POST // 009 - English 303

In 1994, I was fifteen and taking 9th grade - English 303. For a research paper, I chose computer hacking.

Computer hacking

Matthew Wold

Mrs. Fink

English 303

11-28-94

A new breed of criminal, the electronic burglar, is on the rise. Working with less than $300 worth of equipment, malicious computer hackers can ring up long-distance calls and bill them to your home or business, snoop through your credit files to get your credit card numbers and buy things by phone, billed in your name.

Why do computer hackers hack? Some computer hackers hack because they have no friends in school. A computer won’t put you down or call you names.

A computer may be the first best friend that any hacker has ever had. But the main reason hackers hack is because they want to look “cool” in front of their peers. They want to show them that they are smart enough to break into a big bank or a government office. Most hackers have a hard time adjusting to society. Instead of asking someone to do something they tell the person to do it, because computers don’t ask why and they never say no!

I wondered how can a person use their computer to get into another computer across the world. I found that crackers can attack the target computer from home, using a modem and a telephone line, or some go to a collage campus and use the schools computer to attack the target through a network. If the the target computer is nearby, the cracker may look through the owners trash for valuable information. Discarded printouts, manuals, or other paper may contain lists of accounts, some passwords, or technical data more sophisticated crackers can exploit.

The easiest way to enter the target computer is with an account name and its password. Passwords are often the weakest link in a computers security system. Many passwords are easy to guess, and some accounts have no passwords at all. Sophisticated crackers use their personal computer to quickly try thousands of potential passwords for a match.

To cover the calls from home, making it harder to trace the call, crackers might use stolen telephone credit card numbers to place a series of calls through different long-distance carriers or corporate switchboards before calling the target computers modem.[ O’Connor, 2]

Computer hackers don’t only try to log-on to other computers but they also go after A.T.M. machines, cellular telephones, and telephone tolls. A national network of A.T.M.’s, known as the Plus System, Inc., links more than one thousand banks in 47 states. Six similar networks are at various stages of implementation. With several hundred dollars worth of electronical equipment and a home computer, a twelve year old hacker can tap into most A.T.M. machines.[USA Today reports, 83-85].

To listen in on cellular telephone conversations all you need is a $300 scanner, clip a couple of wires, connect them to the opposite wires just cut, and you pick up phone signals. Hackers use the scanners in their cars so that they might pick up special passwords and/or account names and numbers.

A common example of toll fraud would be: ABC corporation allows certain out-of-town employees to call long-distance by its 800 number by punching in an access code. A computer hacker discovers the access code using a “war dialer”, same as a modem, to try numeric combinations until hitting the correct one. The hacker sells the access code to a criminal. Using a street-corner phone booth, illegal immigrants line up to pay the criminal $15 for a ten minute domestic call or $30 for overseas calls. Drug traffickers and other criminals, safe from federal wiretaps, also may conduct business through ABC’s exchange. Five days later ABC gets the bill for the calls. Such bills are usually in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. The long-distance company says ABC must pay it! [Colby, 2-3]

If computer hacking is so easy, how can I stop it from happening on my computer? I found eight steps on how to stop computer theft.

First: The password allowing users to log onto a protected computer should never be shorter than four letters. A good password consists of a mixture of at least six letters, numbers, and symbols. Better than that would be a passphrase-a sequence of several words.

Second: The password be changed immediately if the user suspects it has been discovered. In any case, a password should be changed every six months.

Third: The password should have no connections to the owners, name of wife, children, or pets, along with social security, passport, or army serial numbers. Other risky passwords include “Test”, “Password” or Example”.

Fourth: A computer can be programed to thwart a would-be penatrator by slowing him down. The hacker can be forced to wait five seconds after each wrong guess. A caller can also be limited to three wrong guesses before the computer hangs up on him.

Fifth: The computer should record every attempt to enter it, showing the time each attempt was made and the result.

Sixth: Callers from remote telephones should not be allowed to log-on directly. When the computer receives a valid user identification code and password, it should be programed to hang up and re-call the telephone number listed for the authorized user of the password.

Seventh: A secure computer should not inform a caller that he has made an invalid log-on attempt until he has entered both identification code and password. This prevents the caller from knowing whether he got both identification code and password right or only one of them.

Eighth: The last way to stop hackers from theft is to program your computer system to trace a telephone call after the caller has made a series of unsuccessful attempts to log on.[Browne, 32]

As strange as it may seem, 1986 prosecutor found it difficult to charge a thief under the existing wiretap laws. Title three of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act made it a federal crime to willfully intercept wire or oral communications.

Today, if you are caught committing a computer crime and your a juvenile you get a fine depending on the severity of the crime and your computer is confiscated. Even if you are a minor you may still face charges of breaking and entry and end up in a detention center.[Pioneer, 18] If you are an adult your computer is taken, a $50,000 fine is given, and you receive five years in prison.

What is the government doing to protect themselves? Strengthening Arpanet ( Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) which links the Pentagon with 300 outside computers and 50,000 people, mostly university's in the U.S and Europe, who are doing defense research. In the fall of 1983, military users split off to their own network (Milnet) while civilian researchers use R&DNet with “Terminal access control” that will automatically determine if the caller is using the right phone number. The government also expanded the Defense Computer Security Center, which tests the reliability and vulnerability of commercially built hardware and software on which the Pentagon must mainly rely on, which will make the security better for the Pentagon. [NEWSWEEK reports 42-46]

I remembered the movie “War Games” when I had first started writing this report and I asked myself “Could War Games ever happen?”

The computer system of the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) are totally isolated from the commercial telephone lines to which hackers have access, and the data they handle go through a complex coding prosses. Moreover, NORAD’s computers are not even linked to missle-silo computers. Hackers don’t pose a significant problem.

Works Cited

“Beware: Hackers at Play.” Newsweek 5 Sept. 1983: 42-46.

“Sleuths Tracked Teen Computer Hacker for Six Weeks.” Pioneer Paper 27 Nov. 1994: 18.

SIRS Research Inc.

Browne, Malcome. “Locking out the Hackers.” 1983 Privacy, Volume 3, Article 18. Sept. 5, 1983.

Colby, Richard. “Anatomy of a Toll Fraud.” 1992 Crime, Volume 4, Article 93A. June 5, 1992.

“The Rise of Cashless Crimes.” USA Today Jan. 1986: 83-85