F o R u M

IS CONIPUTERHACKING A CRI~IE?

Te imageofthe comput-er hacker drifted into public awareness in the mid,Seventies, when reports of Chinese-food-consuminggeniuses working compulsively at keyboards began toissue from MIT. Over time, several of these impresa-rios entered commerce, and the public's impression ofhackers changed: They were no longer nerds butyoung, millionaire entrepreneurs.

The most recent news reports have given the terma more felonious connotation. Early this year, a grad,uate student named Robert Morris Jr. went on trialfor releasing a computer program known as a worminto the vast Internet system, halting more than6,000 computers. The subsequent public debateranged from the matter of proper punishment for amischievous kid to the issue of our rapidly changingnotion of what constitutes free speech-c-or proper,ty-in an age of modems and data bases. In order toallow hackers to speak for themselves, Harper's Maga,zine recently organized an electronic discussion andasked some of the nation's best hackers to "log on,"discuss the protean notions of contemporary speech,and explain what their powers and talents are.

FORUM 45

The following forum is based on a discussion held on the WELL, a computer bulletin-board system based inSausalito, California. The forum is the result of a gradual accretion of arguments as the participants-located throughout the

country-opined and reacted over an eleven-day period. Harper's Magazine senior editor Jack Hitt and assistanteditor Paul Tough served as moderators.

ADELAIDEis a pseudonym for a former hacker who has sold his soul to the corporate state as a computer programmer.

BARLOWis John Perry Barlow, a retired cattle rancher, a former Republican county chairman, and a

lyricist for the Grateful Dead, who currently is writing a book on computers and consciousness entitledEverything We Know Is Wrong.

BLUEFIREis Dr. Robert Jacobson, associate director of the Human Interface Technology Laboratory at the UniveT.l'ity of

Washington and a former information-policy analyst with the California legislature.

BRANDis Russell Brand, a senior computer scientist with Reasoning Systems, in Palo Alto, California.

CLIFFis Clifford Stoll, the astronomer who caught a spy in a military computer network Q11drecently published an account of

his investigation entitled The Cuckoo's Egg.

DAVEis Dave Hughes, a retired West Pointer who currently operates his own political bulletin board.

DRAKEis Frank Drake, a computer-science student at a West Coast university and the editor ofW.O.R.M., a cyberpunk magazine.

EDDIE JOE HOMEBOYis a pseudonym for a professional software engineer who has worked at Lucasfilm, Pyramid Technology, Apple

Computer, and Autodesk.

EMMANUEL GOLDSTEINis the editor of 2600, the "hacker's quarterly."

HANKis Hank Roberts, who builds mobiles, flies hang gliders, and proofreads for the Whole Earth Catalog.

JIMGis Jim Gasperini, the author, with TRANS Fiction Systems, of Hidden Agenda, a computer game that simulates

political conflict in Central America.

JRCis Jon Carroll, daily columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and writer-in-residence for the Pickle Family Circus,

a national traveling circus troupe based in San Francisco.

KKis Kevin Kelly, editor of the Whole Earth Review and a cofounder of the Hacker's Conference.

LEEis Lee Felsenstein, who designed the Osborne-I computer and cofounded the Homebrew Computer Club.

MANDELis Tom Mandel, a professional futurist and an organizer of the Hacker's Conference.

RHis Robert Horvitz, Washington correspondent for the Whole Earth Review,

RMSis Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation.

TENNEYis Glenn Tenney, an independent-systems architect and an organizer of the Hacker's Conference.

ACID PHREAK and PHIBER OPTIKare both pseudonyms for hackers who decline to be identified.

46 HARPER'S MAGAZINE I MARCH 1990

The Digital Frontier

HARPER'S [Day 1, 9:00 A.M.]: When the computerwas young, the word hacking was used to de-scribe the work of brilliant students who ex-plored and expanded the uses to which this newtechnology might be employed. There was eventalk of a "hacker ethic." Somehow, in the suc-ceeding years, the word has taken on dark con-notations, suggesting the actions of a criminal.What is the hacker ethic, and does it survive?

ADELAIDE [Day 1, 9:25 A.M.]: The hacker ethic sur-vives, and it is a fraud. It survives in anyone ex-cited by technology's power to tum many small,insignificant things into one vast, beautifulthing. It is a fraud because there is nothingmagical about computers that causes a user toundergo religious conversion and devote himselfto the public good. Early automobile inventorswere hackers too. At first the elite drove in lux-ury. Later practically everyone had a car. Nowwe have traffic jams, drunk drivers, air pollu-tion, and suburban sprawl. The old magic of anautomobile occasionally surfaces, but we possessno delusions that it automatically invades theconsciousness of anyone who sits behind thewheel. Computers are power, and direct contactwith power can bring out the best or the worstin a person. It's tempting to think that everyoneexposed to the technology will be grandly in-spired, but, alas, it just ain't so.

BRAND [Day 1, 9:54 A.M.]: The hacker ethic in-volves several things. One is avoiding waste; in-sisting on using idle computer power-oftenhacking into a system to do so, while taking thegreatest precautions not to damage the system.A second goal of many hackers is the free ex-change of technical information. These hackersfeel that patent and copyright restrictions slowdown technological advances. A third goal isthe advancement of human knowledge for itsown sake. Often this approach is unconvention-al. People we call crackers often explore systemsand do mischief. They are called hackers by thepress, which doesn't understand the issues.

KK [Day 1, 11:19 A.M.]: The hacker ethic went un-noticed early on because the explorations ofbasement tinkerers were very local. Once we allbecame connected, the work of these investiga-tors rippled through the world. Today the hack-ing spirit is alive and kicking in video, satelliteTV, and radio. In some fields they are calledchippers, because they modify and peddle alteredchips. Everything that was once said about"phone phreaks" can be said about them too.

DAVE [Day 1, 11:29 A.M.]: Bah. Too academic.Hackers hack. Because they want to. Not forany higher purpose. Hacking is not dead and

won't be as long as teenagers get their hands onthe tools. There is a hacker born every minute.

ADELAIDE [Day 1, 11:42 A.M.]: Don't forget ego.People break into computers because it's funand it makes them feel powerful.

BARLOW [Day 1, 11:54 A.M.]: Hackers hack. Yeah,right, but what's more to the point is that hu-mans hack and always have. Far more than justopposable thumbs, upright posture, or excesscranial capacity, human beings are set apartfrom all other species by an itch, a hard-wireddissatisfaction. Computer hacking is just thelatest in a series of quests that started with firehacking. Hacking is also a collective enterprise.It brings to our joint endeavors the simultaneitythat other collective organisms-ant colonies,Canada geese-take for granted. This is impor-tant, because combined with our itch to probe isa need to connect. Humans miss the almost tele-pathic connectedness that I've observed in oth-er herding mammals. And we want it back.Ironically, the solitary sociopath and his 3:00A.M. endeavors hold the most promise fordelivering species reunion.

EDDIE JOE HOMEBOY [Day 1, 4:44 P.M.]: Hackingreally took hold with the advent of the personalcomputer, which freed programmers from hav-ing to use a big time-sharing system. A hackercould sit in the privacy of his home and hack tohis heart's and head's content.

LEE [Day 1, 5:17 P.M.]: "Angelheaded hipstersburning for the ancient heavenly connection tothe starry dynamo in the machinery of night"(Allen Ginsberg, "Howl"). I still get an endor-phin rush when I go on a design run-my mindout over the edge, groping for possibilities thatcan be sensed when various parts are held injuxtaposition with a view toward creating awhole object: straining to get through the epsi-lon-wide crack between What Is and WhatCould Be. Somewhere there's the Dynamo ofNight, the ultra-mechanism waiting to bedreamed, that we'll never get to in actuality(think what it would weigh!) but that's presentsomehow in the vicinity of those mental wres-tling matches. When I reemerge into the lightof another day with the design on paper-andwith the knowledge that if it ever gets built,things will never be the same again-I knowI've been where artists go. That's hacking to me:to transcend custom and to engage in creativityfor its own sake, but also to create objective ef-fects. I've been around long enough to see thegreed creeps take up the unattended reins ofpower and shut down most of the creativity thatput them where they are. But I've also seenthings change, against the best efforts of a stu-pidly run industry. We cracked the egg out from

!DRUM 47

under the Computer Priesthood, and now ev-eryone can have omelets.

RMS [Day 1, 5:19 P.M.): The media and the courtsare spreading a certain image of hackers. It'simportant for us not to be shaped by that im-

age. But there are twoways that it can hap-pen. One way is forhackers to becomepart of the security-maintenance estab-lishment. The other,more subtle, way is fora hacker to becomethe security-breakingphreak the media por-tray. By shaping our-selves into the enemyof the establishment,we uphold the estab-lishment. But there'snothing wrong withbreaking security ifyou're accomplishingsomething useful. It'slike picking a lock ona tool cabinet to get ascrewdriver to fix yourradio. As long as youput the screwdriverback, what harm doesit do?

A HACKER'S LEXICONBack dIIr: A point 01 enlry Into acomputer system-often installedIhere by the original programmer-Ihat provides secret access.Bomb: A destructive computer pro-gram, which, when activaled, de-stroys the liIes in a computersystem.Chipper: A hacker who specializes inchanging the programming instruc-tions 01 computer chips.Cracker: A hacker who breaks illegal-ly inlo computer systems and createsmischief; olten used pejoratively.The original meaning ol cracker wasnarrower, describing Ihose who de-coded copyright-protection schemeson commercial software products ei-ther to redistribute the products or tomodify them; sometimes known as asoftware pirale.Hacker: Originally, a compulsivecomputer programmer. The word hasevolved in meaning over the years.Among computer users, hacker car-ries a positive connotation, meaninganyone who creatively explores theoperations 01 computer systems. Re-cently, it has taken on a negativeconnolation, primarily through con-Ius ion with cracker.Phone phreak: One who explores theoperations 01 the phone system, ol-ten with the inlent of making Ireephone calls.Social engileering: A nonlechnicalmeans of gaining inlormation simplyby persuading people to hand it over.If a hacker wished to gain access toa computer system, for example, anact 01 social engineering might be tocontact a system operator and toconvince him or her Ihat the hackeris a legitimate user in need of apassword; more colloquially, a conjob.Virus: A program that, having beenintroduced into a system, replicatesitself and attaches itself to other pro-grams, often with a variety ol mis-chievous effects.Wlna: A destructive program that,when activated, fills a computer sys-tem with self-replicating informa-lion, clogging the system so that itsoperations are severely slowed,someti mes stopped.

48 HARPER'S MAGAZINE I MARCH 1990

ACID PHREAK [Day 1,6:34 P.M,]: There is noone hacker ethic. Ev-eryone has his own.To say that we allthink the same wayis preposterous. Thehacker of old soughtto find what the com-puter itself could do.There was nothingillegal about that.Today, hackers andphreaks are drawn tospecific, often corpo-rate, systems. It's nowonder everyone onthe other side is get-ting mad. We're al-ways one step ahead.We were back then,and we are now.

CLIFF [Day 1, 8:38P.M.): RMS said,"There's nothing wrongwith breaking security

if you're accomplishing something useful."Huh? How about, There's nothing wrong withentering a neighbor's house if you're accom-plishing something useful, just as long as youclean up after yourself. Does my personal priva-cy mean anything? Should my personal lettersand data be open to anyone who knows how tocrack passwords? If not my property, then howabout a bank's? Should my credit history beavailable to anyone who can find a back door tothe private computers of TRW, the firm thattracks people's credit histories? How about a listof AIDS patients from a hospital's data bank? Ornext week's prime interest rate from a computerat the Treasury Department?

BLUEFIRE [Day 1, 9:20 P.M.]: Computers are every-where, and they link us together into a vastsocial "cybernetia." The grand skills of thehackers, formidable though they may havebeen, are incapable of subverting this automat-ed social order. The networks in which we sur-vive are more than copper wire and radio waves:They are the social organization. For every hack-er in revolt, busting through a security code, tenthousand people are being wired up with auto-matic call-identification and credit-checkingmachines. Long live the Computer Revolution,which died aborning.

JRC [Day 1, 10:28 P.M.]: We have two differentdefinitions here. One speaks of a tinkerer's ec-stasy, an ecstasy that is hard to maintain in thecorporate world but is nevertheless at the heartof Why Hackers Hack. The second is political,and it has to do with the free flow of informa-tion. Information should flow more freely (howfreely is being debated), and the hacker canmake it happen because the hacker knows howto undam the pipes. This makes the hackerethic-of necessity-antiauthoritarian.

EMMANUEL GOLDSTEIN [Day 2, 2:41 A.M.]: It'smeaningless what we call ourselves: hackers,crackers, techno-rats. We're individuals whohappen to play with high tech. There is no hack-er community in the traditional sense of theterm. There are no leaders and no agenda.We're just individuals out exploring.

BRAND [Day 2,9:02 A.M.]: There are two issues: in-variance and privacy. Invariance is the art ofleaving things as you found them. If someoneused my house for the day and left everything ashe found it so that there was no way to tell hehad been there, I would see no problem. With awell-run computer system, we can assure invari-ance. Without this assurance we must fearthat the person picking the lock to get thescrewdriver will break the lock, the screwdriver,or both. Privacy is more complicated. I want mymedical records, employment records, and let-

.. ters to The New Republic private because I fearthat someone will do something with the infor-mation that is against my interests. If I couldtrust people not to do bad things with informa-tion, I would not need to hide it. Rather thanpreventing the "theft" of this data, we shouldprohibit its collection in the first place.

HOMEBOY [Day 2, 9:37 A.M.): Are crackers reallyworking for the free flow of information? Or arethey unpaid tools of the establishment, identify-ing the holes in the institutional dike so thatthey can be plugged by the authorities, only tobe tossed in jailor exiled?

DRAKE [Day 2, 10:54 A.M.]: There is an unchal-lenged assumption that crackers have somepolitical motivation. Earlier, crackers wereportrayed as failed revolutionaries; now Home-boy suggests that crackers may be tools of theestablishment. These ideas about crackers arebased on earlie~ experiences with subcultures(beats, hippies, yippies). Actually, the contem-porary cracker is often middle-class and doesn'treally distance himself from the "establish-ment." While there are some anarcho-crackers,there are even more right-wing crackers. Thehacker ethic crosses political boundaries.

MANDEL [Day 2, 11:01 A.M.): The data on crackerssuggests that they are either juvenile delin-quents or plain criminals.

BARLOW [Day 2, 11:34 A.M.]: 1 would far ratherhave everyone know my most intimate secretsthan to have noncontextual snippits of them"owned" by TRW and the FBI-and withheldfrom me! Any cracker who is entertained bypeeping into my electronic window is welcometo the view. Any institution that makes moneyselling rumors of my peccadilloes is stealingfrom me. Anybody who wants to inhibit thattheft with electronic mischief has my completesupport. Power to the techno-rats!

EMMANUEL [Day Z, 7:09 P.M.): Calling someone onthe phone is the equivalent of knocking on thatperson's door, right? Wrong! When someoneanswers the phone, you are inside the home. Youhave already been let in. The same with an an-swering machine, or a personal computer, if itpicks up the phone. It is wrong to violate a per-son's privacy, but electronic rummaging is notthe same as breaking and entering. The key hereis that most people are unaware of how easy it isfor others to invade their electronic privacy andsee credit reports, phone bills, FBI files, SocialSecurity reports. The public is grossly under-informed, and that's what must be fixed if hack-ers are to be thwarted. If we had an educatedpublic, though, perhaps the huge-and nowcommon-data bases would never have been

allowed to exist. Hackers have become scape-goats: We discover the gaping holes in the sys-tem and then get blamed for the flaws.

HOMEBOY [Day 2, 7:41 P.M.): Large, insular, un-democratic governments and institutions needscapegoats. It's the first step down the road tofascism. That's where hackers play into thehands of the establishment.

DAVE [Day 2, 7:55 P.M.]: If the real criminals arethose who leave gaping holes in their systems,then the real criminals in house burglaries arethose who leave their windows unlatched.Right? Hardly. And Emmanuel's analogy to aphone being answered doesn't hold either.There is no security protection in making aphone call. A computer system has a password,implying a desire for security. Breaking into apoorly protected house is still burglary.

CLIFF [Day Z, 9:06 p.M.I: Was there a hacker's ethicand does it survive? More appropriately, wasthere a vandal's ethic and does it survive? Aslong as there are communities, someone willviolate the trust that binds them. Once, ourcomputers were isolated, much as eighteenth-century villages were. Little was exchanged,and each developed independently. Now we'vebuilt far-flung electronic neighborhoods. Thesecommunities are built on trust: people believingthat everyone profits by sharing resources. Sureenough, vandals crept in, breaking into sys-tems, spreading viruses, pirating software, anddestroying people's work. "It's okay," they say."I can break into a system because I'm a hack-er." Give me a break!

BARLOW [Day2, 10:41 P.M.): I live in a small town.I don't have a key to my house. Am I asking forit? I think not. Among the juvenile delinquentsin my town, there does exist a vandal's ethic. Iknow because I once was one. In a real commu-nity, part of a kid's rite of passage is discoveringwhat walls can be breached. Driving 110 milesper hour on Main Street is a common symptomof rural adolescence, publicly denounced butprivately understood. Many teenagers die in thisquest-two just the night before last-but it isbasic to our culture. Even rebellious kids under-stand that risk to one's safety is one thing, wan;ton vandalism or theft is another. As a result,almost no one locks anything here. In fact, a se-curity system is an affront to a teenage psyche.While a kid might be dissuaded by conscience,he will regard a barricade as an insult and a chal-lenge. So the CEOs who are moving here (theemperor of PepsiCo and the secretary of stateamong them) soon discover that over the winterpeople break into their protected mansions justto hang out. When systems are open, the com-munity prospers, and teenage miscreants are sat-

FORUM 49

isfied to risk their own lives and little else.When the social contract is enforced by securi-ty, the native freedom of the adolescent soulwill rise up to challenge it in direct proportionto its imposition.

HANK [Day 2, 11:23 P.M.]: Barlow, the small town Igrew up in was much like yours-until two in-terstate highways crossed nearby. The open-door style changed in one, hard summer becauseour whole town became unlocked. I think Cliff'scommunity is analogous to my little town-confronted not by a new locked-up neighborwho poses a challenge to the local kids but by asudden, permanent opening up of the commu-nity to many faceless outsiders who owe thetown no allegiance.

EMMANUEL [Day 3, 1:33 A.M.]: Sorry, I don't buyDave's unlatched-window analogy. A hackerwho wanders into a system with the ease that it'sdone today is, in my analogy, walking into ahouse without walls-and with a cloaking de-vice! Any good hacker can make himself invisi-ble. If housebreaking were this easy, peoplewould be enraged. But we're missing the point.I'm not referring to accessing a PC in someone'sbedroom but about accessing credit reports,government files, motor vehicle records, andthe megabytes of data piling up on each of us.Thousands of people legally can see and use thisever-growing mountain of data. much of it erro-neous. Whose rights are we violating when weperuse a file! Those of the person we look up?He doesn't even know that information exists,that it was compiled without his consent, andthat it's not his property anymore! The invasionof privacy took place long before the hackerever arrived. The only way to find out how sucha system works is to break the rules. It's notwhat hackers do that will lead us into a state ofconstant surveillance; it's allowing the authori-ties to impose on us a state of mock crisis.

MANDEL [Day 3, 9:27 A.M.]: Note that the wordcrime has no fixed reference in our discussion.Until recently, breaking into government com-puter systems wasn't a crime; now it is. In fact,there is some debate, to be resolved in thecourts, whether what Robert Morris Jr. did wasactually a crime [see "A Brief History of Hack-ing"]. Crime gets redefined all the time. Offendenough people or institutions and, 10 and be-hold, someone will pass a law. That is partlywhat is going on now: Hackers are pushing but-tons, becoming more visible, and that inevita-bly means more laws and more crimes.

ADELAIDE [Day 3, 9:42 A.M.]: Every practitioner ofthese arts knows that at minimum he is trespass-ing. The English "country traveler ethic" ap-plies: The hiker is always ethical enough to

50 HARPER'S MAGAZINE / MARCH 1990

close the pasture gates behind him so that nosheep escape during his pastoral stroll throughsomeone else's property. The problem is thatwhat some see as gentle trespassing others see astheft of service, invasion of privacy, threat tonational security-take your pick.

BARLOW [Day3, 2:38 P.M.]: I regard the existence ofproprietary data about me to be theft-not justin the legal sense but in a faintly metaphysicalone, rather like the belief among aborigines thata photograph steals the soul. The crackers whomaintain access to that data are, at this level,liberators. Their incursions are the only way to

\keep the system honest.

RMS [Day 3, 2:48 P.M.]: Recently, a tough anti-hacker measure was proposed in England.' InThe Economist I saw a wise response, arguingthat it was silly to treat an action as worse whenit involves a computer than when it does not.They noted, for example, that physical trespass-ing was considered a civil affair, not a criminalone, and said that computer trespassing shouldbe treated likewise. Unfortunately, the U.S.government was not so wise.

BARLOW [Day 3, 3:23 P.M.]: The idea that a crimeis worse if a computer is involved relates to thegathering governmental perception that com-puter viruses and guns may be related. I knowthat sounds absurd, but they have more in com-mon than one might think. For al] its naturalsociopathy, the virus is not without philosophi-cal potency-like a gun. Here in Wyomingguns are part of the furniture. Only recentlyhave I observed an awareness of their politicalcontent. After a lor of frothing about pryingcold, dead fingers from triggers, the sentimentwas finally distilled to a bumper sticker I saw ona pickup the other day: "Fear the GovernmentThat Fears YourGun." Now I've read too muchGandhi to buy that line without misgivings, butit would be hard to argue that TiananmenSquare could have been inflicted on a populacecapable of shooting back. I don't wholehearted-ly defend computer viruses, but one must con-sider their increasingly robust deterrentpotential. Before it's over, the War on Drugscould easily tum into an Armageddon betweenthose who love liberty and those who crave cer-tainty, providing just the excuse the controlfreaks have been waiting for to rid America ofall that constitutional mollycoddling called theBill of Rights. Should that come to pass, I willwant to use every available method to vex andconfuse the eyes and ears of surveillance. Thevirus could become the necessary instrument ofour freedom. At the risk of sounding like somedigital posse comitatus, I say: Fear the Govern-ment That Fears Your Computer.

TENNEY [Day 3, 4:41 P.M.]: Computer-relatedcrimes are more feared because they are per-formed remotely-a crime can be committed inNew Yorkby someone in Los Angeles-and bypeople not normally viewed as being crimi-nals-by teenagers who don't look like delin-quents. They're very smart nerds, and theydon't look like Chicago gangsters packing heat.

BARLOW [Day4, 12:12 A.M.]: People know so littleof these things that they endow computers andthe people who do understand them with powersneither possesses. If America has a religion, itsark is the computer and its covenant is the beliefthat Science Knows. We are mucking around inthe temple, guys. It's a good way to catch hell.

DAVE [Day 4, 9:18 A.M.]: Computers are the newAmerican religion. The pub-lic is in awe of-and fears-the mysteries and the highpriests who tend them. Andthe public reacts just as it al-wayshas when faced with fearof the unknown-punish-ment, burning at the stake.Hackers are like the earlyChristians. When caught,they will be thrown to thelions before the Roman estab-lishment: This year the mob will cheer madly asRobert Morris is devoured.

The entire security system was changed aftermyself and a friend must have been noticed init. For the entire United States, there is onlyone such system, located in Indiana. The newsecurity scheme is flawless in itself, and there isno chance of "social engineering," i.e., bull-shitting someone inside the system into tellingyou what the passwords are. The system workslike this: You log on with the proper accountand password; then, depending on who you are,the system asks at random three of ten questionsthat are unique to each user. But the system canbe compromised by entering forwarding instruc-tions into the phone company's switch for thatexchange, thereby intercepting every phonecall that comes in to the system over a designat-ed period of time and connecting the call to

liTHE VIRUS COULD BECOME AN INSTRUMENT

OF FREEDOM. AT THE RISK OF SOUNDING LIKE

SOME DIGITAL POSSE COMITATUS, I SAY: FEAR THE

GOVERNMENT THAT FEARS YOUR COMPUTER."

KK [Day 6, 11:37 A.M.]: The crackers here suggestthat they crack into systems with poor securitybecause the security is poor. Do more sophisti-cated security precautions diminish the need tocrack the system or increase it?

ACID [Day 6, 1:20 P.M.]: If there was a system thatwe knew was uncrackable, we wouldn't even tryto crack it. On the other hand, if some organiza-tion boasted that its system was impenetrableand we knew that was media hype, I think itwould be safe to say we'd have to "enlighten"them.

EMMANUEL [Day6,2:49 P.M.]: Why do we insist oncracking systems? The more people ask thosekinds of questions, the more I want to get in!Forbid access and the demand for access in-creases. For the most part, it's simply a missionof exploration. In the words of the new captainof the starship Enterprise, [ean-Luc Picard,"Let's see what's out there!"

BARLOW [Day 6, 4:34 P.M.]: Tell us, Acid, is therea system that you know to be uncrackable to thepoint where everyone's given up?

ACID [Day 6, 8:29 P.M.]: CICIMS is pretty tough.

PHIBER OPTIK [Day 7, 2:36 P.M.]: Really? CICIMSis a system used by Bell operating companies.

Illustration by Valerie Sinclair

your computer. If you are familiar with the secu-rity layout, you can emulate its appearance andfool the caller into giving you the answers to hisquestions. Then you call the system yourself anduse those answers to get in. There are otherways of doing it as well.

BLUEFIRE [Day 7, 11:53 P.M.]: I can't stand it! Whodo you think pays for the security that the tele-phone companies must maintain to fend off il-legal use? I bet it costs the ratepayers around $10million for this little extravaganza. The crackercircus isn't harmless at all, unless you don'tmind paying for other people's entertainment.Hackers who have contributed to the social wel-fare should be recognized. But cracking is some-thing else-namely, fun at someone else'sexpense-and it ain't the folks who own thephone companies who pay; it's us, me and you.

BARLOW [Day 8, 7:35 A.M.]: I am becoming in-creasingly irritated at this idea that you guys areexacting vengeance for the sin of openness. Youseem to argue that if a system is dumb enough tobe open, it is your moral duty to violate it. Doesthe fact that I've never locked my house-evenwhen I was away for months at a time-meanthat someone should come in and teach me agood lesson?

ACID [Day8,3:23 P.M.]: Barlow, you leave the dooropen to your house? Where do you live?

FORUM 51

without your consent. Hackers are not guardianangels, but if you think we're what's wrong withthe system, I'd say that's precisely what those incharge want you to believe. By the way, you leftout your zip code. It's 82941.

BARLOW [Day 9, 8:34 A.M.]: Now that's more likeit. There is an ethical distinction between peo-ple and institutions. The law makes little dis-tinction. We pretend that institutions aresomehow human because they are made of hu-mans. A large bureaucracy resembles a humanabout as much as a reef resembles a coral polyp.To expect an institution to have a conscience islike expecting a horse to have one. As with ev-eryorganism, institutions are chiefly concernedwith their own physical integrity and survival.To say that they have some higher purposebeyond their survival is to anthropomorphizethem. You are right, Emmanuel. The house

analogy breaks down here. Indi-viduals live in houses; institutionslive in mainframes. Institutionsare functionally remorseless andneed to be checked. Since theirblood is digital, we need to be intheir bloodstreams like an infec-tion of humanity. I'm willing toextend limitless trust to otherhuman beings. In my experiencethey've never failed to deserve it.But I have as much faith in institu-tions as they have in me. None.

BARLOW [Day 8, 10:11 P.M.]: Acid, my house is at372 North Franklin Street in Pinedale, Wyo-ming. Heading north on Franklin, go about twoblocks off the main drag before you run into ahay meadow on the left. I'm the last house be-fore the field. The computer is always on. Butdo you really mean to imply what you did withthat question? Are you merely a sneak lookingfor easy places to violate? You disappoint me,pal. For all your James Dean-on-Silicon rhetor-ic, you're not a cyberpunk. You're just a punk.

EMMANUEL [Day 9, 12:55 A.M.]: No offense, Bar-low, but your house analogy doesn't stand up,because your house is far less interesting than aDefense Department computer. For the mostpart, hackers don't mess with individuals. May-be we feel sorry for them; maybe they're boring.Institutions are where the action is, becausethey are compiling this mountain of data-

A BRIEF HISTORY OF HACKINGSepIemIIer l!1111-John Draper lakes as his alias the name Captain Crunch after hediscovers that tile toy wllide found in the cereal of the same name perfectl, simulatesthe tone necessary to make free phone calls.

IIarcII 1175- The Homebrew Computer Club, an early group of computer hackers,1I0lds its first meeting in Menlo Padl, califomia.

July l!I7&-Homebrew members Steve Wozniak, twenty-six, and Steve Jobs, twenty-one, wodling out of a garage, begin selling the lirst personal computer, known as theApple.

•••• l8-ln one week, errors in the computer system operating the U.S. air-defensenetworll cause two separate false reports 01 Soviet missile launches, each promptingan increased slate 01 nuclear readiness.

Det:emller 1982-Sales 01 Apple personal computers lop one billion dollars per year.

••••••••. l984-Steven Levy's book Hackers is published, popularizing the concept 01the "backer ethic": that "access to computers, and anything thai might teach you some-thing about the way tile world works, should be Inlimited aid total." The book inspiresthe first Hacker's Conference, held that month.JlnIarr 1986- The "Pakislani Brain" Virus, created by a software distributor in La-hore, Pakistan, infects IBM computers around the world, erasing data tiles.June 1__ TIIe U.S. Office of Tecltnology Assessment warns that massive, cross-indexed government complter records have become a "de faCIo 'national data basecontaining personal information on most Americans."

Man:11l987-William Gates, a Harvard dropout who lounded Microsoft Corporation,becomes a lIillio.aire.

•••••• 1B-More than &,DODcomputers linked by the nationwide Intemel comput-er networll are infected by a destructive computer program Dewn as a worm and arecrippled lor two days. The VIOrm Is traced to Robert Morris Jr., a twenty-four-year-oldCornell University graduate student.IJecemIIer 1--.A federal grand jury charges Kevin Mitnick, twenty-five, with stealingcomputer programs over letephone lines. Mitnick is held without bail and forbiddenaccess to any lelepllones without supervision.

March 1989- Three West German hackers are arrested for enlering thirty sensitivemilitary computers using home computers and modems. The arrests follow a three-year investigation by Clifford Stell, an astronomer at the Lawrence Bedleley Lalloralorywho lIegan tracing the hackers after finding a seventy-five-cent billing error in the lab'scomputer system ......, 11!111-Rebert Morris Jr. goes on trial in syracuse, New Yodl, tor designingand releasing the Inlemel worm. Convicted, he faces up to five years in prison and a$250,000 fine.

52 HARPER'S MAGAZINE I MARCH 1990

OPTIK [Day 9, 10:19 A.M.]: In oth-er words, Mr. Barlow, you saysomething, someone proves youwrong, and then you agree withhim. I'm getting the feeling thatyou don't exactly chisel your viewsin stone.

HANK [Day 9, 11:18 A.M.]: HasMr. Optik heard the phrase "the-sis, antithesis, synthesis"?

BARLOW [Day 10, 10:48 A.M.]:Optik, I do change my mind a lot .Indeed, I often find it occupied bynumerous contradictions. The lasttime I believed in absolutes, I wasabout your age. And there's not adamn thing wrong with believingin absolutes at your 'age either.Continue to do so, however, andyou'll find yourself, at my age, car-rying placards filled with nonsenseand dressing in rags.

ADELAIDE [Day 10, 6:27 P.M.]: Theflaw in this discussion is the dis-torted image the media promote of

the hacker as "whiz." The problem is that theone who gets caught obviously isn't. I haven'tseen a story yet on a true genius hacker. EvenRobert Morris was no whiz. The genius hackersare busy doing constructive things or are so goodno one's caught them yet. It takes no talent tobreak into something. Nobody calls subwaygraffiti artists geniuses for figuring out how tobreak into the yard. There's a difference be-tween genius and ingenuity.

BARLOW [Day 10, 9:48 P.M.]: Let me define myterms. Using hacker in a midspectrum sense(with crackers on one end and Leonardo daVinci on the other), I think it does take a kindof genius to be a truly productive hacker. I'mlearning PASCAL now, and I am constantlyamazed that people can spin those prolix recur-sions into something like PageMaker. It fills mewith the kind of awe I reserve for splendors suchas the cathedral at Chartres. With crackers likeAcid and Optik, the issue is less intelligencethan alienation. Trade their modems for skate-boards and only a slight conceptual shift wouldoccur. Yet I'm glad they're wedging open thecracks. Let a thousand worms flourish.

OPTIK [Day 10, 10:11 P.M.]: You have some pair ofballs comparing my talent with that of a skate-boarder. Hmm ... This was indeed boring, butnonetheless: [Editors' Note: At this point in thediscussion, Optik-apparently having hacked intoTRW's computer records-posted a copy of Mr.Barlow's credit history. In the interest of Mr. Bar-low's privacy-at least what is left of it-Harper'sMagazine has not printed it.] I'm not showing off.Any fool knowing the 'proper syntax and theproper passwords can look up a credit history. Ijust find your high-and-mighty attitude annoy-ing and, yes, infantile.

HOMEBOY [Day 10, 10:17 P.M]: Key here is "anyfool."

ACID [Day 11, 1:37 P.M.]: For thirty-five dollars ayear anyone can have access to TRW and seehis or her own credit history. Optik did it forfree. What's wrong with that? And why doesTRW keep files on what color and religion weare? If you didn't know that they kept such files,who would have found out if it wasn't for ahacker? Barlow should be grateful that Optikhas offered his services to update him on his per-sonal credit file. Of course, I'd hate to see mycredit history up in lights. But if you hadn'tmade our skins crawl, your info would not havebeen posted. Everyone gets back at someonewhen he's pissed; so do we. Only we do it differ-ently. Are we punks? Yeah, I guess we are. Apunk is what someone who has been made toeat his own words calls the guy who fed themto him ..

Hacking the ConstitutionHARPER'S [Day 4, 9:00 A.M.]: Suppose thata mole

inside the government confirmed the existenceof files on each of you, stored in the WhiteHouse computer system, PROFS. Would youhave the right to hack into that system to re-trieve and expose the existence of such files?Could you do it?

TENNEY [Day 4, 1:42 P.M.]: The proverbial ques-tion of whether the end justifies the means.This doesn't have much to do with hacking. Ifthe file were a sheet of paper in a locked cabi-net, the same question would apply. In that caseyou could accomplish everything without tech-nological hacking. Consider the PentagonPapers.

EMMANUEL [Day4,3:55 P.M.]: Let's address the hy-pothetical. First, I need to find out more aboutPROFS. Is it accessible from off site, and if so,how? Should I update my 202-456 scan [a list ofphone numbers in the White House's exchangethat connect incoming calls to a computer]? Ihave a listing for every computer in that ex-change, but the scan was done back in 1984. IsPROFS a new system? Perhaps it's in a differentexchange? Does anybody know how many peo-ple have access to it? I'm also on fairly goodterms with a White House operator who owesme a favor. But I don't know what to ask for.Obviously, I've already made up my mind aboutthe right to examine this material. I don't wantto debate the ethics of it at this point. If you'rewith me, let's do something about this. Other-wise, stay out of the way. There's hacking to bedone.

ACID [Day 4, 5:24 P.M.]: Yes, I would try to breakinto the PROFS system. But first I'd have some-one in the public eye, with no ties to hacking,request the info through the Freedom of Infor-mation Act. Then I'd hack in to verify the in-formation I received.

DRAKE [Day4,9:13 p.M.I: Are there a lot of peopleinvolved in this antihacker project? If so, thechances of social engineering data out of peoplewould be far higher than if it were a small, close-knit group. But yes, the simple truth is, if theWhite House has a dial-up line, it can behacked.

EMMANUEL [Day 4, 11:27 P.M.]: The implicationthat a trust has been betrayed on the part of thegovernment is certainly enough to make mewant to look a little further. And I know I'mdoing the right thing on behalf of others whodon't have my abilities. Most people I meet seeme as an ally who can help them stay ahead ofan unfair system. That's what I intend to dohere. I have a small core of dedicated hackers

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who could help. One's specialty is the UNIXsystem, another's is networks, and another's isphone systems.

TENNEY [Day 5, 12:24 A.M.]: PROFS is an IBMmessage program that runs on an operating sys-tem known as YM. YM systems usually have afair number of holes, either to gain access or togain full privileges. The CIA was working on,and may have completed, a supposedly secureYM system. No ethics here, just facts. But aprime question is to determine what system viawhat phone number. Of course, the old insidejob is easier. Just find someone who owes a favoror convince an insider that it is a moral obliga-tion to do this.

BARLOW [Day 5, 2:46 P.M.]: This scenario needs tobe addressed in four parts: ethical, political,practical I (from the standpoint of the hack it-self), and practical II (disseminating the infor-mation without undue risk).

Ethical: Since World War II, we've been gov-erned by a paramilitary bureaucracy that be-lieves freedom is too precious to be entrusted tothe people. These are the same folks who had todestroy the village in order to save it. Thus thegovernment has become a set of Chinese boxes.Americans who believe in democracy have littlechoice but to shred the barricades of secrecy atevery opportunity. It isn't merely permissible tohack PROFS. It is a moral obligation.

Political: In the struggle between control andliberty, one has to avoid action that will driveeither side to extreme behavior. The basis ofterrorism, remember, is excess. If we hackPROFS, we must do it in a way that doesn't be-come a pretext for hysterical responses thatmight eventually include zero tolerance of per-sonal computers. The answer is to set up a sys-tem for entry and exit that never lets on we'vebeen there.

Practical I: Hacking the system should be atrivial undertaking.

Practical II: Having retrieved the smokinggun, it must be made public in such a way thatthe actual method of acquisition does not be-come public. Consider Watergate: The primeleaker was somebody whose identity andinformation-gathering technique is still un-known. So having obtained the files, we tumthem over to the Washington Post without re-vealing our own identities or how we came bythe files.

EMMANUEL [Day 5, 9:51 PM.]: PROFS is used forsending messages back and forth. It's designednot to forget things. And it's used by people whoare not computer literate. The document we arelooking for is likely an electronic-mail message.If we can find out who the recipient or sender is,

54 HARPER'S MAGAZINE / MARCH 1990

we can take it from there. Since these peoplefrequently use the system to communicate,there may be a way for them to dial into theWhite House from home. Finding that numberwon't be difficult: frequent calls to a number lo-cal to the White House and common to a fewdifferent people. Once I get the dial-up, I'llhave to look at whatever greeting I get to deter-mine what kind of system it is. Then we need tolocate someone expert in the system to see ifthere are any built-in back doors. If there aren't,I will social engineer my way into a working ac-count and then attempt to break out of the pro-gram and explore the entire system.

BRAND [Day 6, 10:06 A.M.]: I have two questions:Do you believe in due process as found in ourConstitution? And do you believe that this"conspiracy" is so serious that extraordinarymeasures need to be taken? If you believe in dueprocess, then you shouldn't hack into the sys-tem to defend our liberties. If you don't believein due process, you are an anarchist and poten-tially a terrorist. The government is justified intaking extreme action to protect itself and therest of us from you. If you believe in the Consti-tution but also that this threat is so extreme thatpatriots have a duty to intercede, then youshould seek one of the honest national officialswho can legally demand a copy of the docu-ment. If you believe that there is no sufficientlyhonest politician and you steal and publish thedocuments, you are talking about a revolution.

ACID [Day 6, 1:30 P.M.]: This is getting too politi-cal. Who says that hacking has to have a politi-cal side? Generalizing does nothing but givehackers a false image. I couldn't care less aboutpolitics, and I hack.

LEE [Day 6, 9:01 P.M.]: Sorry, Acid, but if youhack, what you do is inherently political. Heregoes: Political power is exercised by control ofinformation channels. Therefore, any actionthat changes the capability of someone in powerto control these channels is politically relevant.Historically, the one in power has been not thestrongest person but the one who has convincedthe goon squad to do his bidding. The goonsgive their power to him, usually in exchange forfree food, sex, and great uniforms. The turningpoint of most successful revolutions is when thetroops ignore the orders coming from above andswitch their allegiance. Information channels.Politics. These days, the cracker represents apotential for making serious political change ifhe coordinates with larger social and economicforces. Without this coordination, the crackeris but a techno-bandit, sharpening his weaponand chuckling about how someday ... Revolu-tions often make good use of bandits, and some

of them move into high positions when they'resuccessful. But most of them -are done awaywith. One cracker getting in won't do muchgood. Working in coordination with others isanother matter-called politics.

JIMO [Day 7, 12:28 A.M.): A thought: Because ithas become so difficult to keep secrets (thanks,in part, to crackers), and so expensive andcounterproductive (the trade-off in lost op-portunities is too great), secrets are becomingless worth protecting. Today,when secrets come out thatwould have brought downgovernments in the past,"spin-control experts" showerthe media with so many liesthat the truth is obscured de-spite being in plain sight. It'sthe information equivalent ofthe Pentagon plan (0 sur-round each real missile withhundreds of fake ones, render-ing radar useless. If hackers managed to crackthe White House system, a hue and cry wouldbe raised-not about what the hackers found inthe files but about what a threat hackers are tothis great democracy of ours.

well scrap the whole Bill of Rights. What I amdoing with my fingers right now is "speech" inthe clearest sense of the word. We don't needno stinking manifestos.

JIMO [Day 8, 12:02 A.M.): This type of congression-al action is so clearly unconstitutional that "lawhackers"-everyone from William Kunstler toRobert Bark-would be all over it. The wholeidea runs so completely counter to our laws thatit's hard to get worked up about it.

"I OON'T WANT ANY CONGRESSIONALKING GEORGE TREADING ON MY CURSOR. WE MUST

CONTINUE TO HAVE ABSOLUTE FREEOOM OFELECTRONIC SPEECH."

HARPER'S [Day 7, 9:00 A.M): Suppose you hackedthe files from the White House and a backlasherupted. Congressmen call for restrictions, argu-ing that the computer is "property" susceptibleto regulation and not an instrument of "infor-mation" protected by the First Amendment.Can we craft a manifesto setting forth yourviews on how the computer fits into the tradi-tions of the American Constitution?

DAVE [Day 7, 5:30 P.M.]: If Congress ever passedlaws that tried to define what we do as "technol-ogy" (regulatable) and not "speech," I would be-come a rebellious criminal immediately-and asloud as Thomas Paine ever was. Although com-puters are part "property" and part "premises"(which suggests a need for privacy), they are su-premely instruments of speech. I don't want anycongressional King Georges treading on my cur-sor. We must continue to have absolute freedomof electronic speech!

BARLOW [Day 7, 10:07 P.M.]: Even in a court guid-ed by my favorite oxymoron, Justice Rehnquist,this is an open-and-shut case. The computer is aprinting press. Period. Th~ only hot-lead pressesleft in this country are either in museums or be-ing operated by poets in Vermont. The comput-er cannot fall under the kind of regulation towhich radio and TV have become subject, sincecomputer output is not broadcast. If these regu-lations amount to anything more than a fart inthe congressional maelstrom, then we might as

ADELAIDE [Day 8, 9:51 A.M.): Not so fast. Thereused to be a right in the Constitution called"freedom from unreasonable search and sei-zure," but, thanks to recent Supreme Court de-cisions, your urine can be demanded by a lot ofpeople. I have no faith in the present SupremeCourt to uphold any of my rights of free speech.The complacent reaction here-that whateverCongress does will eventually be found uncon-stitutional-is the same kind of complacencythat led to the current near-reversals of Roe v.Wade.

JRC [Day 8, 10:05 A.M.): I'd forgo the manifestosand official explanations altogether: Fightbrushfire wars against specific government in-cursions and wait for the technology to metasta-size. In a hundred years, people won't have to betold about computers because they will have aninstinctive understanding of them.

KK [Day 8,2:14 P.M.]: Hackers are not sloganeers.They are doers, take-things-in-banders. Theyare the opposite of philosophers: They don'twait for language to catch up to them. Their ar-guments are their actions. You want a manifes-to? The Internet worm was a manifesto. It hadmore meaning and symbolism than any revolu-tionary document you could write. To those inpower running the world's nervous system, itsaid: Wake up! To the underground of hackers,crackers, chippers, and techno-punks, it said:Youhave power; be careful. To the mass of citi-zens who find computers taking over their tele-phone, their TV, their toaster, and their house,it said: Welcome to Wonderland.

BARLOW [Day 8, 10:51 P.M.]: Apart from the legalfutility of fixing the dam after it's been

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breached, I've never been comfortable withmanifestos. They are based on the ideologue'sdelusion about the simplicity, the figure-out-ability, of the infinitely complex thing that isLife Among the Humans. Manifestos take re-ductionism for a long ride off a short pier. Some-times the ride takes a very long time. Marx andEngels didn't actually crash until last year.Manifestos fail because they are fixed and con-sciousness isn't. I'm with JRC: Deal with incur-sions when we need to, on our terms, like theguerrillas we are. To say that we can outma-neuver those who are against us is like sayingthat honeybees move quicker than Congress.The future is to the quick, not the respectable.

RH [Day 8, 11:43 P.M.): Who thinks computerscan't be regulated? The Electronic Communica-tions Privacy Act of 1986 made it a crime toown "any electronic, mechanical, or other de-vice [whose design] renders it pt imarily usefulfor the purpose of the surreptitious interceptionof wire, oral, or electronic communication."Because of the wayCongress defined "electroniccommunication," one could argue that even amodem is a surreptitious interception device(SID), banned by the ECPA and subject to con-fiscation. It's not that Congress intended to banmodems; it was just sloppy drafting. The courtswill ultimately decide what devices are legal.Since it may not be possible to draw a clearbright line between legal and illegal intercep-tion devices, the gray area-devices with bothlegitimate and illegitimate uses-may be sub-ject to regulation.

BARLOW [Day 9, 8:52 A.M.): I admit with somechagrin that I'm not familiar with the ECPA. Itseems I've fallen on the wrong side of an old tau-tology: Just because all saloon keepers areDemocrats, it doesn't follow that all Democratsare saloon keepers. By the same token, the factthat all printing presses are computers hardlylimits computers to that function. And one ofthe other things computers are good at is surrep-titious monitoring. Maybe there's more reasonfor concern than I thought. Has any of this stuffbeen tested in the courts yet?

RH [Day 9, 10:06 P.M.): My comments about sur-reptitious interception devices are not based onany court cases, since there have not been anyin this area since the ECPA was enacted. It is astretch of the imagination to think that a judgewould ever find a stock, off-the-shelf personalcomputer to be a "surreptitious interception de-vice." But a modem is getting a little closer tothe point where a creative prosecutor couldmake trouble for a cracker, with fallout affectingmany others. An important unknown is howthe courts will apply the word surreptitious.

There's very little case law, but taking it tomean "by stealth; hidden from view; having itstrue purpose physically disguised," I can spinsome worrisome examples. I lobbied against thebill, pointing out the defects. Congressionalstaffers admitted privately that there was a prob-lem, but they were in a rush to get the bill to thefloor before Congress adjourned. They said theycould patch it later, but it is a pothole waitingfor a truck axle to rumble through.

JIMG [Day 10, 8:55 A.M.): That's sobering informa-tion, RH. Yet I still think that this law, if in-terpreted the way you suggest, would be foundunconstitutional, even by courts dominated byReagan appointees. Also, the economic cost ofprohibiting modems, or even restricting theiruse, would so outweigh conceivable benefitsthat the law would never go through. Finally,restricting modems would have no effect on thephreaks but would simply manage to slow every-body else down. If modems are outlawed, onlyoutlaws will have modems.

RH [Day 10, 1:52 P.M.): We're already past the timewhen one could wrap hacking in the FirstAmendment. There's a traditional distinctionbetween words-expressions of opinions, be-liefs, and information-and deeds. You canshout "Revolution!" from the rooftops all youwant, and the post office will obligingly deliveryour recipes for nitroglycerin. But acting onthat information exposes you to criminal pros-ecution. The philosophical problem posed byhacking is that computer programs transcendthis distinction: They are pure language thatdictates action when read by the device beingaddressed. In that sense, a program is very dif-ferent from a novel, a play, or even a recipe:Actions result automatically from the machinereading the words. A computer has no indepen-dent moral judgment, no sense of responsibility.Not yet, anyway. As we program and automatemore of our lives, we undoubtedly will deal withmore laws: limiting what the public can know,restricting devices that can execute certaininstructions, and criminalizing the possession of"harmful" programs with "no redeeming socialvalue." Blurring the distinction between lan-guage and action, as computer programmingdoes, could eventually undermine the FirstAmendment or at least force society to limit itsapplication. That's a very high price to pay,even for all the good things that computersmake possible.

HOMEBOY [Day 10, 11:03 P.M.]: HACKING ISART. CRACKING IS REVOLUTION. Allelse is noise. Cracks in the firmament are by na-ture threatening. Taking a crowbar to them isrevolution. _

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