on-line "help" program. Once inside, he found he  had  the  ability  to
    reroute  telephone  calls  or  bring down switching centers, neither of
    which he says he did. Mr. Darden did, however, listen in on a few phone
    lines, but only those of other hackers, he insists, and only  to  prove
    his prowess.

    "If  we  wanted  to,  we  could  have  knocked  out  service across the
    Southeastern U.S.," he says. "The  fact  that  I  could  get  into  the
    system amazed me. But we were careful not to damage anything."

    Not  surprisingly,  when  BellSouth  discovered  hackers were rummaging
    through its computer, it reacted swiftly. It put  42  investigators  on
    the  task of tracking the intruders down, and spent $1.5 million on the
    effort. Once it found the source  of  the  intrusions,  it  called  the
    Secret Service, which enforces computer-crime laws.

    In  the  indictment, Mr. Darden and two co-defendants, Robert J. Riggs,
    21, a.k.a. The Prophet, and Adam E. Grant, 22, a.k.a. The Urvile,  were
    charged  with  taking  copies  of  proprietary software from BellSouth
    during their ramblings in the system, and with unauthorized  intrusion,
    possessing  illegal  phone  credit-card numbers with intent to defraud,
    and conspiracy. Messrs. Darden and Riggs pleaded guilty  to  conspiracy
    and  face  a  maximum  of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Mr.
    Grant pleaded guilty to possessing BellSouth computer access codes with
    the intent to defraud and faces a maximum of 10 years in prison  and  a
    $250,000 fine. Sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 14.

    The only good thing to come out of the  whole  experience,  Mr.  Darden
    muses,  is that after he was indicted, his high-school sweetheart- whom
    he often spurned in favor of his  computer-  saw  his  picture  on  the
    front page of the local paper and got back in ch.

    Mr.  Darden,  who  now  works  installing  systems for a local computer
    company, views himself as a purist, hacking for the thrill of exploring
    the forbidden. He looks down on those who use their  skills  simply  to
    steal  phone and credit-card numbers. But in thi s game, information is
    everything, and not even Mr. Darden  can  control  its  spread.  During
    their sweep, federal agents have found some hackers using code-cracking
    information  dug  up  by  the  Legion  of  Doom to perpetrate their own
    practical jokes and fraud.

    For  a  few  days  last  year,  for  example, phone calls to the Delray
    Beach,  Fla.,  probation  office  were  mysteriously  rerouted   to   a
    dial-a-porn  line  in New York. Secret Service agents say it's the kind
    of thing the Legion might have done.

    And in Elwood, Ind., a 15-year-old calling himself  Fry  Guy  allegedly
    used  information  he  got  from  the  Legion to carry out an elaborate
    fraud. Secret Service agents say he used his computer to break  into  a
    credit  rating service in Maryland to pilfer VISA and MasterCard credit
    information. He then entered BellSouth's control network and altered  a
    pay  phone  on  a  street corner in nearby Paducah, Ky., to residential
    status. Next, he called  Western  Union  and  had  cash  wired  out  of
    credit-card accounts to the Pa ducah Western Union office. When Western
    Union  called  the  credit-card holders to verify the transactions, the
    calls were forwarded to the pay phone and  then  to  the  youth's  home
    phone, where he posed as the credit-card holders and gave approval. The
    cash  w  as  then  picked up at the Western Union window, investigators
    say.

    In  all,  Fry Guy siphoned more than $10,000 in cash and purchases from
    credit-card accounts, alleges William M. Gleason,  the  Secret  Service
    investigator.  He  also  found evidence that Fry Guy, whose name hasn't
    been released, hacked his  way  into  a  payrol computer  for  a  local
    McDonalds  Corp.  outlet,  giving  pay raises to his friends working at
    the restaurant.

    Fry  Guy's  case  is  being  handled  by  state  and  federal  juvenile
    authorities  and,  because of his age, it is unclear what punishment he
    might get. At the very least, his  parents  are  likely  to  watch  the
    family  phone  bill  more  closely.  In  a  recent  meeting  w  federal
    prosecutors, Fry Guy's exasperated father wore a baseball  cap  bearing
    the legend "Kids: They'll drive you crazy."

    Federal  agents  admit  that,  when  they  detect  an intruder inside a
    computer, there isn't any way of telling if it's a precocious  teenager
    or a crook out to commit fraud. So they simply execute the law.

    "When  a  hacker  gets  into a system, it's no different from a burglar
    breaking into your home or office," says  Secret  Service  agent  James
    Cool.  If the door is open, the law treats a trespasser differently, he
    adds. But if a hacker cracks a password to g into a system,  "it's  the
    same as kicking in a locked door- and we're going to come after them."

    Ed  Darden  wishes he had known all of this before he gave his son that
    Apple II for Christmas eight years ago. "I'd have thought  twice  about
    it," he says. "Maybe we should have given him a bicycle."



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