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***  CuD, Issue #1.17 / File 6 of 6 / Hackers in the News   ***
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Date: Sun, 17 Jun 90 20:42:39 -0400
From: adamg@world.std.com(Adam M Gaffin)
To: tk0jut2%niu.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Subject: newspaper article
 
 
The following is from the Middlesex News, Framingham, Mass, 6/17.
 
 
By Adam Gaffin NEWS STAFF WRITER
 
Scarecrow and Ferret say they're lying low right now - this
time the feds seem to be really serious about cracking down on
computer hackers.
 
Not that that's what they consider themselves.  But the two
Framingham-area residents are part of the computer
corporate codes to make free phone calls across the country and to
Europe as he tries to collect pirated copies of computer games from
underground computer bulletin-board systems.
 
Ferret ran one of these "elite" systems, open only to other
members of this demi-world, until his computer's hard drive began
malfunctioning a few weeks ago.
 
But the pair are cutting back their hacking. On May 7 and 8,
150 federal agents served search warrants in 15 locations across the
country in connection with a two-year probe into computer hacking.
Four months earlier several people were arrested in a related probe
into the electronic theft of a document describing the
administration of a 911 system in the South.
 
"I've been very low-key since this whole thing started,"
Scarecrow says, "I've gone seven weeks without using a
(credit-card) code."
 
"This time it has a different ring to it," Ferret said.
"This one for
me personally, it looks like maybe it's for real. It may be the end
of an era."
 
Both agreed to an interview on the condition that they be
identified only by the nicknames they use in the computer
underworld.
 
It's a world that is hard to enter until you pick up enough
skills to prove to insiders that you can hack with the best of them.
 
Scarecrow recalled getting a call once from a local teen who
needed some computer help. Scarecrow said he'd help, but on one
condition: that the teen crack into a computer network at a large
university in Boston and create an "account" that would give
Scarecrow access.
 
"And he did," Scarecrow said.  Once accepted into the
computer underworld, everybody tries to help each other out and
often become fast friends - even if they do not know each
other's real names and communicate only by computer or
long-distance phone call - the two said.  "I don't believe in
the high prices of software," Scarecrow says, explaining his
mania for collecting games for Commodore computers.
 
"Personally, I think it's insane to pay $40 for one game."
Yet he admits he has played few of the several thousand games
he has collected over the past couple of years. "It's more
like a game, just to see how many you can get." He says he has
a reputation as one of the fastest collectors in the country -
he can get any game within three days after it's been cracked.
And in the underground, reputation is everything, the two say.
It's how you gain access to the "elite" bulletin-board
systems, which now often require three personal references.
It's how you get others to do things you either cannot yourself
or just don't want to.
 
 "I can get anything I need, and I have
the means to get it," Scarecrow said.  "You do it because you
can," he said. "If I can get away with it and do it, why
not?" Scarecrow says nobody gets hurt and the phone companies
or big businesses pick up the tab for his phone calls, which
are often long conference calls with people across the country
and the Atlantic, usually at night. "They can afford it," he
said.  "I don't consider what we do breaking the law," he
said. "We sort of push it to the limit. How can you sit there
and tell me I'm breaking the law when I see what they did on
May 7 and 8? How can the government say I'm breaking the law?
They threw the First Amendment out the window."
 
 
The Software
Publishers Association, which represents companies that sell
programs, and the Secret Service see it differently.  "All the
publishers have to sell is an idea, a creation," says Peter
Beruq, the association's litigation manager. "A lot of time,
energy and effort goes into developing software products.
 
Publishers and their authors should be compensated for that
work; it doesn't matter if it's a $40 game or $200 spreadsheet.
What's the incentive for someone to create a new software
product if they know it's going to be pirated?"
 
"The losses
to the American public in this case are expected to be
significant," Gary Jenkins, the service's assistant director,
said in announcing the May warrants. "The Secret Service takes
computer crime very seriously, and we will continue to
investigate aggressively those crimes which threaten to disrupt
our nation's business and government services.  "Our
experience shows that many computer hacker suspects are no
longer misguided teen-agers mischievously playing games with
their computers in their bedrooms," he said. "Some are now
high-tech computer operators using computers to engage in
unlawful conduct."
 
"No one's out for destruction," Scarecrow
said. "We keep ourselves in check more than the government
ever could. ... There's a strict etiquette and you have to
answer for your actions. Your reputation is all you have."
Hackers often design elaborate "demos" - programs with fancy
graphics and sophisticated sound effects - to spread the word
about hackers gone bad, they said.  "Word on anyone can get
out within 24 hours," he said.  They add there is no shortage
of new people coming into the field.  "It's nice to see new
people coming in, new people taking over, but there's so much
to teach," Scarecrow said.  "We're old men," Ferret, 22,
said. Scarecrow is 26.
 
 
 
 
 
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