==Phrack Inc.== Volume Three, Issue 28, File #2 of 12 ==Phrack Pro-Phile XXVIII== Created and Written by Taran King Done on September 23, 1989 Welcome to Phrack Pro-Phile XXVIII. Phrack Pro-Phile was created to bring information to you, the community, about retired or highly important/ controversial people. This issue, we bring you a long time member of the hacking community and a charter member of the Legion Of Doom... Erik Bloodaxe ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Handle: Erik Bloodaxe Call Him: Chris Handle Origin: "Vikings" by ? (Don't remember) Date Of Birth: 20 years ago Current Age: 20 Height: 5' 10" Weight: 130 Eye Color: Blue Hair Color: Brown Blood Type: A+ Sperm Count: 3 Computers: Atari 400, various dumb terminals, CompuAdd Turbo XT Origins in Phreak/Hack World ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Way back when he was in 7th grade, some 8+ years back, Erik was quite a shoplifter. As was the norm for 13 year-olds, he and a friend of his had stolen a stack of "girlie" magazines on one of their "raids." One of these was High Society, which was toying with the idea of "recorded entertainment." His friend was determined to hear this, but as the number was in New York, they decided to use the "strange phone service" his mother had signed up for to keep down the bill. He explained it to Erik, "You dial this number and then tell the operator your number and the phone number." They called it and told the operator a number that was 100 off by mistake. The operator said "Thank you," and the call went through. Thus was born a "code-abuser." They kept this information to themselves for several months. When the service changed to an automated format (rather than operator service), they began to share their knowledge. Word spread like wildfire. Interestingly enough, to this day, he can still backtrack 95% of all hacker-related code abuse from San Antonio back to himself as the originator of the information (well, a friend of a friend of a friend, etc..) Origins in Phreak/Hack BBSes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A friend of Bloodaxe's father bought a MicroModem II to get information from Dialog for his legal practice. He still remembers the first time he used it. His friend's dad used Dialog through Telenet. Once he saw Telenet, he began trying various addresses. One of the first things he ever did was get into a 212 VAX/VMS with GUEST/GUEST. Erik had absolutely no idea what he was doing. They were just guessing... typing things like "hello?", "catalog", and assorted other inane things. They also called a few BBSes that came with the modem instructions (using their long-distance trick). By the end of the weekend, they had worked their way to Pirates' Harbor (now TIMECOR) in 617, and Pirates' Cove 516. From then on, he was hooked on modems. Then, Wargames came out. Embarrassing as it is for Erik, Wargames really did play a part in imbedding the idea of computer "hacking" in his little head. (As it did for hundreds of others who are too insecure to admit it.) He had his little Atari 400, but no modem (Hayes 300's were still hundreds of dollars). Another friend got an Atari Acoustic Coupler for his 800. Born now were the Atari Warez D00dz. For about a year, they did nothing but call Atari BBSes (and anything that had "Pirate" in its name). They did stumble onto things like the Phone Booth in 303, OSUNY (on an OHIO Scientific, days before it went down), and Mines of Moria (713). Finally, he got an MPP modem. Bloodaxe was on it day and night. By this time they got into scanning. He was the one who checked everything out, as he was the one who was reading up on computer OSes at the UTSA library. They were still big into games, and they ran across a really new game called Behind Jaggi Lines. A guy named Devious Xevious traded them something called Software Blue Box for it, and gave them a BBS to call: Pirate-80. In 1983, Erik Bloodaxe entered the hack/phreak world. He was blue boxing most of his calls by then. People in the Phreak/Hack World Met ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Bloodaxe has only met a handful "face-to-face," but has spoken with almost everyone around in the "golden-years," as he was heavily into conferences. Experience Gained In the Following Ways ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mainly trial and error. He would find a system, try to get in with simplistic username/password pairs, and then read help. He also reads a lot. He didn't speak out until he was sure of what he was talking about. Erik never asked any questions, but always listened. During the time he was a true "novice," he kept it fairly hidden, because he didn't want to seem stupid. Chris attributes the knowledge he has gained to himself. Memorable Phreak/Hack BBSes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Pirate-80 (He still call to check in on Scott) Sherwood Forest I, II, III RACS III (Tuc wouldn't let him on until years after he first called!!) Plovernet (Before and after the move) COPS (Where he got mail from Lex telling him to call Legion of Doom) WOPR (Getting closer to what BBSes would become) Hacknet (217) Legion of Doom (The ultimate in BBSes at the time) Crystal Palace (OSUNY lives again!) Newsnet (Yes, Sir Knight's BBS) Blottoland (Lair of the rodents) Ripco (A looooooong time ago, certainly not now) The Broadway Show ("Well, Mike was a little off, but so what.") Farmers of Doom! (Run from a pay phone, complete chaos) The Connection (A good private BBS) Catch-22 (A "better" private BBS) The Pipeline (718) Freeworld II Executive Inn (Re-instilled his faith in BBSes) The Phoenix Project (What he would want his BBS to equal or surpass in quality) Black Ice (A big leak; ask anyone at the Ameritech security convention) Pure Nihilism (Too much fun!) Schooling/Work ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Chris is currently struggling as a Computer Science major at University of Texas in Austin with intentions of a PhD, specializing in AI research. Accomplishments ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Project Educate: Was supposed to replace TAP after Tuc got fed up. No one really knows what happened to it. LOD/H TJ: Assorted work, major distributor. Numerous files. Phreak/Hack Groups ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ LOD - In the original recruitment group, still in, still active. What more can be said? "LOD!" basically sums it all up. Camorra - Erik still gets mad about this. He was asked by the 602 Scorpion to join a group that was being formed. He agreed, and he then came up with Camorra as a name. The other members were Ax Murderer and 301 Executioner. He got Dr. Who, Silver Sabre, and Pit Fiend to join and Karl Marx, Tuc, and Videosmith were kind of in/out-not-really-into-groups-but-we'll-hang-out kind of members. Most of them were deep into their phones/computers. They were planning a series of files, such as the first Tymnet directory, a great COSMOS file, a database of scans, etc. Suddenly people began appearing in the group that no one voted on. The group kind of split up into two factions, "us and them." Bloodaxe and Dr. Who just got mad and blew it all off. Pit Fiend got busted, and the Scorpion disappeared. Interests ~~~~~~~~~ Packet networks (all), telco computers, Unixes, scanning (every night for almost 5 years!) Favorite Things ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Beer--Tsing Tao, Michelob Dry, Coors Light. (He am in college, you know!) Ecstasy--Grinding away (His teeth and his mind). Getting into a system on the first try. Unprotected crontab files. Scanning. Anything, for anything, just doing it! A certain shapely 5'2" blonde who shall remain nameless. Most Memorable Experiences ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Alliance Teleconferencing way back when. Tandem scanning out other sites in Houston and Dallas. Transferring control to directory assistance ACD loops, and leaving it there until he wanted to run one. Waking up the next morning and yelling into the phone at everyone else who had stayed on the conference and starting to talk again. Conferences that lasted a week. Catching Draper in lies. Busying out all the 408 DA's. Boxing on a conference and trunking Karl Marx. Calling random numbers in California and adding them in if they sounded like teenage girls. "Giving" people unlimited trial usage of a "new" long distance service (LOD Telecommunications). Jennifer, the Alliance operator who had it out for him ("This is that Bloody-axe person isn't it?"). The Wharton School of Business Dec-10. For nearly a month all the nation's top phreaks and hackers hung out on this system and used the chat program. It was "the" place to be (kind of like an Altger Altos of the past, but no idiots). Finally they killed the account, not because of abuse, but because they were loading the system down. The students and operators were really cool about the whole thing. Finding (and spreading around everywhere) the White House Signal number. A number of my friends kept calling it, posing as the mayor of San Antonio, Henry Cisneros, eventually causing the Secret Service call our high school, and telling the administrators to grab the people using the payphone to find out what the hell they were trying to do. Taking down almost every BBS in Alaska when he was denied access to one. He pulled the poor kid's parents credit report, sent a copy to the kid over his modem, and disconnected the kid's phone, electricity, and water. He then went around taking down the BBSes where the kid had friends (guilt by association). Word got around the nation kind of fast. Erik got on most BBSes without much trouble after all that. He had a project to be on at least one BBS in every area code. Bloodaxe had to get on non-hack/pirate ones in a few areas, but he managed to do it. He stayed active on all of them for several months. At one time, he was on about 140 BBSes!!! Reading a new edition of Newsweek with a story by Richard Sandza in it over a very crowded conference, then suggesting that he should get some Slim Whitman albums and Civil War Chess Sets via his Visa. Erik pulled his history, to scare him, but lost it. When he pulled it later, there were nearly 100 inquiries, most by a certain Massachusetts Bank. At least they gave him a good source for a follow-up article. Finding out that a certain long distance service (reselling AT&T WATS) would reset to a WATS dialtone when 2600 was blasted and then setting up a program to call MTV's 900 number repeatedly to ensure that Duran Duran would get severely beaten. Bloodaxe remembers boxing up a conference while waiting for the police to come, and fighting the impulse to run away. He had tickets carded to Philadelphia International on a flight that afternoon (on the conference), and Telenet Bob was ready to meet Erik's flight, Mark Tabas was ready to send him a blank birth certificate, not to mention offers to stay with Dr. Who or Telenet Bob for as long as he needed to get settled. Karl Marx talked him out of it though. He was packed and ready to leave and become a new person in a new city. Looking back, he's DAMN glad he didn't do it! Bloodaxe and Who-Bob deciding one fateful day to see if they could talk to each other's port on Telenet using an ID they had used for the LOD Telenet directory. Some People to Mention ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dr. Who -- "My closest hacker counterpart. We joke about being 60 with grandchildren, still having never met, calling each other daily, with stories about how we just defeated some ISDN service." The Mentor -- "My favorite drinking buddy. The first hacker I ever met face-to-face." Control C -- "One person who can almost equal me in outrageous behavior. Yes, Dan, I said almost! Nyahh Nyahh!" Inside Jokes ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Lame, Lame, Lame LEGION OF DOOM IN DALLAS...FEDS BAFFLED Serious Section ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Chris makes it a point to make huge filibusters on boards where he sees anything having even anything remotely related to carding. Credit card fraud truly gives hacking a bad name. Snooping around a VAX is just electronic voyeurism... carding a new modem is just flat out blue-collar crime. It's just as bad as breaking into a house or kicking a puppy! He does everything he can (even up to turning off a number) to get credit information taken off a BBS. He also tries to remove codes from BBSes. He doesn't see code abuse in the same light as credit card fraud, (although the law does), but posted codes are the quickest way to get your board busted, and your computer confiscated. People should just find a local outdial to wherever they want to call and use that. If you only make local calls from an outdial, it will never die, you will keep out of trouble, and everyone will be happy. Marijuana, cocaine, LSD, MDMA (& analogs), and methamphetamine should be legalized and sold in a controlled fashion, regulated by the government. Money spent currently on combatting drug traffic should be spent on the deficit, and on drug education and rehabilitation. Making petty vices illegal only breeds crime; look at prohibition, look at gambling, look at how fast people go on the highway. You cannot fight a losing battle, and therefore, must take on a new strategy. Alcohol is the only drug he has ever imbibed and lost all consciousness and complete control of his actions. He thinks it is THE most dangerous drug around, and anyone can get as much of it as they want with very little effort. It is legal, but not everyone drinks. If marijuana was legal not everyone would smoke it. He wouldn't for one; he hates it. However, farmers would no longer lose their farms; and most importantly, the economy would be boosted greatly. Things have got to change. Are Phreaks/Hackers You've Met Generally Computer Geeks? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Of course not. There are some that are, but generally there is an average sampling of the general population. Hacking is just another hobby. Most people who collect comic books are not all the same, most people who play backgammon are not similar in physical characteristics either. The closest stereotype he could ever even say existed was 6 or so years ago, and that would be that most hackers then were Jewish and from New York state. An obnoxious Texan WASP like Chris really stood out. Thanks for your time, Chris. Taran King ________________________________________________________________