they want (TP2, message log, 1988). Most members of the
underground do not approach the telephone system with such
passion. Many hackers are interested in the phone system solely
to the extent that they can exploit its weaknesses and pursue
other goals. In this case, phreaking becomes a means and not a
pursuit unto itself. Another individual, one who identifies
himself as a hacker, explains: I know very little about phones .
. . I just hack. See, I can’t exactly call these numbers direct.
A lot of people are in the same boat. In my case, phreaking is a
tool, an often used one, but nonetheless a tool (TU, message log,
1988).
In the world of the computer underground, the ability to
“phreak a call” is taken for granted. The phone companies
allowance the use of the credit cards for billing has opened the
door to wide-scale phreaking. With credit cards, no special
knowledge or equipment is required to phreak a call, only valid
credit card numbers, known as “codez,” are needed to call any
location in the world. This method of phreaking is generally
called “carding,” it is generally looked on as the lowest form of
phreaking as almost no technical skill is necessary. Another
role in the computer underground is that of the software pirate.
Software piracy refers to the unauthorized copying and
distribution of copyrighted software. This activity centers
around computer bulletin board systems, and parts of the internet
that specialize in “warez.” Pirates and phreak/hackers/crackers
do not necessarily support the activities of each other, and
there is distrust and misunderstanding between the two groups. At
least part of this distrust lies in the phreak/hacker perception
that piracy is an unskilled activity. A possible exception to
this are those pirates that have the programming skills needed to
remove copy protection from software. By removing the program
code that inhibits duplicate copies from being made these
individuals, which also go by the name “crackers,” contribute
greatly to the easy distribution of “warez.” While p/hackers
generally don’t disapprove of piracy as an activity, especially
“cracking pirates,” they nevertheless tend to avoid pirate
bulletin boards and internet sites partly because there is little
pertinent phreak/hack information contained on them, and partly
because of the belief that pirates indiscriminately abuse the
telephone network in pursuit of the latest computer game. One
hacker illustrates this belief by theorizing that pirates are
responsible for a large part of credit card fraud. The media
claims that it is solely hackers who are responsible or losses
pertaining to large telecommunication companies and long distance
services. This is not the case. We are (hackers) but a small
portion of these losses. The rest are caused by pirates and
thieves who sell these codes to people on the street (AF, message
log, 1988). Other hackers complain that uploading large
programs frequently takes several hours to complete, and it is
pirate calls, not the ones placed by “tele-communications
enthusiasts” (a popular euphemism for phreakers and hackers) that
cost the telephone industry large sums of money. However, not all
pirates phreak their calls. Phreaking is considered “very tacky”
among elite pirates, and system operators (Sysops) of pirate
bulletin boards discourage phreaked calls because it draws
attention to the system when the call is discovered by the
telephone company.
For the average computer user the most feared of the
computer underground is that of the computer virus creator. Among
the CU computer viruses are generally referred to as “viri.”
Computer viruses are in themselves a very specific type of
program but to the novice or low sophistication computer user,
which the majority are, they are any program that can take over,
damage or otherwise infiltrate, a computer. Program that qualify
as “trojan horses,” “logic bombs,” or “worms” are often just
called “viruses.” A virus is a self-replicating program that is
capable of carrying a destructive or otherwise annoying payload
while a “trojan horse” is a program that allows easy access to an
already-penetrated system. It can also be used to facilitate a
penetration by being tagged to a legitimate program so that when
the host computer runs the program the trojan put itself in a
position to allow the designer easy access. “Logic” or “time
bombs” are similar to the trojans except that they wait for a
specific circumstances or time to detonate a harmful payload.
Logic bombs are often incorporated into a virus, if it is of
the destructive variety, as their destructive payload. The “worm”
is the most similar to a virus in that it also replicates, but it
is generally designed to infect idle workstations or terminals
on a network. Worms tend to exist in memory and are non-
permanent, one must simply reboot to remove them, while the virus
resides on disk where they are permanent until eradicated.
There are two main types of virus writers, people who’s main
purpose is to create havoc for the computer user doing everything
possible to spread their viruses. Then there are the people who
aren’t interested in spreading their viruses but rather creating
them as a mental exercise that involves figuring out better ways
to evade detection or further empower their programming skills.
The latter will often be composed of software engineers and
highly skilled programmers while the primary tends to be a
younger age group who are relatively unskilled in comparison. An
example of this is a teenage viri writer called “Little Loc” who
“wanted to be the most dangerous virus writer in American,” and
attempted to prove it by writing a virus that became wide spread
and know as the Satan Bug. On the other hand there are writers
like “Screaming Radish,” who is Windows-application developer
from Australia, his purpose in virus development is not
destructive but rather to gain a better understanding of how
anti-virus software works. He likes to “reverse-engineer” anti-
virus software taking them apart to study what signatures it
scanned for and what the software excludes from it’s scrutiny.
Viruses made with that level of sophistication are becoming a
type of digital currency in the computer underground where one
can use them to trade for other information. (Jan Smith, 1994)
Mark A. Lugwig, the writer of virus tutorials, had this to say:
It is inevitable that these books will offend some people. In
fact, I hope they do. They need to. I am convinced that computer
viruses are not evil and that programmers have the right to
create them, posses them and experiment with them. That kind of a
stand is going to offend a lot of people, no matter how it is
presented. Even a purely technical treatment of viruses which
simply discussed how to write them and provided some examples
would be offensive. The mere thought of a million well armed
hackers out there is enough to drive some bureaucrats mad. These
books go beyond a technical treatment, though, to defend the idea
that viruses can be useful, interesting, and just plain fun.
That is bound to prove even more offensive. Still, the truth is
the truth, and it needs to be spoken, even if it is offensive.
Morals and ethics cannot be determined by a majority vote, any
more than they can be determined by the barrel of a gun or loud
mouth. Might does not make right.
The mass media has tended to sensationalize hacking, whilst
soundly condemning it. But there other points of view: for
example, in many instances the breaching of systems can provide
more effective security in the future, so that other (presumably
less well-intentioned) elements of the CU are prevented from
causing real harm. A good llustration of this was the
penetration of British Telecom’s electronic mail system in
1984, by Steven Gold and Robert Schifreen, which resulted in a
rude message being left in none other than the Duke of
Edinburgh’s account! This incident attracted enormous publicity
and led directly to improved security arrangements for the whole
of the Prestel system. Gold and Schifeen were therefore extremely
indignant at being treated as criminals – and this illustrates
the discrepancy between what the law considers to be criminal
behavior and how the CU often perceive themselves. (The
Australian, 1988)
We might therefore ask ourselves whether, for the sake of
balance, a truly democratic society should possess a core of
technically gifted but recalcitrant people. Given that
more and more information about individuals is now being stored
on computers, often without our knowledge or consent, is it not
reassuring that some citizens are able to penetrate these
databases to find out what is going on? Thus it could be argued
that the CU represent one way in which we can help avoid the
creation of a more centralized, even totalitarian government.
This is one scenario the CU openly entertain. Indeed, we
now know that at the time of the Chernobyl nuclear power station
disaster in the former Soviet Union, hackers from the Chaos
Computer Club released more information to the public about
developments than did the West German government itself. All of
this information was gained by illegal break-ins carried out in
government computer installations.Bibliography
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