Ok, here's a neat project for the self proclaimed spam hater - and I know that at least 80% of./ people are capable of doing this...
Develop a Honeypot mail gateway program desiged to suck in a spammer into using it. Then, gather all kinds of goodies on the spammer. And obviously don't pass the mail.
Make it easy to use and install on Linux, WinBlows, BSD. Make these proxies smart enough to be "fingerprinted" as a "good score" for spammers.
I know a number of people doing this already, but I'm talking about putthing this out on a massive scale.
Unfortunately, that won't help the bandwidth problem, but it WOULD somewhat dilute the spammer's proxy resource, plus these fake proxies can also have some good tracing features.
prisons are great places for prisoners to learn the hacking trade. Put em in jail, then every prisoner the hacker comes in contact with, would learn their (hackers) trade.
Why is this such a big deal to you??? I'm not the ONLY one allergic to tobacco. I have every right to bitch when someone deprives me of fresh air. Who the fuck are you? Do you get a kickback from the tobacco companies of something? Are YOU a chain smoker?
DNS-and-BIND - if you have a beef with me, lets take it off-line and discuss it. Email me at crunch at shopip dot com
But then again, I wouldn't expect you to have the balls to discuss this wiith me face to face, would I?
I was invited to the pre-screening party for Sneakers. This was where I learned my story was stolen by the hollywood people who of course would NEVER consider ever talking to me to get the real story.
I have no idea why there is so much attention towards me.
I've answered all your questions. My web server seems to be functional again. If you didn't get your questions answered, it could be...
1) I don't have time to answer them all
2) Question was lame
3) Question was not relevent
If you are still interested in some very rare recordings of tandom stacking, and old school phreaking, then Email me at crunch at shopip dot com and ask me for the details on where to download them.
Crunch
I first met Kevin when I was invited by the UK Channel 4 production crew for an extensive interview that eventually got aired on TLC.
September Films put us together... I was flown down to LA to meet Kevin and Woz for that TV production. Since that time, I've run into Kevin a number of times. We were walking in the UCLA campus and Kevin was telling me about the times he hacked into their system.
Ok, hopefully this time I'll have the format setup properly. I apologize...
Q: I was curious what BBS's you frequented back in the day. I used to hang out on BBS's that ranged from Ripco in Chicago (very popular phreaker hangout) to USS Enterprise in Houston, TX, and of course, phreaking was the way that one tended to call BBS's.
A: I never went into any of the BBS's. I Do remember the controversy of the 8BBS one. It was on a PDP-8 (Really old schoolers would know this one). Then, I joined the WELL in 1983.
Q: Do you regret adding the 'crunch berry' to your popular formula, just to hype up what was already a perfectly good product?
A: Perhaps I should put "crunch Berrys" in the Crunchbox. No, I got a better idea, why not I just pack a box of CrunchBerries with each Crunchbox?
Q: Do you think that such actions will lead to cereal deflation among your territories?
A: WOW! Interesting point.... perhaps it might shift the whole new world order (dis-order?)
Q: How do you feel about these depictions of phreaks and hackers? Is it good that media largely glosses over the reality, and focuses on making them look hip, or is it vaguely insulting?
A: If it sells movies, they will do it... and make whatever representitives they want in order to sell movies.
Q: What illicit technology offers the most fun and challenge today... where are the new frontiers for today's hackers to push the bleeding edge, and what interesting directions do you see them taking with it?
A: How about tracking down spammers and hacking into their PC's when they are spewing out all that spam? I mean, if people are going to hack, why not hack the spammers?
Q: My dad swears he met you in the late 70's. It's his only claim to fame. So...is it true? Did you meet him?
A: I have no clue - I don't know you, or your dad, so how can I be sure?
Q: What books, websites, IRC sites, etc would you suggest for an aspiring security engineer? Do you think these have any useful information, or it impossible to learn the necessary skills from these sources?
A: I frequent the computer security web sites like Securityfocus, BugTrax, etc. Some do, others don't. Best way to learn, is to "tinker", but we have to get rid of the DCMA first, so write to your congressman.
Q: Is there a cereal box whistle that will get me past the "The page cannot be displayed" message?
A: Yes, it's called "TIME"... I'm sure you'll be able to access "webcrunchers.com" soon, just let the effects of the slashdot wear off. I've had to cut way down on the number of people who can get on it, by request of my Co-lo
Q: If you could do it over again, would you do something differently? Anything you regret doing? Perhaps more importantly, anything you regret having not done?
A: Yes - NEVER trust your best friend. I've always been a trusting guy. somewhat naive, but always quick to help people out. But people fuck up, which got me in trouble.
Q: Are you and Steve Jobs still friends? Is it true that your "blue box" design inspired the iMac?
A: Jobs wouldn't give me the time of day. I'm always in touch with Woz and Mitnick (which I assume is at the RSA Conf in SF at the moment)
Q: In your day, phreakers et al were pretty much barely a blip on the radar screen. A few of you got charged with old laws, several were threatened or intimidated, and many many kids followed in your wake. Now we're watching a world get built where PhD thesis material might be illegal [securityfocus.com], writing code can get you arrested [eff.org] and charged, and even giving an academic presentation [princeton.edu] is threatened. How much responsibility, if any, do you think the early phreakers and hackers have for this rash of paranoid law?
A: It's all greed... back then, it was essentially the same... Phone co secrets were "Forbidden information", where mere posession of such information is ille
It is clear that my allotment would run out before I try and answer all your questions...
I'll answer some here, then more later, as time permits..
Q: Will/Have you ever make/made any changes you've made to OpenBSD for your Crunchbox available to the OpenBSD group?
A: I've not made any changes to the OpenBSD kernal at all.
Q:Did you (meaning Phreakers in general) have any ethical qualms about stealing service not only from the big bell companies, but also sometimes from their customers who were later forced to pay for the phone charges that were run up?
No - not really. We were'nt into it just for the sake of making calls. Sure, in the beginning, I called everyone I know, but the novelty wore off quite quickly, and I was more interested in "routing" and special operator routing codes and calling test boards. I consider myself to be helping them (Ma Bell) rather then ripping them off. IF I wanted to, I could have taken down the entire western switching center by stacking calls.
Q: Are the phreaking times gone forever with the digital technology or it ain't interesting anymore since we have the internet?
A: Not really. There is just more options available. There are always going to be security holes. People are going to find them.
Q: Do you have a favorite story, either because of the people involved, the tech (high tech or low tech) used, or the problems solved along the way?
A: Yea, the Toilet paper crisis (details on my site).
Q: What do you consider the most outrageous hack you *did* perform
Hacked into the White House CIA Crisis Hotline in early 70's. Found the internal number by scanning.
Q: Big fan of your work. But I was wondering, how come you couldn't rig up a couple of fancy grey boxes to fix your god damn slashdot problem?
A: Because I didn't think I would NEED to. First off, I wasn't prepared for this, so our server got hammered so much I didn't get the chance to go in and limit the flow. I discovered this Slashdotting when my Co-lo person called me up to tell me my server was getting DDOS'ed. Further sniffing revealed a HUGE ASS amount of traffic hammering my Mac G4.
Q: Have you still got your original whistle? And if so, have you ever thought about putting it on eBay?
A: No - I don't know where it is. When I initially got busted, i was living with my parents, and when they found out about the bust, they threw all my shit away, Me thinks the whistle was amoung it.
Q: What is your outlook for the future of hacking high-tech consumer products? Given the increasingly hostile legal climate regarding these activities (DMCA et al) it appears that corporations have much stronger legal tools to go after hackers that in days gone by were seen as more of a not-well-understood nuisance factor. Are the good old days gone forever?
A: Looks bleak indeed... now they are trying to ban tinkering.
Q: Your campaign seems to have the momentum of a runaway freight train. Why are you so popular?
A: I wish I knew... I mean, this stuff took place before MOST slashdotters were kicking shit out of their diapers.
Q: Will you please stop making that horrible "Peanut Butter Crunch?" The stuff tastes like ass. Please focus on those yummy Crunch Berries
A: Ok, I'll call General Mills tommorrow and ask them to trash the product. I hate the stuff myself, especially the "Capn Crunch" cerial.
Q: What would have happened differently if laws like the DMCA were in force during your first phreaking sessions?
A: Computers may not be around... the world as we know it today would be gone. POOOF! into a black hole. Perhaps a revolution may take place. I mean, if this shit ever reared it's ugly head in the 60's, there would be hell to pay.
Q: My professor later berated my choice of topics as (his words not mine) "he is an obvious lawless felon and is not worthy of this class's time".
A: this is the typical attitude of todays "industry". Once a criminal, always a criminal, and NO, the statute of limitations does NOT exist. People will have this attitude forever.
Q:
The Hollywood depiction of hackers is flawed and misleading. It's just Hollywood's attempts at trying to keep things at a level most people understand (they have to appeal to the masses), so verious technical scenerios are going to be "simplified" to the point where the casual movie goer wouldn't be grossly confused.
Yet, the Hollywood depiction of hackers has been good and bad to the scene. The Media and press have always depicted hackers as Evil criminals, when in fact, to "hack" means just writing or changing programs.
Movies like War Games, Sneakers, Hackers (This one really stinks), tend to depict hackers as hoooligans, criminals and the like.
Hi - I'm going to answer your questions here on slashdot.
It was quite clear to me exactly why my server was down. It was getting a good whopping from Slashdotters, and it completely took up 95% of the T1 it was on, and for a while, I had to take it down upon request from my Co-location provider.
It's up now, and setup to handle 200 connections, and within seconds, it peaked at 200 and stayed there. Now it's somewhat died down to about 80.
Slashdot Mirror
But didn't I hear a report that Earthlink deploys carnivour on all of their networks? It might have been here on /. a while ago.
Because they can look down your pants using your web cam - Duhhhh!
Ok, here's a neat project for the self proclaimed spam hater - and I know that at least 80% of ./ people are capable of doing this...
Develop a Honeypot mail gateway program desiged to suck in a spammer into using it. Then, gather all kinds of goodies on the spammer. And obviously don't pass the mail.
Make it easy to use and install on Linux, WinBlows, BSD. Make these proxies smart enough to be "fingerprinted" as a "good score" for spammers.
I know a number of people doing this already, but I'm talking about putthing this out on a massive scale.
Unfortunately, that won't help the bandwidth problem, but it WOULD somewhat dilute the spammer's proxy resource, plus these fake proxies can also have some good tracing features.
prisons are great places for prisoners to learn the hacking trade. Put em in jail, then every prisoner the hacker comes in contact with, would learn their (hackers) trade.
Yes - I know about "sneakers" - they stole part of my story. I know them all to well.
Hey... I didn't take the credit, I didn't want it, but when everyone ELSE just GAVE me credit, what would you expect me to do?
Never connect the AppleCat modem to a Mac.... Why? Because it will catch and eat the mouse.
Why is this such a big deal to you??? I'm not the ONLY one allergic to tobacco. I have every right to bitch when someone deprives me of fresh air. Who the fuck are you? Do you get a kickback from the tobacco companies of something? Are YOU a chain smoker?
DNS-and-BIND - if you have a beef with me, lets take it off-line and discuss it. Email me at crunch at shopip dot com But then again, I wouldn't expect you to have the balls to discuss this wiith me face to face, would I?
I was invited to the pre-screening party for Sneakers. This was where I learned my story was stolen by the hollywood people who of course would NEVER consider ever talking to me to get the real story.
Yes - I know all about the Sneakers movie.
I have no idea why there is so much attention towards me. I've answered all your questions. My web server seems to be functional again. If you didn't get your questions answered, it could be... 1) I don't have time to answer them all 2) Question was lame 3) Question was not relevent If you are still interested in some very rare recordings of tandom stacking, and old school phreaking, then Email me at crunch at shopip dot com and ask me for the details on where to download them. Crunch
Not anymore. I use Python now. What does every forth programmer do when they go to the bathroom? DROP DUMP FLUSH
I first met Kevin when I was invited by the UK Channel 4 production crew for an extensive interview that eventually got aired on TLC.
September Films put us together... I was flown down to LA to meet Kevin and Woz for that TV production. Since that time, I've run into Kevin a number of times. We were walking in the UCLA campus and Kevin was telling me about the times he hacked into their system.
I suspect he is at the RSA security conf in SF.
Ok, hopefully this time I'll have the format setup properly. I apologize...
Q: I was curious what BBS's you frequented back in the day. I used to hang out on BBS's that ranged from Ripco in Chicago (very popular phreaker hangout) to USS Enterprise in Houston, TX, and of course, phreaking was the way that one tended to call BBS's.
A: I never went into any of the BBS's. I Do remember the controversy of the 8BBS one. It was on a PDP-8 (Really old schoolers would know this one). Then, I joined the WELL in 1983.
Q: Do you regret adding the 'crunch berry' to your popular formula, just to hype up what was already a perfectly good product?
A: Perhaps I should put "crunch Berrys" in the Crunchbox. No, I got a better idea, why not I just pack a box of CrunchBerries with each Crunchbox?
Q: Do you think that such actions will lead to cereal deflation among your territories?
A: WOW! Interesting point.... perhaps it might shift the whole new world order (dis-order?)
Q: How do you feel about these depictions of phreaks and hackers? Is it good that media largely glosses over the reality, and focuses on making them look hip, or is it vaguely insulting?
A: If it sells movies, they will do it... and make whatever representitives they want in order to sell movies.
Q: What illicit technology offers the most fun and challenge today... where are the new frontiers for today's hackers to push the bleeding edge, and what interesting directions do you see them taking with it?
A: How about tracking down spammers and hacking into their PC's when they are spewing out all that spam? I mean, if people are going to hack, why not hack the spammers?
Q: My dad swears he met you in the late 70's. It's his only claim to fame.
So...is it true? Did you meet him?
A: I have no clue - I don't know you, or your dad, so how can I be sure?
Q: What books, websites, IRC sites, etc would you suggest for an aspiring security engineer? Do you think these have any useful information, or it impossible to learn the necessary skills from these sources?
A: I frequent the computer security web sites like Securityfocus, BugTrax, etc. Some do, others don't. Best way to learn, is to "tinker", but we have to get rid of the DCMA first, so write to your congressman.
Q: Is there a cereal box whistle that will get me past the "The page cannot be displayed" message?
A: Yes, it's called "TIME"... I'm sure you'll be able to access "webcrunchers.com" soon, just let the effects of the slashdot wear off. I've had to cut way down on the number of people who can get on it, by request of my Co-lo
Q: If you could do it over again, would you do something differently? Anything you regret doing? Perhaps more importantly, anything you regret having not done?
A: Yes - NEVER trust your best friend. I've always been a trusting guy. somewhat naive, but always quick to help people out. But people fuck up, which got me in trouble.
Q: Are you and Steve Jobs still friends? Is it true that your "blue box" design inspired the iMac?
A: Jobs wouldn't give me the time of day. I'm always in touch with Woz and Mitnick (which I assume is at the RSA Conf in SF at the moment)
Q: In your day, phreakers et al were pretty much barely a blip on the radar screen. A few of you got charged with old laws, several were threatened or intimidated, and many many kids followed in your wake.
Now we're watching a world get built where PhD thesis material might be illegal [securityfocus.com], writing code can get you arrested [eff.org] and charged, and even giving an academic presentation [princeton.edu] is threatened.
How much responsibility, if any, do you think the early phreakers and hackers have for this rash of paranoid law?
A: It's all greed... back then, it was essentially the same... Phone co secrets were "Forbidden information", where mere posession of such information is ille
It is clear that my allotment would run out before I try and answer all your questions... I'll answer some here, then more later, as time permits.. Q: Will/Have you ever make/made any changes you've made to OpenBSD for your Crunchbox available to the OpenBSD group? A: I've not made any changes to the OpenBSD kernal at all. Q:Did you (meaning Phreakers in general) have any ethical qualms about stealing service not only from the big bell companies, but also sometimes from their customers who were later forced to pay for the phone charges that were run up? No - not really. We were'nt into it just for the sake of making calls. Sure, in the beginning, I called everyone I know, but the novelty wore off quite quickly, and I was more interested in "routing" and special operator routing codes and calling test boards. I consider myself to be helping them (Ma Bell) rather then ripping them off. IF I wanted to, I could have taken down the entire western switching center by stacking calls. Q: Are the phreaking times gone forever with the digital technology or it ain't interesting anymore since we have the internet? A: Not really. There is just more options available. There are always going to be security holes. People are going to find them. Q: Do you have a favorite story, either because of the people involved, the tech (high tech or low tech) used, or the problems solved along the way? A: Yea, the Toilet paper crisis (details on my site). Q: What do you consider the most outrageous hack you *did* perform Hacked into the White House CIA Crisis Hotline in early 70's. Found the internal number by scanning. Q: Big fan of your work. But I was wondering, how come you couldn't rig up a couple of fancy grey boxes to fix your god damn slashdot problem? A: Because I didn't think I would NEED to. First off, I wasn't prepared for this, so our server got hammered so much I didn't get the chance to go in and limit the flow. I discovered this Slashdotting when my Co-lo person called me up to tell me my server was getting DDOS'ed. Further sniffing revealed a HUGE ASS amount of traffic hammering my Mac G4. Q: Have you still got your original whistle? And if so, have you ever thought about putting it on eBay? A: No - I don't know where it is. When I initially got busted, i was living with my parents, and when they found out about the bust, they threw all my shit away, Me thinks the whistle was amoung it. Q: What is your outlook for the future of hacking high-tech consumer products? Given the increasingly hostile legal climate regarding these activities (DMCA et al) it appears that corporations have much stronger legal tools to go after hackers that in days gone by were seen as more of a not-well-understood nuisance factor. Are the good old days gone forever? A: Looks bleak indeed... now they are trying to ban tinkering. Q: Your campaign seems to have the momentum of a runaway freight train. Why are you so popular? A: I wish I knew... I mean, this stuff took place before MOST slashdotters were kicking shit out of their diapers. Q: Will you please stop making that horrible "Peanut Butter Crunch?" The stuff tastes like ass. Please focus on those yummy Crunch Berries A: Ok, I'll call General Mills tommorrow and ask them to trash the product. I hate the stuff myself, especially the "Capn Crunch" cerial. Q: What would have happened differently if laws like the DMCA were in force during your first phreaking sessions? A: Computers may not be around... the world as we know it today would be gone. POOOF! into a black hole. Perhaps a revolution may take place. I mean, if this shit ever reared it's ugly head in the 60's, there would be hell to pay. Q: My professor later berated my choice of topics as (his words not mine) "he is an obvious lawless felon and is not worthy of this class's time". A: this is the typical attitude of todays "industry". Once a criminal, always a criminal, and NO, the statute of limitations does NOT exist. People will have this attitude forever. Q:
The Hollywood depiction of hackers is flawed and misleading. It's just Hollywood's attempts at trying to keep things at a level most people understand (they have to appeal to the masses), so verious technical scenerios are going to be "simplified" to the point where the casual movie goer wouldn't be grossly confused. Yet, the Hollywood depiction of hackers has been good and bad to the scene. The Media and press have always depicted hackers as Evil criminals, when in fact, to "hack" means just writing or changing programs. Movies like War Games, Sneakers, Hackers (This one really stinks), tend to depict hackers as hoooligans, criminals and the like.
things are always changing. there are always going to be new and innivative hacks.
Hi - I'm going to answer your questions here on slashdot. It was quite clear to me exactly why my server was down. It was getting a good whopping from Slashdotters, and it completely took up 95% of the T1 it was on, and for a while, I had to take it down upon request from my Co-location provider. It's up now, and setup to handle 200 connections, and within seconds, it peaked at 200 and stayed there. Now it's somewhat died down to about 80.