Noah is a young hacker who lives in Vancouver, Washington. He spent hours and hours on-line in his bedroom, going through various local computers and using them to gain access to the internet or various other systems. When Noah was 4 years old he wrote his first computer program. It was a little picture of a christmas tree written on an old Timex Sinclair. By the time he went to school he had graduated to an Apple IIe, then he discovered his first 300 baud modem,

"It completely blew me away! the whole idea of telecommunications and communicating, it was just incredible, so I began to hack the phone lines constantly calling them up with my modem".

Noah began to hang out on some electronic bulletin boards and eventually graduated from playing games to learning more and more about how computers and phone systems worked. He spent months straight reading text files and learning the basics of finding your way around the networks. When Noah was 13 he found a dial up for a computer. Since there was no password on the system it was pretty easy to get on. He found his way through the computer and used it to connect to another computer in another location. Generally Noah was more interested in the access than he was in the information on the computer. This particular computer belonged to Westinghouse.

Noah's mother told me, "So my husband and I drive up to the house. Noah and his sister are out of town, there's a strange car parked on the corner which I notice as we drive up to the garage. And out of this car get two men, who start walking right up our driveway....and I immediately had the feeling that they were some kind of law enforcement, and they were not regular cops...and they came right up to us and I think they asked for us by name, and I immediately knew that this had something to do with the computer and something to do with Noah."

By this time Noah had just turned 14. The US Secret Service boxed up Noah's equipment, questioned his parents and told them that their son was in some serious trouble. The Secret Service Agents told Noah's parents a gruesome story (I doubt that its true) about a kid in New York who was sent to Rikers [hacking being a Federal crime] at the age of 15 and who after being there for 2 days had tried to commit suicide. "I had nightmares for a couple weeks about someone coming to take my son." The agents left, informing Noah's parents that they would return the next day to question Noah.

Noah and his sister came home later on that evening. "So my parents tell me, `Guess who came to the door today Noah?' I'm like who? And my parents tell me that the Secret Service came to the door and of course I thought they were kidding, cause they knew about how i was using computers and I kind of suspected that they thought I was a hacker." Noah's parents handed him the receipt for his hard drive that the Secret Service had given them.

Noah didn't sleep that night. He stayed up worrying about what would happen when the Secret Service agents returned the next day. After what seemed an eternity to Noah the agents arrived, they had brought his equipment back with them.

"They came back the next day and interviewed me and it was very, very interesting, apparently the Secret Service doesn't have it together as much as you would think it would or at least these guys didn't, they had to actually ask me to give them a tour of my Hard Drive because they absolutely had no clue how to use the apple stuff...It's not general procedure but when you ask the hacker guy to give the Secret Service a tour of his Hard Drive it's kind of funny."

Noah's case is unusual. Usually when the Secret Service seize your equipment, that's the last you ever see of it. Some people get their equipment confiscated but are never charged with a crime. Most of these people don't even ask for their equipment back fearing that there might be reprisals from the Secret Service and that charges could be brought against them. The rational is that it's better to forget about it and move on. When `The Million Dollar Saloon' BBS was seized by Federal Agents its owner decided that it was better to forget about the BBS altogether and set up an internet Service provider instead. He is now running a successful business providing internet access to subscribers.

When the FBI or the Secret Service come to take away your equipment they usually clean you out, sometimes taking unrelated items. Phiber Optik had his CD collection as well as his Monty Python video confiscated. "I would assume they watched it because when they gave it back to me it wasn't rewound." In Noah's case however they went through the computer's contents together. "So I gave them a tour of my Hard Drive. The only thing that was on there was an old Legion of Doom Technical Journal and the Latest Issue of Phrack. So they made me delete them." They also made Noah erase the pirated games he had on his computer.

The agents questioned Noah about his involvement in the hacker underground. They wanted to know who else he knew. "I wasn't involved in groups, mostly because I was the only hacker in Vancouver, Washington (this is a really small town near Portland, Oregon). He didn't really believe me. He was kind of hellbent on thinking that every hacker was involved in a conspiracy with someone plotting to overthrow the universe or something..." By logging onto Westinghouse's computer Noah had broken the law. Though Noah is a just a smart, curious youngster with no malicious intent it could have been potentially dangerous. Westinghouse had been monitoring Noah's keystrokes for awhile. They had large print outs of everything that he typed while he was on-line.

Westinghouse runs several facilities, supposedly they handle nuclear waste dumps and run a couple of nuclear reactors a hacker could pose a serious threat. It wasn't until the Secret Service starting finding things that Noah had written to other hackers that he had bumped into on-line, ["I gotta go now, I gotta clean up my room" or "My mom is calling me for dinner"] that they realised they were dealing with a young person and not some industrial espionage expert.

This raises serious questions about the security of Westinghouse, and the security of corporations in general. How could a 13 year old kid get into a computer system dealing with nuclear technology? "Westinghouse was completely unpassworded. Some of the lamest security i have ever seen. And it was just a big embarrassment for them considering they dealt with nukes." If this is true, whose fault is it. Does the blame lay with the 13 year old hacker who is exploring systems or Westinghouse who should have had better security in the first place. How much did it cost the taxpayer to have Secret Service agents sitting around the clock monitoring computer systems at Westinghouse? And this is not just the case with Noah, I have heard this scenario again and again. Who is responsible? Do you punish the youngster, or do you fine the corporation for being irresponsible in the first place?

Sensitive information is not supposed to be kept on-line. I read a newsletter by the NSA (US National Security Agency) one of the questions from a reader was. How do you keep a hacker off your system? The answer was: simple never turn it on. So this is a joke but it illustrates a point that sensitive information should not be kept in a place where anyone can access it remotely and if it is going to be accessible passwords should at least be put in place.

The whole incident with the Secret Service put a major strain on Noah family. Noah's parents are very literate people but it was still difficult for them to come to terms what happened between Noah, Westinghouse and the Secret Service.

Mum: Did they have to shut down the system for awhile?
Noah: No just re-issue passwords, actually issue passwords..oh god it was pitiful.
Me: No Passwords on a place that deals with nuclear technology?

Noah: Possibly deals with nukes, they had no passwords on a shipping computer with a T1 server, it was really pretty pitiful.
Mum: and noah isn't that pretty much why you were there because it was so easy to get into?
Noah: It was a piece of cake, I just needed to something where I could get me access back out tho sprint net
Mum: And you didn't really have to break into anything?
Noah: No, No I want going through the computer using CPU time I was just going in and back out.
Mum: So what were you doing that was illegal?
Noah: I was there.
Mum: And that in itself is illegal?
Noah: Yeah its just like computer loitering but just with a little stiffer penalties.
Mum: Yeah ok, see that was something that was never really clear, I mean it was obvious that it was serious cause these two guys with badges were at our house.
Noah's father puts it down to Noah's age and relates it to petty vandalism and the thoughtless things that younger people do not really thinking about the consequences that can arise because of their actions. "I have become sort of paralyzed in the conflict of well, how bad was this really, I mean what was the damage done? You know this is all grey area stuff."

So what is the appropriate punishment? What does one do in the case of a young, intelligent, curious individual like Noah who just wants to know how systems work, is fascinated by communications, and is a bit of a rebel? Noah's father hopes that Noah will grow out of it and realize that the consequences of his actions will become more serious as he gets older. Noah seemed less concerned, "What saved me is that I didn't go for the data, I just went for the access to the networks, my age definitely, I was only 13 when I was in westinghouse and 14 when the Secret Service agents busted me, they're not going to throw a 14 year old in federal prison." His father thinks its a good thing that Noah got a `reality check' now because "the state is less forgiving as you get older..hopefully there was some lesson learned here because eventually the prices to be paid for violating the basic rules of the game are more serious."

Continue to Part 4
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