Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession from the Electronic Frontier (32 page)

Sure enough, Phoenix called Erik back about a day later. ‘Well, I got root on Cliffy’s machine,’ he began slowly, then he burst out laughing. ‘And I changed the message of the day. Now it reads, "It looks like the Cuckoo’s got egg on his face"!’

It was uproariously funny. Stoll, the most famous hacker-catcher in the world, had been japed! It was the funniest thing Erik had heard in weeks.

But it was not nearly so amusing as what Erik told Phoenix later about the New York Times. The paper had published an article on 19 March suggesting a hacker had written some sort of virus or worm which was breaking into dozens of computers.

‘Listen to this,’ Erik had said, reading Phoenix the lead paragraph,

‘"A computer intruder has written a program that has entered dozens of computers in a nationwide network in recent weeks, automatically stealing electronic documents containing users’ passwords and erasing files to help conceal itself."’

Phoenix was falling off his chair he was laughing so hard. A program?

Which was automatically doing this? No. It wasn’t an automated program, it was the Australians! It was the Realm hackers! God, this was funny.

‘Wait--there’s more! It says, "Another rogue program shows a widespread vulnerability". I laughed my ass off,’ Erik said, struggling to get the words out.

‘A rogue program! Who wrote the article?’

‘A John Markoff,’ Erik answered, wiping his eyes. ‘I called him up.’

‘You did? What did you say?’ Phoenix tried to gather himself together.

‘"John," I said, "You know that article you wrote on page 12 of the Times? It’s wrong! There’s no rogue program attacking the Internet."

He goes, "What is it then?" "It’s not a virus or a worm," I said.

"It’s PEOPLE."’

Erik started laughing uncontrollably again.

‘Then Markoff sounds really stunned, and he goes, "People?" And I said, "Yeah, people." Then he said, "How do you know?" And I said,

"Because, John, I KNOW."’

Phoenix erupted in laughter again. The Times reporter obviously had worms on his mind, since the author of the famous Internet worm, Robert T. Morris Jr, had just been tried and convicted in the US. He was due to be sentenced in May.

US investigators had tracked the hacker’s connections, looping through site after site in a burrowing manner which they assumed belonged to a worm. The idea of penetrating so many sites all in such a short time clearly baffled the investigators, who concluded it must be a program rather than human beings launching the attacks.

‘Yeah,’ Erik continued, ‘And then Markoff said, "Can you get me to talk to them?" And I said I’d see what I could do.’

‘Yeah,’ Phoenix said. ‘Go tell him, yes. Yeah, I gotta talk to this idiot. I’ll set him straight.’

Page one, the New York Times, 21 March 1990: ‘Caller Says he Broke Computers’ Barriers to Taunt the Experts’, by John Markoff.

True, the article was below the crease--on the bottom half of the page--but at least it was in column 1, the place a reader turns to first.

Phoenix was chuffed. He’d made the front page of the New York Times.

‘The man identified himself only as an Australian named Dave,’ the article said. Phoenix chuckled softly. Dave Lissek was the pseudonym he’d used. Of course, he wasn’t the only one using the name Dave. When Erik first met the Australians on Altos, he marvelled at how they all called themselves Dave. I’m Dave, he’s Dave, we’re all Dave, they told him. It was just easier that way, they said.

The article revealed that ‘Dave’ had attacked Spaf’s and Stoll’s machines, and that the Smithsonian Astronomical Observatory at Harvard University--where Stoll now worked--had pulled its computers off the Internet as a result of the break in. Markoff had even included the

‘egg on his face’ story Phoenix had described to him.

Phoenix laughed at how well he had thumbed his nose at Cliffy Stoll.

This article would show him up all right. It felt so good, seeing himself in print that way. He did that. That was him there in black in white, for all the world to see. He had outsmarted the world’s best known hacker-catcher, and he had smeared the insult across the front page of the most prestigious newspaper in America.

And Markoff reported that he had been in Spaf’s system too! Phoenix glowed happily. Better still, Markoff had quoted ‘Dave’ on the subject: ‘The caller said ... "It used to be the security guys chasing the hackers. Now it’s the hackers chasing the security people."’

The article went on: ‘Among the institutions believed to have been penetrated by the intruder are the Los Alamos National Laboratories, Harvard, Digital Equipment Corporation, Boston University and the University of Texas.’ Yes, that list sounded about right. Well, for the Australians as a group anyway. Even if Phoenix hadn’t masterminded or even penetrated some of those himself, he was happy to take the credit in the Times.

This was a red-letter day for Phoenix.

Electron, however, was furious. How could Phoenix be so stupid? He knew that Phoenix had an ego, that he talked too much, and that his tendency to brag had grown worse over time, fed by the skyrocketing success of the Australian hackers. Electron knew all of that, but he still couldn’t quite believe that Phoenix had gone so far as to strut and preen like a show pony for the New York Times.

To think that he had associated with Phoenix. Electron was disgusted.

He had never trusted Phoenix--a caution now proved wise. But he had spent hours with him on the phone, with most of the information flowing in one direction. But not only did Phoenix show no discretion at all in dealing with the paper, he bragged about doing things that Electron had done! If Phoenix had to talk--and clearly he should have kept his mouth shut--he should have at least been honest about the systems for which he could claim credit.

Electron had tried with Phoenix. Electron had suggested that he stop talking to the security guys. He had continually urged caution and discretion. He had even subtly withdrawn each time Phoenix suggested one of his hair-brained schemes to show off to a security bigwig.

Electron had done this in the hope that Phoenix might get the hint.

Maybe, if Phoenix couldn’t hear someone shouting advice at him, he might at least listen to someone whispering it. But no. Phoenix was far too thick for that.

The Internet--indeed, all hacking--was out of bounds for weeks, if not months. There was no chance the Australian authorities would let a front-page story in the Times go by un-heeded. The Americans would be all over them. In one selfish act of hubris, Phoenix had ruined the party for everyone else.

Electron unplugged his modem and took it to his father. During exams, he had often asked his father to hide it. He didn’t have the self-discipline needed to stay away on his own and there was no other way Electron could keep himself from jacking in--plugging his modem into the wall. His father had become an expert at hiding the device, but Electron usually still managed to find it after a few days, tearing the house apart until he emerged, triumphant, with the modem held high above his head. Even when his father began hiding the modem outside the family home it would only postpone the inevitable.

This time, however, Electron vowed he would stop hacking until the fallout had cleared--he had to. So he handed the modem to his father, with strict instructions, and then tried to distract himself by cleaning up his hard drive and disks. His hacking files had to go too.

So much damning evidence of his activities. He deleted some files and took others on disks to store at a friend’s house. Deleting files caused Electron considerable pain, but there was no other way. Phoenix had backed him into a corner.

Brimming with excitement, Phoenix rang Electron on a sunny March afternoon.

‘Guess what?’ Phoenix was jumping around like an eager puppy at the other end of the line. ‘We made the nightly news right across the US!’

‘Uhuh,’ Electron responded, unimpressed.

‘This is not a joke!’ We were on cable news all day too. I called Erik and he told me.’

‘Mmm,’ Electron said.

‘You know, we did a lot of things right. Like Harvard. We got into every system at Harvard. It was a good move. Harvard gave us the fame we needed.’

Electron couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He didn’t need any fame--and he certainly didn’t need to be busted. The conversation--like Phoenix himself--was really beginning to annoy him.

‘Hey, and they know your name,’ Phoenix said coyly.

That got a reaction. Electron gulped his anger.

‘Haha! Just joshing!’ Phoenix practically shouted. ‘Don’t worry! They didn’t really mention anyone’s name.’

‘Good,’ Electron answered curtly. His irritation stewed quietly.

‘So, do you reckon we’ll make the cover of Time or Newsweek?’

Good grief! Didn’t Phoenix ever give up? As if it wasn’t enough to appear on the 6 o’clock national news in a country crawling with over-zealous law enforcement agencies. Or to make the New York Times.

He had to have the weeklies too.

Phoenix was revelling in his own publicity. He felt like he was on top of the world, and he wanted to shout about it. Electron had felt the same wave of excitement from hacking many high-profile targets and matching wits with the best, but he was happy to stand on the peak by himself, or with people like Pad and Gandalf, and enjoy the view quietly. He was happy to know he had been the best on the frontier of a computer underground which was fresh, experimental and, most of all, international. He didn’t need to call up newspaper reporters or gloat about it in Clifford Stoll’s face.

‘Well, what do you reckon?’ Phoenix asked impatiently.

‘No,’ Electron answered.

‘No? You don’t think we will?’ Phoenix sounded disappointed.

‘No.’

‘Well, I’ll demand it!’ Phoenix said laughing, ‘Fuck it, we want the cover of Newsweek, nothing less.’ Then, more seriously, ‘I’m trying to work out what really big target would clinch it for us.’

‘Yeah, OK, whatever,’ Electron replied, distancing himself again.

But Electron was thinking, Phoenix, you are a fool. Didn’t he see the warning signs? Pad’s warning, all the busts in the US, reports that the Americans were hunting down the Brits. As a result of these news reports of which Phoenix was so proud, bosses across the world would be calling their computer managers into their offices and breathing down their necks about their own computer security.

The brazen hackers had deeply offended the computer security industry, spurring it into action. In the process, some in the industry had also seen an opportunity to raise its own public profile. The security experts had talked to the law enforcement agencies, who were now clearly sharing information across national borders and closing in fast. The conspirators in

the global electronic village were at the point of maximum overreach.

‘We could hack Spaf again,’ Phoenix volunteered.

‘The general public couldn’t give a fuck about Eugene Spafford,’

Electron said, trying to dampen Phoenix’s bizarre enthusiasm. He was all for thumbing one’s nose at authority, but this was not the way to do it.

‘It’d be so funny in court, though. The lawyer would call Spaf and say, "So, Mr Spafford, is it true that you are a world-renowned computer security expert?" When he said, "Yes" I’d jump up and go, "I object, your honour, this guy doesn’t know jackshit, ’cause I hacked his machine and it was a breeze!"’

‘Mmm.’

‘Hey, if we don’t get busted in the next two weeks, it will be a miracle,’ Phoenix continued happily.

‘I hope not.’

‘This is a lot of fun!’ Phoenix shouted sarcastically. ‘We’re gonna get busted! We’re gonna get busted!’

Electron’s jaw fell to the ground. Phoenix was mad. Only a lunatic would behave this way. Mumbling something about how tired he was, Electron said goodbye and hung up.

At 5.50 a.m. on 2 April 1990, Electron dragged himself out of bed and made his way to the bathroom. Part way through his visit, the light suddenly went out.

How strange. Electron opened his eyes wide in the early morning dimness. He returned to his bedroom and began putting on some jeans before going to investigate the problem.

Suddenly, two men in street clothes yanked his window open and jumped through into the room shouting, ‘GET DOWN ON THE FLOOR!’

Who were these people? Half-naked, Electron stood in the middle of his room, stunned and immobile. He had suspected the police might pay him a visit, but didn’t they normally wear uniforms? Didn’t they announce themselves?

The two men grabbed Electron, threw him face down onto the floor and pulled his arms behind his back. They jammed handcuffs on his wrists--hard--cutting his skin. Then someone kicked him in the stomach.

‘Are there any firearms in the house?’ one of the men asked.

Electron couldn’t answer because he couldn’t breathe. The kick had winded him. He felt someone pull him up from the floor and prop him in a chair. Lights went on everywhere and he could see six or seven people moving around in the hallway. They must have come into the house another way. The ones in the hallway were all wearing bibs with three large letters emblazoned across the front: AFP.

As Electron slowly gathered his wits, he realised why the cops had asked about firearms. He had once joked to Phoenix on the phone about how he was practising with his dad’s .22 for when the feds came around. Obviously the feds had been tapping his phone.

While his father talked with one of the officers in the other room and read the warrant, Electron saw the police pack up his computer gear--worth some $3000--and carry it out of the house. The only thing they didn’t discover was the modem. His father had become so expert at hiding it that not even the Australian Federal Police could find it.

Several other officers began searching Electron’s bedroom, which was no small feat, given the state it was in. The floor was covered in a thick layer of junk. Half crumpled music band posters, lots of scribbled notes with passwords and NUAs, pens, T-shirts both clean and dirty, jeans, sneakers, accounting books, cassettes, magazines, the occasional dirty cup. By the time the police had sifted through it all the room was tidier than when they started.