Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier by Suelette Dreyfus

Author:Suelette Dreyfus [Dreyfus, Suelette]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857862600
Google: HRiW5WjRRnMC
Amazon: 085786260X
Barnesnoble: 085786260X
Goodreads: 12516443
Publisher: Canongate Books
Published: 2011-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Electron’s father waited until the very last days of his illness, in March 1991, before he went into hospital. He knew that once he went in, he would not be coming out again.

There was so much to do before that trip, so many things to organise. The house, the life insurance paperwork, the will, the funeral, the instructions for the family friend who promised to watch over both children when he was gone. And, of course, the children themselves.

He looked at his two children and worried. Despite their ages of 21 and 19, they were in many ways still very sheltered. He realised that Electron’s anti-establishment attitude and his sister’s emotional remoteness would remain unresolved difficulties at the time of his death. As the cancer progressed, Electron’s father tried to tell both children how much he cared for them. He might have been somewhat emotionally remote himself in the past, but with so little time left, he wanted to set the record straight.

On the issue of Electron’s problems with the police, however, Electron’s father maintained a hands-off approach. Electron had only talked to his father about his hacking exploits occasionally, usually when he had achieved what he considered to be a very noteworthy hack. His father’s view was always the same. Hacking is illegal, he told his son, and the police will probably eventually catch you. Then you will have to deal with the problem yourself. He didn’t lecture his son, or forbid Electron from hacking. On this issue he considered his son old enough to make his own choices and live with the consequences.

True to his word, Electron’s father had shown little sympathy for his son’s legal predicament after the police raid. He remained neutral on the subject, saying only, ‘I told you something like this would happen and now it is your responsibility’.

Electron’s hacking case progressed slowly over the year, as did his university accounting studies. In March 1991, he faced committal proceedings and had to decide whether to fight his committal.

He faced fifteen charges, most of which were for obtaining unauthorised access to computers in the US and Australia. A few were aggravated offences, for obtaining access to data of a commercial nature. On one count each, the DPP (the Office of the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions) said he altered and erased data. Those two counts were the result of his inserting backdoors for himself, not because he did damage to any files. The evidence was reasonably strong: telephone intercepts and datataps on Phoenix’s phone which showed him talking to Electron about hacking; logs of Electron’s own sessions in Melbourne University’s systems which were traced back to his home phone; and Electron’s own confession to the police.

This was the first major computer hacking case in Australia under the new legislation. It was a test case – the test case for computer hacking in Australia – and the DPP was going in hard. The case had generated seventeen volumes of evidence, totalling some 25 000 pages, and

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