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.
** Page 1
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
** Page 2
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 รบ100. 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
** Page 3
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
** Page 4
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
** Page 5
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment