A Private Little Cyberwar

[mea culpa <jericho () DIMENSIONAL COM>]

[Moderator's Note: Very much worth the read.]

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/00/0221/6504068a.htm

Dont romanticize kids who hack their way into computers. They can go from
mischievous to malicious in a click.

A Private Little Cyberwar

By Adam L. Penenberg

JAY DYSON KNOWS THE EXACT moment his life began to unravel. It was 10 a.m.
on Mar. 5, 1997, when Dyson, a techie for the National Aeronautics & Space
Administration in Pasadena, Calif., discovered that NASA had been hacked.

A gang puckishly named Hagis--Hackers Against Geeks in Snowsuits--had
commandeered the "root" directory of some NASA computers, gaining partial
control of the network and lacing it with password "sniffers"  and "back
doors" to let them return at will. They replaced NASA's home page with
their own, decrying commercialization of the Internet with an almost
comical ominousness.

"All who profit from the misuse of the Internet will fall victim to our
upcoming reign of digital terrorism," Hagis declared. "The
commercialization of the Internet stops here."

Dyson, part of a team charged with spotting intrusions and patching
security holes, took this all too personally. Then he made his first
mistake: He bashed Hagis online, posting the attack on his own Web site.
"You are just a bunch of lame kids," he wrote.

That seemingly meek counterpunch sparked a cyberwar over the next two
years, pitting Dyson, 37, against two Hagis members known as Euphoria and
Trout, or in hacker lingo, "u4ea" and "tr0ut." Hackers are often depicted
as mischievous antiheroes of the computer revolution: Sure, they break in,
but they don't really hurt anyone. Jay Dyson's tale points up a meaner
side.

His foes hacked two Internet service providers to get to him. They cracked
his home business, harassed his wife and, he says, cost him his marriage.
The digital intruders could do most anything they wanted to harass Dyson
online; no one was able to stop them. He fears his tormentors won't
cease--and now is plotting measures to stop them, himself.

"I look at the trail of destruction Euphoria and Trout have left, and I
still don't know anything about them," he says. "But I know my day will
come."

[snip..]

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