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.The Secret Service had subpoenaed his academic records, and Erik had heard about it beforethe raid.So when the Secret Service arrived, Erik's stuff just wasn't there.It hadn't been therefor a few weeks, but for Erik, they had been hard weeks.The hacker found himself sufferingwithdrawal symptoms, so he bought the cheapest home computer and modem he could find totide him over.That equipment was the only computer gear the Secret Service discovered, and they werenot happy special agents.But without evidence, their hands were tied.No charges were laid.Still, Erik thought he was probably being watched.The last thing he wanted was forPhoenix's number to appear on his home phone bill.So he let Phoenix call him, which theAustralian did all the time.They often talked for hours when Erik was working nights.It was aslack job, just changing the back-up tapes on various computers and making sure they didn'tjam.Perfect for a student.It left Erik hours of free time.Erik frequently reminded Phoenix that his phone was probably tapped, but Phoenix justlaughed.`Yeah, well don't worry about it, mate.What are they going to do? Come and getme?'After Erik put a hold on his own hacking activities, he lived vicariously, listening to Phoenix'sexploits.The Australian called him with a technical problem or an interesting system, and thenthey discussed various strategies for getting into the machine.However, unlike Electron's talkswith Phoenix, conversations with Erik weren't only about hacking.They chatted about life,about what Australia was like, about girls, about what was in the newspaper that day.It waseasy to talk to Erik.He had a big ego, like most hackers, but it was inoffensive, largely couchedin his self-effacing humour.Phoenix often made Erik laugh.Like the time he got Clifford Stoll, an astronomer, who wroteThe Cuckoo's Egg.The book described his pursuit of a German hacker who had broken into thecomputer system Stoll managed at Lawrence Berkeley Labs near San Francisco.The hacker hadbeen part of the same hacking ring as Pengo.Stoll took a hard line on hacking, a position whichdid not win him popularity in the underground.Both Phoenix and Erik had read Stoll's book, andone day they were sitting around chatting about it.`You know, it's really stupid that Cliffy put his email address in his book,' Phoenix said.`Hmm, why don't I go check?'Sure enough, Phoenix called Erik back about a day later.`Well, I got root on Cliffy'smachine,' he began slowly, then he burst out laughing.`And I changed the message of theday.Now it reads, "It looks like the Cuckoo's got egg on his face"!'It was uproariously funny.Stoll, the most famous hacker-catcher in the world, had beenjaped! It was the funniest thing Erik had heard in weeks.But it was not nearly so amusing as what Erik told Phoenix later about the New York Times.The paper had published an article on 19 March suggesting a hacker had written some sort ofvirus or worm which was breaking into dozens of computers.`Listen to this,' Erik had said, reading Phoenix the lead paragraph, `"A computer intruder haswritten a program that has entered dozens of computers in a nationwide network in recentweeks, automatically stealing electronic documents containing users' passwords and erasingfiles to help conceal itself."'Phoenix was falling off his chair he was laughing so hard.A program? Which wasautomatically doing this? No.It wasn't an automated program, it was the Australians! It wasthe Realm hackers! God, this was funny.`Wait--there's more! It says, "Another rogue program shows a widespread vulnerability".Ilaughed my ass off,' Erik said, struggling to get the words out.`A rogue program! Who wrote the article?'`A John Markoff,' Erik answered, wiping his eyes.`I called him up.'`You did? What did you say?' Phoenix tried to gather himself together [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]