176 lines
8.7 KiB
Plaintext
176 lines
8.7 KiB
Plaintext
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<-> Hackers in the MOB <->
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*****************************************************************
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According to Schmidt, the dollar amounts are only part of
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the story, GTE Telemail, an electronic mail system, was broken
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into by at least four gangs of hackers, he says. "They were
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raising hell. The system got shut down one time for a day. None
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of these people have been charged, nor have any of the 414s been
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charged yet.
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"We have a major problem with hackers, phreaks and thieves,"
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says Schmidt, who estimates that 75% of criminal hackers are
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teenagers and the other 25% are adults using teenagers to do
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their dirty work for them.
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"Adults are masterminding some of this activity. There are
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industrial spies, people playing the stock market with the
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information- just about any theft or fraud you can do with a
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computer. There are no foreign agents or organized crime yet,
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but it's inevitable," he says. "I believe there are some people
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out there now with possible organized-crime connections.
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"It's an epidemic. In practically every upper-middle class
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high school this is going on. I know of a high-school computer
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class in a school in the north Dallas suburbs where the kids are
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trying everything they can think of to get into the CIA
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computers."
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"It's a strange culture," says SRI's Parker, "a rite of
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passage among technology-oriented youth. The inner circle of
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hackers say they do it primarily for educational purposes and for
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curiosity. They want to find out what all those computers are
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being used for. There's a meritocracy in the culture, each one
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trying to out do the other. The one who provides the most phone
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numbers and passwords to computer systems rises to the top of the
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hackers.
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"For the most part it's malicious mischief," Parker says.
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"They rationalize that they're not really breaking any laws, just
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'visiting' computers. But that's hard to believe when they also
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say they've got to do their hacking before they turn 18 so they
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don't come under adult jurisdiction. After 18, they have to do
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it vicariously through surrogates. They are some grand old men
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of hacking who egg on the younger ones... There have been some
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cases of a Fagin complex- a gang of kids led by one or more
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adults- in Los Angeles."
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Who are the hackers and what secret knowledge do they have?
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A 17-year-old youth in Beverly Hills, California, announced
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himself to other hackers on a bulletin board in this way:
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"Interests include exotic weapons, chemicals, nerve gases,
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proprietary information from Pacific Telephone..."
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Prized secret knowledge includes the two area codes in North
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America that have not yet installed electronic switching system
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central-office equipment. Using this information you can call
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those areas and use a blue box to blow the central office
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equipment, and then call anywhere in the world without charge.
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Other secret information lets you avoid being traced when you do
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this.
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A knowledge of the phone systems lets hackers share one of
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the technological privileges usually available only to large
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corporate customers: long-distance conference calls connecting up
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to 59 hackers. Schmidt estimates there are three or four
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conference calls made every night. The hackers swap more inside
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information during the phone calls.
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Thanks to packet-switching networks and the fact that they
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don't have to pay long-distance charfus, time and distance mean
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almost nothing to hackers. Desktop microcompters hook into phone
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lines via modems make it easy to obtain copyrighted software
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without human intervention.
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"Software piracy exists only because they can do it over the
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phone long distance without paying for it," Schmidt says. "some
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stuff gets sent through the mail, but very little. There are
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bulletin boards that exist solely for the purpose of pirating
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software. A program called ASCII Express Professional (AE Pro)
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for the Apple was designed specifically for modem-to-modem
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transfers. You can make a copy of anything on that computer. It
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can be copyrighted stuff- WordStar, anything. There are probably
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about three dozen boards like that. Some boards exchange
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information on breaking onto mainframes.
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"In 1982 the FBI really didn't know what to do with all this
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information," Schmidt says. "There isn't a national computer-
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crime statue. And unless there's $20,000 involved, federal
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prosecutors won't touch it."
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Since then, the public and federal prosecutors' interest has
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picked up. The film War Games and the arrest of 414 group in
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Milwaukee "created a lot of interest on Congress and with other
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people," FBI instructor Lewis says. "But, for ourselves it didn't
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really have any impact."
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"We'd been providing the training already," says Jim Barko,
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FBI unit chief of the EFCTU (economic and financial crimes
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training unit). He says public interest may make it easier to
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fight computer crime. "There are more people interested in this
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particular area now as a problem. War Games identified the
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problem. But I think it was just circumstantial that the movie
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came out when it did."
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Despite the help of knowledgeable informants like Schmidt,
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tracking down hackers can be frustrating business for the FBI.
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SRI's Parker explains some of the pitfalls of going after
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hackers: "Some FBI agents are very discouraged about doing
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something about the hacking thing. The cost of investigation
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relative to the seriousness of each case is just too high," he
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says. "Also, federal regulations from the Department of Justice
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make it almost impossible for the FBI to deal with a juvenile."
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An FBI agent cannot question a juvenile without his parents
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or a guardian being present. The FBI approach has been mostly
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to support lhe local police because local police are the only
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ones who can deal with juveniles. Another difficulty the agency
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faces is the regulations about its jurisdiction.
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"There has to be an attack on a government agency, a
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government contractor or a government-insured institution for the
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FBI to have clear-cut jurisdiction," Parker says.
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The FBI gets called into a case only after a crime has been
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detected by the complaining party. The FBI has done a generally
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competent job of investigating those crimes it was called in to
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investigate, in Parker's view. But the federal agency's job is
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not to help government or financial institutions attempt to
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prevent crimes, nor is its function to detect the crimes in the
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first place.
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"We're not out detecting any type of crime," says Lewis.
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"We like to think we can prevent them. We can make
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recommendations. But do we detect bank robberies or are they
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reported to us? Or kidnapping- do we detect those? Or
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skyjacking? There must be some evidence of crime, a crime over
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which the FBI has jurisdiction. Then we open a case." And
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despite the spate of arrests and crackdowns last summer, it looks
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like the FBI will have its hands full in the future: The hackers
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have not gone away. Like mice running through the utility
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passages of a large office building, they create damage and
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inconvenience, but are tolerated as long as their nuisance
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remains bearable.
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That status could change at any time, however.
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Meanwhile, little electronic "sting" operations similar to
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Abscam keep the element of danger on the hacker's game. An Air
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Force telephone network called AUTOVON (a private telephone
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system connecting computers on every Air Force installation in
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the world), was reportedly cracked by a hacker last last year.
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The hacker published lists of AUTOVON dialups on a bulletin
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board.
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The breach came to the attention `oo the Department of
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Defense on late 1983, but apparently nothing was done to stop the
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hackers. Then, in January, the AUTOVON number was answered in a
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sultry female voice. We wish to thank one and all for allowing
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us to make a record of all calls for the past few months. You
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will be hearing from us real soon. Have a happy New Year."
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That's a New Year's message calculated to give any hacker a
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chill.
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-End of file-
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.
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DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS.......
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