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-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The Future Recruiter Max Kennedy
Futureomics was hiring employees today. Futureomics was the company
who specifically targeted emerging hacking talent of new generations.
It specialized in types of people and personalities who had talents of
particular sorts that did not fit into the usual molds but did fit new
fields. Futureomics was a generic name given to the company by the
press. Only employees knew the actual name of the company. And only
those hired today would learn it. They never gave it to outsiders.
A large sign at the entrance leading into the auditorium reserved for
Futureomics had written on it:
“None of the usual bullshit.”
A screen inside the auditorium was playing, over and over again, scenes
from the 80s on what that sign meant, as the audience members were being
seated and the auditorium slowly filled.
Scene: A phone conference full of hackers, all sounding young. It’s
some time in the 80s. Bill, who is 16 or 17 at the time, is mid-range
between the group of voices. He’s about to go to college, graduating
from high school early, neither very young or old compared to the
others.
The usual “You don’t know anything” harangue is going on. It is
getting lame. Bill thinks to himself, “where did all the cool guys
go? It used to be about trading information.”
“You never post anything new,” someone says to Bill.
“I don’t spend a lot of time posting anymore. I get my own
stuff.”
The first voice brags about having huge lists of computer systems with
accounts.
“You can’t possible use all that, and there is no way you personally
hacked that many systems, although I admit if they are networked, you
could get a lot of systems fast.”
“I just get on systems I can use.”
“Oh yeah, prove it. What systems do you have?”
Bill gives him a number, and says it’s a Unix.
The first voice calls it up, then reports back to the conference.
“Lame. and it isn’t even on a network.”
“So what? I’m not going to give you anything good over a conference
call.”
A lot of Yadayada noise is in the background. Yadayada noise is
something everyone who has ever been in a room full of people ,where the
talkers are repeatedly saying the same things over and over again, has
experienced.
Bill gives him another number.
Same response.
“You must be kidding, that's the billing system for a major retail
chain.”
Someone else checks it.
“He’s right.” The conference gets a little more calm.
“Like I said, I get my own stuff. There’s not a lot of competition
in my area.”
Yadayada is also the sound you make from the headache you get when you
realize, deja vu like, that you are experiencing Yada all over again,
and don’t want to be.
There was more Yadayada noise.
“Yeah, you go on saying you know other people in the area code, but
they never get anything good,” Bill says. “They even claim there
isn’t any COSMOS in the area.”
“There isn’t.”
“That’s complete bs. I’m on the local Bell systems.”
Silence. Everyone knows that this is a put up or shut up challenge.
“You don’t have it.” The voice says less loudly this time.
“Sure I do. You want it? I’ll even give it on the conference.”
Complete silence now.
Bill gets out a notebook judging from the sound of paper flipping.
“Ready, ok, here’s the number.” Bill reads off a number.
“Now this is not a direct dial up, it’s a Datakit network,” Bill
starts explaining. “None of the manuals anyone’s written seem to
explain Datakits. They’re local networks that the Bell companies have
that they put all their computers on. So that dialup has COSMOS on it,
and a lot of other computers including billing. And this is a terminal
server to a LAN connection that actually lets you change things around,
and the “system” account is datakit.”
“That’s easy.”
“Call it.”
“Ok,” a second voice says, and calls it. “It’s nothing,” the
voice reports back.
“This is just like the billing system,” Bill says triumphantly. Bill
knows this can’t be gotten around. “Nothing there,” Bill mocks.
“Mike.”
“Oh all right, I’ll call,” says another voice, Mike’s. After a
short pause, “He’s right.”
Dead silence.
Bill goes on, explaining it and systems on it.
“And you have COSMOS access?”
“Not now, but I can get it. I’m on most of the systems including
billing. We use to be on COSMOS, but they added another level of
detail, and I’m not sure what it wants. I have accounts and passwords
but not that. It does something different after asking for the WC. It
isn’t in the g philes I’ve seen.”
“Ok, I’ve seen that. Mark. see if you can get on it.”
Mark calls it up.
“The reason I’m pretty sure I can get on it is the Datakit has bad
security. There’s a system account on it, and there are a lot of
features that allow you to change the network around, including ports it
connects to, and a feature that lets you monitor ports.”
“Ok, ok, that’s good.” The speaker for the group changes the
subject.
Mark is back later.
“Did you get on?”
“I got it.”
General ecstatic sounds. ‘Nods’ of approval. A little talk.
Bill lets the talk die down. “That’s great. Could you tell me
exactly what you did.”
“I’ll give it to you later.”
“Ok.”
Later never comes.
- ** Scene: a different conference, not long afterwards.
Same Yadayada noises and grumbling.
“Not this again,” thinks Bill. “This is definitely not the same
group I remember where everyone shared, and it wasn’t about
competition and who has the most, but helping people learn. That’s
what I’m interested in. And I’m constantly helping new hackers
learn the ropes.”
Bill speaks. “Look, I gave you what you guys wanted, a COSMOS number,
and that was after you told me it didn’t exist. And you didn’t even
call me back to tell me how you got on it like you said you would.”
Guilty silence.
“This isn’t about what you know,” says a justifying voice,
“it’s about you narcing on someone.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Oh yeah, how about Commodore Elite. You know anything about that?”
“Yeah, I know the user. He’s a local user from when when I first
started a long time ago, who got busted on Allnet. I had nothing to do
with it. He blames me for giving him the access number, because I
posted it along with a list of other numbers. And that’s despite the
fact I posted later not to use it when it became unsafe. He didn’t
listen. I’m not responsible for anyone getting busted when I told
them not to use it.”
“Did you give him it personally?”
“No, it was a post on a local elite section, and not one of the higher
levels either. He wasn’t that good of a hacker.”
“How did you know it was unsafe?”
“I had some indication my call may have been traced - I got a ringback
and couldn’t hang up - I lived on an old crossbar. And my school,
which used the same company, also said something to me about it. Why?
Because my school knew I knew something about computers. I told them
they need to complain to billing - who was giving them trouble, and
showed them how anyone could hack it. Then I posted I thought it was
unsafe.”
“Was it just the school’s number?”
“No it was a general number with a lot of companies on it.”
Bill pauses. “No one believes that guy who got caught locally. I
don’t even know his name. I remained on the elite section of that
board until it went down. In fact, when I said we had access to the
local COSMOS, I meant the small group at the top of that board. I
remember when we were changing features on the local COSMOS. Then
someone did something, and they added that extra layer to get to it.
Then they changed the access numbers until it appeared again on that
Datakit I gave you.”
“Ok then.”
“What about Prophet?”
Bill Laughing. “I don’t have anything to do with Prophet getting
busted!”
“But you know him?”
“I heard he got busted. But I don’t really know him. He’s on one
BBS I’m on, and I sent him a few emails. But he isn’t a trading
partner.”
“What did you send him?”
“Well, the last thing I sent him was a message that he should think
about changing his handle if he was using it on local systems.”
“That’s it. That busted him.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“You shouldn't have sent him an email.”
“I warned him.”
“You still shouldn’t have.”
Someone else interjects - “anyone can read email.”
Bill begins to lose his temper.
“Well, to begin with, I didn’t know he had the same handle locally,
I told him *if* you do, you should change it. It was the reason I
changed my Little Boy Blue handle, because I used it on local boards
too, and even had some local user complaining.”
“Second, unlike LBB, Prophet is a pretty generic name, so it doesn’t
exactly narrow it down the same way. It could be any number of
Prophets. I didn’t even know if he was on a local board. In fact
...The only reason I knew he might be using the same handle locally is
because I heard it on one of these voice conferences. So someone on
here was giving out the information on him a long time before I warned
him.”
Dead silence.
“That means someone here is responsible. I only warned him. And
it’s unfortunate it was too late, because he got busted soon after
that, and obviously had been watched for awhile.”
“What BBS?”
Bill mumbles something. “Yeah, it’s not a great one,” Bill
admits. “It’s just basically always up - not for anything
serious.”
“Well, we’re still…”
“For something that looks like it really was the fault of someone else
on this conference? I only warned him right before he was caught. They
didn’t find him that fast, and anyone could figure that out. You
don’t use the same handle locally you use nationally.”
“Look, it isn't that, it’s just that a few people don’t like
you..”
“Yea, I’d like to know who those people are. There’s been a lot
of new people. And the old people are all gone.” Bill throws out a
few names. “I mean, some people changed their handles, but that
isn’t it. It really isn’t the same group. We don’t talk about
the same things anymore. There is no technical discussion or how we
might try do something. No one is talking about new things we
haven’t tried before. And no one wants to write anything or help
anyone anymore. There isn’t any sharing anymore.”
“Instead, it’s a bunch of selfish bullshit and how I have more than
you. That list? What is that? The ultimate leach list? You sure as
hell didn’t generate that by yourself. And you know more then someone
else? Well, why don’t you share it then. The whole strength of a
group is helping each other. You sure didn’t grow in this group
without others helping you. And some of you can’t even be trusted
anymore to trade information. So I give you a Datakit with accounts, and
you don’t even keep your word about saying what change they made in
the COSMOS.”
Someone seems bothered, and starts to explain about how the COSMOS works
and gets gets cut off by the others.
“Uh huh. Someone knows you guys are wrong. You’ve become a bunch
of whining little pretentious pricks, lying, not keeping your word,
making things up, accusing, more concerned over what others think and
the group over actually being able to do anything yourself. You think
having big lists of things actually replaces being able to think and
reason. You’ve stopped having any real conversations a while ago.
It’s all a lot of newcomers.”
“There’s been a lot of new people,” a different voice admits.
“And you guys don’t box these conferences anymore, you are always
directly dialing alliance because you don’t have the guys that can do
that anymore..”
“It’s easier..,” someone says.
“You can’t seize the LD trunks anymore,” someone else adds.
“What do you mean you can’t seize them anymore? I can.”
“It has to be a LD trunk.”
“I can seize them. I don’t blue box because my sound chip and line
quality isn’t usually that good, not because it’s impossible.”
“You can still do it, you just need to call the right areas,” says
another voice, very confident. No one else adds anything after him.
“Look, the point is, you guys have become a completely different group
them you use to be. You're making stuff up, and run around like your
heads are cut off when someone gets caught. Well, that comes with the
territory, and people are going to get caught sometimes. You ought to
be more concerned if they know you and have your number. I was a little
concerned when Prophet got caught, because I just sent him mail, and
they’ll probably read it, but Prophet doesn’t personally know me or
have my number. But that’s the type of stuff you should be thinking
about. And you guys aren’t very careful anymore, you act like blue
boxing a conference isn’t a safety feature anymore.”
“It’s the same thing..”
“It’s not the same thing, you are leaving a billing record someone
is going to ask about later.”
Uneasy silence.
“I bet you guys didn’t even call through anything before adding
everyone.”
Complete silence. “Well, I didn’t for this one.”
“Uh huh. Then they have a complete list of everyone you are calling,
easily, without even trying. And if anyone is on a watch list, they got
everyone else too.”
“This is just like using your handle locally. Not even trying. Then
you bitch how someone must have snitched if you get caught.
Unbelievable. And you know what, I bet one or two of you did narc,
because you were discussing it well before Prophet got caught, and well
before I warned him. And you don’t get this much drama without it
being someone covering up. And it fits with the rest of the changes in
the group, because it definitely isn’t about helping others now.”
“Look, I don’t trust you at all now. You don’t keep your word,
you're making things up, you’re self centered and acting like narcs,
and a few of you probably are. You don’t talk about cool things
anymore and you don’t write or help others anymore. I think you are
turning them in. And it’s not just this discussion, there’s been a
few more about others just like it. And it shouldn’t even happen. If
you want to stop talking to someone, just stop. You don’t make a
production of it.”
“I don’t want to be part of this group anymore. I’m going to join
the rest of the old guys that left.”
“I’ve been here since it started,” says an unnaturally calm voice.
“Well, that's longer than me,” says Bill. “I’ve only be here
since 83, 84, and that was right after I got online. I found someone
on CompuServe that gave me a number..”
“You talked to a couple of us.”
“Yeah, well you guys were pretty easy to find. You all had hacking
and phone phreaking as your interests on CompuServe. I wanted to know
what phone phreaking was, so I asked. I wouldn’t have even found
that, but I was searching for anarchist capitalist, and someone had the
others listed too.”
“Anyway, that’s still a long time ago. I don’t even remember
formally being admitted, just connecting to your BBS’s and being added
to your conferences. I remember a lot of those. And they were good
at one time. And you say i’m part of the group. Well, I really
didn’t know that. But I don’t want to be. I don’t trust you.
And I don’t need a group, I can do the things I want on my own like
help people learn. And it’s a lot safer. You don't have people who
are obviously selling out and causing discord, splintering old groups.
“
“I’m going to do something about that. That’s all I have to say.
If any of you are part of the way things used to be and miss it, I’ll
still be glad to talk to you, but other then that, so long.”
Bill answers his phone, “Hello?”
“Hey Bill.”
“Oh, hey Chris, what are you doing?”
“I followed you to see what you were up too. I remember your last
conference call. You really laid it across well. You were right.”
“Yeah, I know. I wish it hadn’t turned out like that. But I’m
right it isn't what it was. Hey, I’m on a conference, do you want to
join in?”
“Sure.”
Later that day at the end of a conference call. ---
“We got right in that one system pretty easily,” a new voice with an
accent is saying.
“You mean the weights balance..” Bill replies.
“Yeah.”
“Just a matter of having some local to scan them out. There must not
be too many hackers there,” Bill says. “I’m surprised.”
“You want to name the new group something?”
“Yeah, I guess we have a group. Pretty well situated too, with three
of us in DC. Let's not have an official group. Those are a disaster.
And they give people something to investigate. We’re just a bunch of
people that all happen to be going the same way at the same time.”
There is general agreement to this.
Sk - “want me to scan more?”
“Sounds great to me.”
“Really no name for the group?” says the accented voice.
“We could call ourselves the hack offs.” says Bill.
“You mean like the fuck offs?”
“Well, yeah…”, Bill says in a not so serious tone.
Everyone laughs.
“Ok. we made this call long enough. When do you want to have our next
get together?”
“So you really meant what you said to oml..,” Bill is asking Chris.
“Omet?”
“Yeah. Pause. I guess he’s indian. I can’t believe he got
caught.”
“He wanted to get caught to make the newspaper.”
“Why?”
“He’s looking for a job.”
“Oh. Not what I’d do. Good idea though. But I think it has
drawbacks.”
“You mean like you get caught, but no one hires you.”
“Yeah, that’s one reason!”
Both Bill and Chris laugh.
Dan is rearranging things in the room, about to go to another room and
get a bong. Bill notices there is a new black box on the table partly
hidden by the lamp as he leaves. Dan comes back, sits down.
He lights up a bong, takes a hit, pauses, nods his head, smiles, and
passes it to Bill. Bill takes a hit, sits back. relaxes and pauses.
“So how was work today?”
“It was ok,” Dan gives an emphatic nod like this is a stage
question, and asks “what?” in return.
“That’s good. Hey Dan, can I ask you a question?”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“What is this black box right here?”, Bill says, pointing to the
black box on the table.
Dan looks, seems startled that it is visible, relaxes, and says, “How
long have you known?”
“For awhile now. I knew for sure when I came over to stay with you.
Mind if I look at it.”
“Sure go ahead.”
Bill looks at it. “Wow it’s a lot smaller recorder then I’ve seen
before. Looks nice.”
Dan relaxes a little.
“So is that why you came over?”
“No, I needed a place to stay. We’re friends, I’ve been over here
a lot before. I’m not hacking, and I don’t ever say anything
important about the past.”
“You’ve helped us more then you know.”
“Hearsay. I was making it up. Never happened.”
“Sure?”
“Well, let’s put it this way. I’ve known since last year, and
suspected the possibility the whole time - I always consider the
possibilities. So if you’ve been recording the whole time, you better
be sure I’m going to ask that this part be played that I knew the
whole time.”
“Can we turn that thing off?” Dan says.
“Sure. It’s already on the tape, so you’d better not take it off,
or I’ll ask the whole thing to be disregarded as edited.”
Dan turns the tape off.
“Why didn’t you say anything before?”
“I don’t mind talking about general hacking knowledge. There
doesn’t seem to be any harm in it. And I wanted to see what you were
doing.”
“Well if you don’t mind talking about general hacking knowledge,
mind if I ask you a few questions?”
“Go ahead, as long as it isn’t about specific people. It’s all
old knowledge anyway. Five years ago or more. Not sure how much I can
remember.”
“Ok,” Dan nods, and leans forward.
Xxx Yyy Zzz And a few more hits under the tree.
- ** Dan sits back and says, “we’re so cool we smoke dope with our
FBI agent.”
Bill suppresses a laugh.
“Whaat.. How do you take that?”
Not waiting for an answer, Dan says “Oh, no that's not what I
meant.” Mock surprise. Thinking reflectively: “Well maybe almost
as cool.”
Bill sighs. “So I’m only talking to the person who smokes with
their FBI agent?”
Dan nods, a grin on his face, “yep.”
“Humph.” says Bill.
“What were you doing on the LOD BBS?”
“What LOD BBS?”
“The one on Telenet.”
“I’m sure I wasn’t on a LOD BBS off of Telenet.”
“It was in the GE addresses, towards the end.”
“Oh yea, the one that wasn’t around anything else.”
“There wasn’t a BBS there. It was just a VAX/VMS system, with
All-in-1 if I remember, and it had easy default passwords, including
ones that gave you operator and system privileges.”
“There was a BBS there,” Dan insisted.
Bill looks back..
“There may have been one at one time, but when I was primarily using
it, it was down. I mostly used it because it was an underutilized
system not near anything, with DECnet access to a lot of things at GE.
There’s a flaw in DECnet, and I could jump to any system on the
network through it - there were an unusually large number of machines
through it.”
Bill thinks. “But that may all be something I’m making up. It was
on a public list, and how default passwords and Telenet work isn’t
unusual knowledge.”
“You don’t need to say that.”
“I’m making a point.”
Dan sighs. sortof, not quite. “Ok, if you knew about that, you
weren’t a complete lamer. Like a code kid or something.”
“Why are you investigating me?”
Dan, pauses, thinks.
“You know the guy that founded Defcon, the one I wanted you to talk
to?”
“Yeah.. ?”
“Some people got busted and you knew him.”
“No I didn’t.”
“He’s from Dayton.”
“Hmm. that's near where I live, but a different area code and long
distance. I don’t think I knew anyone local from Dayton. Also, I
tried to avoid trading with people who were local, you get busted that
way. All my close friends were far away.”
“I know you know him.”
“Well, look, I knew a lot of people. I was a hacker for a long time.
Maybe he used a different handle, or I just don’t remember him. Could
you give me a little more detail?”
Dan changes the subject slightly, apparently.
“Do you remember the new TAP BBS?”
“The one in Louisville? Yea, it was a little lame. It didn’t have
any good information, and I never traded on there.”
Dan looks kindof annoyed.
“Well, we know you were still hacking, because you were on that.”
Bill laughs out loud, “lol, I was just keeping up with the hacking
community. Nothing wrong with that.”
“Well, you had to phreak to get there.”
“I used the internet.”
“It wasn’t on the internet.”
“I had an outdial in the area to call it.”
“You shouldn’t have had an outdial.”
“I had permission to use it from the owner, and he posted it publicly
too.”
“Well, you had to hack to use the internet.”
“UC had a public gateway to the internet for everyone to use, also I
was a UC student then, so it was legitimate that way too.”
“Look, I haven’t phreaked for a long time. I may know a lot about
it, but I don’t like it. Ever since the Bell System broke up, and
services like PCPursuit sprung up so you can dial out through Telenet,
there hasn’t been much of a need - if all you’re doing is connecting
to computers. I’m was always more of a hacker then a phone phreak,
and more of a tourist. I liked to see how things work, but I didn't
spend a lot of time on systems like some do - that’s a way of getting
caught. Also, I post a lot on BBS’s. People have said I seem to like
to spend more time writing. I’ll spend pages explaining how to do
something. Also, I gave it up a long time ago, when most of my friends
got busted. That gateway was just a way I could use the networks, like
PCPursuit was, without hacking.”
“You sure you gave it up?”
“Look, I had friends that didn’t even know each other get busted,
some pretty good hackers too. And I moved to Seattle to just get away
from computers. I didn’t even have a computer the first six months I
was here. I was sick of it. I’d spent most of my high school time,
and some of my college on it, before I turned 18. And even before then,
in grade school, I was online. I was missing a lot of things in life,
and I was just tired of it. With everyone I knew getting busted, there
was no community anymore, and no reason to be in it.”
“That’s what we want to hear.”
Dan pauses.
“Maybe I can close this file.”
“I need to answer a few more things though.”
“Have you ever carded?”
“I hated carding. It’s not hacking. It’s theft. I’ve always
avoided bbses that had it.”
“There’s someone here from your high school that said you did.”
Bill, laughing, “I never said anything about what I did to anyone in
high school. I couldn’t avoid it being generally known that I knew a
lot about computers and was a “hacker” - so called. I’m not going
be specific about what I’m doing, let alone to students at high
school.”
“It was someone you knew.”
“I didn’t know many people into computers. This was the early
80s.”
“Well, it was the chess club.”
“??. I know who you mean. He got in a fight with me.”
Dan, looking at paper. “Hmm, he forgot to mention that.”
Dan crosses something off.
“Have you ever hacked since you’ve been in Seattle?”
“No.”
“Then why were you calling a system through cyberspace?”
Bill, thinking then laughing. “I just called that to see what was on
the other end. I dialed it by accident when I was at work, and was
curious what it was. It never responded with anything and I wasn’t
trying to get on.” Bill thinks about it, and looks puzzled -
“whaat?”
“We were waiting for you on cyberspace. Remember when you said you
needed a system on TAP that could dial out in Seattle? We gave you
one.”
“I just needed a way to connect to the internet when I was up here.”
“You said on there you wanted to use it for scanning.”
“I was just talking a big game. I never used cyberspace for that. I
mostly used it for internet access.”
“Why would you say it?”
“You get people to trade information with you that way. I’m sure
there were things some people were saying on that bbs that sounded
interesting. The pre computed password hash table discussion was
interesting for example. I wasn’t hacking, but was still interested
in it as a topic.”
Bill pauses. “And of course. That’s how I met you. Talking. On
cyberspace, on a mud.”
Dan smiles.
“You remember how we first met in person?”
“You wanted tickets to a concert.”
“Do you remember which one?”
“No, it wasn’t one I was interested in.”
“It was sold out. I just wanted to see if you really knew the people
you said you did and could get them. You did.”
Bill laughs. “You could have just hung out with me and found that
out. Hmm, I didn’t know it was sold out. That’s interesting. I
guess the person that gave them to me liked me and knew me better than I
thought.”
Dan is smiling.
“Ok, Last one. This is an important one. Have you ever caused any
damage to computers?”
“No. I used to just see if I could get in them.”
“Are you absolutely sure?”
Thinking.
“Well, there was this one time... It was a system on Telenet for the
New York Stock Exchange, running on a Unix. There wasn’t passwords on
anything.
I might have accidentally typed in a rm command...From a file and
deleted the whole system.”
Dan looks at me, no expression, waiting for me to continue.
“I didn’t think it would do anything. It was down for a whole day.
I’m not sure if it was really me though. Think it was scheduled for
downtime anyway. It was back later. I was always worried about that.
The New York Stock Exchange.”
Nods. “Ok, we’ll check it out. You see, that’s why we don’t
want hackers like you doing anything.”
“Woah, wait,” Bill says laughing. “I made that up. I just wanted
to see your reaction. Like I deleted the New York Stock Exchange.”
“We’ll check it out anyway.”
Dan marks some stuff on his paper, and grabs another paper from a
folder.
“I think we can close this out. We’ll look at the one thing first
though.
“Forget this happened.”
Bill nods an affirmative and says, “I don’t really have any problems
with law enforcement. Some people need to be caught. Carders for
instance. I just don’t like corrupt government. I haven’t been in
it a long time, and as long as you’re not asking me about someone
else, it doesn’t matter to me.”
“Ever think about working for the government?”
“No, I’d have to enforce laws that I don’t believe in, that
don’t have anything to do with what's right and wrong, and I
couldn’t do that.”
Dan nods.
There’s a lull in the conversation.
“You going to Defcon this year? There’s a group of us going up.”
“Nah, I wasn’t interested in going the first year it happened, I
remember you invited me then. Too many feds there. You invited that
Operation Sundevil person? No thanks.” Bill shakes head.
“I had a lot going on the first year anyway. Got mugged and was in
the paper, and went to the Oregon Country Fair that year - that was
weird.”
“Sure? you’re missing out.”
“Maybe sometime. You should try the Oregon Country Fair too. It’s
different.”
Dan. “Yeah we didn’t find anything. We’re closing it.”
“That’s cool. Thanks for letting me stay at your place. It let me
find one just down the street to rent.”
“How’s that working?”
“Good so far. It’s a shared house, the guys seem nice, and it’s a
really good place.”
“Well good.”
“Yep.”
“Hey, you wouldn’t be interested in moving to my old space above
Pioneer Square, would you? My old place is going vacant, and there
always something going on down there.”
“Don’t know, maybe. You didn’t stay there.”
“It’s hard to park down there. After I got my driver's licence for
my job, I had a pickup truck for a month and tried parking down there.
Too much trouble. But it’s near the bus tunnel. And there is a lot
of space in the rental.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Is Tim there?”, Bill asks when a man on the other end of the phone
answers.
“What?”
“Is Tim there? Is this Tim?”
“Who is this?”
“This is Bill..”
“How’d you get my number??” Tim is really shocked.
“I’ve had it for awhile.”
“I made sure I never gave you that.”
“Oh.” Bill sounds disappointed.
“I didn’t know that. The reason I never asked back then is because
I already had it.”
“This is my parent’s number, I wasn’t even suppose to be here this
weekend. How’d you know I was here?” Tim is still upset.
“Lol. coincidence.” Bill realizes Tim’s actually concerned.
“Look, I was going through some old notes, and realized I knew you a
long time before I actually was writing that EADAS file for you. Which
I never finished. Sorry about that.”
“I called the number up not expecting it to even be connected. So
that it was working was just pure luck.”
“It’s my parents’ number”, Tim explains.
“Oh. Ok.”
“Look, how did you even get it?”
“I had it a long time ago under a different handle. It’s been so
long ago I don’t even remember exactly when, but you might have given
them to me on a conference call. I don’t know. I was in a hacker
writing group from Texas I think. It was about the time Phrack
started.”
“I wouldn’t have..”
“I wrote the number in an old TAB book on BBS’s, and just found it
when I was looking at it... Hey, let, look me look at what else I wrote
on the page. Hmm, there's a BBS number written near yours with the same
area code.” Bill reads off the name to Tim.
“Man, I can’t believe it. I told him never to give my number
out!”
Bill, laughing. “Well, I guess that’s possible. I still think I
talked to you a long time ago. Made sense if you were trying to get
people to write. I wrote a lot.”
Tim, calmer. “Look, you shouldn’t even be calling.”
“You mean that 911 case? That’s over with. Really shook everyone
up.”
“Yea…”
“Oh me. No, I’m not under investigation. I talked to someone a
long time ago. Didn’t say anything about anyone else.. Also, that
EADAS stuff was from a book in my engineering library, publicly
available information. My library had a complete set of Bell System
Technical Journals and I noticed they had that too, and it gave me the
idea to write about it. Anyway that’s over with, and shouldn’t be a
problem. It wasn’t much of a system, but I always thought it was an
interesting Bell system if you were scanning exchanges. Everyone always
wanted to write about the same systems, COSMOS, and never looked at
anything else.”
“I mean, maybe I could have written it from.. But..,” Bill starts
to lead Tim on.
Tim relaxing. “I don’t want to hear.”
“Ok.”
“So what do you want?”
“I was just checking the number. I wasn’t expecting it was even
connected. But since I got you, what have you been up to? I heard you
got a job?”
“Yep, xxxxxxxxx.”
“That’s an xxx xxxxxxxx, isn’t it?”
“Yea, they bought it out.”
“What do you do?”
..…..Tim goes on, excited. “So I get to mess around with the internet all day long.”
“Sounds nice. I just got back from Seattle, had some interesting
experiences, so haven’t ….”
The conversation trails off before they say goodbye and hang up.
The lights come on in the auditorium, and the CEO comes on stage and
waves. Over the speakers, a voice announces: “Futureomics would like
to introduce to you it’s six new team members. We will briefly play
for you parts of their interviews, and then break for lunch and the
Defcon conference next door. Thank you.”
[Applause]
1. The PhD dropout
“I first started writing serious programs on the C64. I had a Timex
Sinclair, but that was just when I was starting. I remember I had my own
dialer, it would pick up carriers, faxes, and pbx/dial tones, as well as
how fast something picked up, and I’d save all that. It was a lot
better than anything else out there that didn’t do all that. And I
used a coprime technique to generate pseudo random numbers, dialers
never did that, although some of them used random techniques - they
wasted a lot of lines and memory to do it. I could get this into 1-3
lines of code.
I eventually put it in a phone man I had decompiled along with an
automatic hacker to try different account password combinations, and
used it for telenet too. I had to pull a few things out of phone man
to get it to work. I pulled the box programs out of it, they were neat,
but I never used them. I remember a lot of programs I wrote for the
C64, like a graph paper maker - I had it in six lines of program -
small. Every line was doing multiple things, on gotos, variable reuse,
etc. It worked great too. Tore up the printer which couldn’t handle
the stress, but that wasn’t the fault of the program. The program
worked great. The printer was bad.“
Since then…. “Optical scanner software, a mail program in dos. A
whole site in php, coded by hand, with a polling package with its own
script language. I tend to start making script languages for my
programs, create whole environment, it’s a lot of fun. I did that
with the hacker too - I could easily change templates for systems or
networks it was hacking, different account lists to try, etc. Just lots
of programs.”
“I don’t really care what I program in. I care about the logic.
I’ve used a lot of programming languages, and tend to need to review
them after not using them for awhile. I pick up languages fast too. The
future is logic.”
“But I got my masters, and entered a PhD program.”
“I’ve always been interested in how things work. Researching
things, doing my own experiments, figuring things out, coming up with
new theories, writing about them. I remember one of my professors
saying I was a natural professor, it was a high compliment and I
remember she didn’t even like me that much - it was grudgingly given.
There were other professors that noticed me in different fields over the
years, and eventually I became a PhD candidate. I never finished my
thesis though. By that time, I was pretty delusioned. They didn’t
care anything about real research, it was all political. There was no
scientific method, no creativity, they copied things from each other and
fudged results. I was pretty disappointed. When I got there, I thought,
finally, I can do real research. But it’s the same all up and down
the educational system.”
“I did have some fun with my social network, online promotion paper.
I had stars interested in that - found out your research didn’t have
to be boring, and it could get noticed by famous people - especially
when it was a topic they are interested in, like promotion. Not the
point I suppose, but I come up with some original results and published
a few more papers on network effects and media richness, group cohesion,
trust, online promotion and similar topics.”
“So, that is your thesis topic?”
“No. The math made me miss more technical research, so I went back to
it.”
“The future: neural networks, analog machines, deep learning.
Multi-valued and infinite-valued logic. Basically anything that lets us
leave the binary state of today.”
- *** 2. The Anthropologist
“I was always interested in archaeology, a subfield of anthropology. I
remember going on my first dig when I was a teen, and being the one to
unearth the tail end of an effigy that turned out to be a sun serpent.
You stuck a pole in the ground, and at the summer solstice, the shadow
crept alone to the tail end of it, and you could see it from lookout
points at fort ancient. I remember my picture in a magazine with me
next to that. It was quite an experience, and very like the indiana
jones movies with it’s map room. They put that in a historical
registry. We had a good professor and archaeologist mentoring us, and a
lot of us went on to get anthropology degrees, including me.
“In college though, I became more interested in cultural anthropology.
Subcultures have always fascinated me, and I always want to see them on
their own terms, so ethnography interested me. I remember doing my
religion research on the relation of hallucinogenic drugs to religion as
a cross cultural comparison. I did a pretty good job too, as I still
use the knowledge I gained in research (actual research) today, but I
think I didn't credit trance states and different states of
consciousness as having enough effect in the world. I’d add to it. My
last paper was an attempt to model cognition on object oriented
programing (I was taking computer science and anthropology together).
“Lately, I’ve had an interest in explaining the subconscious and
certain magic superstitions in terms of learning machines - inductive
processes that while not consciously deductive thought, is nevertheless
understandable as to why the result is exactly what it is. As a
paradigm, it works well, and is likely to change much of our underlying
philosophy and merge psychology and computer science together - someday!
Most computer scientists are working on other things though.
“The future: models that recognize the subconscious as learning
machines & ANNs.
- *** 3. The Space Enthusiast
“I’ve had an interest in space colonization for a long time. The
first newspaper I was in was for organizing a space week event on
fountain square in my hometown, as part of the L5 society, which later
was the national space society. I was briefly with a group writing
space educational materials for teachers. I first studied physics in
college - and was doing good, my professor said I was doing better than
anyone else in the class. My mathematics professor, who was the chair,
liked me. He once caught me trying to copy Newton's original paper on
fluxions in the library and mentioned it later. And he announced to the
class on our hardest exam of the year that he’d never give a perfect
score till then, and it was mine. Not remarkable, but my high school
refused to offer either physics or higher math when I went through it,
and I had to learn it on my own.
“Alas, trouble soon caught up with me, in various forms, the hacker
crackdown - they even removed the payphone from my dorm!, and my parents
got a divorce. My financial aid didn’t come through because of an
error, and I had job trouble (and a very full load). With everyone
getting busted and the divorce, I started not turning in homework and
labs and getting zeros on them. I dropped out, and didn't even do the
exit.
“I probably missed my window to become a physicist then. Space
colonization has always been a dream of mine though, and a reason I
first got into computers (computer time was expensive back then).
“Computers are cheap now. And private space launches are getting that
way. Many people are dreaming of space colonization now, and if I’m
not going to design them, looking back at my life, I can at least
promote and organize to support it! The original motto of L5 - merged
with the NSS in the 80s, was never to disband until on a space colony at
L5!
“The future: space colonization
“I’ve always liked physical security. I find it relaxing, like long
distance driving. I used to make pretty good money at it as a patrol
officer and supervisor, and there have been times I worked 80 hour weeks
- I like to work, and I like securing things.”
“I’m not really tough. I’ve been hit on the back of the head with
a baseball bat, mugged - they didn't get anything, and my family once
hired a hitman to get me - whom I became friends with. I’d call it
stubborn more than tough, but I’ve never liked bullies when I was a
kid, and always pulled them off others.I remember being steamed after
being mugged, and wanting to design an automatic detection system, which
would alert others when anyone shouted help nearby
“The future: automatic violence detection.
“But I’m also a need for Speed Guy. I always like driving fast, and
driving long distance too. I use to hang out with some of the hot
rodders in my school and the shop class, fixing cars. I like fast
things..
“Fast women someone says in the background.
“I like hot women. I have someone I love though ladies, and I’m a
complete gentleman. I like to get the adrenaline going, like music. I
never was into automobile mechanics though.
“I liked physical hardware. Like fixing them, optimizing them,
modifying them. Loved when microcontrollers came out, took my digital
class through a basic stamp - professor ended up making me in charge of
it. I like building simple processors out of gates. The new arduino,
and pi and that old basic stamp - that general trend. It .. beats eprom
and proms.
“I prefer male / female interfaces. Never liked floppies. And Unix is
good, but the name is kindof funny. Hey I only talk to people long
distance. I’m not a local user. Huh? Oh yeah, sorry. I never liked
people who can’t hack their way outside a box. And who can’t think
and tie their shoes at the same time.
“The future: open source processors and better fpga/asic technology.
Open source hardware from bottom to top.
5. The Populist Libertarian
“I’ve always been into limited government, libertarian, populist
ideas. I was one of the first supporters of united we stand, before
Perot ran! I supported Ron Paul in 1988. And 2008, and 2012. Had
great fun with the Ron Paul blimp. Was red pilling people before the
matrix came out, back then the idea was frogs in boiling water - ironic
with the pepe symbol today. Pepe escapes the frog farm.
“I’ve been called a conspiracy theorist before, but some people call
anyone who has an idea or fact they don’t like that. I’m just real
good at promoting ideas despite propaganda to the contrary. The only
conspiracy theory that I ever promoted that was really mine was the one
on TWA800. I remember being in a magazine on that. But it did forced
the CIA to show their hand. The CIA ende dup making a cartoon video to
explain how it really happened. The only time I’m aware the CIA ever
became part of a domestic airline crash, and they aren’t suppose to be
involved in domestic affairs. That was way back in 96, today obviously
the CIA has over stepped its bounds much more. But back then, it wasn't
so obvious.
“The future: minimum government and the end of the state and open
governments
6. The Christian
“I’m a Christian. Jesus answers prayers, and there is some prayers
he answers you could not do on your own. I believe Trump’s election
is that way.
“And I’m a writer. The Bible inspires me. It gives me a better,
deeper way to look at things, and a language of metaphors and analogies.
As proverbs says it, 1:6 “To understand a proverb, and the
interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.” And
God gives wisdom to those who ask him. God gives me a reason for my
stories, and spirit and life. Without Jesus, I’m nothing.
“Future: Jesus. And a new heaven and new earth.
- *** Our new team members and vision
“So those are our newest team members. It is their vision of the
future that is our vision, and what we expect them to contribute. All
our new team members actually cross over into the other things as well.
They all may seem different and unique people, but they fit together
well.”
“We build teams. We don’t look to be the smartest guy in the room,
we look to get the smartest guys in room. We don’t look for what you
memorized or what knowledge you are hoarding to make yourself look
smarter. The world is a big place, you can always look for some
specialized knowledge a person doesn’t have and then harp over it.
We’re looking for what people can do when you give them that
knowledge. What they do when they are sharing with others in a team.”
“Our new team members all relate to each other, and they all wear many
hats. But no matter what hat you may be wearing, remember... no matter
where you go, there you are.”
“Let’s give them all a big hand.”
Audience applauds.
The signs went up at quite a few windows - HIRED. But many were turned
away. The few that remained went quietly over to the Defcon conference
that was currently in session, Defcon 25.
Futureomics recruited at Defcon every year. And they always hired
unique individuals, who, while sometimes the rejects, the misfits, the
downtrodden, mocked, ridiculed, and poor, somehow seemed to move through
life always making a difference in the lives around them and having fun.
They worked that much better when united as one, and the team loved each
other like they loved themselves.
And it would seem that as they entered the hotel next to Defcon 25, one
of them was playing a Selena Gomez video, Bad Liar, and it arguably and
coincidentally, had a similar theme to what the team learned that day -
to love themselves and love the others on their team, and that what the
secret name of the company they were joining was, was now, forever and
firmly attached to their minds:
Me inc.
The future is calling.