Hosler Quinn Hosler Game Theory & Democracy Dr. Bray Friday, December 7, 2012 Hacking. What It Actually Is With the advent of the Internet, we like to think that our lives have gotten easier. We no longer have to go out of the house, or even get out of a chair to do tasks that previously would have required a decent chunk of our day. For example, say you need to buy a birthday present for your nephew? Not a problem. Just sit down, lean-back, and relax while searching through more products in an hour than you could ever actually see in a store. Don’t have enough money on your debit card to pay for it? Not a problem either, just visit your bank’s website and transfer money from your savings. Over the last decade we have been getting more and more used to this sense of near instant gratification. However, as people have no doubt heard on the news in the past few months, the wonderful place that we call the Internet is full of crooks, thieves, and swindlers. All of whom are trying to compromise your security, steal your money, and in general, ruin your life… or at least your credit score. These types of people are often referred to as hackers. Not because they’re particularly bad at golf, or spend their lives chopping away at trees, but because they possess superior knowledge of computers and computer systems, and are able to exploit weakness to gain access to privileged information. With the word “hacker” being used solely to describe a person whose goal is to steal your personal information, it would be easy to assume the word refers specifically to people with malicious intent. In fact, the mainstream definition of a hacker is, “a person who uses computers to gain unauthorized access to data [1]”. However, this is only one definition of a “hacker”. Specifically, it is the definition of a black hat hacker. 1 Hosler In general, the term hacker tends to have three flavors associated with it; black hats, white hats, and expert programmers [2]. Typically black hats hack for the sole purpose of personal gain. They often attempt to access sensitive databases in order to steal credit card information, email addresses, usernames and passwords. This information is then sold or used by the hackers themselves. This is in contrast to white hats, also known as ethical hackers, whom mostly consist of computer security professionals. White hats use their knowledge of computers to help companies make their security systems more secure. It is often part of a white hat’s job to attempt to hack into their client’s systems to test security. Once a flaw is found and exploited, a white hat reports back to the company and fixes it. However, it is very unlikely that either of these types of hackers could exist without the expert programmers. Expert programmers are the people who have brought computers to where they are today. In fact, it’s the hacker Steve Wozniak who is almost universally accredited with bringing affordable PCs to the public. Although Wozniak did not invent the computer, he was the first one with enough detailed knowledge of computer hardware to be able to create a PC from affordable parts [2]. We owe many of the other luxuries we enjoy today to hackers as well, such as the Internet and modern day gaming. Hackers have been pushing the limits of technology since the beginning. After all, that is the primary definition of a hacker. Hackers did not come about the same time as computers did though. They’ve actually been around much longer. They just used a different form of technology and were called a different name, phreaks. Phone phreaking has a rather humble set of roots. It all started in 1957 when an eight- year-old blind boy named Joe Engressia was calling around listening to recorded telephone messages. Joe had always been fascinated with telephones, and one day he was on the phone whistling to himself, when the call he was on suddenly terminated. Not understanding why and 2 Hosler being blessed with perfect pitch, he experimented a bit and discovered that the fourth E above middle C would cause a phone call to terminate every time [3]. This was the discovery of the magical sound of 2600 Hertz [4]. Eventually Engressia called Ma Bell and asked them why when he whistled a particular sound the call was terminated. It was explained to him that a sound at that frequency was an internal company signal to take control of the trunk line [5]. At the time it was too technical for him. After all, he was only 8 years old. However, after more experimenting he realized that it essentially dropped the connection to the receiver of the phone call, but left the line on the caller’s side still connected. Over the years Engressia learned to manipulate the trunk lines and became skilled enough to make calls to anywhere in the world without getting billed for them. He was able to do this because he found the frequencies of other company signals. For example, the frequency for the number 1 was a combination of 700 Hz and 900 Hz, and the signal for 2 was a combination of 700 Hz and 1100 Hz [6]. It turned out that after the trunk line had become disconnected from the intended receiver of the call due to the 2600 Hz tone it began listening for routing signals. This was when Engressia was able to use the frequencies of the numbers to call any number, anywhere. At first this may not sound particularly special. After all it was possible just to call any number in the world. The difference is that the way Engressia found to do, the calls were free. Engressia found that if he first called a toll free 800 number and disconnected the trunk line when the recording started, he could direct his call anywhere and it would still be marked as free by the phone companies accounting machines. During Engressia’s phreaking career his goal was never to hurt the company or the system in any way. His motivation wasn’t the fact that he could make free calls, but rather the knowledge he gained from exploring. 3 Hosler At this time, though, phreaking was quite a bit more difficult for people who didn’t have perfect pitch, as they didn’t have the ability to accurately produce the correct frequencies needed. They often relied on electric organs, cassette recorders, or even canaries to produce the appropriate sounds. This problem is why one of the best-known phreaks, John Draper, was introduced to the culture. At the time, Draper was spending his time living in a Volkswagen Microbus testing a radio transmitter he had built. During his testing he broadcasted a telephone number to get feedback from listeners on signal quality. One of the calls Draper received was from Denny Teresi, a friend of Engressia, who asked Draper if he would be willing to meet with them. At the meeting, Engressia and Teresi asked Draper if he could use his background in electronics to create a device that could generate tones at specific frequencies. Their goal was to use this device to gain easier entry into the AT&T phone system. The device that was created became infamously known as the blue box. A blue box itself was a rather simple device that consisted of a set of audio oscillators, a telephone keypad, an audio amplifier, and a speaker [6]. All one had to do to use it was hold the speaker to the telephone receiver and dial the number they wanted after they had disconnected the trunk line. With the invention of the blue box, phreaking culture expanded at a rapid pace. This was because the ability to produce the correct sounds was only a trip to Radio Shack and an assembly away. Phone phreaking continued to grow until the 1971 October issue of Esquire ran an article named “Secrets of the Little Blue Box” by Ron Rosenbaum. In this issue, the lid was blown off of what was previously a little known culture. It told the world about the power of the blue box and exposed the abilities of phone phreaks. The article told of some of the escapades of John Draper as well. For example, one of the stories in the article was about a time when Draper 4 Hosler called himself from all around the world. It explained how he first connected to Tokyo, then to India, from India to Greece, then South Africa, London, New York, back to California and finally to the phone next to him [7]. Draper said that even though there was a 20 second delay and the voice on the other line was faint he was able to hear himself. Another story that was highlighted was the historic “2111” conference. Now a day hackers have the Internet as a place to communicate and share ideas. In the 60’s and 70’s there was no Internet, so phreaks had to find a way to communicate with each other and they managed to do it through conference calls. The “2111” conference call took place over several months on a remote switching machine in Vancouver, Canada. Phreaks could call in at any time, day or night, and pick other phreaks’ brains. Information was shared about new techniques, lines, and telephone numbers. The conferences were brought to an end though on April 1st 1971.