545 lines
32 KiB
Plaintext
545 lines
32 KiB
Plaintext
==Phrack Magazine==
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Volume Seven, Issue Forty-Eight, File 17 of 18
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****************************************************************************
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International Scenes
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There was once a time when hackers were basically isolated. It was
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almost unheard of to run into hackers from countries other than the
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United States. Then in the mid 1980's thanks largely to the existence
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of chat systems accessible through X.25 networks like Altger, tchh and
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QSD, hackers world-wide began to run into each other. They began to
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talk, trade information, and learn from each other. Separate and diverse
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subcultures began to merge into one collective scene and has brought us
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the hacking subculture we know today. A subculture that knows no
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borders, one whose denizens share the common goal of liberating
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information from its corporate shackles.
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With the incredible proliferation of the Internet around the globe, this
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group is growing by leaps and bounds. With this in mind, we want to
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help further unite the communities in various countries by shedding
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light onto the hacking scenes that exist there. If you want to
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contribute a file about the hacking scene in your country, please send
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it to us at phrack@well.com.
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This issue we have files about the scenes in Sweden and Brazil.
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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The Swedish Hacker Scene
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It's about time to fill up this hole in the worldwide history of hackers
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published in the Phrack series of articles on national scenes. Since no
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one else seems to be getting around to do it I'd better do it myself.
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Sweden was in fact one of the countries in the front line during the
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birth of computers in the 1940's and 50's. By 1953 KTH university in
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Stockholm built BESK, at the time being the fastest and most advanced
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computer in the world. During the late 1960's Linkoping university
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specialized in computer science and in 1973 the computer society Lysator
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started out as an offshoot of american hacker culture of the kind you
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could find at MIT during the 60's and 70's. They are still active and
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often referred to as the first Swedish hacker society ever, which is
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indeed true. Now days they still adhere to the international hacker
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ethic of university societies and among their lines are as well idiots
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as real bright guys (as is the case of most such societies) and their
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contributions to the world of e-culture include Project Runeberg; a text
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archive of Scandinavian literature, and a voluminous FTP archive.
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There's actually a lot of ASCII work being done at Lysator, including
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converting Phrack back issues to HTML format.
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Despite the early interest in computers in Sweden there was no
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equivalent to the American phreakers of the 1970's. This was not caused
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by lack of knowledge but rather by dullness. Sweden was during the 70's
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and early 80's in a period of both economic wealth and social mentality
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commonly known as "The Welfare State". Everybody was facing the same
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high economic standards, nobody was really displeased with Swedish
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society, and the government granted lots of spare-time activities for
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youths. Thus the growing ground for any outlaw societies was withdrawn.
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(Eg Hells Angels didn't start out in Sweden until the 80's.) Swedes were
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in fact too pleased, too wealthy and too filled up with their vision of
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an almost utopian society to even get the faintest glimpse of an idea to
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form any underground movements. Even political groupings like
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Anarchists, Hippies (in Europe referred to as "Provos") or Fascists were
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almost WIPED OUT by the extreme political climate and wealth of the
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70's.
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Thus, phreaker culture couldn't possibly start out in Sweden at this
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time, though some freaked out engineers and radio-amateurs might have
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built blue boxes and similar equipment for their household needs. This
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state of society caused Sweden to lag behind other European and
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Scandinavian countries in the field of outlaw hacking.
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The first hacker activity in Sweden was reported by the authorities in
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1980. The hacker in question was a student at Chalmers university in
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Gothenburg and was sued for manipulating the account system into
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granting him free access to the mainframe, for which was sentenced to a
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relatively light fine. Apart from some similar incidents carried out by
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bright individuals there was no real H/P scene until 1984. Also in 1980
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BBS activity started out in Sweden. Most enthusiasts were using a
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Swedish micro built by Luxor and DIAB in 1978 called ABC-80 (Obviously
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inspired by the American TRS-80). These enthusiast, however, were well
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organized engineers running a straight user-group, no anarchists or
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radicals of any kind were ever involved.
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In 1984 a magazine called "Rolig Teknik" started out as an offshoot of
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YIPL/TAP featuring the same kind of material, and by 1987 some
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journalist "discovered" this magazine, causing a lot of noise throughout
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The Welfare State and bringing people out in a public debate of how to
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defeat this magazine. (Though it actually didn't feature any illegal
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material; even Sweden has the freedom of speech and press written
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explicit in its constitution, as in the American First Amendment.)
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"Rolig Teknik" rapidly became a cult media for underground electronic
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freaks, outlaw radio amateurs, and other antisocial movements. But let's
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not get ahead of events.
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By early 1984 two youths aged 17 and 19, clearly inspired by the movie
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"War Games", hacked their way into several Swedish computer systems
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using a simple Apple II and a 300 baud modem, notably DAFA-Spar - a
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register containing public information on every Swedish citizen. Though
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there were no secret data in this computer, and though these hackers
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never succeed in gaining root access, the incident was annoying to the
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authorities. Also this year, some wealthy upper-middle class youths
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started using the was-to-become major European home computer: the
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Commodore 64. What the Apple II was for America, the C-64 was for
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Europe. Enter the software crackers.
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C-64 was THE symbol of hackerdom to Swedish youths in the 1980's. As
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software cracker Mr.Z pioneered the hacker scene in 1983 with hundreds
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and hundreds of cracked games, Swedish hackers somehow got to believe
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that cracking games was the Big Thing for any hacker. Besides, not many
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of these guys had modems. By 1987 American game producers were alarmed
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by the Niagara of cracked C-64 software being downloaded from Europe,
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causing them to start copy-protecting games that were to be exported to
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Europe. A closer examination showed that a lot of these cracks were made
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by Swedish groups, notably Triad and Fairlight. Thus, most Americans to
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get in touch with the Swedish hacker scene were what you would refer to
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as the "Warez D00ds" or "Pirates" of the time. Since the Swedes were
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unable to phreak due to lack of knowledge in the telecom field, American
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warez d00ds constantly called up Swedish crackers to obtain the latest
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software.
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There seems to be some kind of misconception in the American view of the
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hacker culture of Europe: Not very many hackers in Sweden and the rest
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of Europe got into phreaking nor net hacking in these early years,
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perhaps with the exception of the movement in Germany caused by Chaos
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Computer Club. By tradition most European hackers in general, and
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Swedish hackers in particular, turned to software cracking and demo
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programming. (The Demo as an art form was invented in Europe during
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1984-86.) None of these activities were actually illegal at the time
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being, though indeed underground. This might have helped to create the
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general American view of European hackers as "Idiotic Immature Warez
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D00ds". In fact, most European hackers look upon software cracking and
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demo programming with pride, though spreading (warez trading) wasn't
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considered a real hacker activity, and pirating for economic gain was
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looked upon with disgust and utter contempt. Software spreading in all
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forms was finally outlawed in Sweden January 1st 1993.
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1986: Enter the Netrunners.
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By the year 1986 the legendary BBS "Tungelstamonitorn" under the
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supervision of Jinge Flucht began distributing H/P and Anarchy files.
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Jinge himself, being a social inspector and thereby fully aware of the
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state of society, was upset with The Welfare State and thought the
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Swedes had gone law-abiding in an absurd and unhealthy manner. In his
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view people seemed to accept laws without ever questioning them, thereby
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making Sweden into a conformistic utopian hell. Later Jinge joined the
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Fidonet where he got known for running the most explicit and intense
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debates in Swedish BBS-culture ever.
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Probably the H/P files stored at Jinges BBS were the spark that lit the
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Swedish net hacking scene. Swedish hackers had SEEN "War Games", HEARD
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about the CCC in Germany, and now they finally got their hands on
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documents that explained the techniques. In 1987 excerpts from Steven
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Levy's "Hackers" and Bill Leebs "Out of the Inner Circle" were reprinted
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in the Swedish computer- magazine "Datormagazin" by editor Christer
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Rindeblad, creating a common group-awareness among Swedish hackers.
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("Out of the Inner Circle" had actually been translated to Swedish
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already 1985, but was obviously read mostly by security experts and War
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Games-obsessed wannabe's.) 1987 also saw the birth of the first
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all-Swedish hacker group ever to make themselves a name outside
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Scandinavia. This was of course SHA - Swedish Hackers Association.
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SHA wanted to be a hacker group of international standards and
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qualities. They collected the best people, storing up a knowledge basis
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for future use. In the years 1989-92 SHA was at its height, successfully
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trashing computer companies and computer scrap dumps and gaining access
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to hundreds of computers. Inspired by the German hackers Pengo and
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Hagbard in Leitstelle 511 they started having regular meetings on
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fridays at their own booked table in a restaurant in Stockholm. Their
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perhaps biggest achievement ever was made in 1991 when they wrote a
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scanner to exploit the Unix NIS-bug, running it on 30 processes
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simultaneously, and ending up with some 150.000 passwords whereof 600
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gained root access. Though some would say SHA were a bit too fond of the
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media image of hackers and sometimes had a weakness for hacker cliches,
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no one can really deny their achievements.
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Swedish hackers also got a lot attention for their carding activities in
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1989. Both Sneaker of SHA and Erik XIV of Agile wrote modulo
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10-calculators to produce endless series of valid Visa-numbers. Erik XIV
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was even on national television, demonstrating the weaknesses of the
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credit card system. Cynically they were both busted.
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At Christmas 1990 the Swedish X.25 network Datapak and Decnet were both
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attacked by a group of UK hackers called 8LGM (8 Little Green Men or
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8-Legged Groove Machine - I don't know which one is a media nick). Using
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a war dialer they scanned about 22.000 entries and successfully accessed
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380 of these. This is perhaps the most well-known of all hacks in
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Sweden, causing a lot of media noise. (The exact figures are a product
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of the Swedish telephone system AXE that I will write more about in a
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moment.) As reported in Phrack #43 they were busted and convicted under
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the new British anti-hacker law.
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Later Swedish achievements include the phonecard emulator, constructed
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by Atari ST enthusiast Marvin in 1992, after hearing the Swedish phone
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company Telia boast of these prepaid phonecards superior security.
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Though these silicon-based chip phonecards (256 bytes serial EPROMs)
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couldn't actually be recharged or easily tampered with, he realized
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there was no problem in emulating the chip with a Motorola 68c705
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one-chip computer. Some fake phonecards were manufactured and sold for
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almost nothing among his very best friends more on a "See, it can be
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done"-basis than with any intention to defraud Telia or earn heaps of
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money. Somehow the blueprints for the emulator found its way into the
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Internet.
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Swedish hackers in general have a very strong tradition of forming
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groups, due to their roots in programming activities rather than
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phreaking. Group awareness and culture is very widespread and accepted
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within the boundaries of the whole Swedish computer underground. Thus,
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LOYALTY is very strong among Swedish hackers. Most hackers who get
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busted by authorities or blackmailed by companies would rather DIE than
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telling the name of even a single 10-year old warez d00d.
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While we're at it - hacker busts, and phreaker busts in particular, are
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carried out in quite a disturbing manner in Sweden. To explain this I
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must first explain a bit about the Swedish telephone system.
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Almost all Swedish networks use a system similar to 4ESS, constructed in
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cooperation by the State Telecom "Televerket" and Swedish
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telecommunications equipment producers Ericsson Telecom. This system is
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called AXE, which is an abbreviation for Automatic Cross-Connection
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Equipment. AXE is used in some 100 countries all over the world and
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probably one of the most beautiful exchange systems ever developed. AXE
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is designed for national, metropolitan and rural networks, and the same
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system nucleus is used in all the different systems. It can control both
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digital and analog equipment, though it's made with the aim on
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transforming all Swedish networks from analog to digital connections. It
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also comes with a fully featured bureaucratic organization for
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maintenance, administration and economics in general. AXE has the
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capability of building virtual groups in switching-stations, thus
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putting your PBX into the telco soup as well, making you believe you
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have the control over it though it's actually located elsewhere.
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In short, this is an centralized, monolithic system of the horribly
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efficient type that telcos love. It tells any amateur to keep their
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hands off and do something else. Of course it's a system that hackers
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and phreakers hate, since it's limited to authorities. The filthy crowd
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do not know what is going on inside these exchanges, and the telcos like
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to keep it that way.
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AXE also works with stored program control that resides inside the
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system core of every switching station. Of course this is all software,
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and of course State Telecom, upon building AXE, couldn't hold back their
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Big Brother tendencies.
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The result is that every call made from anywhere to anywhere, is logged
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in a central computer. Now that's something! Not only did this equipment
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wipe out every possibility to box within Sweden, but it also removed all
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kind of phone privacy. In fact not only calls are logged, but ALL
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activity performed at your terminal. If you lift the handset, press a
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digit and hang up, time, date and the digit you pressed is registered.
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All this data is stored on magnetic tapes for 6 months.
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Now, luckily Sweden has a strong Computer Privacy Act. You just aren't
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allowed to set up and use such facilities as you please, not even if you
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are the State Telecom. There is even a specific authority,
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"Datainspektionen" (The Computer Inspection Department) with the only
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purpose of looking after and preserve citizen privacy by protecting
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individuals from corporate and governmental interests. As a result State
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Telecom "Televerket" (which later changed name to "Telia" as they were
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transformed from an authority into a private corporation as of July 1st
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1993) were not allowed to give out any of the information gathered in
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these registers to anyone else than either the calling or the receiving
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party. Not even the police could have this information in case they
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weren't suspecting a indictable crime resulting in at least 2 years of
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prison, such as drug trading or terrorism, and you don't get that kind
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of penalty for phreaking alone - at least not in Sweden.
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But Telia could evade these restrictions. In order to successfully
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phreak using PIN-codes, you have to call an operator using a Swedish
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version of the 800-number: a 020-number. Telia could then claim the call
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was made to the owner of that number: AT&T, MCI & Sprint mostly. (There
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are of course Calling Cards in Sweden as well: "Telia Access" - neither
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used nor abused by anybody.) As well as these companies have their own
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intelligence agencies, so have Telia. Once eg AT&T had someone traced
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for phreaking, Telia could easily produce a complete list of calls made
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to AT&T operators from a certain number. Telia themselves would even use
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information they weren't allowed to: they would pull out a list of ALL
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outgoing calls from the phreaker in question including calls to MCI,
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girlfriends, mom, dad, grandma... all logged calls.
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Telia would then call this poor phreaker to their local Swedish office,
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sticking the endless list under his/her nose, commanding: "TALK, or we
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will turn you in to the authorities", carefully not to mention that all
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information on the printout would be absolutely useless in court. The
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only conclusive evidence would in fact be those calls traced back all
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the way from America or wherever the phreaker called; in that way
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rigorously documented. Naturally, the common phreaker had no legal
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experience and wouldn't know about this. Instead he would talk, giving
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out detailed information on his/her techniques worthy of a full-time
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high-educated security consultant. After this session the phreaker was
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given a bill of the calls that could indeed be proven in court. If
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he/she didn't pay it - Telia (or any other operator) would end up
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turning him/her to the authorities anyway. So much for cooperation.
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Telia themselves would, if they felt it was necessary, go even further
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than the overseas operators, systematically exposing every weakness in
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the phreakers personal life, using the information in the computer log
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for psychological terror.
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This pattern of treatment of Swedish phreakers seems to be very much the
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same among all telecom providers in Sweden. Lately Telia, under command
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of security officer Pege Gustavsson made some noteworthy mistakes
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though: in their efforts to convict as many phreakers as possible, they
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called up companies receiving calls from "suspicious" individuals,
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warning them about this or that person calling them over and over again.
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This could only mean Telia was also systematically monitoring some
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Swedish hackers and had formed some security group to carry out this
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probation. Normally this should have been kept quiet, as Telia are
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absolutely not allowed to form their own abuse police forces, but at
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some instance they happened to call up a security company using
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phreakers as informants. Of course this security company didn't like the
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idea of having "their" phreakers traced around, and the matter was
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brought to public attention. Many independent sources agreed that Telia
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had violated the Swedish Computer Act, and hopefully this brought an end
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to this wild tracing. You shouldn't be too sure though, since Telia
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themselves never confessed of doing anything illegal.
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As you might have understood the Computer Act is quite an important
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factor in all legal discussions concerning Swedish hacking. This Act
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came out as a result of general attention focused upon the computers vs.
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privacy matter in 1973. As Sweden was one of the first countries to make
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use of computers in governmental administration, and as Swedish
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authorities were eager to register every possible piece of information,
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some politically influential individuals started a debate resulting in
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the founding of the Computer Act and the Computer Inspection Department.
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As a result Sweden is light years ahead of most countries when it comes
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to privacy matters. For example there is no problem in having the number
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identification possibilities on your line deactivated for good, and it
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won't cost you anything. You can also easily obtain free printouts from
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any computer register containing information on you, including the
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register at your local AXE-exchange.
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To sum this article up I can draw the conclusion that even Sweden has
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had its handful of bright hackers, each category bringing their straw to
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the stack. Even though Swedish officials and companies would hardly
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admit it, these hackers have obviously been very important for this
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country, at least in forcing system managers, security officials,
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software producers, policemen, politicians and so on to think things
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over. Sweden has also attracted outside attention in some cases, and
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will probably keep doing so. If you should pin- point one group that has
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meant more to the Swedish scene than any other, it wouldn't be any of
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the H/P groups, but rather the cracking pioneers Fairlight - a well
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organized and world-famous warez producer.
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Linus Walleij aka King Fisher / Triad
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triad@df.lth.se
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(Some handles have been changed to protect retired Swedish hackers from
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luser mail.)
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Swedish readers may be interested in the fact that I'm currently writing
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a lengthy text in Swedish (a book actually) providing a closer look at
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Swedish hacking history, which will be released on hypertext and ASCII
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sometime later this year. Over and out from Sweden!
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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HACKING IN BRAZIL
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=================
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Before talking about hacking here, it's good to describe the conditions
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of living. Right now, the country is a mix of Belgium and India. It's
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possible to find both standards of living without travelling long
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distances. The Southern part of the country concentrate most of the
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industry, while in the west one can find Amazonia jungle. There are many
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Brazils, one could say.
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Beginning with the hacking and phreaking.
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Hackers and computers enthusiasts have several different places for
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meeting. When this thing started, by the time of that film "Wargames",
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the real place to meet hackers and make contacts were the computer
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shops, game-arcades and "Video-texto" terminals. The computer shops were
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a meeting place because many of those "hackers" had no computers of
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their own and the shop-owners would let them play with them as part of
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a advertising tool to encourage people buying it for their kids.
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Today that is no longer needed, since prices dropped down and people
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make a team already at schools or sometimes just join a BBS (most people
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who buy a modem, end up thinking about setting up a BBS). By the way,
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most schools are advertising computer training as part of their
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curricula, to charge more, and like everywhere, I guess, people no
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longer learn typewriting, but computer-writing, and many brazilian
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newspapers dedicate a section on computer knowledge once a week, with
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advertising, hints, general info and even lists of BBS's.
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A few years ago, the "Video-texto" terminals were also big meeting
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places. That was part of a effort to make popular the use of a
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computer linked by modem to get services like msx-games, info on
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weather, check bank account and so on. Just like the Net, one could do
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e-mail, by some fancy tricks and other things that could be called
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hacking. The difference was that it was made by the state-owned
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telephone company and each time the trick was too well know, it was
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changed. The only way to keep in touch was keeping in touch with the
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people who used the system like hell. It's no different than what it
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happens with the computer gurus. The protocol used for that, X-25 is the
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same used for the banking money transfers, but don't think it was
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possible to do anything more than checking how much money one had and a
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few other classified data. People who used that at home (not too many,
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since the company didn't think it would be such a hit, and didn't
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provide for it) could spend their fathers money discovering funny things
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about the system, like messing with other people's phones and so. One
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could also use the terminals at the Shopping Centers to make phone
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calls to their friends without paying. The guy at the other end would be
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heard by the small speaker.
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Phreaking here in Brazil is something secret. Apart from the trick
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described in the section "Letters to read by" at the summer 1994 of the
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2600 Magazine, where one would call through locked rotatory telephone,
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little is known about phreaking. One thing is that people who enrolled
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in Telecommunications Engineering could call Europe and USA with ease,
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but they would not tell you how. It must be said that all public phones
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have metal cables around the cables and that the phone machines are
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quite tough to break down. I guess it wasn't for beauty.
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The phones use some sort of metal coins called fichas, which must be
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bought somewhere. The trick is to use a coin with a string, so it would
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not be collected. But if the police caught... The police doesn't follow
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rules about that. Either they put a fine on the guy for that, or arrest
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him for vandalism or anything else they think of at the moment. It is
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hassle, anyway. My friend who was doing electrical Engineering told me
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that boxing in Brazil was impossible. The system is just not good enough
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to be boxed. Another friend of mine told me that in the Northeast part,
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where people are a little bit different and more easy-going, the phone
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system can be boxed, because some top-brass asked the company to let
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that feature implemented. The Phone company doesn't admit any knowledge
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about that.
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Internet access is something quite hard to get today. Until a few weeks
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ago, the system would not let the creation of a Internet site that was
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not part of some research project. So, only Universities and like were
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capable of putting people in the Net Universe. In the University of Sco
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Paulo, people in the post-graduation courses could get it with ease, but
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graduating students would have to show some connection to a research
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|
project. That in theory, because the students found out that one could
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|
use the IBM CDC 4360 to telnet without a Internet account. Also, all the
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|
faculties that had computer rooms full of AT 386 which where linked by
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|
fiber optics to this computer. Another one did the file transfers
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|
between the accounts and the computer at the computer rooms and that
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ftp was also possible without an account, but only to a few sites, like
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oakland and so. That lasted for about a year, until that thing was
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|
fixed in the router, but only at the Politechnik School. Says the legend
|
|
that the guys were downloading too much GIF and JPG pictures of Top
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|
Models from a ftp site nearby. That spent so much bandwidth that the
|
|
site started to complain and both things happened: the site stopped to
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|
store GIF's of wonderful women in swimsuit and the router was fixed to
|
|
prevent ftp without a Internet account. One can still today connect the
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|
outside world via telnet and many people have accounts in Internet BBS
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|
like Isca BBS, Cleveland Freenet and like. The Bad Boy BBS was "in",
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|
until it went out of business. This kind of access is not good, though,
|
|
for it is very slow, sometimes. Also, it is hard to download something
|
|
bigger than 60 kbyte. The way I devised, downloading the file inside
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|
the bbs and uuencoding it. This way you could list the file and capture
|
|
the screen listing, uudecode it after some editing and have a working
|
|
.exe or .zip file.
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|
By these means one could, inside the Campus, do all downloading one
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|
wanted, from anywhere in the world. Outside the campus, it is possible
|
|
to do it by phone lines, but: the Modem will not go faster than 2400
|
|
without character correction (no Zmodem at all). Which makes quite hard
|
|
to download compressed files. One could an account: that would be
|
|
possible by these means, but the amount of trash during the phone
|
|
connection would make it real hard to type in passwords and like. To try
|
|
doing any kind of thin g but reading letters by modem is some kind of
|
|
torture. The real thing is to do it by "linha dedicada", a special line
|
|
for computer transmission. It's much more expensive though, but if you
|
|
have the money to spend with that...
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|
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|
Perhaps the best way to get access to an Internet account though is to
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|
be part of the research project "Escola do Futuro" that among other
|
|
things get schools linked by the Net. That's what I did and they pay me
|
|
quite well to search for data in the Net, for the students of those
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|
schools. The University of Campinas is said to give all students a
|
|
Internet account regardless of knowledge of what-it-is, as soon as the
|
|
guy(girl) gets in. Of course here there's BITNET also. That's doomed for
|
|
extinction, but this or that reason keeps people from closing it down.
|
|
Most teachers use it, guess there's even some post-graduation work
|
|
written about that. It's easier to access via modem, also. Old habits
|
|
die hard.
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|
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|
Outside the Campus, for common people, there are few opportunities. The
|
|
only thing you can get, at least until the opening of commercial
|
|
internet sites, something about to happen one of these days, is access
|
|
by mail. You join one BBS with Internet access, and your mail is sent by
|
|
a Internet account later during the day. This is not a direct access,
|
|
as one can see, but it's a easy way to access by modem. Problem is that
|
|
you have to pay if you use it too much. The BBS's that do it don't do it
|
|
for free, also. Connection to the Compuserve is also possible, but it
|
|
also costs a lot of money, for my point of view.
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|
|
|
Because of the newspapers, the knowledge about Internet is spreading
|
|
fast and the number of sites is growing the same way everywhere else in
|
|
the world. Even the military people are starting with it. There are plan
|
|
s to enhance it and make better connections, and some informative
|
|
material is being translated in Portuguese, like "Zen and the Art of
|
|
Internet" and made available in the gopher.rnp.br. There are many
|
|
mirrors from many famous sites, like Simtel20 and at least one Internet
|
|
BBS, the "Jacare BBS" (Alligator bbs, available by telnetting
|
|
bbs.secom.ufpa.br - 192.147.210.1 - login bbs. World Wide Web sites are
|
|
becoming sort of popular also, but still available only to a few people
|
|
who are lucky enough to get the access. Brazilian hackers are not very
|
|
fond of sharing the knowledge of how to get access and other things,
|
|
sometimes because of fear of losing it, sometimes because the greed of
|
|
it would overcharge the system. There's no hacker magazine here, yet,
|
|
and very few people confess their curiosity about hacking for knowledge
|
|
for fear of not finding jobs. Anyway most would-be hackers either get a
|
|
job and stop hacking for fun or keep their activities secret in order to
|
|
pursue their objectives.
|
|
|
|
Today, Brazilian Hacker Underground did change a little. Lots of
|
|
magazines, dealing only with Internet Issues, are being published. There
|
|
is a hacker zine, the now famous "Barata Eletrica". This and the hacker
|
|
list I created is starting to unite the computer rats, here. But I had
|
|
to stop hacking in order to write the e-zine. Too famous to do that.
|
|
Another guy just started the thing. He did not learn with my mistake and
|
|
is signing it with his name, also. Received lots of letters, even as far
|
|
as Mozambique, praising the material, which is very soft, for fear of
|
|
losing my net access. Twice my account was "freezed". The people at my
|
|
site are paranoid. Suffered too much from break-ins already. Most BBS's
|
|
are trying to turn themselves in Internet providers or else, to get
|
|
e-mail access. There was a fear the State would control the thing, like
|
|
they did with the Phone system. Can any of you guys imagine what it is,
|
|
to pay 4.000 US$ dollars for a phone line? In the City of Sao Paulo,
|
|
(look like L.A., one can say), that's the average price. Cellular is
|
|
cheaper. Motorola rules. The public phone system was changed again. No
|
|
more "fichas". At least for long distance calls. It's a small card that
|
|
looks like plastic one side and magnetic material in the other. m still
|
|
trying to do 2600 meetings. Oh, once in a while, there is a break-in
|
|
here and there, and a hacker is interviewed in TV, but people are only
|
|
now making the difference between the good guys (hackers) and the bad
|
|
guys (crackers). With Win95, people are losing fear of exchanging
|
|
virus-sources files. The lack of philes in Portuguese makes it dificult
|
|
for people to learn about hacking. People who know about it, don't have
|
|
enough time to write. I started to unite some guys to do a translation
|
|
of "hacker crackdown", but that's another story. I shortened the name of
|
|
the book to "crack.gz". Guess what's happened? My account is blocked up
|
|
to this day. They told me I'll get my access back. One of these days.
|
|
One of these days I'll re-write this article, and tell the whole thing
|
|
in detail.
|
|
|
|
Any Portuguese speaker that does not know about my e-zine,
|
|
try a ftp.eff.org mirror. The URL:
|
|
ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/Publications/CuD/Barata_Eletrica
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|