Underground: Hacking, madness and obsession on the electronic frontier Part 35

Read about it; Just another incredible scene; There's no doubt about it.

-- from 'Read About It', 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Pad had an important warning for the Australian hackers: the computer security community was closing in on them. It was the end of February 1990, not long after Phoenix and Electron had captured Zardoz and just missed out on Deszip. Pad didn't scream or shout the warning, that wasn't his style. But Electron took in the import of the warning loud and clear.

'Feen, they know you did over Spaf's machine,' Pad told Phoenix. 'They know it's been you in other systems also. They've got your handle.'

Eugene Spafford was the kind of computer security expert who loses a lot of face when a hacker gets into his machine, and a wounded bull is a dangerous enemy.

The security people had been able to connect and link up a series of break-ins with the hacker who called himself Phoenix because his style was so distinctive. For example, whenever he was creating a root sh.e.l.l--root access--for himself, he would always save it in the same filename and in the same location on the computer. In some instances, he even created accounts called 'Phoenix'

for himself. It was this consistency of style which had made things so much easier for admins to trace his movements.

In his typical understated fashion, Pad suggested a change of style.

And maybe, he added, it wasn't such a bad idea for the Australians to tone down their activities a bit. The undercurrent of the message was serious.

'They said that some security people had contacted Australian law enforcement, who were supposed to be "dealing with it",' Pad said.

'Do they know my real name?' Phoenix asked, worried. Electron was also watching this conversation with some concern.

'Don't know. Got it from Shatter. He's not always reliable, but ...'

Pad was trying to soften the news by playing down Shatter's importance as a source. He didn't trust his fellow British hacker but Shatter had some good, if mysterious, connections. An enigmatic figure who seemed to keep one foot in the computer underworld and the other in the upright computer security industry, Shatter leaked information to Pad and Gandalf, and occasionally to the Australians.

While the two British hackers sometimes discounted Shatter's advice, they also took the time to talk to him. Once, Electron had intercepted email showing Pengo had turned to Shatter for advice about his situation after the raid in Germany. With some spare time prior to his trial, Pengo asked Shatter whether it was safe to travel to the US on a summer holiday in 1989. Shatter asked for Pengo's birthdate and other details. Then he returned with an unequivocal answer: Under no circ.u.mstances was Pengo to travel to the US.

Subsequently, it was reported that officials in the US Justice Department had been examining ways to secretly coax Pengo onto American soil, where they could seize him. They would then force him to face trial in their own courts.

Had Shatter known this? Or had he just told Pengo not to go to the US because it was good commonsense? No-one was quite sure, but people took note of what Shatter told them.

'Shatter definitely got the info right about Spaf's machine. 100% right,' Pad continued. 'He knew exactly how you hacked it. I couldn't believe it. Be careful if you're still hacking m8, especially on the Inet.' The 'Inet' was shorthand for the Internet.

The Altos hackers went quiet.

'It's not just you,' Pad tried to rea.s.sure the Australians. 'Two security people from the US are coming to the UK to try and find out something about someone named Gandalf. Oh, and Gand's mate, who might be called Patrick.'

Pad had indeed based his handle on the name Patrick, or Paddy, but that wasn't his real name. No intelligent hacker would use his real name for his handle. Paddy was the name of one of his favourite university lecturers, an Irishman who laughed a good deal. Like Par's name, Pad's handle had coincidentally echoed a second meaning when the British hacker moved into exploring X.25 networks. An X.25 PAD is a packet a.s.sembler disa.s.sembler, the interface between the X.25 network and a modem or terminal server. Similarly, Gandalf, while being first and foremost the wizard from The Lord of The Rings, also happened to be a terminal server brand name.

Despite the gravity of the news that the security community was closing the net around them, none of the hackers lost their wicked sense of humour.

'You know,' Pad went on, 'Spaf was out of the country when his machine got hacked.'

'Was he? Where?' asked Gandalf, who had just joined the conversation.

'In Europe.'

Electron couldn't resist. 'Where was Spaf, Gandalf asks as he hears a knock on his door ...'

'Haha,' Gandalf laughed.

' ' Electron went on, hamming it up.

'Oh! h.e.l.lo there, Mr Spafford,' Gandalf typed, playing along.

'h.e.l.lo, I'm Gene and I'm mean!'

Alone in their separate homes on different corners of the globe, the four hackers chuckled to themselves.

'h.e.l.lo, and is this the man called Patrick?' Pad jumped in.

'Well, Mr Spafford, it seems you're a right f.u.c.king idiot for not patching your FTP!' Gandalf proclaimed.

'Not to mention the CHFN bug--saved by a Sequent! Or you'd be very f.u.c.king embarra.s.sed,' Phoenix added.

Phoenix was laughing too, but he was a little nervous about Pad's warning and he turned the conversation back to a serious note.

'So, Pad, what else did Shatter tell you?' Phoenix asked anxiously.

'Not much. Except that some of the security investigations might be partly because of UCB.'

UCB was the University of California at Berkeley. Phoenix had been visiting machines at both Berkeley and LLNL so much recently that the admins seemed to have not only noticed him, but they had pinpointed his handle. One day he had telnetted into dewey.soe.berkeley.edu--the Dewey machine as it was known--and had been startled to find the following message of the day staring him in the face:

Phoenix,

Get out of Dewey NOW!

Also, do not use any of the 'soe' machines.

Thank you,

Daniel Berger

Phoenix did a double take when he saw this public warning. Having been in and out of the system so many times, he just zoomed past the words on the login screen. Then, in a delayed reaction, he realised the login message was addressed to him.

Ignoring the warning, he proceeded to get root on the Berkeley machine and look through Berger's files. Then he sat back, thinking about the best way to deal with the problem. Finally, he decided to send the admin a note saying he was leaving the system for good.

Within days, Phoenix was back in the Dewey machine, weaving in and out of it as if nothing had happened. After all, he had broken into the system, and managed to get root through his own wit. He had earned the right to be in the computer. He might send the admin a note to put him at ease, but Phoenix wasn't going to give up accessing Berkeley's computers just because it upset Daniel Berger.

'See,' Pad continued, 'I think the UCB people kept stuff on their systems that wasn't supposed to be there. Secret things.'

Cla.s.sified military material wasn't supposed to be stored on non-cla.s.sified network computers. However, Pad guessed that sometimes researchers broke rules and took short cuts because they were busy thinking about their research and not the security implications.

'Some of the stuff might have been illegal,' Pad told his captive audience. 'And then they find out some of you guys have been in there ...'

's.h.i.t,' Phoenix said.

'So, well, if it APPEARED like someone was inside trying to get at those secrets ...' Pad paused. 'Then you can guess what happened. It seems they really want to get whoever was inside their machines.'

There was momentary silence while the other hackers digested all that Pad had told them. As a personality on Altos, Pad remained ever so slightly withdrawn from the other hackers, even the Australians whom he considered mates. This reserved quality gave his warning a certain sobriety, which seeped into the very fabric of Altos that day.