1 00:00:04,160 --> 00:00:07,200 Speaker 1: Get in text with technology with tech Stuff from half 2 00:00:07,240 --> 00:00:14,120 Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tex Stuff. 3 00:00:14,160 --> 00:00:17,599 Speaker 1: I am your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer 4 00:00:17,680 --> 00:00:21,000 Speaker 1: here at how Stuff Works, and I want to talk 5 00:00:21,079 --> 00:00:26,400 Speaker 1: today about something really fascinating. First, I'm gonna give you 6 00:00:26,440 --> 00:00:30,280 Speaker 1: guys a little peek behind the curtain. Typically, when I 7 00:00:30,320 --> 00:00:32,959 Speaker 1: decide upon a topic, let's say it's one that I've 8 00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:36,559 Speaker 1: just decided I want to cover that wasn't necessarily a 9 00:00:36,600 --> 00:00:40,680 Speaker 1: request from a listener, sometimes I find out through my 10 00:00:40,760 --> 00:00:44,800 Speaker 1: research that I've made an error in judgment. Right. I 11 00:00:44,880 --> 00:00:48,040 Speaker 1: might discover that perhaps the topic I wanted to cover 12 00:00:48,560 --> 00:00:51,360 Speaker 1: isn't as interesting as I thought, or that there is 13 00:00:51,440 --> 00:00:54,400 Speaker 1: some aspect of it that is more interesting than what 14 00:00:54,480 --> 00:00:56,920 Speaker 1: I thought the story was going to be about. So 15 00:00:57,120 --> 00:01:00,279 Speaker 1: that's the case with today's episode. I was originally going 16 00:01:00,320 --> 00:01:03,760 Speaker 1: to do an episode just about how the Electronic Frontier 17 00:01:03,800 --> 00:01:07,120 Speaker 1: Foundation works, the e f F, and I probably still 18 00:01:07,160 --> 00:01:09,320 Speaker 1: will do that, in fact, it might be the episode 19 00:01:09,319 --> 00:01:13,880 Speaker 1: that follows this one. But as I was researching this, 20 00:01:14,160 --> 00:01:16,680 Speaker 1: and I was researching the whole founding of the e 21 00:01:16,880 --> 00:01:19,560 Speaker 1: f F, it made me dive into a deeper and 22 00:01:19,640 --> 00:01:24,440 Speaker 1: deeper investigation into the events that led up to the 23 00:01:24,520 --> 00:01:28,320 Speaker 1: necessity for the Electronic Frontier Foundation to become a thing. 24 00:01:29,160 --> 00:01:32,000 Speaker 1: And that story is so fascinating, and I was actually 25 00:01:32,040 --> 00:01:36,720 Speaker 1: surprised that I didn't know it. I don't have any 26 00:01:36,760 --> 00:01:39,640 Speaker 1: memory of hearing about this story, and it's possible that 27 00:01:39,680 --> 00:01:42,959 Speaker 1: I've just forgotten. But it's a story that I should 28 00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:47,640 Speaker 1: know for multiple reasons. One, it involves some people here 29 00:01:47,680 --> 00:01:53,920 Speaker 1: in Atlanta, where I am based. It too. It involves uh, 30 00:01:54,040 --> 00:01:57,400 Speaker 1: a big staying operation that the Secret Service did in 31 00:01:57,520 --> 00:02:03,280 Speaker 1: nine three. It involves a game company that I'm a 32 00:02:03,280 --> 00:02:10,240 Speaker 1: fan of and that had a tenuous, if best, connection 33 00:02:10,440 --> 00:02:13,920 Speaker 1: to all of the shenanigans that went on. So there's 34 00:02:13,960 --> 00:02:16,240 Speaker 1: all these different elements at play where I should have 35 00:02:16,600 --> 00:02:20,040 Speaker 1: known this story already, especially considering that I've done research 36 00:02:20,080 --> 00:02:23,239 Speaker 1: on hacking, and and yet I didn't really remember it. 37 00:02:23,480 --> 00:02:26,560 Speaker 1: And I thought, I want to tell this story, and 38 00:02:26,680 --> 00:02:28,720 Speaker 1: it's been told by other people, and it's been told 39 00:02:28,720 --> 00:02:31,520 Speaker 1: well by other people, but this is my stab at it. 40 00:02:31,840 --> 00:02:35,720 Speaker 1: So we're gonna talk about a big sting operation called 41 00:02:35,760 --> 00:02:38,320 Speaker 1: Operations Sun Devil, and we're gonna talk about how that 42 00:02:38,440 --> 00:02:42,960 Speaker 1: led to the formation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation or 43 00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:45,320 Speaker 1: the e f F. So let's talk a little bit 44 00:02:45,320 --> 00:02:47,160 Speaker 1: about the e f F in general, in case you're 45 00:02:47,200 --> 00:02:50,880 Speaker 1: not familiar with this organization. It's the leading nonprofit organization 46 00:02:50,919 --> 00:02:54,320 Speaker 1: defending civil liberties in the digital world, and it's based 47 00:02:54,480 --> 00:03:00,200 Speaker 1: in San Francisco, California. It's dedicated to promoting Internet civil liberty. 48 00:03:00,400 --> 00:03:03,880 Speaker 1: So it's a lot like the American Civil Liberties Union 49 00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:07,720 Speaker 1: or a c l U, except its specifically dedicated to 50 00:03:08,400 --> 00:03:12,800 Speaker 1: championing civil liberties in the realm of the Internet. So 51 00:03:13,360 --> 00:03:16,200 Speaker 1: online civil liberties for the most part is what it 52 00:03:16,240 --> 00:03:21,040 Speaker 1: focuses on. UH and the e f has a website. Obviously, 53 00:03:21,200 --> 00:03:23,400 Speaker 1: they have a very strong web presence, as you would 54 00:03:23,400 --> 00:03:29,119 Speaker 1: imagine considering their focus, and they have this specific statement 55 00:03:29,240 --> 00:03:35,840 Speaker 1: about their organization says, blending the expertise of lawyers, policy analysts, activists, 56 00:03:35,840 --> 00:03:40,640 Speaker 1: and technologists, e f F achieves significant victories on behalf 57 00:03:40,680 --> 00:03:44,240 Speaker 1: of consumers and the general public. E f fights for 58 00:03:44,280 --> 00:03:48,040 Speaker 1: freedom primarily in the courts, bringing and defending lawsuits, even 59 00:03:48,080 --> 00:03:51,960 Speaker 1: when that means taking on the US government or large corporations. 60 00:03:52,320 --> 00:03:56,440 Speaker 1: By mobilizing more than one d forty thousand concerned citizens 61 00:03:56,440 --> 00:04:01,000 Speaker 1: through our action center, e f F beats back back legislation. 62 00:04:01,080 --> 00:04:04,920 Speaker 1: In addition to advising policymakers, e f educates the press 63 00:04:05,040 --> 00:04:08,880 Speaker 1: and public. E f F is a donor funded nonprofit 64 00:04:08,960 --> 00:04:12,400 Speaker 1: and depends on your support to continue successfully defending your 65 00:04:12,440 --> 00:04:16,440 Speaker 1: digital rights. Litigation is particularly expensive because two thirds of 66 00:04:16,480 --> 00:04:20,359 Speaker 1: our budget comes from individual donors. Every contribution is critical 67 00:04:20,360 --> 00:04:23,520 Speaker 1: to helping e f fight and win more cases, so 68 00:04:23,560 --> 00:04:26,760 Speaker 1: it is a nonprofit. They do use that money to 69 00:04:27,040 --> 00:04:31,720 Speaker 1: help fund legal cases, either defending people from what they 70 00:04:31,760 --> 00:04:36,360 Speaker 1: see as an overreach on the part of various entities, 71 00:04:36,480 --> 00:04:40,840 Speaker 1: or to help people lay a claim against those entities 72 00:04:41,160 --> 00:04:44,680 Speaker 1: in the case where their their civil liberties were perhaps violated. 73 00:04:45,200 --> 00:04:48,160 Speaker 1: And as I as I said, as I was looking 74 00:04:48,200 --> 00:04:51,320 Speaker 1: into this organization, which I had heard a lot about obviously, 75 00:04:51,360 --> 00:04:55,760 Speaker 1: and I followed e f f H news stories for years, 76 00:04:56,200 --> 00:05:00,839 Speaker 1: and how they've supported concepts like net neutrality and online 77 00:05:00,839 --> 00:05:06,240 Speaker 1: privacy and other protections that they feel everyone should enjoy 78 00:05:06,360 --> 00:05:10,159 Speaker 1: as citizens of the internet. Uh, I had never really 79 00:05:10,160 --> 00:05:13,880 Speaker 1: looked into the backstory behind it. They do use their 80 00:05:13,880 --> 00:05:16,640 Speaker 1: funds to help provide for legal defense in cases in 81 00:05:16,640 --> 00:05:19,799 Speaker 1: which the organization determines the accused may have their civil 82 00:05:19,800 --> 00:05:23,160 Speaker 1: liberties infringed upon, and it was founded back in nine 83 00:05:24,000 --> 00:05:27,520 Speaker 1: in response to a threat to free speech. So here's 84 00:05:27,520 --> 00:05:30,479 Speaker 1: a quick overview and then we're gonna dive deep into 85 00:05:30,520 --> 00:05:33,880 Speaker 1: this story. The United States Secret Service was on a 86 00:05:33,920 --> 00:05:36,719 Speaker 1: mission back in the late eighties and early nineties which 87 00:05:36,760 --> 00:05:39,440 Speaker 1: was to track down the distribution of a document that 88 00:05:39,520 --> 00:05:43,400 Speaker 1: was copied off of a Bell South computer system. That 89 00:05:43,440 --> 00:05:48,000 Speaker 1: document described how enhanced emergency nine one one systems worked, 90 00:05:48,320 --> 00:05:51,160 Speaker 1: and it was called the Shorthand version was called the 91 00:05:51,240 --> 00:05:55,040 Speaker 1: E nine eleven document, and as opposed on Boing Boing 92 00:05:55,120 --> 00:06:00,200 Speaker 1: once said, it's an historic, incredibly dull technical document, which 93 00:06:00,200 --> 00:06:04,480 Speaker 1: is true. You would actually read it. You probably read 94 00:06:04,520 --> 00:06:07,720 Speaker 1: yourself to sleep pretty quickly. But it was also a 95 00:06:07,800 --> 00:06:11,760 Speaker 1: very important document detailing a very sensitive part of the 96 00:06:11,800 --> 00:06:16,880 Speaker 1: phone system infrastructure in regards to emergency systems, and it 97 00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:20,080 Speaker 1: ended up playing a big part in a huge nationwide 98 00:06:20,160 --> 00:06:23,920 Speaker 1: sweep of hackers that would later be known as Operation 99 00:06:24,080 --> 00:06:27,880 Speaker 1: Sun Devil. The United States Attorney's Office in Phoenix, Arizona, 100 00:06:27,920 --> 00:06:32,480 Speaker 1: would announce that operation on May nine, nine nine. The 101 00:06:32,600 --> 00:06:36,880 Speaker 1: day before May, law enforcement officials carried out twenty seven 102 00:06:36,920 --> 00:06:40,840 Speaker 1: search warrants. They made three actual arrests and carried out 103 00:06:40,880 --> 00:06:45,160 Speaker 1: operations and at least a dozen cities. Now, official accounts 104 00:06:45,880 --> 00:06:50,800 Speaker 1: from different agencies and different areas have a different number 105 00:06:50,880 --> 00:06:53,480 Speaker 1: of how many cities were involved, but it's usually at 106 00:06:53,480 --> 00:06:56,600 Speaker 1: the very least twelve and sometimes upwards of fourteen or fifteen. 107 00:06:58,360 --> 00:07:01,520 Speaker 1: The entities that were responsed bull or at least given 108 00:07:01,560 --> 00:07:06,320 Speaker 1: credit for operations on Devil would include the Assistant Attorney 109 00:07:06,360 --> 00:07:09,520 Speaker 1: General of Arizona, who is Gail Thackeray at the time, 110 00:07:09,880 --> 00:07:13,440 Speaker 1: the Assistant U S Attorney Tim Holtzon, and the U 111 00:07:13,640 --> 00:07:18,160 Speaker 1: S Secret Service. The Assistant Director of the Secret Service, 112 00:07:18,360 --> 00:07:21,760 Speaker 1: Gary M. Jenkins, gave a statement at the press event 113 00:07:21,800 --> 00:07:25,920 Speaker 1: that summarized the government's perspective. Uh here's a selection of 114 00:07:25,960 --> 00:07:30,000 Speaker 1: what Mr Jenkins said today. The Secret Service is sending 115 00:07:30,000 --> 00:07:33,040 Speaker 1: a clear message to those computer hackers who have decided 116 00:07:33,080 --> 00:07:35,840 Speaker 1: to violate the laws of this nation in the mistaken 117 00:07:35,880 --> 00:07:40,040 Speaker 1: belief that they can successfully avoid detection by hiding behind 118 00:07:40,120 --> 00:07:44,640 Speaker 1: the relative anonymity of their computer terminals. Underground groups have 119 00:07:44,760 --> 00:07:48,280 Speaker 1: been formed for the purpose of exchanging information relevant to 120 00:07:48,320 --> 00:07:52,040 Speaker 1: their criminal activities. These groups often communicate with each other 121 00:07:52,120 --> 00:07:57,720 Speaker 1: through message systems between computers called bulletin boards. Our experience 122 00:07:57,720 --> 00:08:00,960 Speaker 1: shows that many computer hackers suspects are no longer misguided 123 00:08:00,960 --> 00:08:05,160 Speaker 1: teenagers mischievously playing games with their computers in their bedrooms. 124 00:08:05,440 --> 00:08:09,080 Speaker 1: Some are now high tech computer operators using computers to 125 00:08:09,120 --> 00:08:14,200 Speaker 1: engage in unlawful conduct. This was a complicated statement to 126 00:08:14,280 --> 00:08:19,760 Speaker 1: make back in because technology was outpacing the legal system. 127 00:08:19,800 --> 00:08:22,440 Speaker 1: So while you could argue that some of the things 128 00:08:22,520 --> 00:08:25,520 Speaker 1: that were happening were against the law, it was a 129 00:08:25,560 --> 00:08:28,480 Speaker 1: lot more challenging to find which law it was against. 130 00:08:28,920 --> 00:08:31,880 Speaker 1: In some cases, it really didn't make sense to charge 131 00:08:31,880 --> 00:08:34,400 Speaker 1: the person with anything because there just weren't any laws 132 00:08:34,440 --> 00:08:39,280 Speaker 1: that were relevant in that case, which became extremely problematic. 133 00:08:40,120 --> 00:08:44,440 Speaker 1: Now the story dates way back further than if we 134 00:08:44,520 --> 00:08:47,839 Speaker 1: want to understand the series of events that led up 135 00:08:47,880 --> 00:08:51,360 Speaker 1: to Operations Sun Devil and then ultimately to the foundation 136 00:08:51,600 --> 00:08:54,720 Speaker 1: of the e f F. So this is gonna be 137 00:08:55,360 --> 00:08:58,560 Speaker 1: kind of a gather around the campfire and listen to 138 00:08:58,600 --> 00:09:01,840 Speaker 1: Grandpa tell you as a tail, that's what's happening right now. 139 00:09:01,880 --> 00:09:04,559 Speaker 1: So get some high coco, get some marshmallows for roasting. 140 00:09:05,120 --> 00:09:08,600 Speaker 1: We're gonna have ourselves story time right now. And I 141 00:09:08,640 --> 00:09:15,400 Speaker 1: think it's a pretty fascinating story. Now to understand this, uh, 142 00:09:15,600 --> 00:09:18,280 Speaker 1: you know, I keep peeling back layers whenever I go 143 00:09:18,320 --> 00:09:20,959 Speaker 1: into history, and it always seems like I go further 144 00:09:21,000 --> 00:09:23,200 Speaker 1: back than I need to. But that's really so that 145 00:09:23,280 --> 00:09:27,040 Speaker 1: we can kind of see where things were headed when 146 00:09:27,640 --> 00:09:32,080 Speaker 1: the events were interested in really took off. So to 147 00:09:32,240 --> 00:09:39,439 Speaker 1: understand the hacker motivation, you have to look at previous movements, 148 00:09:39,559 --> 00:09:43,199 Speaker 1: things that kind of had that same sort of philosophy 149 00:09:43,240 --> 00:09:47,599 Speaker 1: that fed into the formation of hacker culture. And I 150 00:09:47,679 --> 00:09:50,120 Speaker 1: would argue that a lot of that grew primarily out 151 00:09:50,160 --> 00:09:54,880 Speaker 1: of an older movement called freaking. Freaking had to do 152 00:09:55,040 --> 00:10:00,400 Speaker 1: with phones, phone systems, not not computer systems. So you 153 00:10:00,440 --> 00:10:03,839 Speaker 1: think of hacker is to computer as freaker is to 154 00:10:04,320 --> 00:10:08,080 Speaker 1: phone systems. But we'll talk more about freaking in a second. 155 00:10:08,160 --> 00:10:10,720 Speaker 1: But freaking, in turn, was fueled in part by a 156 00:10:10,800 --> 00:10:14,480 Speaker 1: powerful anti authoritarian sentiment that was running in the United 157 00:10:14,480 --> 00:10:18,520 Speaker 1: States in the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies. This was 158 00:10:18,559 --> 00:10:20,920 Speaker 1: the time of political turmoil in the United States. The 159 00:10:21,040 --> 00:10:25,240 Speaker 1: Vietnam War had created an enormous cultural divide in the country, 160 00:10:25,600 --> 00:10:30,040 Speaker 1: with a growing population of people, mostly young people, feeling 161 00:10:30,240 --> 00:10:33,880 Speaker 1: underrepresented and exploited. Because it was the young people who 162 00:10:33,880 --> 00:10:37,040 Speaker 1: were being sent overseas in their mind just to die 163 00:10:37,160 --> 00:10:39,800 Speaker 1: in jungles, and a lot of people felt that no 164 00:10:39,840 --> 00:10:42,160 Speaker 1: one was listening to their voices, and this gave rise 165 00:10:42,200 --> 00:10:45,240 Speaker 1: to a movement, several movements. In fact, you had a 166 00:10:45,280 --> 00:10:47,319 Speaker 1: lot of different movements in the sixties and seventies, but 167 00:10:47,360 --> 00:10:51,480 Speaker 1: one in particular was called the Youth International Party, and 168 00:10:51,679 --> 00:10:55,400 Speaker 1: the members of this group called themselves Yippies. He had 169 00:10:55,440 --> 00:11:01,679 Speaker 1: hippies and yippies. Yippies were largely anarchists. They had a 170 00:11:01,720 --> 00:11:07,520 Speaker 1: deep distrust of authority and government. They also celebrated in 171 00:11:08,160 --> 00:11:15,320 Speaker 1: lots of acts that were hedonistic, perhaps, including things like 172 00:11:15,400 --> 00:11:21,559 Speaker 1: drug abuse and uh and sexual exploration. Stuff that's kind 173 00:11:21,559 --> 00:11:25,840 Speaker 1: of put towards the hippies as well. In this era 174 00:11:26,000 --> 00:11:28,280 Speaker 1: of the late sixties and early seventies, it was largely 175 00:11:28,559 --> 00:11:30,920 Speaker 1: the era of free love. So a lot of this 176 00:11:30,920 --> 00:11:33,120 Speaker 1: stuff is all kind of feeding in on itself. And 177 00:11:33,160 --> 00:11:36,040 Speaker 1: they rejected the trappings of government. They felt that the 178 00:11:36,120 --> 00:11:39,960 Speaker 1: system had previously rejected them, so they're now rejecting it back. 179 00:11:40,640 --> 00:11:43,360 Speaker 1: And many of their activities, like I said, fell on 180 00:11:43,400 --> 00:11:49,160 Speaker 1: this kind of questionable criminal side in some cases, and 181 00:11:49,240 --> 00:11:52,319 Speaker 1: they kind of celebrated in that as well, and increasingly 182 00:11:52,400 --> 00:11:56,360 Speaker 1: popular activity for yippies was coming up with different ways 183 00:11:56,400 --> 00:11:59,440 Speaker 1: to rip off the system. So this is kind of 184 00:11:59,480 --> 00:12:02,200 Speaker 1: where that can of the man comes into play, where 185 00:12:02,200 --> 00:12:05,480 Speaker 1: you've got the man that's the authority figure, and how 186 00:12:05,520 --> 00:12:07,520 Speaker 1: can you stick it to the man. What can you 187 00:12:07,600 --> 00:12:11,200 Speaker 1: do that will be at least a tiny irritation to them? 188 00:12:11,280 --> 00:12:14,200 Speaker 1: And one of the things that yippies like to do 189 00:12:14,920 --> 00:12:19,199 Speaker 1: was find ways to game a system to get stuff 190 00:12:19,240 --> 00:12:22,079 Speaker 1: for free. Not just to get free stuff, although more 191 00:12:22,120 --> 00:12:24,760 Speaker 1: and more people did start doing it just for that, 192 00:12:25,320 --> 00:12:31,839 Speaker 1: but because their money would not go to large corporations 193 00:12:31,920 --> 00:12:34,360 Speaker 1: and tax money would not go to the government to 194 00:12:34,440 --> 00:12:38,040 Speaker 1: fund what they saw as an unjust and perhaps even 195 00:12:38,080 --> 00:12:42,320 Speaker 1: illegal war in their eyes. So they thought, well, you know, 196 00:12:42,320 --> 00:12:46,240 Speaker 1: if you're gonna take these actions, I'm not gonna enable you. 197 00:12:46,400 --> 00:12:49,240 Speaker 1: I'm not gonna pay money to you. I'll find ways 198 00:12:49,280 --> 00:12:52,079 Speaker 1: to get the stuff I want for free. And so 199 00:12:52,240 --> 00:12:55,520 Speaker 1: it's kind of like almost like a robin Hood mentality, 200 00:12:55,559 --> 00:12:59,439 Speaker 1: although around in a roundabout way, and obviously some people 201 00:12:59,480 --> 00:13:03,840 Speaker 1: were less concerned with that aspect of the philosophy and 202 00:13:03,880 --> 00:13:06,600 Speaker 1: they just want their hands on the free stuff. So 203 00:13:06,679 --> 00:13:10,440 Speaker 1: there are a lot of folks who were enjoying the 204 00:13:10,520 --> 00:13:15,079 Speaker 1: thrill of stealing essentially, and they didn't really care if 205 00:13:15,120 --> 00:13:19,360 Speaker 1: there was any political statement associated with that. They were 206 00:13:19,400 --> 00:13:22,320 Speaker 1: mostly concerned with getting the stuff for free and perhaps 207 00:13:22,520 --> 00:13:26,360 Speaker 1: causing a little trouble in the process. Now this leads 208 00:13:26,440 --> 00:13:29,960 Speaker 1: up to the nineteen seventies when phone freaking really became 209 00:13:30,480 --> 00:13:33,520 Speaker 1: a big activity. And I've done a full episode on 210 00:13:33,679 --> 00:13:35,920 Speaker 1: freaking in the past, so if you want to check 211 00:13:35,960 --> 00:13:38,240 Speaker 1: that out, it's freaking a spelled with a pH, because 212 00:13:38,280 --> 00:13:41,840 Speaker 1: of course it's all about the phone systems, but essentially 213 00:13:41,880 --> 00:13:44,600 Speaker 1: it's all about manipulating those phone systems in different ways, 214 00:13:44,679 --> 00:13:50,640 Speaker 1: typically to navigate through the various subsystems that phone companies have, 215 00:13:51,559 --> 00:13:54,480 Speaker 1: sometimes to make long distance phone calls for free, or 216 00:13:54,600 --> 00:13:58,120 Speaker 1: to do other mischievous things like reroute calls so that 217 00:13:58,160 --> 00:14:00,720 Speaker 1: they don't go to where they're supposed to go. That's 218 00:14:00,760 --> 00:14:02,880 Speaker 1: all part of phone freaking. And there were some pretty 219 00:14:02,880 --> 00:14:06,760 Speaker 1: famous people who were into that that scene, like Steve 220 00:14:06,760 --> 00:14:10,440 Speaker 1: Wozniak and Steve Jobs. They were really into the phone 221 00:14:10,480 --> 00:14:14,120 Speaker 1: freaking stuff in the seventies. Really, Steve Wozniak was more 222 00:14:14,160 --> 00:14:18,559 Speaker 1: of the one who would design the the technology that 223 00:14:18,600 --> 00:14:20,840 Speaker 1: would take advantage of phone systems, and Steve Jobs just 224 00:14:20,880 --> 00:14:23,800 Speaker 1: thought it was kind of funny and also was trying 225 00:14:23,840 --> 00:14:33,520 Speaker 1: to find ways to sell it. Curious folks also were 226 00:14:33,560 --> 00:14:35,960 Speaker 1: just wanting to know how the phone systems were. Some 227 00:14:35,960 --> 00:14:38,920 Speaker 1: people weren't into phone freaking to cause mischief. They just 228 00:14:38,960 --> 00:14:41,720 Speaker 1: wanted to know how does this work, like what what 229 00:14:41,800 --> 00:14:45,640 Speaker 1: makes it tick? And they would sort of reverse engineer 230 00:14:45,680 --> 00:14:50,280 Speaker 1: the phone system from the outside. Just pretty ingenious and 231 00:14:50,720 --> 00:14:55,400 Speaker 1: there's some great stories from the phone freaking days. And uh, 232 00:14:55,600 --> 00:14:58,680 Speaker 1: they weren't necessarily trying to exploit the system, but rather 233 00:14:58,760 --> 00:15:01,360 Speaker 1: just understand it, and so would engage in exploiting that 234 00:15:01,440 --> 00:15:04,360 Speaker 1: knowledge later on, sometimes just to test it, sometimes just 235 00:15:04,440 --> 00:15:07,960 Speaker 1: to have fun. Um. Some ended up doing it as 236 00:15:08,000 --> 00:15:10,360 Speaker 1: a way to show off their skill and understanding. So 237 00:15:11,480 --> 00:15:13,760 Speaker 1: they might pull a big prank, but it's so that 238 00:15:13,800 --> 00:15:18,480 Speaker 1: they can impress their friends in the freaking community. And 239 00:15:18,600 --> 00:15:22,360 Speaker 1: some did it because hey, man, free long distance. Once 240 00:15:22,440 --> 00:15:26,120 Speaker 1: upon a time, long distance was not free. You paid 241 00:15:26,200 --> 00:15:29,440 Speaker 1: for that. Every minute you were on the phone on 242 00:15:29,480 --> 00:15:32,560 Speaker 1: a long distance call, you were racking up charges. That 243 00:15:32,720 --> 00:15:35,480 Speaker 1: doesn't tend to be the case today. Long distance today 244 00:15:35,560 --> 00:15:39,040 Speaker 1: is largely meaningless. But for a long time, that was 245 00:15:39,080 --> 00:15:41,080 Speaker 1: a big deal, and if you happen to have friends 246 00:15:41,080 --> 00:15:45,000 Speaker 1: and distant places, then you know you might bristle at 247 00:15:45,000 --> 00:15:46,880 Speaker 1: the thought of having to pay extra just to talk 248 00:15:46,920 --> 00:15:48,880 Speaker 1: to them. A lot of freakers felt that it was 249 00:15:48,960 --> 00:15:52,560 Speaker 1: not really justified, and they also didn't really see the 250 00:15:52,720 --> 00:15:56,800 Speaker 1: use of their knowledge of the system being used to 251 00:15:56,960 --> 00:15:58,920 Speaker 1: make free long distance calls. They didn't see that as 252 00:15:59,000 --> 00:16:04,440 Speaker 1: theft of service because nothing's really being lost, although there 253 00:16:04,480 --> 00:16:07,000 Speaker 1: were lots of different methods that would end up costing 254 00:16:07,040 --> 00:16:12,040 Speaker 1: other people. Typically, freakers would reroute information so that they 255 00:16:12,040 --> 00:16:14,520 Speaker 1: can make long distance calls and someone else gets footed 256 00:16:14,560 --> 00:16:19,040 Speaker 1: for the bill. Many freakers would target companies or notable 257 00:16:19,080 --> 00:16:23,480 Speaker 1: personalities as the recipient of that phone bill because they 258 00:16:23,480 --> 00:16:25,920 Speaker 1: thought was funny or they just felt again like they 259 00:16:25,920 --> 00:16:28,800 Speaker 1: were sticking it to the man. Other people just didn't 260 00:16:28,800 --> 00:16:30,600 Speaker 1: care who the bill went to as long as it 261 00:16:30,640 --> 00:16:37,040 Speaker 1: wasn't them. So V two You Get a magazine called Ramparts, 262 00:16:37,840 --> 00:16:40,760 Speaker 1: and Ramparts published an article that detailed how to make 263 00:16:40,760 --> 00:16:44,400 Speaker 1: a device called a blue box that would allow users 264 00:16:44,400 --> 00:16:46,880 Speaker 1: to receive long distance calls in such a way that 265 00:16:46,920 --> 00:16:48,600 Speaker 1: the person on the other end of the call would 266 00:16:48,600 --> 00:16:50,960 Speaker 1: not get billed for it, they'd be able to make 267 00:16:50,960 --> 00:16:52,760 Speaker 1: it for free. So if you had one of these 268 00:16:52,760 --> 00:16:56,520 Speaker 1: blue boxes attached to your phone and someone from another 269 00:16:56,560 --> 00:16:59,600 Speaker 1: state called you, it would act as if it was 270 00:16:59,640 --> 00:17:02,080 Speaker 1: a local call, or that there was no call at all, 271 00:17:02,720 --> 00:17:06,159 Speaker 1: and you could have that call for free. You couldn't 272 00:17:06,200 --> 00:17:09,040 Speaker 1: make outgoing calls for free, but you could accept incoming 273 00:17:09,080 --> 00:17:11,199 Speaker 1: calls and the other person would never get charged for it. 274 00:17:12,000 --> 00:17:15,000 Speaker 1: The box would do this by mimicking the phone system's 275 00:17:15,280 --> 00:17:19,880 Speaker 1: signal tone to UH to fool the system into allowing 276 00:17:19,920 --> 00:17:25,760 Speaker 1: this to happen. Now, police acting on behalf of Pacific 277 00:17:25,800 --> 00:17:31,040 Speaker 1: Bell raided Ramparts magazine and required the company to recall issues. 278 00:17:31,080 --> 00:17:35,200 Speaker 1: They also seized issues on newsstands, which ended up driving 279 00:17:35,280 --> 00:17:39,240 Speaker 1: Ramparts out of business, and this brought up some questions 280 00:17:39,240 --> 00:17:43,080 Speaker 1: about free speech, like could a an instrument of the 281 00:17:43,080 --> 00:17:46,480 Speaker 1: free press publish something and have the government come in 282 00:17:46,480 --> 00:17:52,800 Speaker 1: and effectively shut down the the the journal. But even 283 00:17:52,800 --> 00:17:55,720 Speaker 1: though these questions came up, no one really pursued them 284 00:17:55,760 --> 00:18:00,359 Speaker 1: with any tenacity. So a lot of people seemed to 285 00:18:00,359 --> 00:18:03,480 Speaker 1: feel like Ramparts had overstepped its bounce, like it had 286 00:18:03,520 --> 00:18:07,600 Speaker 1: published something that was meant to be kept away from 287 00:18:07,800 --> 00:18:11,000 Speaker 1: the public, and that that was not the realm of 288 00:18:11,080 --> 00:18:14,280 Speaker 1: free press that you know, you can't just because you 289 00:18:14,320 --> 00:18:16,960 Speaker 1: have free press, you can't do something that might be illegal. 290 00:18:17,200 --> 00:18:19,959 Speaker 1: And it was technically against the law according to California 291 00:18:20,200 --> 00:18:23,960 Speaker 1: State Penal Code Section five oh two point seven, which 292 00:18:23,960 --> 00:18:27,760 Speaker 1: says it is illegal to sell plans for any instrument, apparatus, 293 00:18:27,880 --> 00:18:32,040 Speaker 1: or device intended to avoid telephone toll charges. So you 294 00:18:32,040 --> 00:18:34,600 Speaker 1: could argue, while, it's against the law because you're selling 295 00:18:34,600 --> 00:18:36,560 Speaker 1: the magazine, and the magazine has an article in it 296 00:18:36,600 --> 00:18:39,080 Speaker 1: that tells you how to get around toll charges, so 297 00:18:39,200 --> 00:18:42,520 Speaker 1: therefore it breaks this law. However, you could then argue, well, 298 00:18:42,560 --> 00:18:48,080 Speaker 1: that law is unconstitutional because of free speech, but Ramparts 299 00:18:48,119 --> 00:18:51,280 Speaker 1: didn't have the luxury of arguing that, and so the 300 00:18:51,320 --> 00:18:55,879 Speaker 1: company went under. Now, the yippie movement began to transform 301 00:18:55,920 --> 00:18:58,720 Speaker 1: as the Vietnam War was ending. A lot of political 302 00:18:58,760 --> 00:19:04,600 Speaker 1: motivation transitioned into anti corporate philosophy and the Youth International 303 00:19:04,680 --> 00:19:09,520 Speaker 1: Party Line, which was a newsletter that had been in 304 00:19:09,600 --> 00:19:13,639 Speaker 1: publication for a few years and would document different activities 305 00:19:13,640 --> 00:19:17,720 Speaker 1: and ways to stick it to the man, changed gradually 306 00:19:17,720 --> 00:19:22,560 Speaker 1: into a new format called the Technical Assistance Program or TAP, 307 00:19:22,920 --> 00:19:25,880 Speaker 1: and TAP was largely a parody of the technical documents 308 00:19:25,880 --> 00:19:29,680 Speaker 1: you could find at places like Bell Systems. Only here's 309 00:19:29,720 --> 00:19:34,440 Speaker 1: the thing. The documents that TAP would publish were supposed 310 00:19:34,440 --> 00:19:37,560 Speaker 1: to again be internal corporate documents. They weren't supposed to 311 00:19:37,560 --> 00:19:43,320 Speaker 1: be exposed to to the public. Uh. And it again 312 00:19:43,800 --> 00:19:47,919 Speaker 1: was raising some questions is it ethical to publish something 313 00:19:47,920 --> 00:19:52,080 Speaker 1: that is an internal document of another company? And raised 314 00:19:52,119 --> 00:19:56,639 Speaker 1: questions about intellectual property and again freedom of speech. Uh. 315 00:19:57,359 --> 00:20:00,679 Speaker 1: TAP itself fizzled out in the late nineteen seventies, but 316 00:20:00,760 --> 00:20:05,879 Speaker 1: this wasn't due to any pressure from the government. Uh. 317 00:20:06,160 --> 00:20:08,840 Speaker 1: This was also a time of transformation. Phone systems were 318 00:20:08,880 --> 00:20:12,600 Speaker 1: becoming digitized and that would lead to a new era. People, 319 00:20:12,800 --> 00:20:19,440 Speaker 1: mostly young men, became interested in a new emerging technology, computers. 320 00:20:19,480 --> 00:20:24,080 Speaker 1: So from the sixties through the seventies, computers were largely 321 00:20:24,119 --> 00:20:27,680 Speaker 1: the domain of colleges. So you did have some hackers 322 00:20:27,880 --> 00:20:30,600 Speaker 1: in those early days who were working on different computer 323 00:20:30,680 --> 00:20:35,120 Speaker 1: systems and creating interesting programs and making computers do stuff 324 00:20:35,160 --> 00:20:38,320 Speaker 1: that their creators didn't necessarily intend for them to do, 325 00:20:38,640 --> 00:20:41,840 Speaker 1: but didn't really take off until the late seventies, and 326 00:20:41,920 --> 00:20:44,840 Speaker 1: by night the nineties, freaking would largely give way to 327 00:20:45,000 --> 00:20:48,399 Speaker 1: computer hacking, in which curious people began to prod at 328 00:20:48,440 --> 00:20:52,520 Speaker 1: various systems, whether they were individual computers or networked machines, 329 00:20:53,040 --> 00:20:55,840 Speaker 1: in order to see how those systems worked, and some 330 00:20:55,840 --> 00:20:58,159 Speaker 1: people would take advantage of that knowledge and end up 331 00:20:58,160 --> 00:21:01,840 Speaker 1: getting a bit mischievous. So this is when we can 332 00:21:01,920 --> 00:21:05,639 Speaker 1: once again touch on the differences in the concepts of 333 00:21:05,720 --> 00:21:10,720 Speaker 1: hacker versus cracker for lack of a better term. So 334 00:21:10,760 --> 00:21:15,520 Speaker 1: if you go by the strictly traditional, original definition of hacker, 335 00:21:16,080 --> 00:21:19,040 Speaker 1: that would be someone who wants to learn how something works, 336 00:21:19,480 --> 00:21:22,800 Speaker 1: typically by taking it apart and examining all the parts 337 00:21:22,800 --> 00:21:24,960 Speaker 1: and putting it back together, maybe putting it back together 338 00:21:25,000 --> 00:21:26,959 Speaker 1: in a different way, so that the thing that they 339 00:21:26,960 --> 00:21:29,840 Speaker 1: were using is now behaving in a different way, it 340 00:21:29,840 --> 00:21:33,760 Speaker 1: can do different stuff. Those are all hacks. Whether it's 341 00:21:33,960 --> 00:21:38,840 Speaker 1: physical or with software, it's a hack. It's not necessarily elegant, 342 00:21:39,640 --> 00:21:43,399 Speaker 1: but ideally it just works. So you might create a 343 00:21:43,440 --> 00:21:46,400 Speaker 1: computer program and call it a hack because you were 344 00:21:46,440 --> 00:21:50,240 Speaker 1: just trying to get to a specific goal, and it 345 00:21:50,280 --> 00:21:52,880 Speaker 1: didn't really matter how you got there or how much 346 00:21:52,920 --> 00:21:55,560 Speaker 1: code it took or how pretty it was, as long 347 00:21:55,600 --> 00:21:59,200 Speaker 1: as it would give you the output. You wanted. Hackers 348 00:21:59,320 --> 00:22:02,280 Speaker 1: worked with in code and in actual physical circuits. They 349 00:22:02,359 --> 00:22:05,560 Speaker 1: might take machines apart literally and put them back together. 350 00:22:06,480 --> 00:22:09,320 Speaker 1: And they might infiltrate a computer system just to kind 351 00:22:09,359 --> 00:22:11,879 Speaker 1: of snoop around and see what makes it tick, like 352 00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:14,199 Speaker 1: just again to get that knowledge of what's going on 353 00:22:14,280 --> 00:22:17,960 Speaker 1: and how it all works together. But strictly speaking, hackers 354 00:22:18,119 --> 00:22:22,080 Speaker 1: are not inherently malicious. They might be a bit mischievous, 355 00:22:22,520 --> 00:22:26,679 Speaker 1: but they're not necessarily out to cause problems. Crackers, on 356 00:22:26,720 --> 00:22:29,159 Speaker 1: the other hand, would use their knowledge and experience to 357 00:22:29,240 --> 00:22:33,800 Speaker 1: exploit systems in some way, and that could include anything 358 00:22:33,960 --> 00:22:38,240 Speaker 1: from theft to sabotage. And these are the types of 359 00:22:38,240 --> 00:22:41,919 Speaker 1: people who work for profit. They're using their knowledge to 360 00:22:42,720 --> 00:22:45,560 Speaker 1: leverage a system in some way in order to profit 361 00:22:45,600 --> 00:22:53,040 Speaker 1: from it, either financially or otherwise. And that's regardless of ethics. 362 00:22:53,080 --> 00:22:55,960 Speaker 1: It doesn't really matter who the target is, uh, They're 363 00:22:56,000 --> 00:22:59,840 Speaker 1: just using their their expertise and their abilities and knowledge 364 00:22:59,840 --> 00:23:02,440 Speaker 1: to you make money off of this in some way 365 00:23:02,560 --> 00:23:06,200 Speaker 1: or to otherwise benefit from it in some way. Now, 366 00:23:06,240 --> 00:23:09,840 Speaker 1: over time, those two definitions have kind of merged and 367 00:23:09,960 --> 00:23:13,320 Speaker 1: all become part of just the word hacker. So if 368 00:23:13,359 --> 00:23:16,040 Speaker 1: you use the word hacker. A lot of people immediately 369 00:23:16,160 --> 00:23:20,560 Speaker 1: think of someone who is specifically intent on infiltrating a 370 00:23:20,600 --> 00:23:24,880 Speaker 1: computer system for some reason, whether it's to poke around 371 00:23:25,600 --> 00:23:30,840 Speaker 1: or to spy, or to cause the system to collapse 372 00:23:30,880 --> 00:23:33,520 Speaker 1: in some way, it all tends to get lumped under 373 00:23:33,560 --> 00:23:36,800 Speaker 1: the term hacker. So I'll be talking about the word 374 00:23:36,800 --> 00:23:39,680 Speaker 1: hacker in the very general sense from this point forward, 375 00:23:40,359 --> 00:23:42,120 Speaker 1: because that's how most of us think of it at 376 00:23:42,119 --> 00:23:45,120 Speaker 1: this point anyway. And and to be fair, there are 377 00:23:45,280 --> 00:23:47,960 Speaker 1: lots and lots of examples of hackers causing this shift 378 00:23:48,040 --> 00:23:51,680 Speaker 1: or giving into the urge to steal, and I think 379 00:23:51,720 --> 00:23:54,520 Speaker 1: that kind of justifies this point of view about hackers 380 00:23:54,600 --> 00:24:00,520 Speaker 1: being a broader term. So in the hacking community, one 381 00:24:00,520 --> 00:24:04,680 Speaker 1: of the most important elements is respect among your peers. 382 00:24:05,720 --> 00:24:08,320 Speaker 1: There are hackers out there who just want to use 383 00:24:08,400 --> 00:24:12,200 Speaker 1: their their talents or often just the tools at their 384 00:24:12,240 --> 00:24:15,840 Speaker 1: disposal in order to make a profit. But quote unquote, 385 00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:20,959 Speaker 1: real hackers tend to look down on those people because 386 00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:26,920 Speaker 1: they like to get into systems for other reasons, reasons 387 00:24:26,920 --> 00:24:32,680 Speaker 1: they consider to be above material gain. However, the esteem 388 00:24:32,840 --> 00:24:36,640 Speaker 1: of their fellow hackers is something that they crave, so 389 00:24:36,760 --> 00:24:40,480 Speaker 1: it's kind of a digital currency, respect among your peers. 390 00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:45,040 Speaker 1: It's an important system. So if you are a hacker 391 00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:50,160 Speaker 1: and you gain access to a system that is known 392 00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:55,360 Speaker 1: to be particularly robust with very good security, then that's 393 00:24:55,359 --> 00:24:57,199 Speaker 1: a badge of honor. But it's only a badge of 394 00:24:57,200 --> 00:24:59,359 Speaker 1: honor if people know about it. Now, this is a 395 00:24:59,400 --> 00:25:03,320 Speaker 1: double edged sword because as a hacker, if you're really good, 396 00:25:03,640 --> 00:25:07,320 Speaker 1: you're covering your tracks so that the people who are 397 00:25:07,359 --> 00:25:10,960 Speaker 1: in control of whatever system you're checking out don't notice 398 00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:13,280 Speaker 1: that you are there. You don't want to leave any 399 00:25:13,320 --> 00:25:16,560 Speaker 1: evidence behind that you were there because you don't want 400 00:25:16,560 --> 00:25:19,760 Speaker 1: to get caught. But the on the flip side, you 401 00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:22,919 Speaker 1: do want your fellow hackers to know about your exploits 402 00:25:22,960 --> 00:25:25,680 Speaker 1: because then you can brag about it and you can 403 00:25:25,760 --> 00:25:29,560 Speaker 1: get some cashet that way. So it's a delicate balance. 404 00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:33,879 Speaker 1: Uh So, a hacker might test him or herself in 405 00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:36,840 Speaker 1: an interesting way and then try and take some sort 406 00:25:36,880 --> 00:25:40,040 Speaker 1: of proof of whatever their exploits were so that they 407 00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:44,080 Speaker 1: could brag about it to their peers. And it's because 408 00:25:44,119 --> 00:25:47,000 Speaker 1: again they thrive on that respect and validation that their 409 00:25:47,040 --> 00:25:50,600 Speaker 1: peers could give them. And this could lead also to 410 00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:56,199 Speaker 1: some hackers sidestepping or breaking rules and laws when applicable. 411 00:25:56,760 --> 00:25:59,640 Speaker 1: But again the issue here is that at the time 412 00:25:59,680 --> 00:26:03,399 Speaker 1: there were are not that many laws that specifically dealt 413 00:26:03,520 --> 00:26:07,960 Speaker 1: with the digital side of the world. So there were 414 00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:10,880 Speaker 1: a lot of times where you could argue, yeah, what 415 00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:15,040 Speaker 1: they did was wrong, but there weren't any laws in place, 416 00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:18,719 Speaker 1: so it wasn't illegal for the simple reason that there 417 00:26:18,760 --> 00:26:21,760 Speaker 1: was no law to break. Uh, though later there would 418 00:26:21,760 --> 00:26:24,879 Speaker 1: be laws that would certainly cover that. It's just that, again, 419 00:26:24,920 --> 00:26:29,760 Speaker 1: technology had outpaced the legal system. It was on an 420 00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:32,520 Speaker 1: effort to maintain or gain status, and that was a 421 00:26:32,600 --> 00:26:36,280 Speaker 1: very powerful motivator, powerful enough again to push some hackers 422 00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:41,200 Speaker 1: to doing activities that perhaps they should not have because 423 00:26:41,440 --> 00:26:46,000 Speaker 1: it would have surprised or amazed or delighted their fellow hackers. 424 00:26:46,720 --> 00:26:52,680 Speaker 1: And in order to show that they were truly responsible 425 00:26:52,840 --> 00:26:55,879 Speaker 1: for the acts they got up to, hackers would often 426 00:26:55,960 --> 00:26:59,800 Speaker 1: use information that they could only have through a successful hack, 427 00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:03,040 Speaker 1: and that became sort of their way of saying, look, 428 00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:06,440 Speaker 1: I know what I'm talking about. Here's the proof. So 429 00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:09,840 Speaker 1: you might do this either by giving information about the 430 00:27:09,840 --> 00:27:13,080 Speaker 1: system to other hackers so that they could access that 431 00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:15,280 Speaker 1: same system and thus they would know that you were 432 00:27:15,280 --> 00:27:19,119 Speaker 1: telling the truth, or you might, you know, copy some 433 00:27:19,200 --> 00:27:22,320 Speaker 1: files to prove that you were there and that you 434 00:27:22,359 --> 00:27:26,120 Speaker 1: actually have some evidence of what you did that will 435 00:27:26,160 --> 00:27:30,439 Speaker 1: come back into play later in this episode. So you 436 00:27:30,560 --> 00:27:33,119 Speaker 1: just wanted to prove to people you actually possessed the 437 00:27:33,200 --> 00:27:36,720 Speaker 1: skills and the moxie, not just the skill to get 438 00:27:36,760 --> 00:27:40,439 Speaker 1: into a system, but that you have it, have what 439 00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:44,200 Speaker 1: it takes to actually take those steps, and you're brave 440 00:27:44,320 --> 00:27:47,280 Speaker 1: enough to do it and you're not afraid of getting caught. 441 00:27:48,640 --> 00:27:52,200 Speaker 1: Most hacker groups would actually have their own guidelines and rules, 442 00:27:52,280 --> 00:27:58,000 Speaker 1: largely unspoken but generally agreed upon. So hackers might say like, yeah, 443 00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:01,000 Speaker 1: we like to goof around and we like to mess 444 00:28:01,040 --> 00:28:03,680 Speaker 1: with systems and play around and learn how they work 445 00:28:03,720 --> 00:28:06,360 Speaker 1: and sometimes manipulate them a little bit, but we don't 446 00:28:06,400 --> 00:28:10,399 Speaker 1: want to take a system down on purpose, or steal 447 00:28:11,280 --> 00:28:15,879 Speaker 1: money or otherwise do anything for specific financial gain. A 448 00:28:15,920 --> 00:28:19,960 Speaker 1: lot of hacker groups had that kind of unspoken group 449 00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:24,919 Speaker 1: of rules that guided their own ethical decisions were what 450 00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:28,439 Speaker 1: they saw as ethical decisions. Breaking the rules if you 451 00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:30,840 Speaker 1: were part of this hacker group, but typically get you 452 00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:35,240 Speaker 1: ostracized from that group, and if you broke the rules 453 00:28:35,280 --> 00:28:39,040 Speaker 1: badly enough, or if you were a repeat offender. A 454 00:28:39,120 --> 00:28:43,400 Speaker 1: hacker might even report you to the authorities. Hackers frequently 455 00:28:43,440 --> 00:28:47,000 Speaker 1: would do this in order to get rid of problematic individuals. 456 00:28:47,040 --> 00:28:49,560 Speaker 1: They might say, like, this person is just stirring up trouble, 457 00:28:50,320 --> 00:28:53,760 Speaker 1: and even if that trouble never comes back to us, 458 00:28:54,400 --> 00:28:57,040 Speaker 1: I still find it distasteful, and so therefore I'm going 459 00:28:57,080 --> 00:29:03,080 Speaker 1: to give up their identity to someone authority because they 460 00:29:03,120 --> 00:29:07,480 Speaker 1: have broken these rules. So there was some honor among hackers, 461 00:29:08,520 --> 00:29:12,160 Speaker 1: even those who didn't view theft as being all that 462 00:29:12,200 --> 00:29:16,280 Speaker 1: bad of a concept, or they just didn't recognize digital 463 00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:21,560 Speaker 1: copying as any kind of similarity to theft. Many hackers 464 00:29:21,560 --> 00:29:24,800 Speaker 1: who were apprehended by law enforcement would end up spilling 465 00:29:25,080 --> 00:29:29,280 Speaker 1: all the beans. There would be no beans left unspilled. 466 00:29:29,920 --> 00:29:33,920 Speaker 1: Most of them were extremely cooperative with law enforcement once 467 00:29:33,960 --> 00:29:41,360 Speaker 1: they got snatched, and they would talk all about the 468 00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:44,280 Speaker 1: bulletin board systems they would use, the other hackers that 469 00:29:44,320 --> 00:29:48,040 Speaker 1: they would roll with where they learned skills. If they 470 00:29:48,040 --> 00:29:50,720 Speaker 1: were using tools that someone else made, they might talk 471 00:29:50,760 --> 00:29:53,360 Speaker 1: about that. There are a lot of hackers who weren't 472 00:29:53,360 --> 00:29:57,920 Speaker 1: really hackers. They were what some folks derisively called script kiddies. 473 00:29:58,280 --> 00:30:01,160 Speaker 1: These would be people who would use code that was 474 00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:05,200 Speaker 1: designed by other people, and it would be code that 475 00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:10,840 Speaker 1: would do something typically uh, something that could be malicious, 476 00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:14,640 Speaker 1: and then they would execute that code themselves, and that 477 00:30:14,680 --> 00:30:18,800 Speaker 1: would give these people power over others. But it's not 478 00:30:18,880 --> 00:30:21,400 Speaker 1: like they made the tools they were using. They were 479 00:30:21,440 --> 00:30:24,520 Speaker 1: just relying upon them. They were willing to use those tools, 480 00:30:25,240 --> 00:30:27,680 Speaker 1: and those would be the script kiddies. Often if they 481 00:30:27,720 --> 00:30:29,760 Speaker 1: got picked up, they would just spill the beans about 482 00:30:29,760 --> 00:30:31,760 Speaker 1: all the people who worked on those tools in the 483 00:30:31,800 --> 00:30:34,120 Speaker 1: first place, even if the people who made the tools 484 00:30:34,120 --> 00:30:37,800 Speaker 1: never had any intention of using them in a malicious way, 485 00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:42,960 Speaker 1: and that would lead to some difficult, difficult situations because 486 00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:46,600 Speaker 1: law enforcement doesn't necessarily make that designation between someone who 487 00:30:46,600 --> 00:30:49,520 Speaker 1: has created a tool that could be good or bad 488 00:30:49,840 --> 00:30:51,880 Speaker 1: and someone who has created a bad tool on purpose 489 00:30:51,920 --> 00:30:55,600 Speaker 1: in order to be bad all the time. There's a 490 00:30:55,680 --> 00:30:58,959 Speaker 1: level of subtlety there that frequently law enforcement would just 491 00:30:59,160 --> 00:31:03,120 Speaker 1: overlook because us it gets pretty complicated when you start 492 00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:08,360 Speaker 1: trying to look at it as a spectrum. Now. Hacker 493 00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:10,720 Speaker 1: culture at the time was largely the realm of bulletin 494 00:31:10,760 --> 00:31:14,800 Speaker 1: board systems, and those were message boards and file storage 495 00:31:14,840 --> 00:31:19,800 Speaker 1: systems that lived on someone's computer somewhere. You had thousands 496 00:31:19,800 --> 00:31:22,200 Speaker 1: of these in the United States, and the way you 497 00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:25,600 Speaker 1: would access it is you would use a dial up modem. 498 00:31:25,760 --> 00:31:28,600 Speaker 1: You would dial into the bulletin board system's phone number 499 00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:33,719 Speaker 1: and you would connect to the remote computer system, and 500 00:31:33,760 --> 00:31:36,720 Speaker 1: there you could access things like files that were on 501 00:31:36,760 --> 00:31:39,080 Speaker 1: the system, you could leave messages for other people. It 502 00:31:39,120 --> 00:31:41,320 Speaker 1: really was a bulletin board system. It was like a 503 00:31:41,760 --> 00:31:45,960 Speaker 1: giant electronic bulletin board, but bulletin board where you could 504 00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:50,520 Speaker 1: also do stuff like play games and um download files. 505 00:31:50,560 --> 00:31:54,680 Speaker 1: So this was kind of a precursor to the Internet, 506 00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:57,440 Speaker 1: although there the Internet at this time did exist, but 507 00:31:57,520 --> 00:31:59,640 Speaker 1: it was something that very few people had access to 508 00:32:00,360 --> 00:32:04,080 Speaker 1: in the late eighties, so bolton boards were really really popular, 509 00:32:04,120 --> 00:32:08,240 Speaker 1: and hackers would go there to discuss their exploits, to 510 00:32:08,520 --> 00:32:11,800 Speaker 1: share information so that other people could get access to 511 00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:15,400 Speaker 1: the same sort of systems that they were in, uh 512 00:32:15,480 --> 00:32:18,320 Speaker 1: and you know, just kind of shoot the breeze with 513 00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:22,360 Speaker 1: fellow hackers. Not all bolton board systems were a den 514 00:32:22,440 --> 00:32:25,560 Speaker 1: of scum and villany or a hive of scum and villainy, 515 00:32:25,640 --> 00:32:28,160 Speaker 1: if I want to be appropriate with that that quote, 516 00:32:29,160 --> 00:32:32,560 Speaker 1: But there were a lot that were catered specifically to hackers. 517 00:32:32,960 --> 00:32:35,400 Speaker 1: So there were underground bolletin board systems as well as 518 00:32:35,440 --> 00:32:37,560 Speaker 1: ones that were more public. They might have some hacker 519 00:32:37,600 --> 00:32:40,760 Speaker 1: activity on them, but that wasn't the primary focus of them. 520 00:32:40,960 --> 00:32:44,200 Speaker 1: But again, law enforcement often will paint everyone with the 521 00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:49,080 Speaker 1: same brush, particularly for things that are rapidly advancing and 522 00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:52,080 Speaker 1: not fully understood, and so bolletin board systems in general 523 00:32:52,120 --> 00:33:02,080 Speaker 1: were viewed with a lot of suspicion. Computer hacking itself 524 00:33:02,200 --> 00:33:05,200 Speaker 1: was relatively new stuff, and for a while hackers were 525 00:33:05,240 --> 00:33:09,440 Speaker 1: mostly ignored as a nuisance, as was evident in that 526 00:33:09,520 --> 00:33:12,880 Speaker 1: quote I gave earlier from the Secret Service talking about 527 00:33:13,080 --> 00:33:18,280 Speaker 1: mischievous people living in their parents homes teenagers. Mostly that 528 00:33:18,400 --> 00:33:20,840 Speaker 1: was the common view of hackers, and in fact it 529 00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:24,320 Speaker 1: really wasn't that inaccurate or a lot of hackers out there. 530 00:33:24,320 --> 00:33:25,800 Speaker 1: A lot of the hackers that caused a lot of 531 00:33:25,840 --> 00:33:28,440 Speaker 1: issues were teenagers who were living at home where they 532 00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:32,239 Speaker 1: were in their early twenties at their oldest, and they 533 00:33:32,240 --> 00:33:35,560 Speaker 1: were in college. There are only a few people in 534 00:33:35,600 --> 00:33:39,320 Speaker 1: their mid twenties or older who were in that hacker culture. 535 00:33:39,360 --> 00:33:42,200 Speaker 1: There were some notable people that were in that age 536 00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:45,040 Speaker 1: group and also were known as hackers. But a lot 537 00:33:45,080 --> 00:33:47,560 Speaker 1: of them were very young, and most of them were guys. 538 00:33:47,560 --> 00:33:54,160 Speaker 1: Cyberspace had tangible values. At this point, information was starting 539 00:33:54,160 --> 00:34:00,000 Speaker 1: to be viewed as property. It wasn't just data data, uh. 540 00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:03,960 Speaker 1: And also it became a weird kind of switcherou because 541 00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:09,840 Speaker 1: universities their whole purpose is to impart information, to to 542 00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:13,759 Speaker 1: give information to people, and now they had computer systems 543 00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:17,359 Speaker 1: where folks were thinking about information is something you were 544 00:34:17,400 --> 00:34:21,800 Speaker 1: to restrict from other people. And it was a weird 545 00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:24,560 Speaker 1: dichotomy that was going on at the time, and in 546 00:34:26,640 --> 00:34:29,600 Speaker 1: what had mostly been viewed as the harmless activity of 547 00:34:29,600 --> 00:34:32,880 Speaker 1: a few hundred or maybe a few thousand computer nerds 548 00:34:33,200 --> 00:34:36,480 Speaker 1: began to take on a new connotation as potentially criminal 549 00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:40,920 Speaker 1: behavior because there were a couple of different incidents that 550 00:34:41,080 --> 00:34:46,000 Speaker 1: were at least criminal adjacent, if not outright criminal activity itself. 551 00:34:46,719 --> 00:34:51,560 Speaker 1: And that ended up becoming a big influence on the 552 00:34:51,600 --> 00:34:55,600 Speaker 1: way we view hacking in general, because went beyond just oh, 553 00:34:55,760 --> 00:34:58,719 Speaker 1: this person is being kind of a a pain in 554 00:34:58,760 --> 00:35:01,680 Speaker 1: my side, to this is someone who could potentially cause 555 00:35:01,840 --> 00:35:06,040 Speaker 1: great harm to me in one way or another. And 556 00:35:06,120 --> 00:35:09,000 Speaker 1: some of those criminal behaviors went beyond being potential. Some 557 00:35:09,040 --> 00:35:13,160 Speaker 1: of them were clearly criminal acts. So here's an example. 558 00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:15,480 Speaker 1: There was a sixteen year old hacker out of Indiana 559 00:35:15,680 --> 00:35:19,080 Speaker 1: who used the handle Fry Guy, and he had been 560 00:35:19,120 --> 00:35:23,279 Speaker 1: committing credit card and wire fraud using hacking techniques that 561 00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:25,480 Speaker 1: he had learned from a group of hackers called the 562 00:35:25,600 --> 00:35:31,160 Speaker 1: Legion of Doom. Hackers love giving them their groups these 563 00:35:31,440 --> 00:35:34,200 Speaker 1: these different connotations, and a lot of them are very playful. 564 00:35:34,360 --> 00:35:38,120 Speaker 1: Legion of Doom while it, you know, sounds kind of wicked, 565 00:35:38,160 --> 00:35:39,520 Speaker 1: you said there and thing like yeah, but that's a 566 00:35:39,560 --> 00:35:42,480 Speaker 1: cartoon group of villains, like that's the bad guys that 567 00:35:42,520 --> 00:35:46,479 Speaker 1: would face off against the Justice League. And in fact 568 00:35:46,520 --> 00:35:49,360 Speaker 1: that was purposefully chosen. The hackers were choosing these names 569 00:35:49,520 --> 00:35:51,879 Speaker 1: partly kind of tongue in cheek, and there were even 570 00:35:51,960 --> 00:35:55,680 Speaker 1: offshoots of this, like the Farmers of Doom uh f 571 00:35:55,840 --> 00:35:57,719 Speaker 1: O D and Legion of Doom was called l O 572 00:35:57,800 --> 00:36:02,800 Speaker 1: d well. Fry Guy had learned some interesting hacking skills 573 00:36:02,800 --> 00:36:04,920 Speaker 1: from folks at the Legion of Doom. And by the way, 574 00:36:04,960 --> 00:36:07,920 Speaker 1: the Legion of Doom folks, they mostly were just interested 575 00:36:07,920 --> 00:36:10,879 Speaker 1: in learning how these computer systems worked. They were they 576 00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:13,480 Speaker 1: were the sort of hackers who were they looked down 577 00:36:13,680 --> 00:36:17,200 Speaker 1: on the concept of stealing. Fry Guy, however, not so 578 00:36:17,239 --> 00:36:21,240 Speaker 1: concerned about this, and Fry Guy liked the association of 579 00:36:21,719 --> 00:36:23,879 Speaker 1: knowing people in the Legion of Doom, but Fry Guy 580 00:36:24,000 --> 00:36:27,520 Speaker 1: was not part of that group. People would refer to 581 00:36:27,600 --> 00:36:30,640 Speaker 1: him as a legion of Doom wanna be, and he 582 00:36:30,719 --> 00:36:34,239 Speaker 1: had ended up stealing more than six thousand dollars from 583 00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:39,719 Speaker 1: Western Union over over time with credit card and wire fraud. Uh. 584 00:36:40,719 --> 00:36:43,520 Speaker 1: Fry Guy also had previously pulled what he thought was 585 00:36:43,520 --> 00:36:48,680 Speaker 1: a hilarious prank by using the knowledge he gained from 586 00:36:48,719 --> 00:36:51,480 Speaker 1: a few members from the Legion of Doom to redirect 587 00:36:51,520 --> 00:36:54,760 Speaker 1: the digital switching system in Bell South and send phone 588 00:36:54,760 --> 00:36:58,160 Speaker 1: calls that were intended for the Palm Beach County Probation 589 00:36:58,200 --> 00:37:02,120 Speaker 1: Department in Florida to a phone sex operator going by 590 00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:05,719 Speaker 1: the name of Tina Up in New York State. But 591 00:37:05,800 --> 00:37:08,919 Speaker 1: Fry Guy also didn't bother to cover his tracks very well, 592 00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:12,000 Speaker 1: which meant that Bell South eventually found out about this, 593 00:37:12,760 --> 00:37:17,759 Speaker 1: and company executives were clearly horrified and also terrified that 594 00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:20,960 Speaker 1: someone had been able to infiltrate their systems and do 595 00:37:21,040 --> 00:37:24,279 Speaker 1: this because if they could redirect calls meant for one 596 00:37:24,520 --> 00:37:27,359 Speaker 1: entity and send it to another they might be able 597 00:37:27,400 --> 00:37:32,000 Speaker 1: to do something way worse, like manipulate the nine one 598 00:37:32,120 --> 00:37:37,080 Speaker 1: one service, which could result in someone's death if if 599 00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:41,600 Speaker 1: emergency responders cannot get to a situation in time. So 600 00:37:41,680 --> 00:37:44,719 Speaker 1: there was a clear level of concern as this was 601 00:37:44,760 --> 00:37:47,960 Speaker 1: going on. Fry Guy's activities caught the attention of the 602 00:37:48,040 --> 00:37:51,759 Speaker 1: Secret Service, largely because Fry Guy, perhaps drunk on his 603 00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:54,960 Speaker 1: own limited power, had been taunting the phone company and 604 00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:57,560 Speaker 1: claiming that his hacker group was going to cause a 605 00:37:57,640 --> 00:38:01,800 Speaker 1: massive disruption in the phone system on a nationwide level 606 00:38:02,239 --> 00:38:07,280 Speaker 1: on July so frieda Guy thought he was being pretty 607 00:38:07,280 --> 00:38:11,480 Speaker 1: clever and hiding his tracks, but he was located by 608 00:38:11,520 --> 00:38:15,800 Speaker 1: Western Union. Western Union passed this information onto the Secret Service, 609 00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:19,719 Speaker 1: which put pen registers on Fry Guy's phones. Now, pen 610 00:38:19,840 --> 00:38:23,880 Speaker 1: registers will detect when calls are going out from a 611 00:38:23,960 --> 00:38:28,400 Speaker 1: phone line. They cannot listen in on the content of 612 00:38:28,440 --> 00:38:32,759 Speaker 1: that conversation. There's no spying on the actual conversations, but 613 00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:36,840 Speaker 1: they can detect where those calls are going, including calls 614 00:38:36,880 --> 00:38:39,799 Speaker 1: being made from a dial up modem. So that's what 615 00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:41,959 Speaker 1: the Secret Service was interested in. They wanted to see 616 00:38:42,200 --> 00:38:44,480 Speaker 1: all the numbers that Fry Guy was calling on a 617 00:38:44,520 --> 00:38:48,480 Speaker 1: regular basis, and they were able to trace those numbers 618 00:38:48,480 --> 00:38:52,120 Speaker 1: to a lot of different entities, including lots of hacker 619 00:38:52,239 --> 00:38:55,880 Speaker 1: and pirate based bulletin board systems and members of the 620 00:38:56,000 --> 00:39:01,239 Speaker 1: Legion of Doom. UH. Those members of Legion of Doom, 621 00:39:01,400 --> 00:39:06,920 Speaker 1: three of them were hackers who lived in Atlanta, Georgia. 622 00:39:07,440 --> 00:39:09,640 Speaker 1: Fry Guy had been using his knowledge of systems to 623 00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:12,719 Speaker 1: steal money. These members of Legion of Doom viewed that 624 00:39:12,800 --> 00:39:15,680 Speaker 1: behavior as being against their own code, so they wouldn't 625 00:39:15,719 --> 00:39:18,520 Speaker 1: do that sort of thing. But because Fry Guy had 626 00:39:18,640 --> 00:39:20,879 Speaker 1: learned the skills from them, and because he was still 627 00:39:20,880 --> 00:39:26,680 Speaker 1: in contact with them, their identities and their their existence 628 00:39:27,480 --> 00:39:32,440 Speaker 1: was a thing of interest to the Secret Service. So 629 00:39:32,480 --> 00:39:36,560 Speaker 1: on July twenty nine, remember Fry Guy had said that 630 00:39:36,600 --> 00:39:38,000 Speaker 1: on the fourth of July there was going to be 631 00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:42,400 Speaker 1: this massive nationwide disruption of the phone service. That didn't happen, 632 00:39:42,440 --> 00:39:47,240 Speaker 1: but on July the Secret Service performed a coordinated sweep 633 00:39:47,440 --> 00:39:52,359 Speaker 1: a Fry Guy and the Atlanta Three as they were known. UH. 634 00:39:52,400 --> 00:39:55,719 Speaker 1: Those three would include hackers with the handles, the leftist, 635 00:39:56,160 --> 00:40:00,480 Speaker 1: her vile and profit as in like a person who 636 00:40:00,520 --> 00:40:04,120 Speaker 1: can give you a prophecy, not someone who profits off 637 00:40:04,200 --> 00:40:08,359 Speaker 1: of others. Erville was an avid gamer as well as 638 00:40:08,360 --> 00:40:13,160 Speaker 1: a hacker, and he particularly liked a game called a 639 00:40:13,200 --> 00:40:18,080 Speaker 1: Generic Universal role Playing System or GIRPS. Girp's was published 640 00:40:18,120 --> 00:40:21,880 Speaker 1: by a company called Steve Jackson Games. That that game 641 00:40:21,920 --> 00:40:25,839 Speaker 1: company will actually come back into this conversation later, and 642 00:40:25,880 --> 00:40:29,319 Speaker 1: it's not a direct link to this particular fact. I 643 00:40:29,360 --> 00:40:31,040 Speaker 1: just thought it was interesting that there was more than 644 00:40:31,120 --> 00:40:35,080 Speaker 1: one connection to Steve Jackson Games in this Storyville particularly 645 00:40:35,080 --> 00:40:39,160 Speaker 1: like playing a spy themed game using this universal system, 646 00:40:39,200 --> 00:40:42,560 Speaker 1: and relied heavily on two source books called GIRPS High 647 00:40:42,600 --> 00:40:46,399 Speaker 1: Tech and Groups Special Ops. So the Genetic Universal role 648 00:40:46,440 --> 00:40:49,120 Speaker 1: Playing System. You may be familiar with role playing games 649 00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:52,920 Speaker 1: like Dungeons and Dragons, the Generic Universal role Playing System. 650 00:40:52,960 --> 00:40:55,560 Speaker 1: The intent of that was to create a basic set 651 00:40:55,600 --> 00:40:58,280 Speaker 1: of rules that you could then adapt to any setting. 652 00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:02,319 Speaker 1: It could be fantasy like Dungeons and Dragons. It could 653 00:41:02,320 --> 00:41:05,080 Speaker 1: be a Western, it could be science fiction. It could 654 00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:10,799 Speaker 1: be as in the case of Ervill's favorite version, espionage 655 00:41:11,120 --> 00:41:15,520 Speaker 1: and spy work kind of James bond Ish. Now Erville 656 00:41:15,600 --> 00:41:18,400 Speaker 1: himself was the game master of the game he was running, 657 00:41:18,680 --> 00:41:21,359 Speaker 1: and he had tons of notes relating to various game 658 00:41:21,400 --> 00:41:25,600 Speaker 1: related missions in his possession, and because the game was 659 00:41:25,600 --> 00:41:28,439 Speaker 1: about international espionage and would play out like a James 660 00:41:28,440 --> 00:41:31,239 Speaker 1: Bond film, those notes, if viewed by someone looking for 661 00:41:31,320 --> 00:41:35,680 Speaker 1: evidence of criminal behavior, could set off some major alarm bells, 662 00:41:36,040 --> 00:41:41,520 Speaker 1: like reading about various kinds of international espionage and plans 663 00:41:41,520 --> 00:41:44,799 Speaker 1: of assassination and this sort of thing. It doesn't look 664 00:41:44,840 --> 00:41:48,040 Speaker 1: good if the Secret Service comes into your home and 665 00:41:48,080 --> 00:41:50,920 Speaker 1: starts looking at things you've written down on pieces of paper, 666 00:41:51,400 --> 00:41:54,400 Speaker 1: and that includes ways that you can spy on other governments, 667 00:41:54,480 --> 00:41:56,800 Speaker 1: or you might be a you know, a double agent 668 00:41:56,880 --> 00:42:03,239 Speaker 1: or something that tends to make people feel a little antsy. 669 00:42:03,440 --> 00:42:07,960 Speaker 1: It didn't help that Erville was not too picky about 670 00:42:08,360 --> 00:42:13,040 Speaker 1: differentiating fantasy from reality. It uh meant that that whole 671 00:42:13,080 --> 00:42:17,120 Speaker 1: interrogation went a little rocky. And Erville also would put 672 00:42:17,160 --> 00:42:19,680 Speaker 1: these notes on any kind of scrap paper he happen 673 00:42:19,680 --> 00:42:23,319 Speaker 1: to have at his disposal. Unfortunately for Erville, a lot 674 00:42:23,360 --> 00:42:26,120 Speaker 1: of those scraps of paper were on various Bell South 675 00:42:26,200 --> 00:42:29,680 Speaker 1: print outs and documents that he was totally not supposed 676 00:42:29,719 --> 00:42:33,640 Speaker 1: to have. So there are all these documents that were 677 00:42:33,640 --> 00:42:37,000 Speaker 1: meant to be internal Bell South documents that Erville had 678 00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:40,760 Speaker 1: possession of. He had written all these notes about international 679 00:42:40,960 --> 00:42:45,919 Speaker 1: espionage on them, and he was already linked to Fry Guy, 680 00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:50,560 Speaker 1: who had been caught for you know, fraud and uh 681 00:42:50,640 --> 00:42:52,920 Speaker 1: and Fry Guy had even said that the Legion of 682 00:42:52,960 --> 00:42:57,759 Speaker 1: Doom was gonna cause this huge phone outage. So all 683 00:42:57,800 --> 00:43:00,840 Speaker 1: of those cards were stacked against him, and it definitely 684 00:43:00,840 --> 00:43:04,920 Speaker 1: didn't look great. So the Secret Service interrogator Ville and 685 00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:07,440 Speaker 1: asked him about the possibility of his group doing stuff 686 00:43:07,480 --> 00:43:12,200 Speaker 1: like spying on phone conversations or disrupting the system, and 687 00:43:12,239 --> 00:43:16,120 Speaker 1: ours like, uh, yeah, it's totally possible. We could totally 688 00:43:16,120 --> 00:43:19,160 Speaker 1: do that if we wanted to. We could spy on you. 689 00:43:19,239 --> 00:43:22,359 Speaker 1: We could bring down the phone system. It wouldn't even 690 00:43:22,440 --> 00:43:25,560 Speaker 1: be that difficult. It's actually pretty easy. There's just some 691 00:43:26,239 --> 00:43:29,640 Speaker 1: simple code we could run and the whole system would crash. 692 00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:33,799 Speaker 1: And the Secret Service said, what, yeah, I mean, we 693 00:43:33,840 --> 00:43:38,120 Speaker 1: wouldn't because I mean, that's not interesting. He didn't say 694 00:43:38,160 --> 00:43:41,920 Speaker 1: we wouldn't because it's wrong. He says, we wouldn't because 695 00:43:42,080 --> 00:43:45,839 Speaker 1: there's no challenge in it. There's nothing special about it. 696 00:43:45,840 --> 00:43:48,560 Speaker 1: It would just be boring. So that didn't make the 697 00:43:48,600 --> 00:43:51,600 Speaker 1: Secret Service feel much better about what was going on 698 00:43:51,640 --> 00:43:54,920 Speaker 1: at that point. Irville may not have done himself very 699 00:43:54,920 --> 00:43:58,640 Speaker 1: many favors during that interrogation. All right, guys, I'm interrupting 700 00:43:58,640 --> 00:44:00,719 Speaker 1: myself right now and the sas and I'm doing it 701 00:44:00,760 --> 00:44:03,160 Speaker 1: is because you know how I talk a lot. I 702 00:44:03,160 --> 00:44:06,799 Speaker 1: did it a lot today, like more than we had 703 00:44:06,800 --> 00:44:10,520 Speaker 1: anticipated on this topic. And so rather than continue this 704 00:44:10,640 --> 00:44:13,160 Speaker 1: and make it an epic, super duper long episode of 705 00:44:13,160 --> 00:44:15,480 Speaker 1: tech stuff that I'm sure you guys would love, We're 706 00:44:15,480 --> 00:44:18,319 Speaker 1: gonna split up into two super duper long episodes of 707 00:44:18,360 --> 00:44:21,759 Speaker 1: tech stuff, which I'm sure my boss will love for reasons. 708 00:44:22,320 --> 00:44:25,319 Speaker 1: So if you guys have suggestions for future episodes of 709 00:44:25,360 --> 00:44:28,279 Speaker 1: tech stuff, you should write me the email addresses tech 710 00:44:28,320 --> 00:44:31,000 Speaker 1: stuff at how stuff works dot com or draw me 711 00:44:31,040 --> 00:44:33,080 Speaker 1: a line on Facebook or Twitter to handle at both 712 00:44:33,080 --> 00:44:37,000 Speaker 1: of those is tech stuff hs W. Remember I stream 713 00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:40,000 Speaker 1: live over at twitch dot tv slash tech stuff on 714 00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:42,520 Speaker 1: Wednesdays and Friday, So go over there and you can 715 00:44:42,600 --> 00:44:45,399 Speaker 1: check out the schedule and join in on the conversation 716 00:44:45,840 --> 00:44:48,160 Speaker 1: and you might even see me do super duper long 717 00:44:48,200 --> 00:44:50,600 Speaker 1: episodes that later on I have to divide into a 718 00:44:50,640 --> 00:44:53,239 Speaker 1: couple of different ones. In our next episode, we will 719 00:44:53,280 --> 00:44:57,280 Speaker 1: continue this amazing story and see how it concludes, and 720 00:44:57,320 --> 00:45:00,000 Speaker 1: how it leads to the formation of the Electronic Frontier 721 00:45:00,040 --> 00:45:02,959 Speaker 1: or Foundation. It's a story in tech that I don't 722 00:45:02,960 --> 00:45:06,560 Speaker 1: think gets circulated enough and it's really fascinating to me. 723 00:45:07,080 --> 00:45:14,719 Speaker 1: And I'll see you guys again soon for more on 724 00:45:14,800 --> 00:45:17,280 Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics because at how Stuff 725 00:45:17,280 --> 00:45:27,720 Speaker 1: Works dot com