CHAPTER 1

First Principles

The first hack I ever did was executed at an exhibition stand run

by BT's then rather new Prestel service. Earlier, in an adjacent

conference hall, an enthusiastic speaker had demonstrated view-

data's potential world-wide spread by logging on to Viditel, the

infant Dutch service. He had had, as so often happens in the these

circumstances, difficulty in logging on first time. He was using one

of those sets that displays auto-dialled telephone numbers; that was

how I found the number to call. By the time he had finished his third

unsuccessful log-on attempt I (and presumably several others) had all

the pass numbers. While the BT staff were busy with other visitors to

their stand, I picked out for myself a relatively neglected viewdata

set. I knew that it was possible to by-pass the auto-dialler with its

pre-programmed phone numbers in this particular model, simply by

picking up the the phone adjacent to it, dialling my preferred

number, waiting for the whistle, and then hitting the keyboard button

labelled 'viewdata'. I dialled Holland, performed my little by-pass

trick and watched Viditel write itself on the screen. The pass

numbers were accepted first time and, courtesy of...no, I'll spare

them embarrassment...I had only lack of fluency in Dutch to restrain

my explorations. Fortunately, the first BT executive to spot what I

had done was amused as well.

Most hackers seem to have started in a similar way. Essentially

you rely on the foolishness and inadequate sense of security of

computer salesmen, operators, programmers and designers.

In the introduction to this book I described hacking as a sport;

and like most sports, it is both relatively pointless and filled with

rules, written or otherwise, which have to be obeyed if there is to

be any meaningfulness to it. Just as rugby football is not only about

forcing a ball down one end of a field, so hacking is not just about

using any means to secure access to a computer.

On this basis, opening private correspondence to secure a password

on a public access service like Prestel and then running around the

system building up someone's bill, is not what hackers call hacking.

The critical element must be the use of skill in some shape or form.

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Hacking is not a new pursuit. It started in the early 1960s when

the first "serious" time-share computers began to appear at

university sites. Very early on, 'unofficial' areas of the memory

started to appear, first as mere notice boards and scratch pads for

private programming experiments, then, as locations for games.

(Where, and how do you think the early Space Invaders, Lunar Landers

and Adventure Games were created?) Perhaps tech-hacking-- the

mischievous manipulation of technology--goes back even further. One

of the old favourites of US campus life was to rewire the control

panels of elevators (lifts) in high-rise buildings, so that a request

for the third floor resulted in the occupants being whizzed to the

twenty-third.

Towards the end of the 60s, when the first experimental networks

arrived on the scene (particularly when the legendary

ARPAnet--Advanced Research Projects Agency network-- opened up), the

computer hackers skipped out of their own local computers, along the

packet-switched high grade communications lines, and into the other

machines on the net. But all these hackers were privileged

individuals. They were at a university or research resource, and they

were able to borrow terminals to work with.

What has changed now, of course, is the wide availability of home

computers and the modems to go with them, the growth of public-access

networking of computers, and the enormous quantity and variety of

computers that can be accessed.

Hackers vary considerably in their native computer skills; a basic

knowledge of how data is held on computers and can be transferred

from one to another is essential. Determination, alertness,

opportunism, the ability to analyse and synthesise, the collection of

relevant helpful data and luck--the pre-requisites of any

intelligence officer--are all equally important. If you can write

quick effective programs in either a high level language or machine

code, well, it helps. A knowledge of on-line query procedures is

helpful, and the ability to work in one or more popular mainframe and

mini operating systems could put you in the big league.

The materials and information you need to hack are all around

you--only they are seldom marked as such. Remember that a large

proportion of what is passed off as 'secret intelligence' is openly

available, if only you know where to look and how to appreciate what

you find. At one time or another, hacking will test everything you

know about computers and communications. You will discover your

abilities increase in fits and starts, and you must

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be prepared for long periods when nothing new appears to happen.

Popular films and tv series have built up a mythology of what

hackers can do and with what degree of ease. My personal delight in

such Dream Factory output is in compiling a list of all the mistakes

in each episode. Anyone who has ever tried to move a graphics game

from one micro to an almost-similar competitor will already know that

the chances of getting a home micro to display the North Atlantic

Strategic Situation as it would be viewed from the President's

Command Post would be slim even if appropriate telephone numbers and

passwords were available. Less immediately obvious is the fact that

most home micros talk to the outside world through limited but

convenient asynchronous protocols, effectively denying direct access

to the mainframe products of the world's undisputed leading computer

manufacturer, which favours synchronous protocols. And home micro

displays are memory-mapped, not vector-traced... Nevertheless, it is

astonishingly easy to get remarkable results. And thanks to the

protocol transformation facilities of PADs in PSS networks (of which

much more later), you can get into large IBM devices....

The cheapest hacking kit I have ever used consisted of a ZX81, 16K

RAMpack, a clever firmware accessory and an acoustic coupler. Total

cost, just over ú100. The ZX81's touch-membrane keyboard was one

liability; another was the uncertainty of the various connectors.

Much of the cleverness of the firmware was devoted to overcoming the

native drawbacks of the ZX81's inner configuration--the fact that it

didn't readily send and receive characters in the industry-standard

ASCII code, and that the output port was designed more for instant

access to the Z80's main logic rather than to use industry-standard

serial port protocols and to rectify the limited screen display.

Yet this kit was capable of adjusting to most bulletin boards;

could get into most dial-up 300/300 asynchronous ports,

re-configuring for word-length and parity if needed; could have

accessed a PSS PAD and hence got into a huge range of computers not

normally available to micro-owners; and, with another modem, could

have got into viewdata services. You could print out pages on the ZX

'tin-foil' printer. The disadvantages of this kit were all in

convenience, not in facilities. Chapter 3 describes the sort of kit

most hackers use.

It is even possible to hack with no equipment at all. All major

banks now have a network of 'hole in the wall' cash machines-- ATMs

or Automatic Telling Machines, as they are officially

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known. Major building societies have their own network. These

machines have had faults in software design, and the hackers who

played around with them used no more equipment than their fingers and

brains. More about this later.

Though I have no intention of writing at length about hacking

etiquette, it is worth one paragraph: lovers of fresh-air walks obey

the Country Code; they close gates behind them, and avoid damage to

crops and livestock. Something very similar ought to guide your

rambles into other people's computers: don't manipulate files unless

you are sure a back-up exists; don't crash operating systems; don't

lock legitimate users out from access; watch who you give information

to; if you really discover something confidential, keep it to

yourself. Hackers should not be interested in fraud. Finally, just

as any rambler who ventured past barbed wire and notices warning

about the Official Secrets Acts would deserve whatever happened

thereafter, there are a few hacking projects which should never be

attempted.

On the converse side, I and many hackers I know are convinced of one

thing: we receive more than a little help from the system managers of

the computers we attack. In the case of computers owned by

universities and polys, there is little doubt that a number of them

are viewed like academic libraries--strictly speaking they are for

the student population, but if an outsider seriously thirsty for

knowledge shows up, they aren't turned away. As for other computers,

a number of us are almost sure we have been used as a cheap means to

test a system's defences...someone releases a phone number and

low-level password to hackers (there are plenty of ways) and watches

what happens over the next few weeks while the computer files

themselves are empty of sensitive data. Then, when the results have

been noted, the phone numbers and passwords are changed, the security

improved etc etc....much easier on dp budgets than employing

programmers at £150/man/ day or more. Certainly the Pentagon has been

known to form 'Tiger Units' of US Army computer specialists to

pin-point weaknesses in systems security.

Two spectacular hacks of recent years have captured the public

imagination: the first, the Great Prince Philip Prestel Hack, is

described in detail in chapter 8, which deals with viewdata. The

second was spectacular because it was carried out on live national

television. It occurred on October 2nd 1983 during a follow-up to the

BBC's successful Computer Literacy series. It's worth reporting here,

because it neatly illustrates the essence of hacking as a sport...

skill with systems, careful research, maximum impact

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with minimum real harm, and humour.

The tv presenter, John Coll, was trying to show off the Telecom

Gold electronic mail service. Coll had hitherto never liked long

passwords and, in the context of the tight timing and pressures of

live tv, a two letter password seemed a good idea at the time. On

Telecom Gold, it is only the password that is truly confidential;

system and account numbers, as well as phone numbers to log on to the

system, are easily obtainable. The BBC's account number, extensively

publicised, was OWL001, the owl being the 'logo' for the tv series as

well as the BBC computer.

The hacker, who appeared on a subsequent programme as a 'former

hacker' and who talked about his activities in general, but did not

openly acknowledge his responsibility for the BBC act, managed to

seize control of Coll's mailbox and superimpose a message of his own:

Computer Security Error. Illegal access. I hope your television

PROGRAMME runs as smoothly as my PROGRAM worked out your passwords!

Nothing is secure!

Hackers' Song

"Put another password in,

Bomb it out and try again

Try to get past logging in,

We're hacking, hacking, hacking

Try his first wife's maiden name,

This is more than just a game,

It's real fun, but just the same,

It's hacking, hacking, hacking"

The Nutcracker (Hackers UK)

HI THERE, OWLETS, FROM OZ AND YUG

(OLIVER AND GUY)

After the hack a number of stories about how it had been carried

out, and by whom, circulated; it was suggested that the hackers had

crashed through to the operating system of the Prime computers upon

which the Dialcom electronic mail software

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resided--it was also suggested that the BBC had arranged the whole

thing as a stunt, or alternatively, that some BBC employees had fixed

it up without telling their colleagues. Getting to the truth of a

legend in such cases is almost always impossible. No one involved has

a stake in the truth. British Telecom, with a strong commitment to

get Gold accepted in the business community, was anxious to suggest

that only the dirtiest of dirty tricks could remove the inherent

confidentiality of their electronic mail service. Naturally, the

British Broadcasting Corporation rejected any possibility that it

would connive in an irresponsible cheap stunt. But the hacker had no

great stake in the truth either--he had sources and contacts to

protect, and his image in the hacker community to bolster. Never

expect any hacking anecdote to be completely truthful.