![]() ![]() Morris is dismissed from Cornell, sentenced to three years' probation, and fined $US10,000. The worm gets out of hand and spreads to some 6000 networked computers, clogging government and university systems. Morris, Jr., a graduate student at Cornell University and son of a chief scientist at a division of the National Security Agency, launches a self-replicating worm on the government's ARPAnet (precursor to the Internet) to test its effect on UNIX systems. The law, however, does not cover juveniles. In the wake of an increasing number of break-ins to government and corporate computers, Congress passes the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which makes it a crime to break into computer systems. Today, copies of 2600 are sold at most large retail bookstores. Both publications provide tips for would-be hackers and phone phreaks, as well as commentary on the hacker issues of the day. ![]() The editor of 2600, "Emmanuel Goldstein" (whose real name is Eric Corley), takes his handle from the main character in George Orwell's 1984. The hacker magazine 2600 begins regular publication, followed a year later by the online 'zine Phrack. During a nine-day spree, the gang breaks into some 60 computers, among them computers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which helps develop nuclear weapons. The same year, authorities arrest six teenagers known as the 414 gang (after the area code to which they are traced). The break-in throws the military into high alert, or Def Con 1 (Defense Condition 1). The computer (codenamed WOPR, a pun on the military's real system called BURGR) misinterprets the hacker's request to play Global Thermonuclear War as an enemy missile launch. The film's main character, played by Matthew Broderick, attempts to crack into a video game manufacturer's computer to play a game, but instead breaks into the military's nuclear combat simulator computer. The movie War Games introduces the public to hacking, and the legend of hackers as cyberheroes (and anti-heroes) is born. Among the first are Legion of Doom in the United States, and Chaos Computer Club in Germany. The precursor to Usenet newsgroups and e-mail, the boards - with names such as Sherwood Forest and Catch-22 - become the venue of choice for phreaks and hackers to gossip, trade tips, and share stolen computer passwords and credit card numbers. Phone phreaks begin to move into the realm of computer hacking, and the first electronic bulletin board systems (BBSs) spring up. Among the perpetrators: college kids Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, future founders of Apple Computer, who launch a home industry making and selling blue boxes. Shortly thereafter, Esquire magazine publishes "Secrets of the Little Blue Box" with instructions for making a blue box, and wire fraud in the United States escalates. ![]() ![]() One phreak, John Draper (aka Cap'n Crunch), learns that a toy whistle given away inside Cap'n Crunch cereal generates a 2600-hertz signal, the same high-pitched tone that accesses AT&T's long-distance switching system.ĭraper builds a "blue box" that, when used in conjunction with the whistle and sounded into a phone receiver, allows phreaks to make free calls. Phone hackers (phreaks) break into regional and international phone networks to make free calls. ![]()
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