Terminal Compromise - Winn Schwartau (fiction book recommendations TXT) 📗

PASSWORD: XXXXKIRKXXXX

Again, there was a pause, this time a little longer. Now, from

his room, he was talking to a computer in Los Angeles. There was

another menu of options, and a list of other widely dispersed

computer networks. He requested the SUNYNET computer, the State

University of New York Network. From there, he asked the comput-

er for a local phone line so he could dial into a very private,

very secret computer called NEMO.

It took Steve a grand total of 45 seconds to access NEMO in New

York, all at the price of a local phone call.

NEMO was a private BBS that was restricted to an elite few.

Those who qualifications and reputations allowed them entry into

the exclusive domain of hacking. NEMO was born into this world

by Steve and a few of his friends while they were in high school

in Darien. NEMO was a private club, for a few close friends who

enjoyed their new hobby, computers.

NEMO’s Menu was designed for the professional hacker.

1. PASSWORDS 2. NEW NETS 3. DANGER ZONES 4. CRACKING TOOLS 5. WHO’S NEW? 6. PHREAKING 7. CRYPTO 8. WHO ELSE? 9. U.S. NETWORKS 10. INTERNATIONAL NETWORKS 11. FOR TRADE 12. FORTUNE 500 DOORKEYS

He selected (8), WHO ELSE? Steve wanted to see who else was ‘on-

line’ now. He wanted to talk about this Chase guy who was giving

hackers a bad name. The computer responded:

CONVERSATION PIT: LA CREME, RAMBO. DO YOU WANT TO JOIN IN?

That was great! Two of the half dozen of NEMO’s founders were

there. La Creme de la Creme was KIRK’s college roommate, but he

had not yet returned to San Diego for the fall term. RAMBO,

‘I’ll get through any door’ was the same age as Kirk and Creme,

but chose to study at Columbia in New York’s Harlem. Hackers

picked alter- ego monikers as CB’ers on the highways did; to

project the desired image. Steve and his cohorts picked their

aliases when they were only fifteen, and kept them ever since.

Steve typed in a ‘Y’ and the ENTER key.

WHO ARE YOU?

NEMO was asking for an additional password.

Kirk

Steve typed. A brief pause, and the computer screen came to

life.

WELCOME TO THE CONVERSATION PIT, KIRK. HOW HAVE YOU BEEN?

That was his invitation to interrupt any conversation in

progress. Steve typed in,

Dudes!

HOW’D EXAMS GO? <>

Greased’em. Ready to come back?

FAST AS THE PLANE WILL GO. PICK ME UP? 7:20 ON AMERICAN?

CREME>

Sure. Hey, what’s with the Morris copy cat? Some phreak blowing

it for the rest of us.

SO YOU HEARD. CHASE IS REALLY GONNA SCREW THINGS UP. <>

What the hell really happened? I read the Times. Said that he

claimed it was accident.

ACCIDENTAL ON PURPOSE MAYBE <>

HOW MANY WAYS ARE THERE INFECT A NATIONAL DEFENSE NETWORK? ONE

THAT I KNOW OF. YOU PUT THE VIRUS IN THERE. THAT’S NO ACCIDENT.

<>

Ten-Four. Seems like he don’t wanna live by the code. Must be

some spoiled little brat getting too big for his britches . . .

BEST GUESS IS THAT HE DID IT TO IMPRESS HIS OLD MAN. HE SUPPOS-

EDLY CREATED AN ANTIDOTE, TOO. HE WANTED TO SET OFF A BIG VIRUS

SCARE AND THEN LOOK LIKE A HERO WITH A FAST FIX. THE VIRUS

WORKED ALL TOO WELL. THE ANTIDOTE, IF THERE WAS ONE, SUCKED. SO

INTERNET HAD GAS SO BAD, COMPUTING CAME TO A HALT FOR A COUPLE OF

DAYS TILL THEY CLEANED OUT THE PROVERBIAL SEWERS. <>

SURE SOUNDS LIKE A PUBLICITY GAG TO ME <>

Jeez. Anyone else been hit yet?

NO, BUT WE’VE BEEN EXTRA CAREFUL SINCE. A LOT OF DOORS HAVE BEEN

CLOSED SO IT’S BACK TO SQUARE ONE ON A BUNCH, BUT WE DIDN’T LOSE

EVERYTHING. THE DOORKEY DOWNLOAD WILL UPDATE YOU. <>

OK, I’ll be supersleuth. Any word on CHAOS? Legion of Doom, The

Crusaders?

IT’S ONE BIG DEAL IN THE E-MAIL: NEW CHAOS VIRUSES, EVERY DICK

AND JANE IS WRITING THEIR OWN VIRUSES. COMPUTING WITH AIDS.

Funny. Why don’t you put a rubber on your big 640K RAM? Or your

mouse?

GOT SOMETHING AGAINST SAFE COMPUTING? IF HALF OF WHAT THEY SAY

IS TRUE, WE’RE ALL IN TROUBLE. TAKE A LOOK AT THE PUBLIC BBS’S.

QUITE A CHAT. <>

Will do. Any word on the new Central Census Data Base? Every-

thing about every American stored in one computer. All of their

personal data, ripe for the picking. Sounds like the kind of

library that would do the bad guys a lot of good.

CAN’T FIND A DOOR FROM THE INTERNET GATE. THE JUSTICE LINK WAS

STILL GOOD YESTERDAY AND THE FBI STILL HASN’T CHANGED A PASSWORD,

SO THAT SHOULD BE AN EASY OPEN ONCE WE FIND THE FRONT DOOR.

GIMME A COUPLE OF DAYS AND WE SHOULD KNOW DAN QUAYLES’ JOCK SIZE.

<>

Zero! Ha! Keep me in mind.

*

Steve copied several pages of names, phone numbers and passwords

from NEMO’s data base into his computer 3000 miles across the

country. These were the most valuable and revered types of files

in the underground world of hackerdom. They include all of the

information needed to enter and play havoc inside of hundreds of

secret and private computers.

National Institute of Health 301-555-6761 USER: Fillstein PASSWORD: Daddy1 USER: Miller9 PASSWORD: Secret VMS 1.01 SUPERUSER: B645_DICKY VTEK NAS, Pensacola, Fla 904-555-2113 USER: Major101 PASSWORD: Secret USER: General22 PASSWORD: Secret1 USER: Forestall PASSWORD: PDQS IBM, Armonk, Advanced Research 914-555-0965 USER: Port1 PASSWORD: Scientist USER: Port2 PASSWORD: Scientist USER: Port3 PASSWORD: Scientist

There were seventeen pages of updated and illegal access codes to

computer systems across the country. Another reason NEMO was so

secret. Didn’t want just anybody climbing the walls of their

private playground. Can’t trust everyone to live by the Code.

Steve finished downloading the files from NEMO’s distant data

base and proceeded to print them out for a hardcopy reference. He

laughed to himself. Big business and government never wizened

up. Predictable passwords, like ‘secret’ were about as kinder-

garten as you could get. And everyone wonders why folks like us

parade around their computers. He had in his hand a list of

over 250 updated and verified private, government and educational

institutions who had left the keys to the front doors of their

computers wide open. And those were just the ones that NEMO knew

about today.

There is no accurate way to determine how many groups of hackers

like NEMO existed. But, even if only 1/100 of 1% of computer

users classified themselves as hackers, that’s well over 100,000

people breaking into computers. Enough reason to give Big Busi-

ness cause for concern. Yet, no one did anything serious to lock

the doors.

Steve spent the next several hours walking right into computer

systems all over the country. Through the Bank of California in

San Francisco, (Steve’s first long distance call) he could reach

the computers of several corresponding banks. He read through

the new loan files, saw that various developers had defaulted on

their loans and were in serious trouble. Rates were going to

start rising. Good enough for a warm up.

Steve still wanted back into the NASA launch computers. On line

launch information, results of analysis going back twenty years,

and he had had a taste of it, once. Then, one day, someone

inside of NASA got smart and properly locked the front door. He

and NEMO were ever on the search for a key back into NASA’s

computers.

He figured that Livermore was still a good bet to get into NASA.

That only meant a local call, through the SDSU/BBS to Cal Tech

then into Livermore. From San Diego, to LA, to San Francisco for

a mere 25 cents.

Livermore researchers kept the front doors of their computers

almost completely open. Most of the workers, the graduate stu-

dents, preferred a free exchange of information between all

scientists, so their computer security was extraordinarily lax.

For a weapons research laboratory, funded by the Department of

Energy, it was a most incongruous situation.

Much of the information in the Livermore computers was considered

sensitive but unclassified, whatever that meant in government-

speak, but for an undergraduate engineering major cum hacker, it

was great reading. The leading thinkers from the most technical-