Anthrax remains angry and sceptical about his experience with the
police. He believes a lot of things need to be changed about the way
the police operate. Most of all, he believes that justice will never
be assured in a system where the police are allowed to investigate
themselves.
PAD AND GANDALF
After Pad and Gandalf were released from prison, they started up a free security advisory service on the Internet. One reason they began releasing 8lgm advisories, as they were known, was to help admins secure their own systems. The other reason was to thumb their noses at the conservatives in the security industry.
Many on the Internet considered the 8lgm advisories to be the best available at the time—far better than anything CERT had ever produced. Pad and Gandalf were sending their own message back to the establishment. The message, though never openly stated, was something like this: `You busted us. You sent us to prison. But it didn't matter. You can't keep information like this secret. Further, we are still better than you ever were and, to prove it, we are going to beat you at your own game.'
Believing that the best way to keep a hacker out of your system is to secure it properly in the first place, the two British hackers rejected security gurus who refused to tell the world about new security holes. Their 8lgm advisories began marginalising the traditional industry security reports, and helped to push the industry toward its current, more open attitude.
Pad and Gandalf now both work, doing computer programming jobs on contract, sometimes for financial institutions. Their clients like them and value their work. Both have steady girlfriends.
Pad doesn't hack any more. The reason isn't the risk of getting caught or the threat of prison. He has stopped hacking because he has realised what a headache it is for a system administrator to clean up his or her computer after an attack. Searching through logs. Looking for backdoors the hacker might have left behind. The hours, the hassle, the pressure—he thinks it is wrong to put anyone through that. Pad understands far better now how much strain a hacker intrusion can cause another human being.
There is another reason Pad has given up hacking: he has simply outgrown the desire. He says that he has better things to do with his time. Computers are a way for him to earn a living, not a way to spend his leisure time. After a trip overseas he decided that real travel—not its electronic cousin—was more interesting than hacking. He has also learned to play the guitar, something he believes he would have done years ago if he hadn't spent so much time hacking.
Gandalf shares Pad's interest in travelling. One reason they like contract work is because it lets them work hard for six months, save some money, and then take a few months off. The aim of both ex-hackers for now is simply to sling backpacks over their shoulders and bounce around the globe.
Pad still thinks that Britain takes hacking far too seriously and he
is considering moving overseas permanently. The 8lgm court case made
him wonder about the people in power in Britain—the politicians, the
judges, the law enforcement officers. He often thinks: what kind of
people are running this show?
STUART GILL
In 1993, the Victorian Ombudsman1 and the Victoria Police2 both investigated the leaking of confidential police information in association with Operation Iceberg—a police investigation into allegations of corruption against Assistant Commissioner of Police Frank Green. Stuart Gill figured prominently in both reports.
The Victoria Police report concluded that `Gill was able to infiltrate the policing environment by skilfully manipulating himself and information to the unsuspecting'. The Ombudsman concluded that a `large quantity of confidential police information, mainly from the ISU database, was given to … Gill by [Victoria Police officer] Cosgriff'.
The police report stated that Inspector Chris Cosgriff had deliberately leaked confidential police information to Gill, and reported that he was `besotted with Gill'. Superintendent Tony Warren, ex-Deputy Commissioner John Frame and ex-Assistant Commissioner Bernice Masterston were also criticised in the report.
The Ombudsman concluded that Warren and Cosgriff's relationship with Gill was `primarily responsible for the release of confidential information'. Interestingly, however, the Ombudsman also stated, `Whilst Mr Gill may have had his own agenda and taken advantage of his relationship with police, [the] police have equally used and in some cases misused Mr Gill for their own purposes'.
The Ombudsman's report further concluded that there was no evidence of
criminal conduct by Frank Green, and that the `allegations made over
the years against Mr Green should have been properly and fully
investigated at the time they were made'.
PHOENIX
As his court case played in the media, Phoenix was speeding on his motorcycle through an inner-city Melbourne street one rainy night when he hit a car. The car's driver leapt from the front seat and found a disturbing scene. Phoenix was sprawled across the road. His helmet had a huge crack on the side, where his head had hit the car's petrol tank, and petrol had spilled over the motorcycle and its rider.
Miraculously, Phoenix was unhurt, though very dazed. Some bystanders helped him and the distraught driver to a nearby halfway house. They called an ambulance, and then made the two traumatised young men some tea in the kitchen. Phoenix's mother arrived, called by a bystander at Phoenix's request. The ambulance workers confirmed that Phoenix had not broken any bones but they recommended he go to hospital to check for possible concussion.
Still both badly shaken, Phoenix and the driver exchanged names and phone numbers. Phoenix told the driver he did technical work for a 0055 telephone service, then said, `You might recognise me. I'm Phoenix. There's this big computer hacking case going on in court—that's my case'.
The driver looked at him blankly.
Phoenix said, `You might have seen me on the TV news.'
No, the driver said, somewhat amazed at the strange things which go through the dazed mind of a young man who has so narrowly escaped death.
Some time after Phoenix's close brush with death, the former hacker left his info-line technician's job and began working in the information technology division of a large Melbourne-based corporation. Well paid in his new job, Phoenix is seen, once again, as the golden-haired boy. He helped to write a software program which reduces waste in one of the production lines and reportedly saved the company thousands of dollars. Now he travels abroad regularly, to Japan and elsewhere.
He had a steady girlfriend for a time, but eventually she broke the relationship off to see other people. Heartbroken, he avoided dating for months. Instead, he filled his time with his ever-increasing corporate responsibilities.
His new interest is music. He plays electric guitar in an amateur
band.
ELECTRON
A few weeks after his sentencing, Electron had another psychotic episode, triggered by a dose of speed. He was admitted to hospital again, this time at Larundel. After a short stay, he was released and underwent further psychiatric care.
Some months later, he did speed again, and suffered another bout of psychosis. He kept reading medical papers on the Internet about his condition and his psychiatrists worried that his detailed research might interfere with their ability to treat him.
He moved into special accommodation for people recovering from mental instabilities. Slowly, he struggled to overcome his illness. When people came up to him and said things like, `What a nice day it is!' Electron willed himself to take their words at face value, to accept that they really were just commenting on the weather, nothing more. During this time, he quit drugs, alcohol and his much-hated accounting course. Eventually he was able to come off his psychiatric medicines completely. He hasn't taken drugs or had alcohol since December 1994. His only chemical vice in 1996 was cigarettes. By the beginning of 1997 he had also given up tobacco.
Electron hasn't talked to either Phoenix or Nom since 1992.
In early 1996, Electron moved into his own flat with his steady girlfriend, who studies dance and who also successfully overcame mental illness after a long, hard struggle. Electron began another university course in a philosophy-related field. This time university life agreed with him, and his first semester transcript showed honours grades in every class. He is considering moving to Sydney for further studies.
Electron worked off his 300 hours of community service by painting walls and doing minor handyman work at a local primary school. Among the small projects the school asked him to complete was the construction of a retaining wall. He designed and dug, measured and fortified. As he finished off the last of his court-ordered community service hours on the wall, he discovered that he was rather proud of his creation. Even now, once in a while, he drives past the school and looks at the wall.
It is still standing.
There are still hacking cases in Australia. About the same time as Mendax's case was being heard in Victoria, The Crawler pleaded guilty to 23 indictable offences and thirteen summary offences—all hacking related charges—in Brisbane District Court. On 20 December 1996, the 21-year-old Queenslander was given a three-year suspended prison sentence, ordered to pay $5000 in reparations to various organisations, and made to forfeit his modem and two computers. The first few waves of hackers may have come and gone, but hacking is far from dead. It is merely less visible.
Law enforcement agencies and the judiciaries of several countries have tried to send a message to the next generation of would-be hackers. The message is this: Don't hack.
But the next generation of elite hackers and phreakers have heard a very different message, a message which says: Don't get caught.
The principle of deterrence has not worked with hackers at this level. I'm not talking here about the codes-kids—the teeny-bopper, carding, wanna-be nappies who hang out on IRC (Internet relay chat). I'm talking about the elite hackers. If anything, law enforcement crackdowns have not only pushed them further underground, they have encouraged hackers to become more sophisticated than ever before in the way they protect themselves. Adversity is the mother of invention.
When police officers march through the front door of a hacker's home today, they may be better prepared than their predecessors, but they will also be facing bigger hurdles. Today, top hackers encrypt everything sensitive. The data on their hard drives, their live data connections, even their voice conversations.
So, if hackers are still hacking, who are their targets?
