Kuji Media Corporation Ltd.

Pia Landergren, IDG News Service\London Bureau
June 18, 2001, 06:09

With the rapid increase in security breaches leaving law enforcement struggling to keep up, some organizations are taking the law into their own hands and punishing hackers themselves.

Striking back at hackers with, for example, denial of service attacks is a sensitive subject, since doing so is illegal in most countries. However, security experts say the U.S. Department of Defense has used these methods. In addition, private companies use special firewalls and other counteroffensive software that can be set to automatically strike back at hackers, according to U.K. Internet security consultant and ex- hacker Mathew Bevan, among others.

Conxion Corp., an ISP (Internet service provider) based in Santa Clara, California, is one private company that acknowledges having reversed a denial of service attack on a group of hackers. When asked if giving hackers a dose of their own medicine is company policy, spokeswoman Megan O’Reilly-Lewis said, “We deal with it on a case-by-case basis.”

The World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Web site, which was being hosted by Conxion, was hacked into in late 1999. An organization called Electrohippies, or E-Hippies, bombarded the WTO Web page with download requests, which caused the Web service to slow down but not to crash completely.

“What our security staff did was to quickly write a script to reverse the traffic. Then they followed up with some more sophisticated methods,” said O’Reilly-Lewis. “It seemed to work fine,” she added.

“If they had been sophisticated hackers they would have easily avoided” the reverse attack, she said.

Hack attacks are clearly on the increase, and so are companies that specialize in tracking down the hackers.

“There’s a spectrum of things that we do,” said Bob Ayers, U.K. vice president of Para-Protect Ltd., headquartered in the U.S. The company uses an intrusion detection device with which it keeps tabs on a customer’s IT system. Ayers, a former U.S. military intelligence officer, described some of the actions companies can take when they discover an intrusion: “Disabling an account. Terminating the network link. We can go to the ISP and ask them to step in and take action.”

A company can also go beyond the e-mail address and find the person behind the crime. “You go pay him a visit,” said Ayers. “You talk to him and let him know that you’re not happy with what he is doing.” It might work, depending on your powers of persuasion, he added.

When asked if his company launches denial of service attacks on hackers on behalf of its customers, Ayers said, “I really don’t want to answer that question one way or another. All I can say is that the technology is there and how it is used is something I cannot predict.”

Both Ayers and another security expert, Winn Schwartau, president of IT security company Interpact Inc. in Seminole, Florida, and founder of security Web service Infowar.com, said that the U.S. Department of Defense has at least on one occasion launched a denial of service attack on hackers.

“Absolutely they have,” Schwartau said. “There was a group of pro-Mexicans (the Electronic Disturbance Theater) and they announced they were going to attack the Pentagon,” he said. “The Pentagon (the building that houses the department) knew about it. The Pentagon started shooting back, which was the right thing to do. However, it was illegal,” Schwartau said.

Not surprisingly, the Pentagon denies ever having used these methods.

“I am not aware that we have struck back at anyone with a denial of service attack,” said Susan Hansen, a spokeswoman at the Department of Defense. “We don’t discuss our specific security” measures, she added.

The number of malicious break-ins into companies’ computer systems is becoming alarming. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) found in a recent study that 85 percent of respondents had detected computer security breaches during the past year. The survey was based on responses from 538 security experts in various U.S. corporations and government agencies. Sixty-four percent suffered financial losses due to security breaches, and 186 respondents reported a total loss of almost $378 million. Thirty-eight percent of respondents detected denial of service attacks, compared to 27 percent last year.

According to a survey done by Schwartau, about one third of surveyed companies in the U.S. have already, or plan to, develop strike-back capabilities for possible hack attacks.

“Follow-up surveys in England found corresponding responses while an Australian survey found an even higher percentage of that country’s companies to be willing to strike back,” Schwartau said.

Hackers often make use of several computers along the way to their target, which makes it difficult for companies to launch a direct attack on the computer system the attack originated from. If someone has hacked into several computers, a vigilante may even end up striking back at an innocent bystander, whose computer has simply been used by the hacker. A sophisticated hacker can also make it look like an attack is coming from, for example, a company’s competitor.

One type of intrusion-detection equipment is a so-called honeypot, a machine that is set up to look like a network. It has false information, such as databases, installed to lure hackers to spend as much time as possible “inside” the machine. The way in, for a hacker, can be to figure out someone’s password, and to get in through the Internet. The longer a hacker is inside, the easier it is for the system administrator to find out the hackers identity, or IP (Internet protocol) address. Once that is known, the system administrator can launch a counterattack.

A denial of service attack is usually caused by someone sending more traffic to a network address than the server can handle, which causes it to crash. This can result in a Web site going down or a particular service, such as e-mail, becoming unavailable.

One industry insider does not believe in giving hackers a dose of their own medicine.

“I don’t believe in striking back, it would only invite further attacks,” said Mike Graves, European marketing manager at Hewlett-Packard Co.’s Internet Security Solutions Division, and based in Bristol, U.K.

“You may find yourself getting some publicity you don’t want. You may become a beacon for new attacks.” Hackers know each other and look out for each other, he added.

Graves’ suspicions are confirmed by ex-hacker Bevan.

“If my machine crashed and I’ve been hacking, say I was hacking into Barclays Bank, I would not give up then. If hackers gave up so easily there wouldn’t be any hackers. It’s the challenge” that keeps hackers motivated to keep going, Bevan said.

Some years ago, Bevan hacked into the U.S. Department of Defense?s computer system, a British Airforce base as well as many major corporations’ systems. He was charged with conspiracy to cause unauthorized modification to computers operated by the U.S. military and the Lockheed Martin Corp. missile and space company in 1996. Eventually, all charges against him were dropped.

“They were pushing a conspiracy angle,” but couldn’t prove it, Bevan said.

Being a hacker who was never punished, Bevan can understand why companies would want to take the law into their own hands and strike back. However, he insists the method would not work as it would only make him more determined to break the system.

Despite this, finding your own hacker tracker is not difficult. Some victims of hack attacks prefer to take a less drastic action than striking back directly. They hire companies such as Swedish Defcom AB, who specialize in finding hackers and then doing the police’s work for them; collecting enough evidence against the hackers to present the police with a clear case.

Thomas Olofsson is chief operating officer and recently found a gang of professional hackers for a customer. “This was the largest operation we’ve done,” said Olofsson. “We tracked down a gang of hackers who had used computers in different countries to hide along the way.”

“They had used a computer in South Africa and another one in the U.S. At last we found the source, a gang of hackers in one of the Baltic countries,” Olofsson said.

But catching hackers is just one of the first steps in a long process of bringing them to justice.

“What happens if a hacker in the U.K. breaks into a system in South Africa, or in the U.S.?,” said Ayers. “Where did the crime happen? And who has jurisdiction? The police must cooperate across borders, and frankly the police are not very good at that.”

As Ayers says, the police just don’t have enough resources to catch all criminals and laws still haven’t caught up with Internet crime. Despite the efforts of hacker trackers, then, hacker vigilante methods are not likely to go away any time soon.

“If you’re a skilled computer (person) you ain’t gonna go work for the U.K. police force for 20K (20,000 pounds (US$27,800) a year).” You’re going into the private sector, he said, adding, “It’s riskier to walk across Clapham Common (in London) at night than it is to enter into cyber crime.”

Para-Protect, headquartered in Centreville, Virginia, can be contacted online at http://www.para-protect.com/. Conxion, in Santa Clara, California, can be contacted at http://www.conxion.com/. HP, in Palo Alto, California, can be reached at http://www.hp.com/. Interpact is at http://www.interpactinc.com/.

UK Hacker Says He Found Anti-Gravity Engine File
At W/P AFB

By Matthew Williams

2-7-99

Mathew Bevan is a 23 old computer hacker with an interest in UFOs. Recently he made front page world headlines when he was charged with hacking offences which included access to the most secret military computers of the United States Military. Mathew was able to access computers, which had the ability to launch nuclear missiles or other missiles. Described by one pentagon spokesman as being “The biggest threat to world peace since Adolf Hitler”, Mathew Bevan talks to Matthew Williams about how he did it and the fact that whilst in Wright Patterson Air Force Base computers he saw plans to a secret Anti Gravity propulsion engine….

Matthew Williams: How many years have you been into the Internet.

Mathew Bevan: Since about 16. It was a case that over here there were very few Internet providers. The only one was Demon Internet and the closest phone number to dial was in Bristol, so it was just easier to do a free (hacked) phonecall to the States and use a free provider and not worry about paying any bills.

MW: How does one “hack” the phones – what is the procedure involved.

MB: You use a little program on the old computer… The Amiga was the first computer to be used for “Blueboxing” (hacking phones) and the reason was that it has four channels of sound whereas the PC could only go “BEEP”. To get the blueboxing to work you had to play dual tones into your phone. There was a set of frequencies of tone not dissimilar to DTMF which is on most modern phones (DTMF – the tones played when you press a number on your phone keypad). When the special tones were played it would cause the network to do a number of special things.

What you then needed to do is to call a 0800 number for a foreign countries operator service – such as Columbia or Hawaii. You would play a few tones down the line and it would cut the operator off and BT would think that you had hung up the call but in fact you were still in the trunking system and you play a few more tones and you could re-route your call anywhere.

MW: Is it complicated to do these things because playing sets of musical tones down the phone line sounds quite complicated and what if you make a mistake.

MB: Well it is complicated but is a case of playing around to see what you could do. If you make a mistake you just hang up and try again. There were some other interesting things you could do like dialling a number and when you get the engaged signal then play a couple of tones and break into the call and listen without the two parties knowing you were there.

MW: You are saying that there are ways to listen to calls without being detected and this can be done from any home phone with such codes! Are you saying that you could listen to another call anywhere in the world?

MB: Yes but most of the time I was calling into the States anyway so that’s where I did it the most. I think that secretly listening in is what it was designed for.

MW: So when did you go from hacking innocent university computers into hacking the military computers?

MB: It was a case of getting onto a system and getting the password file and then running the encrypted passwords through a code cracking program so that you get the passwords. Once you have the passwords then you can get a higher level of access and get into peoples files and folders and you can monitor the system to see what it is happening. You can see that there are people that are themselves who are going from computer to computer with legitimate reasons. Now it would just happen that some of these people would be working on projects with the military. You could find that a professor would be contacting a military site (computer).

One would get fed up with doing small computer systems and would want to try to hack something bigger. The thing with people is that they tend to like the same password for multiple systems and so if you have hacked their account on a relatively unprotected system then the password will probably work on another more well protected system. The professor probably has some silly password like “professor” on the university computer and more often than not would use the same on a military system.

It is not a case of sitting there typing in millions of passwords and hoping that you get the right one. There are much more intelligent programs to do that for you and get you in to a system.

We now use things called SNIFFERS, which are covert and do not harm the system in any way. These sit in the background and watch for people’s passwords and they send them back to you. This is something that I was charged with and the offence read “modification to a system with intent to impair the operation of the computer”. Well the whole point of a sniffer is that it sits there and nobody knows it is there – if it did any harm we wouldn’t use them.

Well once inside you would use various hacker techniques to bump up your access level to that of systems administrator, so that you would have the entire system under your control. You could connect to other systems on the network with the same authority. You could monitor people’s emails and you could get into their project folders and look at their research and development work or papers that they have written. Occasionally you would get into somewhere that was quite interesting but it wasn’t always that way. Most of it was quite boring. Back in the old days before Internet Browsers that give you nice pictures and buttons to click on, it was all text based and you had to use the keyboard to type commands. There were pictures, but you had to manually download them and view them “offline”.

MW: So what were the most exciting computer systems you hacked?

MW: Firstly there was the FLEX system. This stands for Force Level Execution, and this is the thing which the News of the World newspaper picked up on. The reason this system was of interest because it had control of nuclear missiles. To explain what this program does; the official line is to plan an air war and to find out what things are incoming and what air strikes are pending. The system would then advise you of where to strike next with the best killing ratio and where to launch you missiles etc. From looking on the computer and through the “source code” I got the impression that the system had direct access to real missiles. What type of missiles I do not know and the News of the World printed that these were in fact Peacekeeper Missiles, but that didn’t come from me – I don’t know where they got those details from…?

The easiest comparison I could make is that it was a very similar system to the Skynet System in the Terminator movies. This means that the computer has access to all available information and can make intelligent decisions about how to operate a war and even control the weapons.

Of course the FLEX system is secret and something that they do not want the public to know about and the fact that weapons are controlled solely by computer. You would think that there would be other failsafe system but, as far as I could tell, that was not the case.

There were other systems such as Wright Patterson Air Force base and White Sands Missile Testing Ground, some now I forget – I went to a lot. I had been to so many I had to tell the police that I could not remember all the systems I had been in.

The lawyers couldn’t get their stories straight even for a trial of this type, which you would have expected. They would not present evidence to show how I was able to hack into their systems. So with the details of the computer systems real purpose having been removed from the case then I am now pretty sure that I did have a good idea about the real function of the programs – they didn’t want this information out in any form. This was probably the reason that they were so pissed off about it because I came forward and told everyone. You see after I was arrested then I started to get some very strange phone calls from people claiming to be in the military, Koreans and other people. I had weird semi-threatening things said to me and this is why I moved away to get away from these treats and this is another reason that I spilled the beans, in order to keep myself and my wife safe, after all what is the point of silencing me after I had talked.

MW: Where were you living and did the police give you any assistance in your moving because of these threats.

MB: Firstly I was living in Grangetown and then I was moved by the benefits agency to another location. They were aware of the court case and the sensitivity and people from Scotland Yard were helping in this respect also. I was given a new name under the benefits agency computers and was living under name of Mr Smith for a while.

MW: Why do you think they were prepared to go to this trouble to help you?

MB: What you have to understand is the fact that there was a big Senate hearing on the fact that two hackers had got into secret computer systems. One of these was a 16-year-old who they had arrested and the other person was supposedly thought to be a foreign spy who was paying the 16-year-old for information. I was made out to be the foreign spy and I was prepared to believe from the threats I was getting that these people were serious. So I had to move home.

To give you an idea of the level of the ominous phone calls I was getting, at the time I was just about to change my phone over to British Telecom. Just days before I was arrested I was due to sign the BT phone forms and send them off, but had not done do at that point. Then I had another threatening phone call and I told them to **** off and said that I was now having my number changed. The voice on the other end of the line said “yeah we know that your new number is going to be 01222 233blah blah blah” and so they knew my new number already! My wife asked often who was speaking and one name we got was Chung Lee Makasuki and he gave some phone number in China, I think.

MW: When you were arrested what happened?

MB: I was working at Admiral Insurance at the time in their computer department for around a year and a half. One of the managers came in and asked me to come and have a look at one of their computer systems and I got up and went with him. I went with him to the MDs office and there were seven people in the office, your typical men in black so to speak but as this was the MDs office I didn’t at first see this as abnormal. When I got inside one of then said to me “Mathew Bevan” and I replied “yes” and then he put up his hand and said “I am placing you under arrest for hacking of NASA and various Air Force bases.” I was standing there stunned and I was going “Oh, gosh… ummm.” They then told me that they were going to search my desk, which they did, then they took me back to my house and searched there too.

When they got to the house they took all my X Files videos and X Files posters and the reason was because the “KUJI” hacker that they were after had a computer user description which read “The Truth Is Out There”. So they wanted to use the X Files material to prove that they had the correct “KUJI”. They just wanted to pin me on anything they could. They took all of my computer kit as well as my passport.

During the interview I agreed that I used the handle ‘Kuji’ and afterwards the police gave me my property back such as the X Files videos, posters,monitor and the keyboard back but they kept everything else.

I was taken to the Central Police station in Cardiff. The officers were from the computer crime unit of the Met Police. I believe that the C.C.U. also uses the code S.O.6 which leads me to believe that they are intelligence (MI6) related but I don’t think they would admit that.

MW: What was the atmosphere like in the interviews?

MB: It was a good cop bad cop scenario. The one person was very nice and the other guy was quite nasty and was giving snide remarks and shouting at me. There were bits in the interviews that were really stupid too where I was asked by the nice cop if I had any political leanings and I said no – then the other cop stepped in and said “Yeah, but your a vegetarian” and he then said “So you do have a leaning then.”. To this I then replied “Well if being vegetarian is a political leaning then I plead guilty!”. The other copper then steps in and make a lighthearted comment and then the other one steps in again and says “ah so you indicate a leaning then” and so on.

I was under arrest for the best part of 36 hours but there was about 28 hours spent in the cells. I wasn’t allowed to speak to my wife or anyone else. They threatened that they would arrest my wife and I pointed out that she knew nothing about computers and they said tough because they would arrest her anyway. This was part of their oppression tactics. I said what do I have to do to stop you arresting her and they said that if I co-operated then they would not arrest her. So the only telephone calls I was allowed were to my solicitor because they didn’t want me to tell anyone I had been arrested.

One thing I didn’t realise but found out was the fact that in Cardiff police station they bug the cells with listening devices and recently a few people have had tape recorded evidence used against them when they have admitted to things whilst in custody. This is immoral but they seem to be able to do it.

MW: What sort of specific questions were you asked by the police in the interview.

MB: They asked me about the Rome Labs computer and if I had placed a sniffer program on the computers. I would not admit to this. They also asked me about Goddard Space Flight Centre and Wright Patterson, I admitted to these but was never charged with them! They don’t charge me with the right things. They then charge me with conspiracy with the other hacker, but by the time they realise that they don’t have any evidence to prove this it transpires that they could not charge me with the original intended charges anyway because they are out of time by 6 months; They would have had to charge me with a summary offence within six months of my arrest. They also found out that they were out of time for a 3-year clause

The Americans position in court was that they claimed that they had to spend 1/2 a million dollars to repair their computer systems. A fundamental question that my defence asked was could we see a backup of the system to show before and after these so called repairs to prove what was being claimed. The Americans said that we could not see the records because they were so sensitive and also said that it was not in the jurisdiction of the British courts to order them to show the files. If it were any other trial then you would ask how could we accept this evidence but because we are asked to take the Americans word, this is supposed to be good enough.

The next thing that happened was that my barrister had meetings with the prosecution and he then turns around to me and says that he feels that they will find me guilty on some charges so I should give in and change my plea to guilty. So I ‘relieved’ him of his professional duties and got a new barrister who was then completely on my side and who felt that I did indeed have a worthwhile and quite solid defence.

MW: What was the final stage of the case and how did you get acquitted?

MB: The judge surprised everyone by saying to the prosecution that because my charges were lesser than those of the other hacker and that the other hacker had received a small fine of ?1200 then my sentence at best would be non-custodial so to proceed with such a case would not produce a large penalty whilst the costs for running such a case would run into millions. It was estimated that if I would be found guilty I would get a ?450 fine and considering that the court’s daily costs would be ?10,000 it would not be worth it.

However the prosecution was determined still and said that they would still proceed and then at the last stage they pulled out and said that they wished to offer no evidence and that it wasn’t in the public interest to run the case. Verdicts of not guilty were entered, this being the equivalent of a full acquittal and so ensuring that the police would waive the right to re-arrest me in conjunction with these charges.

This being the case I was then free to admit to the press and everyone else that I had in fact done some of those things and that I did hack those systems. This pissed Scotland Yard off immensely and they are now being very awkward about returning the seized goods that are in evidence storage even though the case has been dropped.

MW: How were you tracked down?

MB: I cannot be sure because this was never disclosed – I have my suspicions that I was grassed on by a hacker. They said they found my number on somebody’s computer system and traced me back like that but I think somebody told them who I was. The point was if it took them 2 years to find my number on the other hackers hard- drive as they claim then that is incompetence, as a search of a 250meg drive takes less than five minutes.

MW: Where does the story take a turn to where you started hacking military sites for UFO information?

MB: In a hacker magazine called PHRACK, it gave a list of sites that people who said they were interested in UFOs would like to see hacked and that hackers should check these out. Allegedly there were forty people who were trying to penetrate these sites and they got into some of them but they all went missing?

MW: A group of forty people went missing?

MB: Apparently so. They said in the magazine that if you were going to do it then do it carefully and printed a list of the sites. I used that list and used it and I also used some of the folklore of UFOs like “Roswell wreckage taken to Wright field”, “Lockheed space missile company have connection to Area 51” etc. It is then just a case then of picking up the addresses and names of these computers. They are quite easy to find as the military provide you with as much information on their computers as you could ever want.

It was a case of “go for it”, “lets have a look”. As far as I was concerned I was not traceable and not causing any harm to anybody. If I couldn’t get in then no big deal, if I could then I was not going to screw the system up.

MW: You did gain access to some interesting UFO type files – what were these?

MB: The information was obtained through the Wright Patterson Air Base computer system. I was looking for information on the Roswell crash. On one of the computers at Wright Patterson the systems administrator was very un-secured. Captain Beth Long was the system administrator she is supposedly working in a pumping station in Alaska now instead of working at Wright Patterson – the reason being, because she had no password so this meant that anyone logging in as her meant they had the highest level of access on the system with no password needed!

Wright Pattersons’ computers were strange because unlike all other computers I had hacked which had clear warnings to hackers and people using the system regarding the classified information, their system had a banner which read in flashing red letters that no classified information is to be stored on the computer system. This throws you a bit. I was unsure if it was a real banner or if it was to put off people who had got that far.

In getting into that there was one machine on the network where I read current files and future project proposals. I read documents which gave me the impression that they had an anti-gravity engine which was capable of at least Mach 12 to Mach 15. I don’t know how exactly how fast that is but I think that is faster than most aircraft we know of today. Supposedly the aircraft which employs this engine uses a reactor to which there were a lot of detailed numbers and figures for, but I have no idea what all this meant. I can remember that the documents referred to a super heavy element, whatever that means. The element is the main fuel for the reactor. The engine worked by making a disturbance of molecules at the front of the craft so that it was able to stop the inertia or G-force inside the craft. I got the impression that this information was the type of material I was looking for because it was far in advance of our current technology and could be something to do with the Roswell UFO. Finding this threw me ecause I didn’t know if this information was a disinformation exercise and that people were meant to get in and find this stuff or if it was real. I can’t be sure and this is the one annoying thing.

In the interviews that were carried out with the police Wright Patterson was mentioned. Officer D S Janes asked me, had I been in there and I said that I had. He then asked me if I had got any information from this computer and I said that I had found details of an anti-gravity propulsion system. He asked if I downloaded any files from this project and I said no and I had only read the files online. As I said earlier I admitted to this but no charges were brought against me on this matter which is a bit odd. Then the interviewing officer asked me if I knew what Hanger 18 meant. I said “well if you are thinking of a building where they store extraterrestrial aircraft then this is what you might mean but perhaps you mean it is a computer or a bulletin board -is this what you mean?”. He replied that this could be the place that he was thinking of. This was the only time that Hanger 18 was mentioned in the interview.

In one of the hearings at magistrates’ court there was a special agent who came over called Jim Hanson. When asked what did he feel I was trying to achieve by my hacking he said that he believed I was not trying to do any harm but was just looking for information on Hanger 18. The prosecution then asked Jim Hanson in a light-hearted manner if he could confirm if Hanger 18 exists and Hanson responded “I can’t tell you that because I am not party to that information”.

What surprised me is the fact that I was asked about the little known Hanger 18 story instead of somewhere well known such as Area 51. Some members of the press alluded that I had hacked into Area 51, but I never said this and I refused to comment on the UFO issue to them. There were things I was not prepared to talk about to the press because I was not sure if I would be able to sell my story or not, so I did not want to give the information away.

The point was that I knew where Wright Patterson airbase was but I didn’t know, until I read a UFO magazine recently, that Hanger 18 was located at Wright Patterson. This was the first I ever learned about this.

When you put it all together it seems weird – the fact that I hacked into Wright Patterson and found details of a secret gravity engine and then the coppers asking me about Hanger 18, even to have a secret service agent in an open court saying about Hanger 18 and then me later on finding out that the two places are the same.

MW: Wasn’t there a ban on press reporting of your case?

MB: The press were there and they heard many interesting things which the failed to print but yes there was a ban on reporting the case, they said because they did not want the press opinion to influence the case in any way. This is the principal of subjudicy.

The prosecution had originally intended to have the case heard in secret (In Camera) but we did not allow this to happen.

MW: Have you ever seen any UFOs yourself?

MB: There was a time when I was going back to Newport from Cardiff and there were two very feint lights which were like passenger plane lights at first. They looked like they were going towards Rhoose airport but in-between them there was a start which was shooting back and forth between these two points. I had to force my friends to look at the lights because they would not look and said was crazy but when eventually they did look they agreed that they had seen something strange.

My Wife and I went on holiday to Fuertaventura in the Canaries and there were unusual lights in the sky above us which we watched for many hours. They changed colour and went on and off. They seemed so far away that they couldn’t be sure if they were satellites or not. I am not saying that this could not have been explainable phenomena.

MW: What interest did you have in UFOs before the trial.

MB: Just before I got into the hacking scene I was making the free phone calls and I found a Bulletin Board in Australia which had loads of UFO files. There were about 500 or 600 text files on offer so I downloaded them all and waded through them slowly. I found it really interesting and I wanted to know more. I go into the MUFON files and Keelynet Bulletin Boards and they had interesting things on them also.

It seems to me that far more people have seen UFOs and have evidence of this than there is evidence of GOD but people go around believing in GOD and are not ridiculed for this in any way!

My opinion is that there is a lot of information UFO information out there and it is hard to separate the liars from the truthful people. The thing is that some of the wilder claims may also be the truth but sometimes you cannot be certain of any claims either way.

The types of thing I mean are cases where people say that they have been onboard spacecraft and seen the classic alien with big black eyes and that they had experiences which are consistent with other witnesses. You then hear from the same person that the aliens took her for a ride and they were walking around on the moon without a spacesuit and the story starts to take a strange turn. It seems that people seem to go overboard but who knows that person may in fact be telling the truth.

MW: Do you know much about Bob Lazar? Tell me what you about his story.

MB: Well yes, Bob Lazar was able to show documents from his previous work to show that he worked with certain companies, but they deny he ever worked for them.

As I remember he is a really nerdy looking guy that claims to have worked at Area 51’s S3 complex I think? He claimed to have been working on crashed UFO technology. He said that he had seen saucers in hangers and had seen one flying one day. Only recently I saw the original interview he gave on video where he talked about his work and was drawing on a blackboard. I think he got prosecuted for running a brothel, I don’t know much more than that.

MW: Do you know anything about the propulsion systems he was talking about in his work on the saucers?

MB: No not really – I can remember the shape of the craft and I can remember that the propulsion system was in the bottom of the craft and that it is like a segmented thing. I remember a little area in the middle where the “guys” would sit. I don’t really remember the details or specifics of that.

MW: I am interested because you used the term “heavy element reactor” earlier on and I wondered if you have heard about something called “element 115”?

MB: No I did chemistry at school but was very bad at it and got kicked out. I don’t know anything about elements full stop really.

MW: Bob Lazars story was that he worked on propulsion systems, which utilised a reactor, fuelled by a super heavy element. Everyday scientists do not know of the element 115 of which he speaks. Does this mean anything to you?

MB: Maybe that is a parallel. The only things I know about him really is that he worked on UFOs and his involvement in the brothel and the fact that he looks a bit “geeky”.

MW: Can you remember any names of people on the project. Were there dates on any of the letters you saw regarding the propulsion system?

MB: Nope, as for dates all the information was current at 1994. Whether this was a totally new engine or if it was a new version I can’t be sure. I do know that it was a working prototype.

MW: Did they say what type of aircraft the propulsion system would be used in?

MB: Not that I remember, although I believe the engine was in use.

MW: Do you fear going to the United States?

MB: I am, not so much worried about being tried in the US for these things because they still have the same flawed evidence – but I fear that over there they would just stick me in prison without a trial and leave me to rot. This is something I have to look at carefully and to study the international law on these matters because there is a question of where was the crime committed on my computer in my house in the UK or in the US on their systems. This is a legal dilemma and is open to question.

A point is that there is a hacker out there now called Kevin Minick who did some minor hacking and has been in prison for 2 years and hasn’t been charged with anything yet! This can happen.

MW: Why did you do all this? Are you an anarchist or is this political or just for pure curiosity?

MB: I just get a thrill out of exploring new computer systems. If you could see my CV I now have knowledge of all these computers systems I have used. If employers wanted to know how I got that experience it may get a bit awkward to have to tell them that these were military systems I was playing with – but it still makes for a good CV! I can now admit to my hacking and not have any fear because it may be a plus point in that I know a lot about systems security.

I did it for the pure adrenaline buzz of hacking a secret system. This can keep you awake on no food for hours and this is one of the other reasons – because of the thrill.

MW: Thank you very much.

MB: Thanks.

In final clarification on some of the interview I asked Mathew if he saw any images on the computer systems at Wright Patterson Airbase. He says he saw one but remembers that the antigravity engine was a working prototype and is fitted in some form of aircraft and is in use although the type of aircraft was not disclosed. The information was dated around 1994, when the system was originally breached. It is now up to researchers and hackers alike to try and find out more.

Welcome to the era of drive-by hacking

The slower the traffic the easier to spot wireless
networks

By BBC News Online technology
correspondent Mark Ward

BBC News Online has been shown just how lax security is on wireless networks used in London’s financial centre.

On one short trip, two-thirds of the networks we discovered using a laptop and free software tools were found to be wide open.

Any maliciously minded hacker could easily join these networks and piggy back on their fast net links, steal documents or subvert other machines on the systems to do their bidding.

None of the wireless networks we found used anything but their flawed, in-built security systems to protect against hack attacks.

On the warpath

Many people think of hacking as a sedentary pursuit, carried out in bedrooms and back rooms all over the world.

Often it is, but the growing popularity of wireless networks is making some curious folk leave their bedrooms and venture out into the fresh air.

Armed with a laptop, a wireless network adapter card, as well as some widely available software tools, you can travel the streets logging the location of these networks and picking up information that could let you attack them.

The pursuit has come to be called “war driving” if it is done in a car, “war pedalling” if done on a bike and “war walking” if on foot.

The phrase derives from the practice of “war dialling” in which phone phreaks and hackers map telephone systems by dialling a range of numbers to see which respond with tones used by data networks.

Tuning in

But, in contrast to the hacking practices carried out over telephone lines and the net, spotting and using wireless, or wifi, networks is very straightforward.

It is as easy as listening to the radio. What makes it easier is that everyone is broadcasting on the same frequency.

BBC News Online was shown just how easy it was by two ethical hackers who prefer to be known as Codex and Kuji. We drove with the pair around London’s financial district.

As we drove, we watched the screen of a notebook computer sitting on Codex’s lap. The machine was fitted with a wireless network card and a program that noted important information about any wifi nets we stumbled across.

Also attached to the laptop was a GPS handset that gave a more precise fix on where each network was detected from.

Wide open

Our journey began at the eastern end of The Strand and continued along towards Cannon Street. Within the space of one kilometre we logged the existence of 12 networks.

Only four of these had turned on the encryption system built into the wifi protocol. The other eight were wide open.

Codex said that using back and side streets to criss-cross an area would reveal even more networks.

“From an attackers point of view you want back roads because there is less road traffic,” said Codex, “and you might be able to park when you find a network.”

The pair’s past expeditions carried out on foot have spotted a lot more networks; Soho in particular.

Already websites exist which list the wireless networks in major cities. Many of those listed are doing nothing to stop people using them.

The names identifying the base stations controlling these wireless networks showed that little had been done to change the configuration of the system from the moment it was first switched on.

Good targets

Every time a new wifi network popped up on screen we eagerly looked out of the car windows to see if we could spot the building from which the signal was emanating.

Usually we couldn’t, but during our trip we passed investment banks, financial advisors and regional offices of large corporations – any one of which would be a prize target for a malicious hacker.

Codex said that many of the networks we found were likely to use a software package that automatically handed out internet identifiers to any devices joining those networks.

By using this identifier it would be possible to join the network and get access to all the services it provides just as if we were sat at a desk in the building.

Kuji said getting access via a wireless network puts you behind a firewall that usually stymies attempts to abuse a network.

Usually, wire-based hacking requires a formidable amount of knowledge, so you know which tools to use, what to look for and, more importantly, how to cover your tracks.

With wifi networks all this changes. The scary part is how easy they are to find, and how poorly protected they are.

Codex said that if companies took security seriously they would corral wireless networks behind a firewall and only allow trusted, encrypted and authenticated traffic to pass from that to the wider network.

“This mitigates against the risk of an attack against the corporate network,” said Codex, “it also limits the chance of an attacker using it to attack others, or distribute illegal material which may compromise the legal status of the company.”

Sadly, on the evidence gathered during one short trip across London, most have not done it properly, and have unwittingly created a hackers’ playground.

Friday, 27 October, 2000, 17:57 GMT 18:57 UK
Hacking: A history

The ILOVEYOU virus as victims saw it

By BBC News Online internet reporter Mark Ward

Great hacks of our time

The original meaning of the word “hack” was born at MIT, and originally meant an elegant, witty or inspired way of doing almost anything.

Many early hacks took the form of elaborate practical jokes. In 1994, MIT students put a convincing replica of a campus police car on top of the Institute’s Great Dome.

Now the meaning has changed to become something of a portmanteau term associated with the breaking into or harming of any kind of computer or telecommunications system.

Purists claim that those who break into computer systems should be properly called “crackers” and those targeting phones should be known as “phreaks”.

1969

Arpanet, the forerunner of the internet, is founded. The first network has only four nodes.

1971

First e-mail program written by Ray Tomlinson and used on Arpanet which now has 64 nodes.

1972

John Draper, also known as Captain Crunch, finds that a toy whistle given away in the cereal with the same name could be used to mimic the 2600 hertz tones phone lines used to set up long distance calls.

1980

In October, Arpanet comes to a crashing halt thanks to the accidental distribution of a virus.

1983

The internet is formed when Arpanet is split into military and civilian sections.

Wargames, a film that glamorises hacking, is released. Many hackers later claim it inspired them to start playing around with computers and networks.

1986

In August, while following up a 75 cent accounting error in the computer logs at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, network manager Clifford Stoll uncovers evidence of hackers at work. A year-long investigation results in the arrest of the five German hackers responsible.

1988

Robert Morris, a graduate student at Cornell University, sets off an internet worm program that quickly replicates itself to over 6,000 hosts bringing almost the whole network to a halt. Morris is arrested soon afterwards and is punished by being fined $10,000, sentenced to three years on probation and ordered to do 400 hours of community service.

1989

Kevin Mitnick: Arrested
twice for hacking
Kevin Mitnick is
convicted of stealing software from Digital Equipment and codes for long-distance lines from US telephone company MCI. He is the first person convicted under a new law against gaining access to an interstate computer network for criminal purposes. He serves a one-year prison term.

At the Cern laboratory for research in high- energy physics in Geneva, Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau develop the protocols that will become the world wide web.

1993

Kevin Poulsen, Ronald Austin and Justin Peterson are charged with conspiring to rig a radio phone-in competition to win prizes. The trio seized control of phone lines to the radio station ensuring only their calls got through. The group allegedly netted two Porsches, $20,000 in cash and holidays in Hawaii.

1994

A 16-year-old music student called Richard Pryce, better known by the hacker alias Datastream Cowboy, is arrested and charged with breaking into hundreds of computers including those at the Griffiths Air Force base, Nasa and the Korean Atomic Research Institute. His online mentor, “Kuji”, is never found.

Also this year, a group directed by Russian hackers breaks into the computers of Citibank and transfers more than $10 million from customers’ accounts. Eventually, Citibank recovered all but $400,000 of the pilfered money.

1995

In February, Kevin Mitnick is arrested for a second time. He is charged with stealing 20,000 credit card numbers. He eventually spends four years in jail and on his release his parole conditions demand that he avoid contact with computers and mobile phones.

On November 15, Christopher Pile becomes the first person to be jailed for writing and distributing a computer virus. Mr Pile, who called himself the Black Baron, was sentenced to 18 months in jail.

The US General Accounting Office reveals that US Defense Department computers sustained 250,000 attacks in 1995.

1996

Popular websites are attacked and defaced in an attempt to protest about the treatment of Kevin Mitnick.

The internet now has over 16 million hosts and is growing rapidly.

1999

David Smith: Creator of
the Melissa virus
In March, the Melissa
virus goes on the rampage and wreaks havoc with computers worldwide. After a short investigation, the FBI tracks down and arrests the writer of the virus, a 29-year- old New Jersey computer programmer, David L Smith.

2000

In February, some of the most popular websites in the world such as Amazon and Yahoo are almost overwhelmed by being flooded with bogus requests for data.

In May, the ILOVEYOU virus is unleashed and clogs computers worldwide. Over the coming months, variants of the virus are released that manage to catch out companies that didn’t do enough to protect themselves.

In October, Microsoft admits that its corporate network has been hacked and source code for future Windows products has been seen.

Inside the Tory ‘hacking’ claims

Net crime fears prompted bank to postpone e-banking

Stories about the alleged “hacking” into the Conservatives bank account bring to mind images of a lone young male – probably a social misfit – sitting in his basement, huddled over his computer.

The reality is probably somewhat more anodyne.

Think instead of a disgruntled Labour- supporting bank employee with a mean eye for a story and you probably have something closer to the truth.

Hands on: Bank employees may be to blame
Ross Anderson,
professor of computing at Cambridge University, told BBC News Online: “Twenty years ago, if you wanted to find out the details of a bank account you would have to get the ledger in the bank branch – which would probably mean bribing or sleeping with the person who had the keys to the safe.

“When the banks computerised it meant that every one of its 70,000 or so tellers could see every customer’s account.

“Insecurity of data increases with the number of people who have access to it.”

Mathew Bevan, a computer security consultant and former computer hacker, backed Prof Anderson’s theory.

All banks are pretty much insecure
– Former hacker Mathew Bevan
“The information could have come from a call centre or from within the bank. All banks are pretty much insecure,” he told BBC News Online.

“It takes a lot of talent to hack into a bank’s computer and I don’t think a hacker could be bothered without any financial reward.

“And aside from the embarrassment, it’s not going to stop the Tories winning the next election.”

The Royal Bank of Scotland – where the Conservatives have their account – said it has “complete confidence” in all its security systems.

If someone has been hacked, they usually keep it secret -Dr Chris Thornton

Dr Chris Thornton, Sussex University computing science lecturer, said: “If someone has been hacked, they usually keep it secret.

“Anyone who makes it public usually has an ulterior motive.”

But the Conservatives say the information could not have come from their London headquarters.

The problems have emerged amid concern in the computer industry that the hackers may be exposing new security flaws as fast as the big software companies, such as Bill Gates’s Microsoft, can repair them.

The hackers are also switching tactics. Instead of attacking banks directly – as they did in one of the few publicised cases when $400,000 (?240,000) was stolen from Citibank in America – security experts believe they are targeting people’s home computers and their personal accounts.

By leaving viruses scattered across the internet, hackers have discovered they can seize control of home computers and steal people’s legal identities.

These can be used to attack bank accounts, lift phone records, electronic shopping accounts and private business information.

Hacker infiltrates military satellite
By Sean Fleming
Posted: 01/03/1999 at 16:42 GMT

The UK Ministry of Defence has come under attack from a hacker who is allegedly threatening to target military satellites unless a £3 million ransom is handed over.

According to a story in today?s Daily Mail, the hacker has already seized control of one satellite, altering its course. The satellite in question is said to be involved in co- ordinating bombing raids on Iraq. Other targets for the hacker have been GCHQ – the spying operation that listens in on telephone calls and other communications – and a number of UK operations overseas. Officers from the Metropolitan Police Computer Crime Unit are said to be engaged in tracking down the source of the attacks. The authorities are said to have been so concerned about the attack on the satellite that the prime minister, Tony Blair, was informed. High profile hackings are becoming more common. One of the most well known was involved two UK hackers, Datastream Cowboy (Richard Pryce) and Kuji (Mathew Bevan), who caught the CIA’s attention in 1994 after the Pentagon?s computer was broken into. The South Korean atomic research institute was also hacked, provoking fears that World War III might be started by a teenage computer hacker sitting in his bedroom.

Insecurity in a wireless world

Guy Matthews, Network News [14-03-2001]

The emerging world of wireless connectivity presents multiple security threats to corporate IT infrastructures, says researcher Gartner.

The level of such threats is going to rise as companies link their infrastructures into the wireless world, rendering themselves vulnerable to attacks on Wap gateways, in the form of mobile spam and even viruses on mobile phones.

The silver lining in the cloud, says Gartner, is that wireless systems are inherently robust, reducing the scope for Denial of Service attacks.

John Pescatore, Gartner vice-president in the US, said a “fundamental lack of security will not slow adoption” of wireless technology. He added that security professionals need to focus on limiting the gap between desired and achieved levels of control, recognising that achieving business goals involves taking risks.

According to Gartner research, the pace at which network connection and content distribution methods are evolving is outstripping the ability of companies to securely support them, leaving firms in a state of constant risk.

Complex protocol stacks, weak encryption, shared keys, user confusion, and bandwidth and device restrictions are encouraging suppliers to take shortcuts with emerging mobile devices and services.

Viruses on the move

For example, as mobile phones become smarter, attacks through software updates and simple scripting will come to the fore.

However, Gartner believes the emergence of phone viruses will not be an issue until 2005. At that time service providers will need to have in place anti-virus protection at the server level, because protection for individual mobile phones will probably be ineffective.

Corporate users should brace themselves for mobile spamming, cookie stealing, file stealing and malicious content with each improvement in mobile phone functionality.

Matthew Bevan, former hacker turned security consultant at Kuji Media Corporation, also believes a whole new wave of assaults on infrastructure could be around the corner.

“Any new technology has a level of vulnerability attached to it, especially if it’s been insufficiently checked,” he said. “There’s nothing about Wap that enables enterprises to say ‘we’re secure’. At the moment, it’s a bit too expensive for hackers to get involved with, but as the technology gets more applicable and available, the more it will be deemed worthwhile.”

Bevan believes that network managers ought to be concerned about almost any data that does not travel via a fixed link. “Everyone knows how insecure pagers and mobile phones are. A Wap device is really just a mini- computer that anyone can hack into if they can write code small enough. Denial of Service attacks on Wap devices and gateways are only a matter of time.”

Pescatore said end-to-end wireless security will not reach the level of that obtained over the internet until the first half of 2004, mainly because of the insecurity of Wap gateways.

A major target for hackers will be the Wap gateway, attacks on which can be mounted from anywhere on the internet. In particular, the Wap gateways of service providers will act as ‘hacker magnets’ and are likely to be of insufficient strength for web transaction services, although good enough for email.

Gartner also predicts that attackers will target WTLS (wireless transport layer security) in proof of concept attacks. The analyst recommends that to guard against these problems, companies should look to securely host Wap servers and employ available third-party software tools.

Shielding software

Meanwhile, Nokia has teamed up with anti-virus software vendor McAfee to launch WebShield, which allows anti- virus software to be installed on its Nokia Network Application Platform, which is sold to enterprises and service providers.

Bob Brace, vice-president of global marketing at Nokia, said: “Both companies are working together to prevent the high damage caused by viruses.”

Brace claimed that the combination of Nokia’s network security infrastructure expertise and McAfee’s anti-virus systems will “inevitably lead to innovations”. He said the millions of pounds of damage caused by the Love Bug virus showed the market needed new developments in network security.

The two companies will develop network security hardware and software as one offering. “With a network, you need a firewall and anti-virus equipment,” said Brace.

The alliance is working to prevent viruses being brought in by mobile workers using networks via laptops. “A laptop out of the office it is under threat from viruses,” said Brace. “The virus check should be put on the edge of a network, at the gateway.”

The companies’ products will not be available until after Christmas.

Hacker turns to vendors as IT PI

Steve Masters [05-12-1997]

One of the two hackers accused of almost starting World War III from his bedroom in the UK walked free from court on 21 November because the law is not set up to deal with cases like his, writes Sean Fleming.

In an interview with Computing, Matthew Bevan announced he is now considering a career in IT security.

Bevan was arrested on 21 June 1996 and charged with intent to secure access to computer systems belonging to the US Air Force and defence manufacturer Lockheed. His accusers maintained he knew that such access would be unauthorised.

More than three years and 14 court appearances later, the case has been dropped. The prosecution declared it would not be in the public interest to pursue the matter.

Bevan, who used the name Kuji, and Richard Pryce – known as Datastream Cowboy – stood accused of hacking into a research centre at Griffiss Air Force base in New York state. It took two years for the US authorities to admit the break-in had taken place.

In a statement to the court, US Air Force investigator Jim Christy said the incident cost the US Air Force $211,722 (#124,000) – exclusive of the cost of their investigations.

Christy outlined the events that almost brought East and West to the brink of war. He described how Datastream Cowboy (aged 16 at the time) hacked his way into a research facility in Korea. The US authorities became aware of this when they realised that the contents of the Korean Atomic Research Institute’s database had been deposited on USAF’s New York system.

‘Initially it was unclear whether the system belonged to North Korea or South Korea,’ Christy said. ‘The concern was that if it was North Korea, they would think the transfer of data was an intrusion by the US Air Force.’

It turned out to be South Korean data, but it is not hard to imagine the potential outcome had the 16-year-old found his way into North Korea’s system. The US press referred to Bevan and Pryce as ‘digital delinquents’.

Pryce walked out of court this summer with a #1,200 fine – not much of a slap on the wrists for actions that might have sparked a war. The lenience of his sentence was the key to Bevan escaping punishment altogether.

Simon Evenden, Bevan’s solicitor, told Computing why the prosecution chose not pursue his client. He stressed that in court, judge Jeffrey Rivlin QC made it clear that he felt the prosecution had in no way done anything wrong when preparing its case.

‘The case collapsed simply because it was not economically viable to take it forward. It would have cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to bring witnesses over from the US and because of what happened to Pryce, Matthew would probably only have been fined or given community service. So it was agreed that it was not in the public interests to continue.’

Had the case continued, getting the prosecution evidence to stand up in court could have proved problematic. It is unlikely the court would have accepted any evidence stored on a computer, unless it could satisfy itself it had not been tampered with. The US authorities were happy to supply copies of emails plus records showing times and dates at which computers were hacked into, but they would not allow the court access to original information.

In the light of the Bevan case, the defence and prosecution teams are to come together in an attempt to plug some of the gaps in the law. They will be arguing for changes to a system that is clearly finding it hard to keep pace with technological change.

From the horse’s mouth Interview with Matthew Bevan

Offered the choice between pleading guilty in the hope of the court being lenient or fighting it out, Matthew Bevan plumped for the latter. He explained why to Computing. ‘As far as I was concerned, I was charged with conspiracy, which was not true, and charged with working with Richard Pryce, which was not true. As well as having to prove that I did it, the prosecution would have had to prove there had been intent. I was accused of putting a sniffer on one of the computers. The point of a sniffer is to sit undetected on a computer monitoring who’s using it and copying their passwords. It’s not there to impair the performance of the computer. So, even if they could have proved I put it there, they couldn’t prove intent to cause damage.’ Bevan is now considering a career in IT security. ‘If I can find a job where I can get paid for doing the same sort of thing as hacking, I won’t complain,’ he said.

Hacker finds his skills in demand

By Steve Masters [25-02-1998]

Reformed saboteur warns easy PC access will lead to rising tide of cyber terrorism

It was a case of poacher turned gamekeeper last week when Mathew Bevan, the hacker formerly known as Kuji, found a respectable job as a hacker, writes Sean Fleming.

Bevan was accused of breaking into US military computer systems but walked free from Woolwich Crown Court last November after the case was dropped.

He will work as a member of a team of six reformed saboteurs launching surprise attacks on customers of London-based Tiger Computer Security.

Once weve signed a client up, we tell them to expect an attack within the next six months, but we dont tell them exactly when.

It would defeat the purpose if they were watching out for us, he explained.

Bevan whose job title will be Chief Tiger said the incidence of cyber terrorism will increase over the next five years.

I was 11 when I got my first computer and 14 by the time I had a modem.

You’ve now got kids of eight or nine with PCs at home that have good processing power and Internet access. They will become mature in the use of computers long before they are mature in the wider sense the whole situation could go bananas, he warned.

Hacked off: Court frees Air Force one

By Steve Masters [26-11-1997]

A hacker charged with breaking into the US Air Force’s command and control centres walked free from court last week

A hacker charged with breaking into the US Air Force’s command and control centres walked free from court last week, writes Sean Fleming.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPU) said a costly court case would not be in the interests of the public.

Matthew Bevan, known as Kuji, was one of two hackers alleged to have accessed US military intelligence centres in 1994. Richard Pryce was fined #1,200 earlier this year.

Bevan has said that he was searching the US Air Force’s command and control centre for evidence of encounters with UFOs.

US Air Force investigator Jim Christy revealed that the hackers had also accessed the South Korean Atomic Research Institute, copied all the data and placed it on the US Air Force system.

Christy pointed out that the US was concerned this would be misinterpreted by the Koreans as an act of US aggression.