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
Par began hand-scanning on the Citibank Global Telecommunications
Network (GTN) looking for the mystery machine. Using his knowledge of
the X.25 network, he picked a number to start with. He typed 22301,
22302, 22303. On and on, heading toward 22310000. Hour after hour,
slowly, laboriously, working his way through all the options, Par
scanned out a piece, or a range, within the network. When he got bored
with the 223 prefix, he tried out the 224 one for a bit of variety.
Bleary-eyed and exhausted after a long night at the computer, Par felt
like calling it quits. The sun had splashed through the windows of his
Salinas, California, apartment hours ago. His living room was a mess,
with empty, upturned beer cans circling his Apple IIe. Par gave up for
a while, caught some shut-eye. He had gone through the entire list of
possible addresses, knocking at all the doors, and nothing had
happened. But over the next few days he returned to scanning the
network again. He decided to be more methodical about it and do the
whole thing from scratch a second time.
He was part way through the second scan when it happened. Par's
computer connected to something. He sat up and peered toward the
screen. What was going on? He checked the address. He was sure he had
tried this one before and nothing had answered. Things were definitely
getting strange. He stared at his computer.
The screen was blank, with the cursor blinking silently at the top.
Now what? What had Force done to get the computer to sing its song?
Par tried pressing the control key and a few different letters.
Nothing. Maybe this wasn't the right address after all. He
disconnected from the machine and carefully wrote down the address,
determined to try it again later.
On his third attempt, he connected again but found the same irritating
blank screen. This time he went through the entire alphabet with the
control key.
Control L.
That was the magic keystroke. The one that made CitiSaudi give up its
mysterious cache. The one that gave Par an adrenalin rush, along with
thousands and thousands of cards. Instant cash, flooding his screen.
He turned on the screen capture so he could collect all the
information flowing past and analyse it later. Par had to keep feeding
his little Apple IIe more disks to store all the data coming in
through his 1200 baud modem.
It was magnificent. Par savoured the moment, thinking about how much
he was going to enjoy telling Force. It was going to be sweet. Hey,
Aussie, you aren't the only show in town. See ya in Citibank.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account