Here We Go Again (Summer, 1992)
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The United States Department of Justice along with the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and the Secret Service announced another round of hacker
indictments at a press conference in New York City on July 8. Five hackers were
charged with such crimes as conspiracy, computer tampering, illegal
wiretapping, computer fraud, and wire fraud.

The five are most commonly known in hacker circles as Phiber Optik, Acid
Phreak, Scorpion, Outlaw, and Corrupt. Each entered pleas of not guilty in
federal court on July 16.

And for the first time ever, the government has admitted using wiretaps in a
hacker investigation as a method of obtaining evidence.

Repercussions

This case is troublesome for many reasons. Wiretapping alone ought to be enough
to send shivers down the spine of the hacker world, indeed the world in
general. By justifying such an act, the government is now saying that hackers
are in a league with the most notorious of criminals mobsters, terrorists, and
politicians. If this action goes unchallenged, this is the way hackers will be
perceived in all future dealings. We feel the government wishes to convey this
image simply to make it easier to subjugate those it perceives as a threat.

By tapping into phone lines, the government will claim that vital evidence was
obtained. Translation: they will do it again. And what assurance do we have
that this method will stop at hackers? None. Wiretapping is certain to become
increasingly easy in the future, especially if the FBI is successful in its bid
for a mandatory surveillance system on all digital phone systems. (They're
already claiming that this case proves how badly they need such a system; we
have trouble following their logic.)

With the wiretapping comes the realization that 2600 is also under tightening
scrutiny. Since we have been in contact with these hackers for years, since
some of them have been at our office, and since they all make appearances at
the monthly New York 2600 meetings, we could easily be considered "known
associates" of major criminals, possibly even co-conspirators. This means that
it wouldn't be very hard for the authorities to justify monitoring our every
movement, tapping all of our phone lines, monitoring our data traffic, and
doing whatever else they deemed necessary for the likes of us, major criminals
that we are. And the same for all of our associates.

Despite all of our warnings and protestations over the years, the image of
hackers has been portrayed in increasingly ominous tones by the government and
the media, despite the lack of substantial evidence that hackers are anything
more than over-exuberant teenagers and young adults, playing with toys that
have never before existed.

If our assessment is correct, then we will not be the last in this chain of
suspects. Everyone who has ever expressed interest in the "wrong things" or
talked to people in the "wrong crowd" will be subject to surveillance of an
increasingly comprehensive nature. And silence is the best way to ensure this.

Fallout

Equally troublesome is the reaction of some members of the hacker community to
these recent happenings. There are some that have openly expressed happiness at
recent events, simply because they didn't like the hackers involved. A
combination of unhealthy rivalry and gross generalization has helped to create
an environment perfectly suited to carrying out the government's agenda. Hacker
versus hacker.

Over the years, various hacker "groups" have existed in one form or another.
PHALSE was formed in the early eighties. Its name meant "Phreakers, Hackers,
And Laundromat Service Employees." The FBI regarded them as a closely knit
conspiracy. In actuality, few of the members had ever even met each other and
spent most of their time trying to figure out how to communicate so they could
trade fragments of information. We're told the "laundry connection" was
thoroughly investigated by the government even though the words were only
included in order to form the PHALSE name. So much for conspiracies. Next was
the Legion Of Doom, commonly known as LOD. In 1990, headlines screamed that
these techno-anarchists had the potential to disrupt our lives by possessing
the E911 "program," which they could no doubt use to manipulate emergency calls
everywhere. Sure, it turned out that it wasn't really a program they had but
merely a ten page administrative document. And it wasn't really worth $80,000
like Bell South claimed, but a mere $13. It was still enough to send three
hackers to prison and plunge the then-publisher of Phrack into near-bankruptcy
to defend his First Amendment rights. More recently, MOD has been portrayed as
the group of potential terrorists that the government needs and the media
wants. MOD (nobody really knows what the letters stand for) has developed a
reputation of being "evil" hackers. The difference here is that this reputation
actually exists within the hacker community.

How did this happen? The same naivete that has so firmly gripped prosecutors
and hacker haters over the years has made a direct hit upon parts of the hacker
community. MOD was no better organized than PHALSE or LOD, either collectively
or individually. Nobody knows how many "members" there were. In fact, it's been
said that anyone who wanted to be a part of the group merely had to add the
letters MOD after their name because nobody could stop them from doing it.
Hardly a well organized group, if you ask us. Yet they were perceived as a
threat by some, and thus became all the more dangerous.

We certainly don't mean to minimize any damage or harassment that may have
occurred. If proven, such actions should be punished, but within reason. So
should any acts that involve tangible theft or selling of unauthorized access.
This has always been our position. But to blame the actions of a few (possibly
even one) on an entire group, real or perceived, is dangerous. This is
something history should teach us, if common sense doesn't.

We've taken a lot of heat for our position on this but we must stand firm.
Innocent people are being prosecuted for things they did not do. We know this
to be true. And we intend to stand up for them. We cannot judge each other on
anything less than individual actions.

If we turn against each other, whatever community we have established will
unravel completely. It is in the interests of some to have this happen and we
don't doubt that they are encouraging acts of disunity. We have to be smart
enough to see through this.

A year ago we warned of the dangers of hacker "gangs" and "elite" hackers.
Egos and machismo tend to cloud the reason we got involved in the first place,
we said. They also prove to be fatal if we are trying to justify our existence
to the authorities. It doesn't take a genius to figure this out.

By creating the appearance of warring factions, we give the media permission to
turn it into reality. Once they do this, it no longer matters whether or not it
was ever true to begin with. It becomes the truth.

While we have no doubt that there was childish mischief going on at some point,
to claim that it was part of a carefully coordinated conspiracy is a gross
distortion. Sure, such a claim will get attention and will probably result in
all kinds of charges being filed. Lives will be scarred, headlines will be
written, and a lot of time and money will be wasted. Is this the only response
we re capable of coming up with when people act like idiots? If so, then we've
just made the government's job a lot easier.