(C) Sergey Simonovich, 1995 (translation, adaptation, editing)
HACKER'S REVELATIONS
Summer 1984. Small Chinese restaurant in
Edgeware. The best British team gathered at one of the tables
hackers of the mid-eighties. We won't name names,
since many of them today occupy responsible positions in
well-known companies. But these were truly the best of the best...
Although some are still quite “at the level”, but talk about
this is not accepted out loud...
Hacking in the UK began in 1982 when
British Telecom launched the first major
experimental network called EPPS (Experimental Packet
Switch Stream). Gradually it started working, “healed”, became
commercial and its name was dropped Experimental - it became
be called PSS. Somewhat earlier, the Prestel system appeared.
The network worked with modems that are ridiculous today
by standards speeds 300/300 1200/75, but it allowed users
across the UK with modems to contact each other
friend and with the system in "online" mode, without paying for long-distance
calls - for the price of a local call. That is, of course, someone
paid for the long-distance call, but not you. You only paid for
local. The long-distance fare was paid by the person whose password you used to access the
connection.
Personally forit all started for me in the summer of 1983, when for
my Sinclair Spectrum computer, I bought the first modem in my life
VTX5O00. The salesman from the store in Leeds forgot to register
modem documentation and I didn't get what I was supposed to
get the modem for free - password to log in
"Prestel" and the telephone number of its local branch. It's over
the fact that I spent Saturday evening trying to “dig out” the number
Prestel phone, and then “break into” the system.
Of course, nothing worked out for me that time - I was
newbie But a little time passed and I began to wise up. Soon I
went to the BBS station, through which I established contact with many
other users.
“Hey guy, switch to PPS,” NNN once told me.
And this is how I did it...
Using a small coded program that I wrote
for Spectrum my friend, I managed to connect to a mainframe computer
DEC-10 University of Essex. At this time there already existed
multiplayer role-playing game MUD (Multi User Dungeon)...
...Like other similar role-playing games, it went to
text environment and each user, playing some kind of
role, could communicate with the machine or with other users. In
During such communication during leisure hours, new secrets were revealed.
One of the features of the PSS password was that
it always consisted of13 characters and began with the letter "N". Word
NHENDONbbbbFED may mean nothing to a mere mortal, but
the user of the PSS network instantly realized that this was the password of a certain
organization based in HENDON County.
The exchange of such information was well established through
game. When different characters “met” during the game, then
Sometimes a dialogue like this took place between them:
- Hey, have you heard about NHENDONbbbbFED yet?
- Not yet, thank you.
Having a password in the PSS system, you could call
anywhere in the world. Naturally, I took upon myself to pay for the call.
owner of the password. The caller himself paid only local
call to the nearest PSS service port.
Today the PSS system already exists under a different name.
This is Dial Plus and it works at speeds no lower than 9600 baud, but
If you dig deeper, then in ideology it is still the same PSS.
So I started working at PSS and there I contacted “Janet”.
JANET - Joint Academic Network - joint academic
network. It connected various British universities and had
"guest accounts" in the PSS network.
Working with "Janet" was an absolute pleasure. Unlike
PSS, this network was not commercial and international calls
happened completely free of charge. This meant that when
it became impossible to use the “stolen” PSS password,
could be boughtyour own PSS password and through it
access JANET, and then go anywhere in the world and not
take care of paying for communications.
A special pleasure when entering foreign computer
servers were searching for "default reserved passwords".
The fact is that very often the operators of these stations left
system some passwords for some purposes (maybe
for their leaders), who, as a rule, were simple and
unsophisticated. But unlike “guest accounts” and
"demonstration" ones, gave a very high level of priority to topics
who logged in with this password.
Usually rummaging through British computers with high
priority level was a rather boring matter. Sea of service
information did not have interesting content, but gradual
increasing your level in the British system is very common
allowed high-priority login to other
systems, especially foreign ones.
So, gradually increasing your priority step by step,
it was possible, for example, to end up in some computer
secret scientific organization somewhere on the west coast
USA and open files there, at first glance you can see
that they are in no way intended for you to see.
Interesting things happened when viewing such
secret archives, youcame across messages from other hackers (like
rule from the USA) who have already been here and seen it all.
They usually registered their achievements under big names
like Silver Surfer or Atom Bomb.
Thus, the PSS system became a field of exciting game, which
hackers led. The goal of the game is to get as far as possible there,
where no one invited you. Mass of large and small computers in
companies and corporations became available in English and American
hackers.
Demand creates supply. And few people usually need it
reference manual for working with the DEC-10 computer began to be used
in great demand and sold out at a price of two and a half pounds.
The fact is that a multiplayer game launched in
University of Essex, worked only at night or when
There was little demand for computer time. Armed with this
reference book, you could use the SETGRAB command to “chop off” a piece of memory
university computer and block access there for legitimate
day users. After this, the machine was told that today
Sunday and demand for her services is low (bank holiday).
Then it was quite easy to launch a multi-user
play and have fun not at night, but at hours convenient for you.
There were other interesting achievements. So, one day
in the evening I was visiting my friend and we managed to connect
to the computerlarge department store. We did this by simply adding
one digit to the telephone number of the local Prestel system server.
We parted late at night trying to try
various combinations of letters and numbers, trying to guess the password for
login to this computer. When I returned to my friend in the morning, all
the room was littered with paper and printouts. He entered this
computer!
The password turned out to be the number 8888. And not just any password... -
it turned out to be the system manager password, which didn’t just open
access to information, but the ability to edit the system itself. Then in
There have long been rumors in hacker circles about trucks roaming around
country with loads of “ordered” goods.
Eventually the system operators realized that something
Something was wrong with their car and they began to look into it. First
In fact, they closed the system manager password. But my friend was
not so simple. And it was not for nothing that he had “system manager” access. He
pre-multiplied (cloned) many new “system
managers" with their passwords known only to him. And he did
he is. He found some "suspended" (long ago
unused) accounts and assigned them system status
manager System operators faced the need
shut down the entire system and rewrite passwords for everyone
to the user. Naturally, they could not do this. Thenthey
began a systematic "catching" of the violator, closing illegal
accounts of "system managers" one after another. Seeing the picture, my
the friend realized that he was being hunted and finally “slammed the door.”
He entered the "routing table". In order to move from
screen to screen when working with information using keys
digital panel, the system has such routing tables. He's like that
rewrote this table so that instead of the Welcome page, the incoming
went to the Goodbye page. That is, when trying to log in
own computer, system operators immediately exited it. No
Needless to say, after this, for several days this system did not
worked.
The QQQ hacker had another interesting adventure. It
associated with the Hawaiian Observatory. For seven weeks there was
a continuous experiment in observing something in the stars
sky, when the telescope seemed to go crazy and began to spin like
crazy. Subsequently, QQQ told me that he was very
It was interesting to see what the MOVE XXX team was doing; YYY;
ZZZ.
In 1984, the Prestel system began its first experiments
with gateways. Founded back in 1979, this system and by 1984
year remained centralized, and the information in it
circulated in its own format. Those organizations
who supplied information to the Prestel network, it was very
uncomfortable -they had to reformat it and
re-edit. Therefore, "gateways" were organized
allowing heterogeneous large and small computers to communicate with Prestel
directly. We took upon ourselves the conversion of information into a unified format.
gateways.
This is where the “hackers” got new opportunities. If
"crash" the program running on the "gateway" computer, then
you can be connected directly to the recipient and work
further "under his sign". And it’s not difficult to “fail” a program if
she is not very carefully “licked”.
Most of the organizations servicing these gateways were
Complete idiots when it comes to information security. Their operators
rarely heard anything about it, and for the most part not even
They guessed that the information needed to be protected. The appearance of a gateway
systems has turned tedious crawling through networks into
exciting picnic. This is where the hackers went wild.
Since the Prestel system connected many
city and municipal services, it turned out to be convenient to connect
and with numerous insurance companies. So information about
any accidents or other events that are “insurable”
cases", instantly became available to insurers. B
As a result, many gateways have appeared in insurance companies.
The floodgates collapsed in different ways. For example, I saw how
mine did itfamiliar RRR. He logged into the gateway computer and
began to quickly and quickly send requests to obviously
non-existent pages. I can imagine how frantically the poor guy was spinning
"Winchester" did not give up completely yet.
When the gateway computer crashed, you were left
connected directly to the terminal of some remote
the computer continued to work as if you were it. You can
I had to do DIR and see what good there was. It was possible
make a TYPE and receive a paper copy of interesting documents.
If, for example, it was necessary to obtain data on a “pledged” or
"frozen" real estate - no problem, all files are available. Oh
about what you can do with such confidential
information, guess for yourself.
In 1989, hackers began actively penetrating
channels of the World Wide Web, but taught by loud
the scandals of the 80s, system operators have already undertaken
reliable measures to protect important data from unauthorized access
access. This service works especially reliably in the USA.
In the UK, the main area for hacker activity
today has become the level of BBS, especially some "exotic" ones
stations. But in recent years the Computer Misuse Act was passed -
law on the "misuse" of computers and conversation in
topic about the current state of affairs in thissphere may have
unpleasant legal consequences. Alas, such is life!
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