In today’s connected world, it is impossible to picture the depth and complexity that our society’s infrastructure has grown to. It’s amazing to know that at any one moment in time, there are thousands if not millions of transactions, connections and bits of data flowing all over the world at the same time. Here I will explain and delve as far as I dare, into the beginning of the net and just how complex it truly is.
ARPAnet -- WTF IS THAT?
ARPAnet (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) was designed in the early 60’s to be a mode of communication that could survive a nuclear war. DARPA (a branch of the DoD) provided the main funding and research for the project. It started out small, with only a few nodes, running on old DEC machines, commodores, and old CRAYS. The main method of communication was over a land link phone line. It was like dialup for machines to talk per se. After time, a lot of universities started to get connected with ARPAnet and researchers immediately saw its potential as a research network for collaborated efforts. Then as more people and companies started to join the network, other countries started to get on the bandwagon, and create their own networks. In the USA, there were several companies that offered public connections to the ARPAnet; they were Tymnet, Telenet (now Sprintnet) and some others. MILnet was also on this, but at this time, was on its own nodes and PADs (packet assemblers / dissemblers). The amount of connectivity at this point was also amazing; machines over great distances were connected and sharing data over their 300 baud modems. The net was growing.
Old Articles -- A window into the true times of hacking and exploration
One can get a glimpse into a time long forgotten, when exploits were still just an idea in Aleph One’s mind, and when password guessing was trivial. Back then finding a VAX/VMS was everyday and security was just as renowned on those systems as it is still today; hacking into NASA and Pentagon databases was very easy. A lot of the old articles are still distributed and a good collection can be located at textfiles.com/hacking and these will just give you an idea of what the possibilities were. Exploration was at its peak, the US Government actually declared war on the Texas based hacker group LoD (legions of doom) in Operation Sun Devil. One can truly begin to understand what it took to be a hacker in those days -- intelligence. You can see the depths of net connectivity even in these files. There is even a LoD crash course in TCP/IP, something that had just come out during the 80’s and 90’s. We take for granted the ’ping’ command, these guys had to try and explain it to hackers who were used to dialup PADs and IBM / VAX / UNIX System V OS’s. By reading these articles, you will become aware of a time before you may have even been curious about computers and the world; it’s also a good history lesson of our roots.
Net Complexity -- The massive infrastructure we call the net.
The internet is built and supported by many massive companies. With current statistics saying over 4 billion websites / pages, the internet is only growing in size. The net is very complex and incorporates many different technologies for sharing information. Once, a couple of years ago, I stumbled upon a Linux machine with an interesting login banner. It gave me a guest account and after reading everything, it turns out this was a radio link machine to service backup medical emergency radio frequencies for all of south Texas. It was part of a huge radio relay network. To think that my packets on the BBS were being transmitted across Texas at around 300 Baud on the Ham 2m bands and such to other BBS’s and transceivers and then over a few ham satellites was just amazing to me. Another example of depth is the ARPAnet; it’s still there! I play on it all the time, it is very slow, and sometimes has a few network outages in certain areas. Still, for its age and effective yet immature design, ARPAnet is still functioning. A lot of companies are moving back onto it, due to the security, such as ANI and phone logs as you remember a good bit is over the x.25 protocols and modem out dials. You cannot form an exploit and send it to your target on this network. The internet also links to it; I have found TCP gateways onto the old ARPAnet for routing and database connectivity purposes. I love the feeling of making old DEC machines turn their tape drives and run their modem PAD switches somewhere in a basement, covered in dust. In most places like South America and parts of Asia and Russia, the ARPAnet is still a major thing to them. There are whole sections still linking banks, governments, and companies back to the net and to each other. Their networks are still active and for the most part, largely unexplored. Even in the old files, very few did exploring in world-wide networks. Most dealt with the UK, or Germany, but those were also leading net countries along with the USA. The machines are still working hard probably covered in cobwebs and dust, as the large magnetic tape drives spin daily, keeping track on their 25 MHz processors what our GHz servers do today. They run the governments, the banks, and keep their country connected permanently. In Mexico I saw some of the old server buildings and such belonging to TelMex when I was in Cozumel. I yearned to go exploring into their depths to find old gems, but my concern to keep my freedom and to avoid Mexican prison for my unauthorized exploring kept me from doing so.
Conclusion -- Did you understand?
In the end, it’s the drive, that maddening sense to explore the old networks, to see its true depth that urged me to write this. I hope I have inspired some of you to start reading and learning the ways of the old hackers; the true Columbus’s and Vikings before our time. Read them, explore, and picture the massive amounts of information on the web, wireless, radio, ARPAnet, and SATnet that traverse the globe constantly. You will be amazed and I promise, almost overwhelmed. The true underground awaits you. Go forth, explore, and conquer.
