Hacking at the End of the Universe
They did it again. For the second time, the hackers of Holland have thrown a party second to none. It is estimated that up to a thousand hackers from around the globe descended upon a campsite near Amsterdam for three days where they did what has never been done before: Merge high tech with the wilderness. Tents were set up throughout the site and an Ethernet was established to keep the various computers inside the tents connected. This in turn was hooked into the Internet. Yes, it was possible to be hooked into the Internet from a laptop in a tent in the middle of nowhere. And it still is.
Hacking at the End of the Universe was organized by Hack-Tic, the Dutch hacker magazine. The spontaneous semi-anarchistic way in which everything fell together made many think of a Hacker Woodstock. It was an event a long time coming, which the hacker world needed. And even though very few Americans attended, we can still benefit from what happened this summer.
Imagine a setting where paranoia is at a minimum, government agents keep their distance, questions are encouraged, and experimentation rewarded. This was the environment the Dutch hackers created. Forums on networks, phone phreaking, social engineering, and hacking techniques were attended by hundreds of enthusiastic people from a wide variety of backgrounds. This, despite the fact that Holland now has laws against computer hacking, proves that the hacker world has a very bright future.
Many times we were asked if such an event would succeed in America. And it became hard to stop thinking of reasons why it wouldn't. After all, we live in one of the most self-censoring, paranoid, mass-media patrolled societies ever to have existed how could an event like this ever possibly work?
It can, and so can a lot of other things. The trick is to know what we want to accomplish and work together to achieve it. For instance, a large hacker event like the HEU could easily be held in the United States next summer as part of 2600's tenth anniversary. (That's right, we've been doing this for a decade!) Instead of using a campsite, we could use a large warehouse in the middle of an easily accessible city. One section would be devoted to hooking up a massive network that would tie into the Internet. Another area would be used for forums where all kinds of topics would be addressed by people from all over the world. Another section would be for displays and exhibitions. It would be a 24-hour operation lasting for a week and there would be enough space for people to sleep. Sounds like a fantasy? It is, make no mistake. But we always have the ability to turn our fantasies into reality. It involves working together and using as many connections as we can. This means finding a cheap building to rent for a couple of weeks, getting imaginative and enthusiastic hackers to wire the place, and encouraging as many interesting and diverse people as possible to show up. The result, if successful, will be a radical change in the way hackers are perceived. We can initiate change and do things to technology that nobody has ever done before. Or we can just say we can.
This reality extends way beyond a single event. Hackers can lead the way to technological access. It is our goal to get an incredibly economical Internet and voice mail link up and running in the near future. If you have or know of equipment that can be donated to this cause, please let us know. You could wind up changing history. And this is only the beginning.
We could, and should, focus on the negative. As we go to press, two of our friends, Acid Phreak and Scorpion, are being sent to prison. For what, nobody really can say. They didn't steal anything, they didn't damage any systems, they were responsible and honest people. Their only crime seems to have been associating with people that were up to no good. But what's ironic is that the truly guilty parties struck a deal with the government and avoided prison by agreeing to testify against the others. This sort of thing happens far too often. It's very easy to intimidate people into pleading guilty when you tell them how much worse it will be if they plead innocent and somehow lose. In this case, the government managed to do this without ever accurately defining the crime! And so, two people lose a year of their life for absolutely nothing.
We should not forget the case of the student at the University of Texas at Houston who made the mistake of printing out the password file of his school's computer system. Sounds evil, doesn't it? But consider that the password file is readily available to any user anyway and that the passwords are encrypted. But in this case, the passwords were shadowed, which meant they weren't even in the password file to begin with! All this list was without the passwords was a list of users. And for printing this list, the student wound up being kicked out of school for a year. If he chooses to return after that, he won't be able to have normal access to any computers, which will make being a computer science major rather difficult. In New Jersey, a similar situation involved a Chinese national who accessed a network without permission just to see if he could do it. He came close to being deported. Instead he was merely expelled from school.
And we certainly can't forget the noble efforts of the AIS BBS, a system operated by the Treasury Department's Bureau of Public Debt. (That's right, the same Treasury Department that oversees the Secret Service.) The system was the first ever operated by the government to allow free and open discussion of hacker issues between government officials, hackers, system administrators, and security experts. Hacker files and virus source code were available online for the purposes of discussion and education. Of course, when the mass media found out about this, the headlines screamed that the government was helping the hackers cause mayhem, not that constructive dialogue was taking place. That, coupled with pressure from clueless politicians like Congressman Edward Markey of Massachusetts, led to the effective closing down of this avenue of free speech. (For more news of Markey's anti-hacker hysteria, turn to page 14. And to see what's left of the AIS BBS, call; 304-480-6083
There are a lot of powerful idiots out there who want us to live within their close-minded and stagnant parameters. And a number of good people are being hurt because they question the logic. We cannot forget this. But dwelling upon it will only encourage us to come up with more reasons why we can't do all of the things we should be doing. When we drive away the fear and ignore the brain-dead bureaucrats, we stand a chance of actually getting somewhere. And whether it's the wilderness or a warehouse, we'll be the ones creating a network.