Underground: Hacking, madness and obsession on the electronic frontierDreyfus, Suelette
Science
Underground: Hacking, madness and obsession on the electronic frontier
Dreyfus, Suelette
Computer crimes -- Australia; Computer hackers -- Australia -- Biography; Computer security -- Australia
Phoenix wasn't sure what to do. He wanted to give the British hackers
the key, but he was torn. He needed Pad and Gandalf's help to get the
copy of Deszip, if it was still around. But he knew Electron was
watching the conversation, and Electron was always so paranoid. He
disliked giving out any information, let alone giving it over Altos,
where the conversations were possibly logged by security people.
`Should I give him the key?' Phoenix whispered to Electron.
Gandalf was waiting. To fend him off, Phoenix said, `It's 9 chars.'
Chars was short for characters. On Altos the rule was to abbreviate
where ever possible.
`What is the first char?'
`Yeah. Tell him,' Electron whispered to Phoenix.
`Well, the key is ...'
`You're going to spew when you find out, Gand,' Electron interrupted.
`Yes ... go on,' Gandalf said. `I am listening.'
`You won't believe it. <spew spew spew> The key is ... Dartmouth.'
`WHAT???? WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!' Gandalf exclaimed.
`No!!! IT's NOT TRUE! Bollox! You are KIDDING?'
The British hacker was thumping himself on the head. The name of the
frigging university! What a stupid password!
Phoenix gave an on-line chuckle. `Hehe. Yeah. So hard to guess. We
could have had Deszip for all these months ...'
`Jesus. I hope it's still on that JANET system,' Gandalf said. Now
that he actually had the password, finding the file became even more
urgent.
`Pray. Pray. Pray,' Phoenix said. `Yeah, you should have seen the
licence text on Deszip--it was by NASA.'
`You've seen it? You saw Deszip's source code?'
`No,' Phoenix answered. `When I went back to the BEAR machine to check
if Deszip was still there, the program was gone. But the licence
agreement and other stuff was there. Should have read the licence ...
truly amazing. It basically went on and on about how the people who
wrote it didn't want people like us to get a hold of it. Hehe.'
Electron was growing impatient. `Yeah. So, Gand, when you gonna go
check that JANET system?'
`Now. Fingers crossed, m8! See ya l8r ...' Then he was gone.
The waiting was driving Electron nuts. He kept thinking about Deszip,
about how he could have had it months and months ago. That program was
such a prize. He was salivating at the thought of getting it after all
this time pursuing it around the globe, chasing its trail from system
to system, never quite getting close enough to grab it.
When Gandalf showed up again, Pad, Phoenix and Electron were all over
him in an instant.
`WE FUCKING GOT IT GUYS!!!!!' Gandalf exclaimed.
`Good job m8!' Pad said.
`YES!' Electron added. `Have you decrypted it yet?'
`Not yet. Crypt isn't on that machine. We can either copy Crypt onto
that machine or copy the file onto another computer which already has
Crypt on it,' Gandalf said.
`Let's move it. Quick ... quick ... this damn thing has a habit of
disappearing,' Electron said.
`Yeah, this is the last copy ... the only one I got.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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