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==Phrack Magazine==
Volume Four, Issue Forty-Two, File 13 of 14
HoHoCon 1992
Miscellany
The hackers were getting nervous. It was understandable. Just a few weeks
before HoHoCon and already two other "get-togethers" had experienced
turbulence from the authorities.
Rumors began to fly that HoHo was to be the next target. Messages bearing
ill-tidings littered the underground. Everyone got worked into a frenzy about
the upcoming busts at HoHoCon. People began to cancel their reservations
while others merely refused to commit one way or the other.
But, amidst all the confusion and hype, many declared "Let them try to
raid us! I'm going anyway!" These were the few, the proud...the stupid.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HoHoCon as I saw it - Erik Bloodaxe (Chris Goggans)
I arrived at the Allen Park Inn in the mid afternoon on Friday the 18th.
I was promptly greeted by several of my cohorts and a loping transient
who introduced himself as "Crunchhhhhhhhh." Yes, John Draper, the infamous
Captain Crunch had actually ventured outward to attend our little party.
(Yes, Virginia, the rumors are true: The Captain is toothless, unkempt,
overbearing and annoying as all hell.)
I followed Scott Chasin back to our room, the pack of other early arrivals
in close file behind. After storing my gear I noticed that Draper was
looming in the doorway ranting furiously about all the smoking in our room.
"I've never heard of a hacker who smoked," exclaimed the Captain.
Taking this as my cue, I bummed a Djarum off of Crimson Death and took great
glee in adding my fumes to the enveloping fog.
Draper spent the next 30 minutes attempting to eavesdrop on various
conversations in which various old friends were catching up. Not knowing
any of us personally, he nonetheless felt obligated to offer his comments
about our discussions about life and college and music amidst his coughing
and complaining about the smoke.
After some time everyone was banished from the room and several of us
went out to eat. Scott Chasin, myself, two hackers (The Conflict, & Louis
Cypher) along with Gary Poole (covering the entire mess for Unix World) took
off for the nearest grease pit. Taco Bell won in proximity, and once
surrounded by burritos Scott, Conflict and I began our rant about Unix
Security (the lack thereof). Gary whipped out his Unix World pen and pad
and began taking notes. I am uncertain whether or not it was the content
of our spiel or the asides I repeatedly made regarding the bevy of giggling
coeds that garnered the most notes in Gary's booklet.
Back at the Con things were spicing up. More people had begun to arrive
and the Allen Park Inn staff began to worry about their safety and that of
their other guests. One remarked to Jesse (Drunkfux), the sponsor of HoHoCon, "That Draper
fellow needs to stay out of the lobby. He was eating large
amounts of flesh off his hands and it was scaring some of the visitors."
The staff did not know what to think at all when a father arrived with his
three sons and after purchasing a room on his credit card told the boys, "Ok
guys, Mom will be picking you up on Sunday."
This did not concern most of us. It was straight to the bar
for us, where Rambone bought Scott & myself a round of Kamikazes. Also at
the bar was Bootleg who had just gotten out. (Of what, and for what you
can find out on your own.) Bootleg is probably the smartest biker I have
ever had the pleasure to meet. We talked about sex, drugs, hawgs, computers,
cellular fraud and how close the nearest cabaret was.
A small controversy began to arise amidst the hackers at the bar. Stationed
near one end of the room was a table lined with older men. "FEDS," someone
murmured, gesturing at the group.
"Good for them," I said, and left the bar to look for Jesse. When I returned
several minutes later the hackers had engaged the strangers in conversation
and found that they weren't feds after all. Among this group were
Jim Carter of Houston-based Bank Security, and Bernie Milligan of
Communications & Toll Fraud Specialists, Inc. Once this news was out
tensions eased and everyone continued with their libations.
Suddenly I became aware that there was girl in the room. I had seen her out
in the courtyard previously but now she was alone. Turning on my
"Leisure Suit Larry" charm I grabbed the seat next to her. Melissa had arrived
from Austin to cover the event for Mondo-2000. She surprised me by telling
me that she knew who I was, where I worked, and even knew my extension number.
(I almost fell off the barstool.)
Jim & Bernie came over and joined us at the bar. Bootleg, Chaoswiz, Melissa
and I engaged them in wild stories about UFO's, hacking, the NSA & the CIA.
(Bernie alleged that he was ex-NSA, and Jim ex-CIA. We have not yet
determined if they were acting under orders from Col. Jim Beam & Gen. Jack
Daniels.)
After the ensuing debates on the true formation of the NSA, the group broke up
and Melissa and I took off to MC Allah's room to partake of the keg he had
brought. We walked in the room and were greeted with the sight of a four-foot
boy with a syringe sticking out of his arm. This was a bit much, even for me.
I snatched his "medication" away from him and found that it was really only
some type of growth hormone. The boy, 8-Ball, was actually 15 and his parents
had him on hormones to stimulate his growth. 8-Ball was totally whacked
out his mind nonetheless. I think he had ingested such a diverse amount of
God knows what by the time we arrived that he was lucky to remember where
he was. Later that evening he would become convinced that he was Scott
Chasin and confessed to quite a bit of wrongdoing just before he gave offerings
at the porcelain alter.
Conversations in the keg room left something to be desired. One large hacker
named Tony looked at Melissa and in his best British accent asked if he
could fondle her breasts. And the debate between MC Allah and Hunter about
who could drink the most alcohol reached a climax when both stuck their heads
under the keg spigot for extended periods of time.
Sometime just before 11:00 the hotel guard, attired in Raiders jacket and
a really, really big snow hat (the kind with the poofy ball on top) showed
up brandishing his paper baton, (A rolled up Houston Press). "You all
needs to get to yaw roomz, nah. I ain'tz ta gonna tell yaw no mo'."
Everyone looked the guard over and moved back into the keg room. Thus was
born, "Homie da Guard." After he wandered away, everyone moved back out
onto the porch.
It was getting late and I was supposed to speak the next morning so I tried to
get into our room. Scott Chasin, hacker extrordinaire, had locked me out.
After beating on the door for 10 minutes, the windows for 5, the walls for 10,
and letting the phone ring for another 15 minutes I decided that Scott was a
bit too tipsy to unlock the door so I crashed out on Jesse's floor.
That night, the water pipes broke. There was some speculation that those
evil hackers had "hacked the system." Not.
While complaining about the lack of water that night, someone overheard
three young attendees at a bank of pay phones attempting to order up
a few escorts on "credit." Rumor has it they were successful.
The next morning was chaos. By the time we arrived at the conference room
there were about 150 people inside. Louis Cypher sat at the door collecting
money for the raffle and getting everyone to sign the guest book. Jesse
and others were setting up various video equipment and getting things
in order. In the back of the room, Bernie sat scanning the crowd with a
super-ear, recording the conversations of those sitting.
Crunch was up in arms again. "If everyone in here doesn't stop smoking
I won't be able to do my speech. If you all want to hear me talk, you
will have to stop smoking." Several more cigarettes lit up. After
speaking with management, Crunch came back in and asked if everyone smoking
would at least move to one side of the auditorium nearest the door.
With hesitation, the crowd conceded.
The conference got underway with consultant Ray Kaplan taking a census of
those in attendance. The group ranged from under 15 to over 50, had
professionals and hobbyists, and had enthusiasts for every conceivable
type operating system. Ray went on to elaborate on one of his audio
conferences in which an FBI officer alluded that one of their key
sources of information was "I.R.C."
Bootleg got up and spoke on the vast potentials involved with cellular
fraud. He discussed how to monitor the reverse channel to obtain ESNs,
and where to obtain the equipment to allow you to do such a thing. He
later handed out diskettes (IBM format) containing information on how
to reprogram cellular phones and where to obtain the equipment necessary
to pick subscriber numbers out of the air.
Up next, myself and Chasin. Our topic was a bit obscure and cut deliberately
short due to concerns about the nature of our speech. During the Dateline
NBC piece that featured Chasin a piece of information flashed on the screen
that alluded to UFO information stored on military computers. Chasin
and I had gained possession of the research database compiled by the hackers
who were looking into this. We discussed their project, the rumors surrounding
their findings and the fear surrounding the project. Not knowing the true
details of this we declined to comment any further, but made the documentation
available to anyone who wanted a copy. We finished our speech by answering
questions about Comsec, Consultants, etc.
Steve Ryan, a Houston lawyer with a great deal of interest in the
legal aspects of cyberspace spoke next. He covered several of the current
issues affecting the community, spoke on laws in effect, cases pending,
and gave an insight to his background that led him to focus in on
the issues concerning the electronic community.
Next, Jim Carter gave a quick and dirty demonstration of how to monitor
electromagnetic radiation and how to do a simple data recovery from this
noise. He monitored a small data terminal from a portable television set
that was completely unmodified. He then spoke on how to read the
EMR from such things as plumbing, the ground, off of window panes, etc.
Jim's speech, although highly intriguing, got extremely vague at points,
especially regarding technology needed, his own background, etc.
(We will attribute this to his "CIA" training.)
The Hotel Officials showed up and demanded that everyone get out immediately.
Apparently someone had staggered into the kitchen, drunk, and broken
something. Steve Ryan left to smooth things out a bit. After a few minutes
he returned and told everyone that they could stay, but to keep it quiet
tonight. Thus the secret plans of some to drive the hotel golf cart
into the pool were crushed.
The raffle proved to be an exercise in banality. Everything from
flashing street lights to SunOS 4.1.3 to T-shirts to books were
auctioned off. One lucky devil even got an official Michael Jackson
candy bar.
The folks from RDT (Count Zero and White Knight) handed out a large amount
of photocopied goodies such as the new "Forbes" article on hackers,
a complete set of the old 70's telephony 'zine "TEL" as well as assorted other
flyers and pamphlets.
Up next, Louis Cypher spoke about his entanglement with the law
regarding his front-page bust for counterfeiting. He told of his
experiences with the law, how they got involved in such a dastardly
deed, what jail was like on the inside, and advice against anyone
else considering such a thing.
Up last, John Draper. Draper had managed by this time to annoy almost
everyone at the convention. A large portion of those in attendance
left as soon as he got up. They were the unlucky ones. Draper, for all his
oddities, is an intriguing speaker. His life has been quite rich with
excitement and when he can actually focus on a subject he is captivating.
He spoke on his trip to the Soviet Union where he met computer and telephone
enthusiasts in Moscow. He spoke on his unfortunate involvement with
Bill SF and the BART Card duplication scandal. He spoke, with obvious
longing, of the good old days of blue boxing, and stacking tandems to
obtain local trunks, and on verification circuitry.
Listening to Draper talk really brought me back to my beginnings. I could
hear in my head the "cachink-chink" of a tandem waiting for MF. I remembered
stacking tandems to Europe and back to call my other line. I remembered
the thrill of finding never before known trunks and exploring their
connections. I fell into a deep nostalgic high, and walked up to John
to tell him thanks. As I extended my hand to him, he mumbled something
unintelligible and wandered off. So much for paying respect.
About ten of us took off to Chuy's for dinner: Me, Chasin, Conflict,
Rambone, Dispater, Blue Adept, Minor Threat and reporters Joe Abernathy
and Gary Poole were among the diners. Everyone ate heartily and listened
to cordless telephone conversations on Rogue Agent's handheld scanner.
One conversation was between what appeared to be a "pimp" talking to his
"ho" about some money owed him by another in his flock. The conversation
drifted to the Dallas man who had terrorized an entire neighborhood some
months back with prank phone calls. Conflict and Dispater repeated a
few of the choicest of the calls for our amusement.
Back at the hotel, Dr. Hoffman's Problem Child had escaped, and several
casualties were reported.
Conflict, Chasin and I barricaded ourselves in our room and went on a lengthy
stream of consciousness rant about what we needed out of life. Our absolute
essentials were reduced to a small room with a computer hooked into the
Internet, a specially designed contour chair, a small hole through which
a secretary would give us food, virtual reality sex toys, and a toilet.
(Chasin suggested no toilet, but a catheter so we would never have to move.)
Gary Poole was quietly stunned in the corner of the room making mental notes.
Much of the con had moved into a suite that had been converted into a
mass computing arena. Several attendees from Pittsburgh had turned their
room into a lab with four Unix workstations with several terminals throughout
the room including the bathroom! These were hooked into the Internet through
a slip connection that had been rigged somewhere. It was quite a site.
The room was usually completely packed and smelled like a smoky gymnasium.
(It was rumored that after Chasin and I spoke on the UFO conspiracy, several
hackers began their attempts at penetrating the Ames Research Lab. No
reports back on their success.)
After I finished copying several Traci Lords video tapes (ahem) I relinquished
control of the decks to a room downstairs. Dispater played a video
manipulation he and Scott Simpson had produced. They had found a TRW training
video tape during a trashing run and dubbed in their own dialogue. (You'd
have to see it to fully understand.)
After that, I played a few tapes of my own. The first was a short film called
"Red," that chronicled the abusive prank phone calls directed at a bartender.
The film had the actual phone call tapes played with video stills. (Guess
where the Simpsons came up with that nifty idea...)
Following "Red," someone heard on the scanner that the guard was answering
a large noise disturbance in the room we were in. (Yes, they had the hotel
guard's 2-meter frequencies.) Everyone moved into another room before the
guard showed up. He was thoroughly confused.
In the next room I played the ultimate in shock, the sequel to the movie that
I had disturbed the entire con with last year, "Nekromantik II." I won't
go into any detail, since the title says it all. Once again, I reign as
the sickest person at HoHoCon, this honor bestowed upon me by everyone
who witnessed the showing.
As things winded down, several people ended up back in our room to waste
away the last few hours of the night. Several people returned from an
adventure to "an abandoned hospital." No one really understood what they went
to, but it sounded disturbing. Later, that same group would leave to
go climb "an abandoned grain storage tower." Go figure.
Approximately 2:00 am, a local hacker named Zach showed up. Scott had a few
words for Zach, as did most everyone at the Con. Zach lived in a fantasy
land where he was a top notch security consultant with high paying clients
in the telecommunications industry. He also like to name drop names like
Chasin and Goggans as his partners and as people who would swoop down
and terrorize the people he had any problems with. He also liked to turn
in, or threaten to turn in any of his rivals in the software pirating
community. He also like to proposition young boys both in person and
over the phone. At 17, Zach had a few problems.
Trapped in the corner of the room, Zach endured about an hour of questioning
and accusations (all of which he truly deserved.) Eventually Zach left,
apparently not affected by the ordeal at all. We attributed this to his
overly apparent schizophrenia brought on by denial of his sexual
tendencies.
Later that night the Pittsburgh gang blew out the power in their entire
wing. One was overheard, "Hmmm...guess we should have known that when the
power strips kept melting that we were drawing too much power."
The next morning everyone gathered up their gear and said so long. All but
a few who gathered in a room marked "the suite of the elite." Armed with
a nitrous oxide blaster, everyone sat around and viewed the con through
the roaming video eye of Jesse, who had managed to capture everyone
in some kind of compromising position. He will be selling them off
after he edits it a bit. It was dubbed "The Blackmail Tape."
In my opinion this year was much less anarchistic than last year. The
convention might not even be banished from this hotel. (Yeah, right.)
There were no raids, there were no overtly violent or satanic acts,
no fire alarms, no trashing runs (that I saw), no fights,
and there were no strippers (alas). The conference portion of the
event was much better organized, there was much more interesting
information to be shared, and was well worth the distances traveled by
all.
This was HoHoCon '92.
--------------------------
H*O*H*O*C*O*N '92
Frosty's Itinerary
Thursday 8pm Take off and go bar hopping all night long to build up
stamina for the convention.
Thrusday 10pm Quit bar hopping and waste shitloads of money at the
casinos in feeble attempts to get gas money for the trip.
Friday 5am Leave the casino and decide to get some sleep after spending
hours to win a meager $10 over starting cash.
Friday 8am Wake up and decide to pack for the trip. Forget necessities
that we couldn't live without. Remember to bring junk food.
Friday 9am Stuff assembled GCMS members into subcompact Japanese micro
car and leech as much gas money out of them as possible.
Friday 2pm Stop at the friendly convenient store to rob it of precious
sugar-coated necessities and obtain mucho lotto tickets.
Friday 4pm Endure Windrunner's gruelling multi-hour long verbatim
rantings of taking the Purity Test 1500 verbally.
Friday 7pm Pull out many maps and try to find the damn hotel in Houston.
Friday 9pm Arrive at the hotel getting a room for one (car stuffed
with people sits outside the lobby). Request two keys.
Friday 10pm Test the smoke machine on the hotel grounds. Chase young
code-kids out of your way, threatening to disable their
phones.
Friday 11pm Crash in room from lack of sleep. Kick other members out
of your way. Ignore multiple alcoholic beverages lining
the room. Ponder what's sleeping in the chair briefly.
Saturday ??? Try to figure out if you're awake or dead. Take a collection
from those that are still alive. Run to some micro-compact
Japanese convenience store hidden in the middle of suburbia
hell and obtain sugar-coated nutrients with Windrunner and
JunkMaster and Gaijin.
Saturday 1pm Arrive for the conference. Get mega-amounts of raffle tickets.
Saturday 2pm Conference actually gets started a few hours behind schedule.
Tape conversations from the man with the whisper 2000 home
version. Ponder the light orbiting Erik B's head.
Saturday 4pm Witness Steve Ryan in action against the hotel staff.
Wonder where the young hack in the corner got the gallon,
mostly empty now, of wine. Ponder if he's going to spew.
Saturday 6pm Try to figure out what everyone is going to do with the
several hundred flashing construction lights given out.
Calculated the ratio of men to women as 15,000:1, roughly.
Saturday 8pm Try to keep awake while wondering how much torture can be
sustained. Watch Count Zero nodding off. Hitman and I
pulled out our decoder rings to interpret Crunch's hidden
message.
Saturday 10pm Dominoes Pizza makes it to the room. OUR SAVIOR !!! He's
5-minutes late. Custody battle over the pizza ensues. The
manager is called, at which point he lowers the $50 price
for the two pizzas down to $30. We scrape a few dollars and
hand the peon delivery boy some cheap beer.
Saturday Nite Hand out copies of "cindy's torment" to the code kids.
Watch Erik B.'s continuation of necrophiliac desires on
the acquired VCR that mysteriously appeared. Avoided the
hotel security by changing room while monitoring their
frequencies (thanks RDT). Obtained evidence that hackers
were breaking into VR R&D departments to engage in endless
routines of VR sex for Cyborgasmic responses. Saw Crunch's
host's room blow out as the multitudes of computers fry the
circuits. Followed the 'sheep' about the hotel.
Sunday ??? Woke bright and early to a car locked with the keys inside.
Fortunately, 50-odd slim-jims appeared out of nowhere to
save the day. Windrunner chauffeured us back to our lair.
Sunday 3pm Hacked into the Louisiana Lotto machine from an acoustical
modem and laptop from a pay phone to rig the numbers and
then bought a ticket.
Sunday 7pm Returned to hell. Lost the lotto ticket in the growing
pile of sugar-coated necessities sheddings. Cursed.
Sunday 8pm Turned the PC on and hit the networks.
--------------------------
Jim Carter, president of Bank Security in Houston, TX, wrote the
following impressions of HoHoCon for Security Insider Report
(December, 1992)
HoHoCon was in fact "Unphamiliar Territory" for this "good ole boy,"
but it didn't take long till I was into the swing of things and
telling lies of how we cheat and steal to get our information. Of
course, everyone who talked to this "good ole boy" thought he was with
one of the three letter agencies. As the stories rolled on about what
they (the hackers) could do, such as produce virii that would cause
video display terminals and hard drives to smoke, I had to sit back, sip
my brewski and say "wow." We sat back, enjoyed a few more rounds, told
a few more lies and had a good time.
Well, this old boy didn't show until about noon on Saturday. Of course
the conference hadn't started yet so we didn't miss anything. The
program was kicked off with a number of questions about who, what, where
and how. It was difficult to determine how many people were there since
the room was packed like a can of sardines. Our estimate was over two
hundred, not counting the hackers still in their rooms. Was this
another drunken free for all, as in the past? A report was given on
cellular hacking and toll fraud. Hackers' rights were presented by an
attorney. Also discussed was the stupidity of the press and law
enforcement.
Some others talked about suppressed information from the federal
government concerning UFO's and how hackers are gaining this info. And
of course the White House wants to know their sources.
Hand outs were given including virii and virus source code. I did
decline any virii, but who knew what I would get before this was over.
I believe this was the most responsive and gratifying group I have
spoken to this year. I also expect to get more business because of this
presentation than any other this year.
A lengthy door prize was held in which I was the winner of more virii.
Again, I did decline, but passed the winning ticket on. Captain Crunch
was the final speaker. In conclusion, the attendees were the good, the
bad and the ugly. We did find HoHoCon very informative and, yes, we
will attend again. In closing, I hope each and everyone had a very
"Merry HoHoCon."
--------------------------
A (Hacker's) Mind is a Terrible Mind to Waste
Unix World, page 136, March 1993
by Gary Andrew Poole
[Unix World wanted MONEY to reprint this in full...Yeah, right.
Someone already posted it on alt.cyberpunk some time ago
if you can't find it anywhere.]