[ News ] [ Paper Feed ] [ Issues ] [ Authors ] [ Archives ] [ Contact ]


..[ Phrack Magazine ]..
.:: International Scenes ::.

Issues: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] [ 8 ] [ 9 ] [ 10 ] [ 11 ] [ 12 ] [ 13 ] [ 14 ] [ 15 ] [ 16 ] [ 17 ] [ 18 ] [ 19 ] [ 20 ] [ 21 ] [ 22 ] [ 23 ] [ 24 ] [ 25 ] [ 26 ] [ 27 ] [ 28 ] [ 29 ] [ 30 ] [ 31 ] [ 32 ] [ 33 ] [ 34 ] [ 35 ] [ 36 ] [ 37 ] [ 38 ] [ 39 ] [ 40 ] [ 41 ] [ 42 ] [ 43 ] [ 44 ] [ 45 ] [ 46 ] [ 47 ] [ 48 ] [ 49 ] [ 50 ] [ 51 ] [ 52 ] [ 53 ] [ 54 ] [ 55 ] [ 56 ] [ 57 ] [ 58 ] [ 59 ] [ 60 ] [ 61 ] [ 62 ] [ 63 ] [ 64 ] [ 65 ] [ 66 ] [ 67 ] [ 68 ] [ 69 ] [ 70 ]
Current issue : #47 | Release date : 1995-04-15 | Editor : Erik Bloodaxe
IntroductionErik Bloodaxe
Phrack LoopbackPhrack Staff
Line NoisePhrack Staff
Line NoisePhrack Staff
The #hack FAQ (Part 1)voyager
The #hack FAQ (Part 2)voyager
The #hack FAQ (Part 3)voyager
The #hack FAQ (Part 4)voyager
DEFCon InformationPhrack Staff
HoHoConNetta Gilboa
HoHoConCount Zero
HoHo Miscellanyvarious
An Overview of Prepaid Calling CardsTreason
The Glenayre GL3000 Paging and Voice Retrieval SystemArmitage
Complete Guide to Hacking Meridian Voice MailSubstance
DBS Primer from American Hacker Magazineunknown
Your New Windows Background (Part 1)The Man
Your New Windows Background (Part 2)Substance
A Guide To British Telecom's Caller ID ServiceDr. B0B
A Day in The Life of a Warez BrokerXxxx Xxxxxxxx
International Scenesvarious
Phrack World NewsDatastream Cowboy
Title : International Scenes
Author : various
                              ==Phrack Magazine==

                 Volume Six, Issue Forty-Seven, File 21 of 22

****************************************************************************

                             International Scenes

There was once a time when hackers were basically isolated.  It was
almost unheard of to run into hackers from countries other than the
United States.  Then in the mid 1980's thanks largely to the
existence of chat systems accessible through X.25 networks like
Altger, tchh and QSD, hackers world-wide began to run into each other.
They began to talk, trade information, and learn from each other.
Separate and diverse subcultures began to merge into one collective
scene and has brought us the hacking subculture we know today.  A
subculture that knows no borders, one whose denizens share the common goal
of liberating information from its corporate shackles.

With the incredible proliferation of the Internet around the globe, this
group is growing by leaps and bounds.  With this in mind, we want to help
further unite the communities in various countries by shedding light
onto the hacking scenes that exist there.  If you want to contribute a
file about the hacking scene in your country, please send it to us
at phrack@well.com.

This month we have files about the scenes in Norway, France, Italy and an
update from Denmark.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
dfp-1   An orientation on the Norwegian hacking/phreaking scene    dfp-1

       Written by the Digital Freedom Phanatic (dfp@powertech.no)
                    Brought to you in January, 1995
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

PROLOGUE: It's 1995 and little has been mentioned about Norwegian
hackers in the media lately.  I thought this would be a nice opportunity
to summarize some of the things that have happened on the scene in
Norway during the last 5 or so years.  For those of you in the Norwegian
audience not recognizing my name; you shouldn't.  I am more or less an
acquaintance of many of you guys, but I feel that in order to get
something done on the Norwegian scene right now (it's been fairly quiet
for a while, nicht wahr?) I cannot reveal my true identity.  Hell, let's
see if I get any responses to this article.  Now for the good stuff...

Unfortunately I entered the scene as late as around 1990, so I'm not
quite up-to-date on stuff that happened before that.  I've been trying
to gather old articles from newspapers and books.  What I have been
able to come up with is more or less some articles about a couple of
hackers who managed to get into a local newspaper's computer.  Also,
I have gotten in touch with some of the _real old Norwegian hackers_
dating back to the '70s.  Needless to say, those people today work in
the telecommunications industry.

AREAS OF INTEREST FOR HACKERS: First, a little introduction to Norway.
We are a very, very rich country, mainly due to the enormous amount of
oil resources which we are pumping from the North Sea.  As a result of
this wealth (I guess), our people are well educated and we have a blooming
industry.  Well, in some cases.  Nevermind.  Keywords: large corporations,
very large and respected telecommunications semi-monopoly, expensive
communications.

So in theory, there should be a lot of corporate hacking taking place in
Norway.  Well, either the people doing this are doing it real well, or
nobody is doing it.  I don't think anybody is.  As I have come to
understand, most hacking in Norway has really been Internet related.
Norway was actually one of the first countries apart from USA getting
connected to the Internet; way back in 1982.

STATUS OF INTERNET CONNECTIVITY: The universities have been hooked up
since the dawn of time, and today these are the centers of the Internet
community and high-speed telecom equipment in general use in Norway.
Actually, we have four universities and at least three of them are
currently networked with each other at a speed of 34Mbps.  The
university network's (Uninett) international Internet connection is
through NORDUnet and has a bandwidth of 2Mbps. Until a couple of
years ago, one could not gain legitimate access to the Internet except
by obtaining an account on one of the Uninett connected machines.  This
was impossible, at least for a majority of the hacker community, so
Uninett, or rather the computers at the University of Oslo, became a Mecca
for the scene.  The big people had accounts there, or borrowed one.
However, security is pretty stiff there and I fear that there was little
actual _hacking_ going on, people were merely borrowing legitimate
accounts through friends.

What's fun about the University of Oslo computer network is that it
until recently could be used for dialling out with speeds up to
14.4kbps. Actually, some of their dialup terminal servers were
configured to let you connect into them and dial out.  Try CONNECT
USEk.15 after logging in to Net/ONE (the University LAN).  I don't think
this works anymore, nor do I know if this was a "feature" introduced
when the terminal servers were installed.  It could be that some hacker
reconfigured them.  In that case, please let me know!  Dialled 820s
as well (The 900 numbers of Norway).

Today the Internet situation is very different.  We have had an
extravagant boost in the number of Internet access providers lately:
Oslonett, PowerTech, EUnet, Vestnett, BigBlue, MoNet, NordNet and PMDData
are those I can think of right now.  Also, a number of companies are
providing leased-line access: TelePost, EUnet and Datametrix.  PowerTech
is starting to do this soon now (they say), presumably with competitive
prices, but they are real bad on bandwidth.  (Well, they've been the
cheapest for me so far.)  At least we're not far from getting Internet
trial accounts shovelled up our asses here.  Let's hope some souls will
soon pour some actual value into the net; more information, more
services. I've seen little of that.

Until we get more Norwegian fun services on the Net, we might as well
exploit the services of Norwegian companies with no clue whatsoever when
it comes to security.  Take, for instance, Cinet AS (cinet.no) which has
a world NFS mountable root disk (rw). BigBlue Systems AS (bigblue.no) uses
a Linux server which you can log to using accounts named node1, node2 or
node3.  Full shell user access.  Or you could try logging in as "-froot"
to obtain root access.  Hm, I think they plugged that. :)  Well, ach so.
There's more out there.  Just get hacking.  And feel free to tell me what
you find!

WHAT WERE THE HACKERS DOING: There used to be a blooming hacking scene
in Norway earlier.  Well, one might not say blooming with bright ideas
and happenings, but at least there were many people doing the right
stuff.  Using X.25 NUIs to get to QSD, Password spoofing at the local
DataPak PAD using Pad2Pad, Social Engineering, Hacking calling cards to
get to the states, finding AT&T Alliance backdoors so as to keep people
up all night long when there was school the day after..  The good old
days.  We could even do easy blueboxing.  1980s-1992.

I must admit, though, that QSD isn't much anymore.  I liked it better
when there were a hundred people logged in simultaneously, and when
there were alliances being held with people from the States, Norway,
Denmark, Israel, all over the place.  Then came the busts.  It was
around October 1992 when the first busts started taking place.  We have
a very interesting timeline there.  First, the police teamed up with a
couple of computer software retailers (BJ Electronics, sounds familiar
huh?) and busted ten or so of the warez type board sysops.  People to
remember: Gizmo, Enemy :-).

Soon after that, bigger names were taken down.  Mario, Graham Two
(Vishnu), Edison, RamJet, Peter, Leikarnes etc.  Kevin was never busted.
I wonder who he was.  These guys were taken for more serious stuff like
carding, datapak (x.25), AT&T Alliance conferences, boxing, and general
abuse of the telephone system.  A couple of shorter raid periods followed
in 1993, and the scene was pretty much dead - except for the k-rad warez
kids.

AT&T and the other big guys we used to bluebox off of have all gone for
CCIS/CCITT #7 so there is little to be done boxing in Norway now.  Well,
as a matter of fact I haven't checked that out lately.  An interesting
thing, though, is that you can temporarily disconnect the complete
international trunk set between Norway and Iceland by breaking (24+26
250ms 26 100ms) on the Iceland Direct line.  Everybody trying to
_legitimately_ dial an Icelandic number from Norway for a while after
that just gets a busy signal.  Ha ha.  Poor man's fun.  Wish I could do
that with the States... :)

WHAT'S AHEAD FOR THE NORWEGIAN SCENE: I think we should get organized. I
have a few projects in mind.  There are a lot of security flaws and
weaknesses yet to be discovered in Norwegian systems and services.  We
need to get all of Norway scanned for automated answering services and
carriers.  We need to get into some Central Offices to check out the
labels on the modems connected to their Ericsson boxes.  We need to get
trashing.  We need to start talking hacking and phreaking at The
Gathering.  We need to find data numbers for C.O.s, banks, corporate
computers, the local McDonalds', we need to get root access at an Internet
provider and we need to be able to listen in to phone conversations.  We
will.  Get in touch with me if you'd like to join.

These were just a couple of thoughts of mine that I wanted to share with
you fellow hackers out there.  Hope you've enjoyed them.  And for heaven's
sake, feel free to give me some feedback (via internet: dfp@powertech.no).

FUN FACTS: Many companies have unconfigured PBXes that you can obtain
outside dialtone on.  There is no flat rate telephony.  A 28k8 modem
goes for a little less than $400.  All phone calls are logged, logs are
erased after a couple of months (presumably).  Only ISDN customers can
get Caller ID.  There are three cellular operator companies.  All the
Norway Direct operators are situated in Kongens gate 21, OSLO, Norway.
The NMT-900 Cellular network doesn't allow calls to Pakistan.  All
Norwegian babes are young, slim and blonde...not :)

I'll be releasing a couple of files on Norwegian hacking/phreaking areas
and techniques in the months to come.  Here's a list of those I am
planning, haven't written anything yet but I think I will.  If there's
anything in particular you'd like to add or to get hurried up, or if you
have information which should be included in these files, then get in
touch with me.

  (*) COCOTs and Monopoly operated Pay Phones in Norway
  (*) MBBS, the Norwegian BBS System; Backdoors and Security
  (*) Norwegian Telecom; TeleNor.  Organization and computer systems.
  (*) The Norwegian State Libraries; BibSys network security
  (*) Telephone Monopoly; current status, what will happen, when?

Sincerely Yours,
  Digital Freedom Phanatic

Yola's to (unsorted, people I know or would like to know):
  Gizmo, Enemy, Mario, Graham Two (Vishnu), Edison, Roger RamJet, Peter,
  Gekko, Ozelot, Sicko, Flesaker, Karstad, Arild Leikarnes, Frode1 og
  Frode2 :-), The Dealer, Saron, Digital Phanatic, SCSI (BayernPower!),
  SevenUp (damiano?), UrbanMatrix, OnkelD.  Where ARE you guys hiding?
  ;-)


------------------------------------------------------------------------------


    >-=-=-=-=-=-<
   <French  Scene>
    >-=-=-=-=-=-<

    By  NeurAlien

The French scene has always been portrayed as weak by both French and
foreign people.  There's a paradox here:  France was one of the first
countries to develop a modern network (in 1981) YET there have been
few _good hackers_.  How is that explained?  I DUNNO !

In fact, stating that France is underdeveloped at a hacker level is
partly false.  In France, hackers have always been isolated or hidden
in little isolated groups.  Whenever a good group formed, everyone was
quickly busted by DST (the agency in charge of computer fraud).  Moreover,
this agency (DST) is somewhat effective and hacking has been illegal here
since 1988.  The risks when you are caught are VERY HEAVY and the trial
lasts forever!  Usually, it takes 3 years to go to trial and the material
is ALWAYS seized even if you're not charged with anything!.

The Videotex initiative that provided France such a breakthrough
in technology is now an handicap because it can't follow the evolution of
modems and isn't well adapted for networking with the Internet.

I- The Videotex aka Minitel
   ------------------------

Minitel has been developed in 1981 by France Telecom.  It was excellent at
the time but it hasn't evolved very much.  Let's see what hacking has
been like in the Minitel world.

To explain a little what "Minitel hacking" was, I must detail
a little how Teletel (the network that supports Minitel) works.
Teletel is based on X25 and provides multiple price levels:

Teletel 0 (T0) is free for the user, costs a lot for the server.
Teletel 1 (T1) costs a local call to the user, the price of the X25
collect connection to the server.
Teletel 2 (T2) costs the price of a local call + X25 communication
(6+ cents per minute) to the user.)
Teletel 3 (T3) costs T2 + a charge that is reversed to the server
(costs 20 cents to $1 per minute to the user.)

A lot of servers are accessible only in T3 for the users.
The principle of hacking Teletel was to find a the X25 number corresponding
to the T3 CODE in order to log on the T3 server from T2 level.
Eventually, there could be a password on the T2 access.

Actually, it's very basic and very dumb hacking since you can only do
some scanning to find the x25 number of the servers.

T1 was used for more professional type servers and the hackers
that used to hack T1 were better than T2 hackers.

T2 K0d3z were very popular among wannabe hackers, some Special Interest
Groups about T2 were formed on a lot of servers and there was even a server
dedicated to T2 codes.  The quality of information has always been extremely
low in this kind of club.  Moreover, the kind of k0dez kidz on these SIGs and
servers were particularly dumb (sorry for them).  It got really bad in 1991
when a lot of T2 guys started to flame each other, accusing them of leeching
some T2 codes from one server and posting them to another, saying that the
other guys were ripping everyone off etc...   It may be continuing now but I'm
totally uninterested by these people so I completely left this scene.

The "good ones" of the T2 K0d3z k1dz stopped T2 (it's not free so it's
too expensive!).  They usually started to Hack T0 which is totally free.
(it's like a 1-800 for Teletel).  The servers of T0 are nearly all of the
"restricted access" kind.  But they have weak protection schemes and can
be easily bypassed with some experience.  The hackers of T0 servers don't
usually know each other and some of them may form a kind of little "islands".
(I'm calling them "islands" because it is always placed in an Information
System on T0, deep within the system.  There are perhaps 10 or so "islands"
that have no connection with other hackers.  A typical "island" consists of
5 to 10 hackers.  Some hackers may go on 2 or more "islands" but prefer to
keep the presence of both "islands" secret. Why? In order not to destroy
both if one of them is found and shut down!

One reason most never heard of these person is that there is nearly
no connection between the Teletel world and the Internet. The only way
to escape to Internet and Intl X25 is Teletel 1 (T1).

II- When Teletel goes professional
    -------------------------------

As I said, the T1 is the only way for a Teletel hacker to evolve
to hacking Internet or International & ASCII X25.  On Teletel 1, you can
sometimes log on to some interesting Unixes, Vaxes etc.
T1 is also the only way on Teletel to use the International X25 network.
You have to get a Transpac NUI to call a foreign address from T1.
Until 1991, the Transpac NUIs were a 4 to 6 random alphanumeric
characters.  A man called IER had made an NUI Scanner that allowed him to
find NUIs by scanning out every 4 character NUI.  It WAS effective,
but Transpac changed to a 6 character NUI.  (IER was busted and caught.
No news from him since that day!)

Many good hackers used T1 a lot to hack systems and to go on the Internet
and the Intl X25 networks.  For example, you may have heard of people
like Netlink, Furax, Jansky or Synaps.  They hacked X25 and Internet but
it seems that each of them was busted and caught.  Some are still alive on
the Net, but some aren't!!!

Some French hackers were really good but it seems that no one can hide
very long from the DST.  They are very effective, and with the help of
France Telecom, they trace back a lot of calls.

Places like QSD haven't been used very much by the French because of
their lack of technological knowledge. ahem...

Moreover, QSD/The Line is tapped by governmental agencies so g00d French
hackers don't like it.

IV- The groups
    ----------

Some groups have been formed in France but they've never lived long enough
to give new hackers the knowledge of the old hackers.  Some groups were:
NICK, Hardcore Hackers, Piratel, TeKila Underground.  Many of them
were hacking systems in Teletel 1.

A group called CCCF appeared in 1991.  It was founded by Jean Bernard
Condat and in fact it was not really a group.  This guy, JBC, is deft
at maneuvering people into doing what he wants.  He organized fake contests
like "The price of the Chaos" to get more information and then act as
if he personally discovered the hacks that were given to him.

He recently started the Chaos newsletter where nothing originates from
him...it's taken from everywhere and from his personal contacts.

He has big power because he works for SVP which is a private
information company that has the goal of providing information to whoever
wants it, for a large amount of money.

Nobody knows what JBC really wants but he is definitely a threat to the
underground.  Somebody, I don't recall who, already mentioned that in Phrack.

V- Phreaking in Phrance
   --------------------

Phone phreaking became really active in France in 1992 after the
massive release of a blue box that worked in France.  Several months
later discovery of this caused the death of blue boxing from France.

The blue box program was running on ST and several people that used it
formed the TeKila Underground.  As far as i know, this was an happy group
that had a lot of parties and liked smoking... :)

They weren't very effective: just into using the blue box.

Then came the movement of the "Horlogers", it was due to the credit you
could gain if you connected in Teletel 3 on some server.  The "horlogers" were
staying HOURS and DAYS on a server with blue box just to have more credit
(counted in minute of connection) on those server.
They were staying connected on a place called "L'horloge" (the timer) that
enabled you not to be disconnected by the server when being idle for a long
time.

Blue boxing is now very hard in France.  The Australian blue box
ceased to work and a lot of phreakers couldn't phreak anymore.

The real problem in France is that nobody (or almost nobody) knows how
the France Telecom phone network works so we can't really use any flaws
in this system.

Calling cards have been heavily used in France, placing the country
in the top ten consumers of stolen CC's.  When AT&T & MCI saw that,
they contacted France Telecom and now each calling card from AT&T, MCI
can't call back to France.

Moreover, FT's CC called "Carte France Telecom" (CFT or CP) is traced and
recorded: I mean, when the person who owns the CFT receives the bill,
written on the bill is the number of the caller and of the called party.

HARD isn't it?

Recently, some busts were done on AT&T and MCI CC users.  They are now
awaiting trial.

VI- Magazines
    ---------

Back before 1990 a magazine was published twice and sent to every
single university in France. It was called "Hackito" from the
"Hackito ergo sum" motto.  (I've never found an issue of it, but if you have
one, send me it to me in email.)

There is also this shitty zine called Chaos...


Now, a new zine is making the underground react in France:
It's called "N0 Way" and I'm the Editor.

This magazine is written entirely in French. The current issue is number 3.
Anyone wanting to submit something to "N0 Way" can send me a message in Email.

Today we are seeing a lot of people in France wanting to know more about
hacking.  It seems to have taken off here but not as much as in Holland or
in the USA.

Email me to receive "N0 Way": an133729@anon.penet.fi

                                                        ++NeurAlien.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Italian Scene
by
Zero Uno

Italy, as you know, is among the industrialized EEC powers.  It deserves
this honor only to the work of talented people, not by its government,
which is utterly idiot and totally unable to fulfill the needs of the people.
This characteristic inevitably has conditioned the whole telecommunication
market, both phone and networks, which must make clever long term decisions,
something that Italian government is not able to do.  The phone company is
owned by the government through Italy Telecom (IT), the new society formed by
the previous three state-owned firms involved in communications.  In the
last five years IT has undoubtedly made good work, but the quality of phone
connections and service was so bad in the past, that many people feel very
upset when comes to talk to IT.

The Telephone System

Italy is divided in 220 telephone districts, each with its own unique
prefix:  a zero followed by a number (up to three digits).  In addition there
are a few special prefixes in order to access cellular phones (0335,0336) or
to reach some 'fake' locations (0769), like many tv programs that use the
telephone to reach people.  (Like 555 in the USA) In this way IT protects
itself from line congestions when successful TV-progs are involved.  All
kind of modern connections are availabl.  This means that payphones, pagers,
cellulars (ETACS and GSM), radio (an old, now unsupported phone for cars in
400 Mhz range) are present.  Another strange beast is televoting (0869) a fake
prefix that holds the number of incoming calls for polls.  It was used to
test some political decisions, but the hack here was so evident (the redial
button) that now televote is not so well thought of.

Standard Numbering

The numbers that begins with the digit '1' are reserved for special services.
This include all amenities like emergency numbers (113, roughly the equivalent
of American 911), 187 (an all-but-everything number for all requests to IT,
such ordering a new phone, installing a new line and so on) and toll free
numbers 167[0 or 8] xxxxx.  As a reminder about IT's long term planning
capacity, the toll free numbers started as 1678-xxxxx, but were so successful
that IT was forced to add the 1670-xxxxx later |-(!  All 1678-7xxxx are in
use by foreign phone companies, and heavily scanned |-).

Some pretty numbers:

  1678-72341   A promo for a XXX-rated line (in north or south america)
  1678-70152   See the following capture

---------------------------------- CAPTURE -------------------------------------

                  OFFICIAL USE ONLY  
          ͻ
                                 FAMNET (sm)                     
                      
                                  AFAS HQ                        
                                    and                          
                                  AF FSCs                        
                      
          ͼ

This system is for the use of authorized users ONLY. Individuals using this
computer system without authority, or in access of their authority, are subject
to having all of their activities on this system monitored and recorded by
system personnel. In the course of monitoring individuals improperly using
this system, or in the course of system maintenance, the activities of
authorized users may also be monitored. Anyone using the system expressly
consents to such monitoring and is advised that such monitoring reveals
possible evidence of criminal activity, system personnel may provide the
evidence of such monitoring to law enforcement officials.

Line trace initialized...........................................

We now have your phone number......WE TRACK HACKERS AND ADVISE AUTHORITIES.

---------------------------- END OF CAPTURE --------------------------------

Unfortunately IT does not support caller ID, so the last sentence is pure
crap.

The above numbers are (obviously) all public. These ones are 'reserved'
for internal use, though many many people play with 'em:

    135             BBS to record maintenance procedures
    138             BBS or human operator (depend on districts)
    1372            Ring-back
    1391            Human operator
    160             Security service (???)
    1414            A yet-to-be-implemented service, that enables a user
                    to use one phone and bill on their own phone the
                    subsequent call. Will be implemented |-)?

Not all districts support this, and since they are not public they can change
rapidly.  Also present are the country direct numbers in the 1721xxx format.

    Country         Code
    -----------------------------
    Argentina       054
    Brazil          055
    Chile           056
    AT&T            011
    MCI             022
    Sprint          877

Services Offered

With the advent of digital COs, 'new' (new to the Italian market, anyway)
services were provided.  The so called STS (additional telephone services)
allowing (obviously paying) the teleconference (three user talking
simultaneously), incoming call signal when you are talking with another
party, and finally calling transfer, useful when you are away from home.
The current pulses billed can be inquired (paying one pulse, obviously!).

The Packet Networks

There is only one packet network provider, ITAPAC (DNIC 2222).  As with other
packet networks, the access is available with a PAD that accepts only NUI
accounts (non-reverse charging) and those who accept reverse-charge calls
(in ITAPAC lingo, the 'easy way').  These are heavily hacked because it is
the most widespread network in Italy (and the most unreliable, insecure, *bad*)
and also because some NUI users simply were not aware of the costs of this kind
of service, and they have payed all the phreakers' bills too!

Sometimes, for promotional sales, some NUIs were discharged to the public.
Other were disseminated by phreakers, collected by PAD (only a few NUIs are
valid across different PADs, most aren't).  Until some time ago QSD France
was the most 'in' PAD site.  Another common activity was surfing across
Packet Networks of different states.  Now many common NUIs were deleted from
system, but some still survive.  Many times the net is unusable because
has reached its maximum load or because of for system outages.  Also, even
if the ports run at 2400 bps, is not uncommon to reach the same speed of a
1200 bps connection.  Use it if you don't pay or pay a limited fee for it.

The H/P/C/V Scene

Common folklore depicts Italians as adaptable to unfriendly environments in
a clever way.  Although these rumors are not completely true, there is an
Italian way of H/P/C/V.  Hacking in Italy is not a common activity.  There
are several teens who spent lot of effort to learn some tricks, but they
are teens, with all pros and cons.  Rarely do these individuals survive the
20 years-old barrier, for one reason or another.  Those who survive generally
self-limit their actions to a restricted area, and generally remain anonymous.
The few that remain are the brightest, with lot of know-how and abilities.
I only know two people at this top rank level.  Hacking is focused on setting
up unauthorized fsp sites in university computers, removing licenses to pro
warez and gaining illicit access to some resources in internet or in ITAPAC.
ITAPAC is now no longer a key issue since ITAPAC (and Italy in general) has
very few computing resources, and ITAPAC has severe security problems, so it
is predated by hacker wannabees.  Also Italy lacks of H/P groups like
LOD,MOD and the CCC. Apart from Omega Team, to my knowledge no other group
has existed.

Phreaking used to be fairly common, but now is much less so because of
new digital COs and stricter security.  Blue boxing to USA was *very* common
until January 1, 1992.  On this date, the software that controls the traffic
over North America was changed, and boxing to USA is no longer possible.
Carding now is the only phreak access, and is used mainly by warez board
sysops.  Rumors said that the software update was imposed on ITALCABLE (that
manages international calls) by AT&T due to the *huge* illicit traffic between
Italy-USA.  Basically, too many people, even non H/P ones ('friends of
friends') were using blue-boxes even without the faintest idea of how they
worked.  Some hackers have sold boxes to normal people, and this probably was
the key to the blocking of illicit calls.  Now, to my knowledge, is possible
to box only to Chile, Argentina and some other third-world countries.

True H/P BBS are few.  One, Pier Group's BBS was the most famous, in part
because one member, MFB (short for MF the Best, basically the best Italian
phreaker in my opinion), has written a series of humorous stories about
hackers and lamerz, that had a phenomenal success.  But since Pier (the
sysop) was also invloved in some other illegal activities apart phreaking
(stolen hardware, carding), and in this kind of activity too much advertising
equals certain arrest, the board went down.  Most other BBS are
warez-oriented, with warez from THG, Razor 1911 and other USA crack groups.
Note however that unlike other nations, Italy has no group HQs:  what counts
is money, not being part of a group.  Many BBS are double-sided:  one a ligit,
more or less lame, part of a legal net like FidoNET, the other accessible only
to subscribers, with warez.  This has changed however since the Italian Hacker
Crackdown.  This is not because the police raided the warez boardz (they are
too ignorant to do this) but because warez sysops, in fear of being caught,
have (temporarily) closed their BBSes.

Virusing has some players, though not very publicized, for obvious reasons.
One has recently become famous (Dr.  Revenge) for his contributions to
Insane Reality, another H/P/V journal that published some 'secret'
telephone numbers for United Kingdom officials.

Nothing really new in Italy, as you can see.  Newspapers are (as are most
people) too ignorant to correctly report these problems, with the result being
that the 'legal' portion of network fanatics fear other unjustified police
raids, and legislators are becoming very unfriendly when dealing with this
kind of communication.  Several politicians and media moguls are proposing
laws that forbid anonymous access to the Net, and universities are very
concerned about these subjects.  Two students were recently arrested because
they used illicit (but almost public) passwords to surf the net (*only* to
see things, *no* data damage).

Italy may one day become very unfriendly to net people, even if Italians are
generally considered very friendly.

Zero Uno
mc1671@mclink.it *only* using PGP, otherwise no response.

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: 2.3

mQCNAi7zXJ0AAAEEAM3SZQp0+By7fi7ey/oiTU6TT5CdMYdkYnkDeM8f2bZ75Pdp
4mv9C0BTVRP0UrYgJO1I+8YrwvSjZK7+U3hty+c97RJ5lnSYQ0BbF7puSwhUxj4W
AyytlQZVP6j1r4H8ulse1arIVlD9h2+GceXOx09J5uEqqhRG/uo1W3A51ixFAAUR
tBtaZXJvIFVubyA8bWMxNjcxQG1jbGluay5pdD4=
=9GnS
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE DANISH SCENE BY LE CERVEAU

In the last issue of Phrack (46) I read an article about the Danish
Computer Underground. Though, I was pleased with the text, a lot of
stuff has happened since which I hope most of you have heard about.
Anyway, here's an update..

In short, most (nearly all..) of the Inner Circle hackers in Denmark
have been busted.  It all went down December 1993 where I,
Descore (Zephyr), Dixie (Nitecrawler) were busted at exactly the same
time.  After the 3 busts several more followed: WedLock, Netrunner,
Darkman + some others. I had to spend 14 days in isolation while the
others were released (somewhat due to my own stupidity).

The busts were made because all of the universities in DK had been
more or less taken over by hackers and the FBI + CERT & ASSIST
worked together.  The police told me that UNI*C was threatened to be
cut off the Internet if the hacking from Denmark didn't stop (don't
think that's the truth though. They bullshit alot..).

So, of course the Danish police had to do something and they asked
the infamous Joergen Bo Madsen for help.  And they got it.  And the
situation in DK was getting out of control too - the Phone Company
was hacked, DK's main research center hacked.  No damage to ANYTHING
was done though, but naturally we had to be stopped.  Actually, the
Phone Cmp. screwed up their own system trying to stop us - and now
they blame us!

Now we're all awaiting trial.  It might take a while, since they
said they'd start 'breaking' the PGP-encrypted files with UNI*C's
computers ;).... I'd think if they did that, it'd be quite a while
before trials!

Busted in DK: Zephyr aka Descore, Dixie, WedLock, Netrunner,
              Darkman, Lazarus, Jackal and me (LC).. + Joshua -
              some idiot who might have helped the police a whole lot.

After the bust of Jackal the police says they can't handle anymore so
there won't be any.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

BUSTED
BY LE CERVEAU

I've been busted. Why speak out loud? Why not? I'm screwed anyway.

I was stunned. About six-seven months before my bust I succeeded in
breaking into a Pentagon computer (pentagon-emh4.army.mil -->
otjag.army.mil). What actually launched my interest in this computer
was a file about UFOs where it was listed. Now I have realized that had
I found anything top secret about UFO cover-ups I probably wouldn't have
released it. It wants to be free - but the question is to what degree..
I knew of course that it couldn't be one of their top secret computers
(actually, OTJAG=Office of The Judge Attorney General - AFAIR) but I
also knew that it would be the start of something big - one thing
always leads to another.

After a couple of weeks on the system, doing nothing but leeching
all the mail I could get my hands on I discovered that one of the
majors used an Air Force base-server (flite.jag.af.mil - AFAIR). As
I suspected, all I had to find was his login - the password was
exactly the same. And again this had to lead to more and it did.
I found some stupid sergeant who also was a user on TACOM
(Tank Automotive COMmand). Surely, even though stupid he wouldn't
use the same.. - yup, he did. Access to tacom-emh1.army.mil and
all their other machines granted. If you want one of the
largest lists of MilNet sites then grab /etc/hosts from TACOM.
After gaining SU-access on this machine interesting things started
happening. If, for example, an officer was to issue some order (of
course not any orders concerning war) it'd look something like
this:

You have to report at HQ Monday latest. Your travelling plans
for the international conference <blah> <blah> <blah>..

                                  // Signed //
                                Col. Joe Wilkins

and then some more approved signatures would follow by some
other persons. Of course I grabbed all the mail on TACOM.

After a month or so I was locked out of the Pentagon system -
and it changed it's address to otjag.army.mil. But I didn't
really care. I knew MilNet pretty good so why not I thought..

I started thinking military-systems only - a dangerous thing
to do. I ended up using all my time on it and was therefore
also rewarded. Soon I would have access to more than 30 military
systems around the globe and I knew I was getting in over my head
but I had to keep going - I felt there was no way back. I could
have told myself that having to hide on all of these systems
would be almost impossible. But things seemed to be going just fine.
Just how idiotic can you get?

With access to some CM-5's and a CM-200 at Naval Research Labs
and all the wordfiles in the world no system stupid enough to
let their passwd-file get taken stood a chance - one account with
encrypted passwd was enough. All I had to do was start Crack on
the CM-200 and wait.

I took interest in some of the government machines - they weren't
as hard to hack as the mil's and I soon lost interest. Except in
NASA. I got in on one of their smaller machines (*.gsfc.nasa.
gov) and I knew I just had to wait and it would lead to something
more.

Now 'strange' things started happening. Imagine this: I log in
on TACOM. I log out. When I try to log in again it's impossible
from the same site; I have to use another - that's when I knew
that someone was watching my every step, trying to stop me. Later
it started happening to me no matter how I accessed the nets. That's
when I knew the end was near. A month later I was busted by
the FBI in Denmark - that's the way I feel even though it was the
Danish police. Actually, the trace was made through *.wwb.noaa.gov
which I was using a while for cracking.

That's my story - very shortened! If anyone is interested in details
mail me at Restricted Access # +45-36703060.

Last Words: Don't do it - don't do it.. It'll get you into all kinds of
shit.. Why bother the nice governments and their so trustworthy agencies?
On second thought: Just do it!

[Editors note:  Along with this file I was sent a capture of one of
 the aforementioned hacks (which I promptly deleted).  It looked like
 our Danish friends were in a host at the office of the Judge Advocate
 General.  Knowing how the JAG is going to handle cases isn't exactly
 the kind of thing anyone in the military really wants floating around.
 I guess they need better security, eh? ]
[ News ] [ Paper Feed ] [ Issues ] [ Authors ] [ Archives ] [ Contact ]
© Copyleft 1985-2021, Phrack Magazine.