hacking

	==Phrack Magazine==

	Volume Five, Issue Forty-Six, File 23 of 28

	****************************************************************************

	Cyber Christ Bites The Big Apple
	HOPE - Hackers On Planet Earth,
	New York City - August 13-14, 1994
	(C) 1994 Winn Schwartau
	by Winn Schwartau

	(This is Part II of the ongoing Cyber Christ series. Part I,
	"Cyber Christ Meets Lady Luck" DefCon II, Las Vegas, July 22-24,
	1994 is available all over the 'Net.)

	Las Vegas is a miserable place, and with a nasty cold no less; it
	took me three weeks of inhaling salt water and sand at the beach
	to finally dry up the post nasal drip after my jaunt to DefCon
	II. My ears returned to normal so that I no longer had to answer
	every question with an old Jewish man's "Eh?" while fondling my
	lobes for better reception.

	New York had to be better.

	Emmanuel Goldstein -aka Eric Corely - or is it the other way
	around? is the host of HOPE, Hackers on Planet Earth, a celebra
	tion of his successfully publishing 2600 - The Hackers Quarterly
	for ten years without getting jailed, shot or worse. For as
	Congressman Ed Markey said to Eric/Emmanuel in a Congressional
	hearing last year, and I paraphrase, 2600 is no more than a
	handbook for hacking (comparable obviously to a terrorist hand
	book for blowing up the World Trade Center) for which Eric/Emman
	uel should be properly vilified, countenanced and then drawn and
	quartered on Letterman's Stupid Pet Tricks.

	Ed and Eric/Emmanuel obviously have little room for negotiation
	and I frankly enjoyed watching their Congressional movie where
	communication was at a virtual standstill: and neither side
	understood the viewpoints or positions of the other.

	But Ed is from Baaahhhsten, and Eric/Emmanuel is from New York,
	and HOPE will take place in the Hotel Filthadelphia, straight
	across the street from Pennsylvania Station in beautiful downtown
	fast-food-before-they-mug-you 34th street, right around the
	corner from clean-the-streets-its-Thanksgiving Herald Square.
	Geography notwithstanding, HOPE promised to be a more iconoclas
	tic gathering than that of DefCon II.

	First off, to set the record straight, I am a New Yorker. No
	matter that I escaped in 1981 for the sunny beaches of California
	for 7 years, and then moved to the Great State of the Legally
	Stupid for four more (Tennessee); no matter that I now live on
	the Gulf Coast of Florida where the water temperature never dips
	below a chilly 98 degrees; I am and always will be a New Yorker.

	It took me the better part of a decade of living away from New
	York to come to that undeniable and inescapable conclusion: Once
	a New Yorker, always a New Yorker. Not that that makes my wife
	any the happier.

	"You are so rude. You love to argue. Confrontation is your
	middle name." Yeah, so what's your point?

	You see, for a true New Yorker these aren't insults to be re-
	regurgitated at the mental moron who attempts to combat us in a
	battle of wits yet enters the ring unarmed; these are mere tru
	isms as seen by someone who views the world in black and white,
	not black, white and New York.

	Case in point.

	I used to commute into Manhattan from the Westchester County
	suburb of Ossining where I lived 47 feet from the walls of Sing
	Sing prison (no shit!). Overlooking the wide expanse of the
	Hudson River from my aerie several hundred feet above, the only
	disquieting aspect of that location were the enormously deafening
	thunderclaps which resounded a hundred and one times between the
	cliffs on either side of the river. Then there was the occasion
	al escapee-alarm from the prison. .

	So, it was my daily New York regimen to take the 8:15 into the
	city. If the train's on time I'll get to work by nine . . .

	Grand Central Station - the grand old landmark thankfully saved
	by the late Jackie O. - is the nexus for a few hundred million
	commuters who congregate in New York Shitty for no other reason
	that to collect a paycheck to afford blood pressure medicine.

	You have to understand that New York is different. Imagine,
	picture in your mind: nothing is so endearing as to watch thou
	sands of briefcase carrying suits scrambling like ants in a Gary
	Larson cartoon for the nearest taxi, all the while greeting their
	neighbors with the prototypical New York G'day!

	With both fists high in the air, middle fingers locked into erect
	prominence, a cacophonous chorus of "Good Fucking Morning"
	brightens the day of a true New Yorker. His bloodshot eyes
	instantly clear, the blood pressure sinks by 50% and already the
	first conflict of the day has been waged and won.

	Welcome to the Big Apple, and remember never, ever, to say, "Have
	a Nice Day." Oh, no. Never.

	So HOPE was bound to be radically different from Vegas's DefCon
	II, if only for the setting. But, I expected hard core. The
	European contingent will be there, as will Israel and South
	America and even the Far East. All told, I am told, 1000 or more
	are expected. And again, as at DefCon II, I am to speak, but
	Eric/Emmanuel never told me about what, when, or any of the other
	niceties that go along with this thing we call a schedule.

	* * * * *

	God, I hate rushing.

	Leaving Vienna at 3:15 for a 4PM Amtrak "put your life in their
	hands" three hour trip to New York is not for the faint of heart.
	My rented Hyundai four cylinder limousine wound up like a sewing
	machine to 9,600 RPM and hydroplaned the bone dry route 66 into
	the pot holed, traffic hell of Friday afternoon Washington, DC.
	Twelve minutes to spare.

	I made the 23 mile trip is something less than three minutes and
	bounded into the Budget rental return, decelerated to impulse
	power and let my brick and lead filled suitcase drop to the
	pavement with a dent and a thud. "Send me the bill," I hollered
	at the attendant. Never mind that Budget doesn't offer express
	service like real car rental companies. "Just send me the bill!"
	and I was off.

	Eight minute to spare. Schlepp, schlepp. Heavy, heavy.

	Holy shit! Look at the line for tickets and I had reservations.

	"Is this the line for the four o'clock to New York?" Pant,
	breathless.

	"Yeah." She never looked up.

	"Will they hold the train?"

	"No." A resoundingly rude no at that. Panic gene takes over.

	"What about the self-ticketing computer?" I said pointing at the
	self ticketing computer.

	"Do you have a reservation?"

	"Yup." Maybe there is a God.

	"Won't help you."

	"What?"

	Nothing.

	"What do you mean won't help?"

	"Computer's broken." Criminy! I have 4 minutes and here's this
	over-paid over-attituded Amtrak employee who thinks she's the
	echo of Whoopi Goldberg. "The line's over there."

	Have you ever begged? I mean really begged? Well I have.

	"Are you waiting for the four?" "Can I slip ahead?" "Are you in
	a death defying hurry?" "I'll give you a dime for your spot in
	line." "You are so pretty for 76, ma'am. Can I sneak ahead?"

	Tears work. Two excruciating minutes to go. I bounced ahead of
	everyone in a line the length of the Great Wall of China, got my
	tickets and tore ass through Union Station The closing gate
	missed me but caught the suitcase costing me yet more time as I
	attempted to disgorge my now-shattered valise from the fork-lift-
	like spikes which protect the trains from late-coming commuters.
	The rubber edged doors on the train itself were kinder and gen
	tler, but at this point, screw it. It was Evian and Fritos for
	the next three hours.

	* * * * *

	Promises tend to be lies. The check is in the mail; Dan Quayle
	will learn to spell; I won't raise taxes. I wonder about HOPE.

	"It's going to be Bust Central," said one prominent hacker who
	threatened me with electronic assassination if I used his name.
	"Emmanuel will kill me." Apparently the authorities-who-be are
	going to be there in force. "They want to see if Corrupt or any
	of the MoD crew stay after dark, then Zap! Back to jail. (gig
	gle, giggle.) I want to see that."

	Will Mitnick show up? I'd like to talk to that boy. A thousand
	hackers in one place and Eric/Emmanuel egging on the Feds to do
	something stupid. Agent Steal will be there, or registered at
	least, and half of the folks I know going are using aliases.

	"I'd like a room please."

	"Yessir. Name?"

	"Monkey Meat."

	"Is that your first or last name?"

	"First."

	"Last name?"

	"Dilithium Crystal."

	"Could you spell that?"

	Now: I know the Hotel Pennsylvania. It used to be the high
	class Statler Hilton until Mr. Hilton himself decided that the
	place was beyond hope. "Sell it or scuttle it." They sold and
	thus begat the hotel Filthadelphia. I stayed here once in 1989
	and it was a cesspool then. I wondered why the Farsi-fluent
	bellhop wouldn't tell me how bad the damage was from the fire
	bombed 12th floor. The carpets were the same dingy, once upon a
	time colorful, drab as I remembered. And, I always have a bit of
	trouble with a hotel who puts a security check by the elevator
	bank. Gives you the warm and fuzzies that make you want to come
	back right away.

	I saved $2 because none of the bell hops noticed I needed help,
	but then again, it wouldn't have mattered for there was no way he
	and I and my luggage were going to fit inside of what the hotel
	euphemistically refers to as a 'room'. Closet would be kind but
	still inaccurate. I think the word, ah, '$95 a night slum' might
	still be overly generous. Let's try . . . ah ha! the room that
	almost survived the fire bombing. Yeah, that's the ticket.

	The walls were pealing. Long strips of yellowed antique wall
	paper embellished the flatness of the walls as they curled to
	wards the floor and windows. The chunks of dried glue decorated
	the pastel gray with texture and the water stains from I know not
	where slithered their way to the soggy carpet in fractal pat
	terned rivulets. I stood in awe at early funk motif that the
	Hotel Filthadelphia chose in honor of my attendance at HOPE.
	But, no matter how bad my room was, at least it was bachelor
	clean. (Ask your significant other what that means. . .)

	In one hacker's room no bigger than mine I counted 13 sleeping
	bags lying amongst the growing mold at the intersection of the
	drenched wallboard and putrefying carpet shreds. (God, I love
	going to hacker conferences! It's not that I like Hyatt's and
	Hilton' all that much: I do prefer the smaller facilities, but, I
	am sad to admit, clean counts at my age.). My nose did not have
	to venture towards the floor to be aware that the Hotel Filtha
	delphia was engaging in top secret exobiological government
	experiments bent on determining their communicability and infec
	tion factor.

	The top floor of the Hotel Filthadelphia - the 18th - was the
	place for HOPE, except the elevator door wouldn't open. The
	inner door did, but even with the combined strength of my person
	al crowbar (a New York defensive measure only; I never use it at
	home) and three roughians with a bad case of Mexican Claustropho
	bia, we never got the door open.

	The guard in the lobby was a big help.

	"Try again."

	Damned if he didn't know his elevators and I emerged into the
	pre-HOPE chaos of preparing for a conference.

	About 100 hackers lounged around in varying forms of disarray -
	Hey Rop!

	Rop Gongrijjp editor of the Dutch Hacktic is a both a friend and
	an occasional source of stimulating argument. Smart as a whip, I
	don't always agree with him, though, the above-ground security
	types ought to talk to him for a clear, concise and coherent
	description of the whys and wherefores of hacking.

	Hey Emmanuel! Hey Strat! Hey Garbage Heap! Hey Erikb! Hey to
	lots of folks. Is that you Supernigger? And Julio? I was sur
	prised. I knew a lot more of these guys that I thought I did.
	Some indicted, some unindicted, some mere sympathizers and other
	techno-freaks who enjoy a weekend with other techno-freaks.
	Security dudes - get hip! Contact your local hacker and make
	friends. You'll be glad you did.

	>From behind - got me. My adrenaline went into super-saturated
	mode as I was grabbed. I turned and it was . . . Ben. Ben is a
	hugger. "I just wanted to hug you," he said sweetly but without
	the humorous sexually deviant connotation that occurred during
	Novocain's offer to let Phil Zimmerman sleep with him in Las
	Vegas.

	I smiled a crooked smile. "Yeah, right." Woodstock '94 was a
	mere 120 miles away . . .maybe there was a psychic connection.
	But Ben was being sincere. He was hugging everyone. Everyone.
	At 17, he really believes that hugging and hacking are next to
	Godliness. Boy does he have surprise coming the first time his
	mortgage is late. Keep hugging while you have the chance, Ben.

	Assorted cases of Zima (the disgusting Polish is-this-really-lime
	flavored beer of choice by those without taste buds) appeared,
	but anyone over the age of 21 drank Bud. What about the 12 year
	olds drinking? And the 18 year olds? And the 16 year olds?

	"Rop, I don't think you need to give the hotel an excuse to bust
	you guys outta here." Me, fatherly and responsible? Stranger
	things have happened. The beer was gone. I'm not a teetotaler,
	but I didn't want my weekend going up in flames because of some
	trashed 16 year old puking on an Irani ambassador in the lobby.
	No reason to test fate.

	* * * * *

	Nothing worked, but that's normal.

	Rop had set up HEU (Hacking at the End of the Universe) in
	Holland last year with a single length of 800m ethernet. (That's
	meter for the Americans: about 2625 ft.) HOPE, though was dif
	ferent. The Hotel Filthadelphia's switchboard and phone systems
	crashed every half hour or so which doesn't do a lot for the
	health of 28.8 slip lines.

	The object of the exercise was seemingly simple: plug together
	about 20 terminals into a terminal server connected to Hope.Com
	and let 'em go at it. Provide 'net access and, to the lucky
	winner of the crack-the-hopenet server (root) the keys to a 1994
	Corvette!

	You heard it right! For breaking into root of their allegedly
	secure server, the folks at 2600 are giving away keys to a 1994
	Corvette. They don't know where the car is, just the keys. But
	they will give you the car's last known location . . . or was it
	$50 in cash?

	Erikb - Chris Goggans - showed up late Friday night in disguise:
	a baseball cap over his nearly waist length dirty blond hair.
	"He's here!" one could hear being muttered. "He had the balls to
	show up!" "He's gonna get his ass kicked to a pulp." "So you
	did come . . . I was afraid they'd intimidated you to stay in
	Texas."

	No way! "Why tell the enemy what your plans are." Even the 50's-
	something ex-amphetamine-dealer turned reseller of public-records
	Bootleg didn't know Goggans was going to be there. But the
	multiple fans of Erikb, (a strong resemblance to Cyber Christ if
	he do say so himself) were a-mighty proud to see him.

	This stunning Asian girl with skin too soft to touch (maybe she
	was 14, maybe she was 25) looked at Erikb by the message board.
	"You're," she pointed in disbelief "Erikb?" Chris nods, getting
	arrogantly used to the respectful adulation. Yeah, that's me, to
	which the lady/girl/woman instantly replied, "You're such an
	asshole." Smile, wide smile, hug, kiss, big kiss. Erikb revels
	in the attention and hundreds of horny hackers jealously look on.

	Friday night was more of an experience - a Baba Ram Dass-like Be
	Here Now experience - with mellow being the operative word. The
	hotel had apparently sacrificed 20,000 square feet of its pent
	house to hackers, but it was obvious to see they really didn't
	give a damn if the whole floor got trashed. Ceiling panels
	dripped from their 12 foot lofts making a scorched Shuttle under
	belly look pristine. What a cesspool! I swear nothing had been
	done to the decorative environs since the day Kennedy was shot.
	But kudos to Emmanuel for finding a centrally located cesspool
	that undoubtedly gave him one hell of a deal. I think it would be
	a big mistake to hold a hacker conference at the Plaza or some
	such snooty overly-self-indulgent denizen of the rich.

	Filth sort of lends credibility to an event that otherwise seeks
	notoriety.

	I didn't want to take up too much of Emmanuel's and Rop's time -
	they were in setup panic - so it was off to the netherworld until
	noon. That's when a civilized Con begins.

	* * * * *

	I dared to go outside; it was about 11AM and I was in search of
	the perfect New York breakfast: a greasy spoon that serves coffee
	as tough as tree bark and a catatonia inducing egg and bacon
	sandwich. Munch, munch, munch on that coffee.

	I'd forgotten how many beggars hang out on the corner of 33rd and
	7th, all armed with the same words, "how about a handout, Winn?"
	How the hell do they know my name? "Whatever you give will come
	back to you double and triple . . . please man, I gotta eat." It
	is sad, but John Paul Getty I ain't.

	As I munched on my coffee and sipped my runny egg-sandwich I
	noticed that right in front of the runny-egg-sandwich place sat a
	Ford Econoline van. Nice van. Nice phone company van. What are
	they doing here? Oh, yeah, the hackers need lines and the switch
	board is down. Of course, the phone company is here. But,
	what's that? Hello? A Hacker playing in the phone van? I recog
	nize you! You work with Emmanuel. How? He's robbing it. Not
	robbing, maybe borrowing.

	The ersatz telephone van could have fooled anyone - even me, a
	color blind quasi-techno-weanie to yell "Yo! Ma Bell!" But, upon
	not-too-closer inspection, the TPC (The Phone Company) van was in
	fact a 2600 van - straight from the minds of Emmanuel and
	friends. Impeccable! The telephone bell in a circle logo is, in
	this case, connected via cable to a hacker at a keyboard. The
	commercial plates add an additional air of respectability to the
	whole image. It works.

	* * * * *

	Up to HOPE - egg sandwich and all.

	The keynote speech was to be provided courtesy of the Man in
	Blue. Scheduled for noon, things were getting off to a late
	start. The media (who were there in droves, eat your heart out
	CSI) converged on the MIB to see who and why someone of his
	stature would (gasp!) appear/speak at a funky-downtown hotel
	filled with the scourges of Cyberspace. I didn't see if Ben
	hugged the MIB, but I would understand if he didn't. Few people
	knew him or suspected what size of Jim-Carey-MASK arsenal might
	suddenly appear if a passive hug were accidentally interpreted as
	being too aggressive. The MIB is imposing and Ben too shy.

	The media can ask some dumb questions and write some dumb arti
	cles because they spend 12 1/2 minutes trying to understand an
	entire culture. Can't do that fellows!

	The MIB, though, knows hackers and is learning about them more
	and more; and since he is respectable, the media asks him about
	hackers. What are hackers? Why are YOU here, Mr. MIB?

	"Because they have a lot to offer. They are the future," the Man
	In Blue said over and over. Interview after interview - how time
	flies when you're having fun - and the lights and cameras are
	rolling from NBC and PIX and CNN and assorted other channels and
	magazines. At 12:55 chaos had not settled down to regimented
	disorganization and the MIB was getting antsy. After all, he was
	a military man and 55 minutes off schedule: Egad! Take charge.

	The MIB stood on a chair and hollered to the 700+ hacker phreaks
	in the demonstration ballroom, "Hey! It's starting. Let's go the
	theater and get rocking! Follow me." He leaned over to me: "Do
	you know where the room is?"

	"Sure, follow me."

	"Everyone follow, c'mon," yelled the MIB. "I'm going to get
	started in exactly three minutes," and three minutes he meant.
	Despite the fact that I got lost in a hallway and had hundreds of
	followers following my missteps and the MIB yelling at me for
	getting lost in a room with only two doors, we did make the main
	hall, and within 90 seconds he took over the podium and began
	speaking.

	"I bet you've always wanted to ask a spy a few questions. Here's
	your chance. But let me say that the United States intelligence
	community needs help and you guys are part of the solution." The
	MIB was impeccably dressed in his pin stripe with only traces of
	a Hackers 80 T-shirt leaking through his starched white dress
	shirt. The MIB is no less than Robert Steele, ex-CIA type spy,
	senior civilian in Marine Corps Intelligence and now the Presi
	dent of Open Source Solutions, Inc.

	He got these guys (and gals) going. Robert doesn't mince words
	and that's why as he puts it, he's "been adopted by the hackers."
	At his OSS conferences he has successfully juxtaposed hackers and
	senior KGB officials who needed full time security during their
	specially arranged 48 hour visa to Washington, DC. He brought
	Emmanuel and Rop and clan to his show and since their agendas
	aren't all that different, a camaraderie was formed.

	Robert MIB Steele believes that the current intelligence machin
	ery is inadequate to meet the challenges of today's world. Over
	80% of the classified information contained with the Byzantine
	bowels of the government is actually available from open sources.
	We need to realize that the future is more of an open book than
	ever before.

	We classify newspaper articles from Peru in the incredibly naive
	belief that only Pentagon spooks subscribe. We classify BBC
	video tapes from the UK with the inane belief that no one will
	watch it if it so stamped. We classify $4 Billion National
	Reconnaissance Office satellite generated street maps of Calle,
	Colombia when anyone with an IQ only slightly above a rock can
	get the same one from the tourist office. And that's where
	hackers come in.

	"You guys are a national resource. Too bad everyone's so scared
	of you." Applause from everywhere. The MIB knows how to massage
	a crowd. Hackers, according to Steele, and to a certain extent I
	agree, are the truth tellers "in a constellation of complex
	systems run amok and on the verge of catastrophic collapse."

	Hackers are the greatest sources of open source information in
	the world. They have the navigation skills, they have the time,
	and they have the motivation, Robert says. Hackers peruse the
	edges of technology and there is little that will stop them in
	their efforts. The intelligence community should take advantage
	of the skills and lessons that the hackers have to teach us, yet
	as we all know, political and social oppositions keep both sides
	(who are really more similar then dissimilar) from talking.

	"Hackers put a mirror up to the technical designers who have
	built the networks, and what they see, they don't like. Hackers
	have shown us all the chinks in the armor of a house without
	doors or windows. The information infrastructure is fragile and
	we had better do something about it now; before it's too late."

	Beat them at their own game, suggests Steele. Keep the doors of
	Cyberspace open, and sooner or later, the denizens of the black
	holes of information will have to sooner or late realize that the
	cat is out of the bag.

	Steele educated the Hacker crowd in a way new to them: he treat
	ed them with respect, and in turn he opened a channel of dialog
	that few above ground suit-types have ever envisioned. Steele
	works at the source.

	HOPE had begun and Robert had set the tone.

	* * * * *

	The day was long. Dogged by press, hackers rolled over so the
	reporters could tickle their stomachs on camera. Despite their
	public allegations that the media screws it up and never can get
	the story right, a camera is like a magnet. The New York Times
	printed an article about HOPE so off the wall I wondered if the
	reporter had actually been there. Nonetheless, the crowds fol
	lowed the cameras, the cameras followed the crowds, and the
	crowds parted like the Red Sea. But these were mighty colorful
	crowds.

	We all hear of that prototypical image of the acne faced, Jolt-
	drinking, pepperoni downing nerdish teenager who has himself
	locked in the un-air-conditioned attic of his parents' half
	million dollar house from the time school gets out till the sun
	rises. Wrongo security-breath. Yeah, there's that component, but
	I was reminded of the '80's, the early '80's by a large percent
	age of the crowd.

	Purple hair was present but scarce, and I swear on a stack of
	2600's that Pat from Saturday Night Live was there putting every
	one's hormonal guess-machines to the test. But what cannot help
	but capture one's attention is a 40 pin integrated circuit in
	serted into the shaved side skull of an otherwise clean-cut
	Mohawk haircut.

	The story goes that Chip Head went to a doctor and had a pair of
	small incisions placed in his skull which would hold the leads
	from the chip. A little dab of glue and in a few days the skin
	would grow back to hold the 40 pins in the natural way; God's
	way.

	There was a time that I thought ponytails were 'out' and passe,
	but I thought wrong. Mine got chopped off in roughly 1976 down
	to shoulder length which remained for another six years, but half
	of the HOPE audience is the reason for wide spread poverty in the
	hair salon industry.

	Nothing wrong with long, styled, inventive, outrageous hair as
	long as it's clean; and with barely an exception, such was the
	case. In New York it's not too hard to be perceived as clean,
	especially when you consider the frame of reference. Nothing is
	too weird.

	The energy level of HOPE was much higher than the almost lethar
	gic (but good!) DefCon II. People move in a great hurry, perhaps
	to convey the sense of importance to others, or just out of
	frenetic hyperactivity. Hackers hunched over their keyboards -
	yet with a sense of urgency and purpose. Quiet yet highly animat
	ed conversations in all corners. HOPE staff endlessly pacing
	throughout the event with their walkie-talkies glued to their
	ears.

	Not many suit types. A handful at best, and what about the Feds?
	I was accosted a few times for being a Fed, but word spread: no
	Fed, no bust. Where were the Feds? In the lobby. The typical
	NYPD cop has the distinctive reputation of being overweight
	especially when he wearing two holsters - one for the gun and one
	for the Italian sausage. Perpetually portrayed as donut dunking
	dodo's, some New York cops' asses are referred to as the Fourth
	Precinct and a few actually moonlight as sofas.

	So rather than make a stink, (NY cops hate to make a scene) the
	lobby of the Hotel Filthadelphia was home to the Coffee Clutch
	for Cops. About a half dozen of them made their profound
	presence known by merely spending their day consuming mass quan
	tities of questionable ingestibles, but that was infinitely
	preferable to hanging out on the 18th floor. The hackers weren't
	causing any trouble, the cops knew that, so why push it. Hackers
	don't fight, they hack. Right?

	After hours of running hours behind schedule, the HOPE conference
	was in first place for disorganized, with DefCon II not far
	behind. Only with 1000 people to keep happy and in the right
	rooms, chaos reigns sooner. The free Unix sessions and Pager
	session and open microphone bitch session and the unadulterated
	true history of 2600 kept audiences of several hundred hankering
	for more - hour after hour.

	Over by the cellular hacking demonstrations, I ran into a hacker
	I had written about: Julio, from the almost defunct Masters of
	Destruction. Julio had gone state's evidence and was prepared to
	testify against MoD ring leader Mark Abene (aka Phiber Optik) but
	once Mark pled guilty to enough crimes to satisfy the Feds, Julio
	was off the hook with mere probation. Good guy, sworn off of
	hacking. Cell phones are so much more interesting.

	However, while standing around with Erikb and a gaggle of Cyber
	Christ wanna-bes, Julio and his friend (who was the size of Texas
	on two legs) began a pushing match with Goggans. "You fucking
	narc red-neck son of a bitch." Goggans helped build the case
	against the MoD and didn't make a lot of friends in the process.

	The shoving and shouldering reminded me of slam dancing from
	decades past, but these kids are too young to have taken part in
	the social niceties of deranged high speed propulsion and revul
	sion on the dance floor. So it was a straight out pushing match,
	which found Erikb doing his bloody best to avoid. Julio and pal
	kept a'coming and Erikb kept avoiding. It took a dozen of us to
	get in the middle and see that Julio was escorted to the eleva
	tors.

	Julio said Corrupt, also of the MoD, was coming down to HOPE,
	too. Corrupt has been accused of mugging drug dealers to finance
	his computer escapades, and was busted along with the rest of the
	MoD gang. The implied threat was taken seriously, but, for
	whatever reason, Corrupt never showed. It is said that the
	majority of the hacking community distances itself from him; he's
	not good for the collective reputation. So much for hacker
	fights. All is calm.

	The evening sessions continued and continued with estimates of as
	late as 4AM being bandied about. Somewhere around 1:00AM I ran
	into Bootleg in the downstairs bar. Where was everybody? Not
	upstairs. Not in the bar. I saw a Garbage Heap in the street
	outside (now that's a double entendre) and then Goggans popped up
	from the door of the Blarney Stone, a syndicated chain of low-
	class Irish bars that serve fabulously thick hot sandwiches.

	"We're about to get thrown out."

	"From the Blarney Stone? That's impossible. Drunks call the
	phone booths home!"

	Fifty or so hacker/phreaks had migrated to the least likely, most
	anachronistic location one could imagine. A handful of drunken
	sots leaning over their beers on a stain encrusted wooden breed
	ing ground for salmonella. A men's room that hasn't seen the
	fuzzy end of a brush for the best part of a century made Turkish
	toilets appear refreshingly clean. And they serve food here.

	I didn't look like a hacker so I asked the bartender, "Big crowd,
	eh?"

	The barrel chested beer bellied barman nonchalantly replied,
	"nah. Pretty usual." He cleaned a glass so thoroughly the water
	marks stood out plainly.

	"Really? This much action on a Saturday night on a dark side
	street so questionably safe that Manhattan's Mugger Society posts
	warnings?"

	"Yup."

	"So," I continued. "These hackers come here a lot?"

	"Sure do," he said emphatically.

	"Wow. I didn't know that. So this is sort of a hacker bar, you
	might say?"

	"Exactly. Every Saturday night they come in and raise a little
	hell."

	With a straight face I somehow managed to thank the confused
	barman for his help and for the next four hours learned that
	socially, hackers of today are no different than many if not most
	of us were in our late teens ad early twenties. We laughed and
	joked and so do they - but there is more computer talk. We
	decried the political status of our day as they do theirs, albeit
	they with less fervor and more resignation. The X-Generation
	factor: most of them give little more than a tiny shit about
	things they view as being totally outside their control, so why
	bother. Live for today.

	Know they enemy. Robert hung in with me intermingling and argu
	ing and debating and learning from them, and they from us.
	Hackers aren't the enemy - their knowledge is - and they are not
	the exclusive holders of that information. Information Warfare
	is about capabilities, and no matter who possesses that capabili
	ty, there ought to be a corresponding amount respect.

	Indeed, rather than adversaries, hackers could well become gov
	ernment allies and national security assets in an intense inter
	national cyber-conflict. In the LoD/MoD War of 1990-91, one
	group of hackers did help authorities. Today many hackers assist
	professional organizations, governments in the US and overseas -
	although very quietly. 'Can't be seen consorting with the
	enemy.' Is hacking from an Army or Navy or NATO base illegal?
	Damned if I know, but more than one Cyber Christ-like character
	makes a tidy sum providing hands-on hacking education to the
	brass in Europe.

	Where these guys went after 5AM I don't know, but I was one of
	the first to be back at the HOPE conference later that day; 12:30
	PM Sunday.

	* * * * *

	The Nazi Hunters were out in force.

	"The Neo-Nazi skinheads are trying to start another Holocaust." A
	piercing, almost annoying voice stabbed right through the crowds.
	"Their racist propaganda advocates killing Jews and blacks. They
	have to be stopped, now."

	Mortechai Levy (I'll call him Morty) commanded the attention of a
	couple dozen hackers. Morty was a good, emotional, riveting
	shouter. "These cowardly bastards have set up vicious hate call
	lines in over 50 cities. The messages advocate burning syna
	gogues, killing minorities and other violence. These phones have
	to be stopped!"

	The ever-present leaflet from Morty's Jewish Defense Organization
	asked for help from the 2600 population.

	"Phone freaks you must use your various assorted bag of
	tricks to shut these lines down. No cowardly sputterings
	about 'free speech' for these fascist scum."

	The headline invited the hacker/phreak community to:

	"Let's Shut Down 'Dial-A-Nazi'!!!"

	Morty was looking for political and technical support from a band
	of nowhere men and women who largely don't know where they're
	going much less care about an organized political response to
	someone elses cause. He wasn't making a lot of headway, and he
	must have know that he would walk right into the anarchist's
	bible: the 1st amendment.

	The battle lines had been set. Morty wanted to see the Nazis
	censored and hackers are absolute freedom of speechers by any
	measure. Even Ben sauntering over for a group hug did little to
	defuse the mounting tension.

	I couldn't help but play mediator. Morty was belligerently loud
	and being deafeningly intrusive which affected the on-going ses
	sions. To tone it down some, we nudged Morty and company off to
	the side and occupied a corner of thread bare carpet, leaning
	against a boorish beige wall that had lost its better epidermis.

	The heated freedom of speech versus the promotion of racial
	genocide rancor subdued little even though we were all buns side
	down. I tried to get a little control of the situation.

	"Morty. Answer me this so we know where you're coming from. You
	advocate the silencing of the Nazis, right?

	"They're planning a new race war; they have to be stopped."

	"So you want them silenced. You say their phones should be
	stopped and that the hackers should help."

	"Call that number and they'll tell you that Jews and blacks
	should be killed and then they . . ."

	"Morty. OK, you want to censor the Nazis. Yes or No."

	"Yes."

	"OK, I can understand that. The question really is, and I need
	your help here, what is the line of censorship that you advocate.
	Where is your line of legal versus censored?"

	A few more minutes of political diatribe and then he got to the
	point. "Any group with a history of violence should be censored
	and stopped." A little imagination and suddenly the whole planet
	is silenced. We need a better line, please. "Hate group, Nazis,
	people who advocate genocide . . . they should be
	silenced . . . ."

	"So," I analyzed. "You want to establish censorship criteria
	based upon subjective interpretation. Whose interpretation?"
	My approach brought nods of approval.

	One has to admire Morty and his sheer audacity and tenacity and
	how much he strenuously and single-mindedly drives his points
	home. He didn't have the ideal sympathetic audience, but he
	wouldn't give an inch. Not an inch. A little self righteousness
	goes a long way; boisterous extremism grows stale. It invites
	punitive retorts and teasing, or in counter-culture jargon,
	"fucking with their heads."

	Morty (perhaps for justifiable reasons) was totally inflexible
	and thus more prone to verbal barbing. "You're just a Jewish
	racist. Racism in reverse," accused one jocular but definitely
	lower middle class hacker with an accent thicker than all of
	Brooklyn.

	Incoming Scuds! Look out! Morty went nuts and as they say,
	freedom of speech ends when my fists impacts upon your nose.
	Morty came dangerously close to crossing that line. Whoah,
	Morty, whoah. He's just fucking with your head. The calm-down
	brigade did its level best to keep these two mortals at opposite
	ends of the room.

	"You support that Neo Nazi down there; you're as bad as the
	rest!" Morty said. "See what I have to tolerate. I know him,
	we've been keeping track of him and he hangs out with the son of
	the Grand Wizard of Nazi Oz." The paranoid train got on the
	tracks.

	"Do you really know the Big Poo-bah of Hate?" I asked the hacker
	under assault and now under protective custody.

	"Yeah," he said candidly. "He's some dick head who hates every
	one. Real jerk."

	"So what about you said to Morty over there?"

	"Just fucking with his head. He gets a little extreme." So we
	had in our midst the Al Sharpton of the Jewish faith. Ballsy.
	Since Morty takes Saturday's off by religious law, he missed the
	press cavalcade, but as a radical New York fixture, the media
	probably didn't mind too much.

	I was off to sessions, Morty found new audiences as they came off
	the elevators, and the band played on.

	* * * * *

	In my humble 40-something opinion, the best session of HOPE was
	the one on social engineering.

	The panel consisted of only Emmanuel, Supernigger (social engi
	neer par excellence) and Cheshire Catalyst. The first bits were
	pretty staid dry conventional conference (ConCon) oriented, but
	nonetheless, not the kind of info that you expect to find William
	H. Murray, Executive Consultant handing out.

	The best social engineers make friends of their victims. Remem
	ber: you're playing a role. Think Remington Steele.

	Schmooze! "Hey, Jack did you get a load of the blond on Stern
	last night?"

	Justifiable anger: "Your department has caused nothing but head
	aches. These damn new computers/phones/technology just don't
	work like the old ones. Now either you help me now or I'm going
	all the way to Shellhorn and we'll what he says about these kinds
	of screwups." A contrite response is the desired effect.

	Butt headed bosses: "Hey, my boss is all over my butt, can you
	help me out?"

	Management hatred: "I'm sitting here at 3PM working while man
	agement is on their yachts. Can you tell me . . .?"

	Giveaways: "Did you know that so and so is having an affair with
	so and so? It's true, I swear. By the way, can you tell me how
	to . . ."

	Empathy: "I'm new, haven't been to the training course and they
	expect me to figure this out all by myself. It's not fair."

	Thick Accent: "Hi. Dees computes haf big no wurk. Eet no makedah
	passurt. Cunu help? Ah, tanku." Good for a quick exchange and a
	quick good-bye. Carefully done, people want you off the phone
	quickly.

	Billsf, the almost 40 American phreak who now calls Amsterdam
	home was wiring up Supernigger's real live demonstration of
	social engineering against Sprint. A dial tone came over the PA
	system followed by the pulses to 411.

	"Directory Assistance," the operator's male voice was squeezed
	into a mere three kilohertz bandwidth.

	Suddenly, to the immense pleasure of the audience, an ear-split
	ting screech a thousand times louder than finger nails on a chalk
	board not only belched across the sound system but caused instant
	bleeding in the ears of the innocent but now deaf operator. .
	Billsf sheepishly grinned. "Just trying to wire up a mute
	button."

	Three hundred people in unison responded: "It doesn't work." No
	shit.

	While Billsf feverishly worked to regain his reputation, Super
	nigger explained what he was going to do. The phone companies
	have a service, ostensibly for internal use, called a C/NA. Sort
	of a reverse directory when you have the number but want to know
	who the number belongs to and from whence it comes. You can
	understand that this is not the sort of feature that the phone
	company wants to have in the hands of a generation of kids who
	are so apathetic that they don't even know they don't give a
	shit. Nonetheless, the access to this capability is through an
	800 number and a PIN.

	Supernigger was going to show us how to acquire such privileged
	information. Live. "When you get some phone company person as
	dumb as a bolt on the other end, and you know a few buzz words.
	you convince them that it is in their best interest and that they
	are supposed to give you the information."

	"I've never done this in front of an audience before, so give me
	three tries," he explained to an anxiously foaming at the mouth
	crowd. No one took a cheap pot shot at him: tacit acceptance of
	his rules.

	Ring. Ring.

	"Operations. Mary."

	"Mary. Hi, this is Don Brewer in social engineering over at CIS,
	how's it going?" Defuse.

	"Oh, fine. I guess."

	"I know, I hate working Sundays. Been busy?"

	"Nah, no more. Pretty calm. How can I help you?"

	"I'm doing a verification and I got systems down. I just need
	the C/NA. You got it handy?" Long pause.

	"Sure, lemme look. Ah, it's 313.424.0900." 700 notebooks ap
	peared out of nowhere, accompanied by the sound of 700 pens
	writing down a now-public phone number.

	"Got it. Thanks." The audience is gasping at the stunningly
	stupid gullibility of Mary. But quiet was essential to the
	mission.

	"Here's the PIN number while we're at it." Double gasp. She's
	offering the supposedly super secret and secure PIN number? Was
	this event legal? Had Supernigger gone over the line?

	"No, CIS just came up. Thanks anyway."

	"Sure you don't need it?"

	"Yeah. Thanks. Bye." Click. No need to press the issue. PIN
	access might be worth a close look from the next computer DA
	wanna-be.

	An instant shock wave of cacophonous approval worked its way
	throughout the 750 seat ballroom in less than 2 microseconds.
	Supernigger had just successfully set himself as a publicly
	ordained Cyber Christ of Social Engineering. His white robes
	were on the way. Almost a standing ovation lasted for the better
	part of a minute by everyone but the narcs in the audience. I
	don't know if they were telco or Feds of whatever, but I do know
	that they were the stupidest narcs in the city of New York. This
	pair of dour thirty something Republicans had sphincters so tight
	you could mine diamonds out of their ass.

	Arms defiantly and defensively crossed, they were stupid enough
	to sit in the third row center aisle. They never cracked a smile
	at some of the most entertaining performances I have seen outside
	of the giant sucking sound that emanates from Ross Perot's ears.

	Agree or disagree with hacking and phreaking, this was funny and
	unrehearsed ad lib material. Fools. So, for fun, I crawled over
	the legs of the front row and sat in the aisle, a bare eight feet
	from the narcs. Camera in hand I extended the 3000mm tele-photo
	lens which can distinguish the color of a mosquitoes underwear
	from a kilometer and pointed it in their exact direction. Their
	childhood acne scars appeared the depth of the Marianna Trench.
	Click, and the flash went off into their eyes, which at such a
	short distance should have caused instant blindness. But noth
	ing. No reaction. Nada. Cold as ice. Rather disappointing, but
	now we know that almost human looking narc-bots have been per
	fected and are being beta tested at hacker cons.

	Emmanuel Goldstein is very funny. Maybe that's why Ed Markey and
	he get along so well. His low key voice rings of a gentler,
	kinder sarcasm but has a youthful charm despite that he is 30-
	something himself.

	"Sometimes you have to call back. Sometimes you have to call
	over and over to get what you want. You have to keep in mind
	that the people at the other end of the phone are generally not
	as intelligent as a powered down computer." He proceeded to
	prove the point.

	Ring ring,

	"Directory Assistance."

	"Hi."

	"Hi."

	"Hi."

	"Can I help you."

	"Yes."

	Pause.

	"Hello?"

	"Hi."

	"Hi."

	"Can I help you.:

	"OK."

	Shhhhh. Ssshhh. Quiet. Shhhh. Too damned funny for words.

	"Directory Assistance."

	"I need some information."

	"How can I help you."

	"Is this where I get numbers?"

	"What number would you like?"

	"Information."

	"This is information."

	"You said directory assistance."

	"This is."

	"But I need information."

	"What information do you need?"

	"For information."

	"This is information."

	"What's the number?"

	"For what?"

	"Information."

	"This is directory assistance."

	"I need the number for information."

	Pause. Pause.

	"What number do you want?"

	"For information."

	Pause. Guffaws, some stifled, some less so. Funny stuff.

	"Hold on please."

	Pause.

	"Supervisor. May I help you?"

	"Hi."

	"Hi."

	Pause.

	"Can I help you?"

	"I need the number for information."

	"This is directory assistance."

	"Hi."

	"Hi."

	"What's the number for information?"

	"This is information."

	"What about directory assistance?"

	"This is directory assistance."

	"But I need information."

	"This is information."

	"Oh, OK. What's the number for information?"

	Pause.

	"Ah 411."

	"That's it?"

	"No. 555.1212 works too."

	"So there's two numbers for information?"

	"Yes."

	"Which one is better?" How this audience kept its cool was
	beyond me. Me and my compatriots were beside ourselves.

	Pause.

	"Neither."

	"Then why are there two?"

	Pause.

	"I don't know."

	"OK. So I can use 411 or 555.1212."

	"That's right."

	"And which one should I use?"

	Pause.

	"411 is faster." Huge guffaws. Ssshhhh. Ssshhhh..

	"Oh. What about the ones?"

	"Ones?"

	"The ones."

	"Which ones?"

	"The ones at the front of the number."

	"Oh, those ones. You don't need ones. Just 411 or 555.1212.."

	"My friends say they get to use ones." Big laugh. Shhhhhh.

	"That's only for long distance."

	"To where?" How does he keep a straight face?

	Pause.

	"If you wanted 914 information you'd use a one."

	"If I wanted to go where?"

	"To 914?"

	"Where's that?"

	"Westchester."

	"Oh, Westchester. I have friends there."

	Pause.

	"Hello?"

	"Yes?"

	"So I use ones?"

	"Yes. A one for the 914 area."

	"How?"

	Pause.

	"Put a one before the number."

	"Like 1914. Right?"

	"1914.555.1212."

	"All of those numbers?"

	"Yes."

	"That's three ones."

	"That's the area code."

	"I've heard about those. They confuse me." Rumbling chuckles
	and laughs throughout the hall.

	Pause.

	She slowly and carefully explained what an area code is to the
	howlingly irreverent amusement of the entire crowd except for the
	fool narcs.

	"Thanks. So I can call information and get a number?"

	"That's right."

	"And there's two numbers I can use?"

	"Yes."

	"So I got two numbers on one call?"

	"Yeah . . ."

	"Wow. Thanks. Have a nice day."

	* * * * *

	Comments heard around HOPE.

	Rop Gongrijjp, Hacktic: "The local phone companies use their own
	social engineers when they can't get their own people to tell
	them what they need to know."

	Sprint is using what they consider to be the greatest access
	mechanism since the guillotine. For all of us road warriors out
	there who are forever needing long distance voice service from
	the Whattownisthis, USA airport, Sprint thinks they have a better
	mousetrap. No more messing finger entry. No more pass-codes or
	PIN's.

	I remember at the Washington National Airport last summer I was
	using my Cable and Wireless long distance access card and entered
	the PIN and to my surprise, an automated voice came on and said,
	"Sorry, you entered your PIN with the wrong finger. Please try
	again."

	Sprint says they've solved this thorny cumbersome problem with a
	service called "The Voice Fone Card". Instead of memorizing
	another 64 digit long PIN, you just speak into the phone: "Hi,
	it's me. Give me dial tone or give me death." The voice recog
	nition circuits masturbate for a while to determine if it's
	really you or not.

	Good idea. But according to Strat, not a good execution. Strat
	found that someone performing a poor imitation of his voice was
	enough to break through the front door with ease. Even a poor
	tape recording played back over a cheap cassette speaker was
	sufficient to get through Sprint's new whiz-banger ID system.

	Strat laughed that Sprint officials said in defense, "We didn't
	say it was secure: just convenient."

	Smart. Oh, so smart.

	* * * * *

	"If my generation of the late 60's and early 70's had had the
	same technology you guys have there never would have been an
	80's." This was how I opened my portion of the author's panel.

	The authors panel was meant to give HOPE hackers insight into how
	they are perceived from the so-called outside. I think the
	session achieved that well, and I understand the videos will be
	available soon.

	The question of electronic transvestites on AOL came up to every
	one's enjoyment, and all of us on the panel retorted with a big,
	"So what?" If you have cyber-sex with someone on the 'Net and
	enjoy it, what the hell's the difference? Uncomfortable butt
	shifting on chairs echoed how the largely male audience likely
	feels about male-male sex regardless of distance.

	"Imagine," I kinda said, "that is a few years you have a body
	suit which not only can duplicate your moves exactly, but can
	touch you in surprisingly private ways when your suit is connect
	ed to another. In this VR world, you select the gorgeous woman
	of choice to virtually occupy the other suit, and then the two of
	you go for it. How do you react when you discover that like
	Lola, 'I know what I am, and what I am is a man and so's Lola.'"
	Muted acknowledgment that unisex may come to mean something
	entirely different in the not too distant future.

	"Ooh, ooh, please call on me." I don't mean to be insulting, but
	purely for identification purposes, the woman behind the voice
	bordered on five foot four and four hundred pounds. Her bathtub
	had stretch marks.

	I never called on her but that didn't stop her.

	"I want to know what you think of how the democratization of the
	internet is affected by the differences between the government
	and the people who think that freedom of the net is the most
	important thing and that government is fucked but for freedom to
	be free you have to have the democracy behind you which means
	that the people and the government need to, I mean, you know, and
	get along but the sub culture of the hackers doesn't help the
	government but hackers are doing their thing which means that the
	democracy will not work , now I know that people are laughing and
	giggling (which they were in waves) but I'm serious about this
	and I know that I have a bad case of hypomania but the medication
	is working so it's not a bad as it could be. What do you think?"

	I leaned forward into the microphone and gave the only possible
	answer. "I dunno. Next." The thunderous round of applause
	which followed my in-depth response certainly suggested that my
	answer was correct. Not politically, not technically, but anar
	chistically. Flexibility counts.

	* * * * *

	HOPE was attended by around one thousands folks, and the Hotel
	Filthadelphia still stands. (Aw shucks.)

	My single biggest complaint was not that the schedules slipped by
	an hour or two or three; sessions at conferences like this keep
	going if the audience is into them and they are found to be
	educational and productive. So an hour session can run into two
	if the material and presentations fit the mood. In theory a
	boring session could find itself kama kazi'd into early melt-down
	if you have the monotone bean counter from hell explaining the
	distributed statistical means of aggregate synthetic transverse
	digitization in composite analogous integral fruminations.
	(Yeah, this audience would buy off on that in a hot minute.) But
	there were not any bad sessions. The single track plenary style
	attracted hundred of hackers for every event. Emmanuel and
	friends picked their panels and speakers well. When dealing with
	sponge-like minds who want to soak up all they can learn, even in
	somewhat of a party atmosphere, the response is bound to be good.

	My single biggest complaint was the registration nightmare. I'd
	rather go the DMV and stand in line there than get tagged by the
	seemingly infinite lines at HOPE. At DefCon early registration
	was encouraged and the sign up verification kept simple.

	For some reason I cannot thoroughly (or even partially) fathom, a
	two step procedure was chosen. Upon entering, and before the
	door narcs would let anyone in, each attendee had to be assigned
	a piece of red cardboard with a number on it. For the first day
	you could enter the 'exhibits' and auditorium without challenge.
	But by Day 2 one was expected to wait in line for the better part
	of a week, have a digital picture taken on a computer tied to a
	CCD camera, and then receive a legitimate HOPE photo-ID card.
	What a mess. I don't have to beat them up on it too bad; they
	know the whole scheme was rotten to the core.

	I waited till near the end of Day 2 when the lines were gone and
	the show was over. That's when I got my Photo ID card. I used
	the MIB's photo ID card the rest of the time.

	HOPE was a lot of fun and I was sorry to see it end, but as all
	experiences, there is a certain amount of letdown. After a great
	vacation, or summer camp, or a cruise, or maybe even after Wood
	stock, a tear welts up. Now I didn't cry that HOPE was over, but
	an intense 48 hours with hackers is definitely not your average
	computer security convention that only rolls from 9AM to Happy
	Hour. At a hacker conference, you snooze, you lose. You never
	know what is going to happen next - so much is spontaneous and
	unplanned - and it generally is highly educational, informative
	and entertaining.

	Computer security folks: you missed an event worth attending.
	You missed some very funny entertainment. You missed some fine
	young people dressed in some fine garb. You missed the chance to
	meet with your perceived 'enemy'. You missed the opportunity to
	get inside the heads of the generation that knows more about
	keyboards than Huck Finning in suburbia. You really missed
	something, and you should join Robert MIB Steele and I at the
	next hacker conference.

	* * * * *

	If only I had known.

	If only I had known that tornadoes had been dancing up and down
	5th avenue I would have stayed at the Hotel Filthadelphia for
	another night.

	La Guardia airport was closed. Flights were up to 6 hours de
	layed if not out and out canceled. Thousands of stranded travel
	ers hunkered down for the night. If only I had known.

	Wait, wait. Hours to wait. And then, finally, a plane ready and
	willing to take off and swerve and dive between thunderbolts and
	twisters and set me on my way home.

	My kids were bouncing out of the car windows when my wife picked
	me up at the airport somewhere in the vicinity of 1AM.

	"Not too late are you dear?" Sweet Southern Sarcasm from my
	Sweet Southern Wife.

	"Don't blame me," I said in all seriousness. "It was the hack
	ers. They caused the whole thing."

	* * * * *

	Notice: This article is free, and the author encourages responsi
	ble widespread electronic distribution of the document in full,
	not piecemeal. No fees may be charged for its use. For hard
	copy print rights, please contact the author and I'll make you an
	offer you can't refuse. The author retains full copyrights to
	the contents and the term Cyber-Christ.

	Winn is the author of "Terminal Compromise", a novel detailing
	a fictionalized account of a computer war waged on the United
	States. After selling well as a book-store-book, Terminal Com
	promise was placed on the Global Network as the world's first
	Novel-on-the-Net Shareware and has become an underground classic.
	(Gopher TERMCOMP.ZIP)

	His new non-fiction book, "Information Warfare: Chaos on the
	Electronic Superhighway" is a compelling, non-technical analy
	sis of personal privacy, economic and industrial espionage and
	national security. He calls for the creation of a National
	Information Policy, a Constitution in Cyberspace and an Elec
	tronic Bill of Rights.

	He may be reached at INTER.PACT, 11511 Pine St., Seminole,
	FL. 34642. 813-393-6600, fax 813-393-6361, E-Mail:
	P00506@psilink.com.