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p the disks on the AGIS mail servers, crashing them. In April someone posted a p
assword for an AGIS router on a hacker news group The mystery attacker claimed t
he password was "spamforall." Rumor has it that password was genuine.
The problem was that the young, growing and hungry AGIS had signed contracts wit
h Cyber Promotions, Inc., at the time the biggest spammer in the world; with Nan
cynet; and with several other spammers. The attacks were retaliation for AGIS se
rving these companies.
Harold knew AGIS had problems that he could solve. However, as a junior network
engineer without an engineering degree, he didn't have the clout to persuade man
agement to take the drastic security measures he knew they needed.
June 4, 1997, was the day the AGIS Internet mail gateway backbone was taken out
by -- whom? The attacker announced on a Usenet post "Today I wiped AGISGATE and
all of AGIS's name servers. I will only stop until[sic] AGIS changes their polic
ies... This means getting rid of all of their spammers
-- most importantly Cyber Promotions."
This was not good for Harold. Someone was assaulting AGIS -- and the company and
FBI suspected an insider was committing the attacks. To be exact, Harold, given
his past, worried he would become one of the suspects.
With a wife and two toddlers to care for at the time, the prospect had to be fri
ghtening. Harold was fighting not just to prove he could solve the hacker proble
m -- he was fighting for his reputation.
Then someone gained access to every router on the AGIS network. The attacker cha
nged the configuration files to take the routers out of service. This blacked ou
t the Internet to a million people, in some locations for over a day.
Fortunately Harold was able to use his years of hacker skills to trace the attac
ks to the source of origin. He also persuaded his bosses that he was capable of
doing what was necessary to set up the new AGIS network. Harold designed new har
dware and set up s-key, a one-time password system, to secure the AGIS routers.
He also built AGIS's Usenet distribution system, both the hardware and software.
Harold was rewarded with promotion to senior network engineer -- and stock in th
e fast growing company. And -- he achieved all this while still on probation. No
w that he had real power in the company, Harold's next goal was to rid AGIS of s
pammers. This was not an easy task. AGIS had to fight a lawsuit brought by Cyber
Promotions that briefly got a court order to force AGIS to give them service. H
owever, by December 1997, Harold could say "Now we probably have the least spam
of any backbone."
In early October 1997, Harold responded to a request from Carolyn Meinel to help
Succeed.net, a small ISP in Yuba City, California. Succeed.net was under assaul
t by a group of hackers who wanted to drive Bronc Buster (now at http://www.show
down.org/) off the Internet. The owner of that ISP, Robert
Lavelock, refused to cave in to the attackers' demands and kick Bronc Buster off
. Instead, he fought them. Harold helped them close their security holes and set
up a logging system to help the FBI catch Bronc's assailants. For details on th
is war, which lasted three weeks, see the GTMHH on "Hacker Wars" at http://www.h
appyhacker.org/.
This March, when Rt66 Internet came under attack by hundreds of computer crimina
ls trying to shut down the Happy Hacker network, Harold pitched in again with lo
gger/sniffer software.
Today Harold likes to say, "I help create the Internet. I realize that everythin
g I do affects a million customers." With newborn twin baby daughters, the end o
f probation, the achievement of ridding AGIS of spammers and computer criminals,
and his role of white hat hacker riding to the rescue of the victims of compute
r crime, he has a lot of joy in his life. And the world is certainly a better pl
ace because of his work.
Where are those back issues of GTMHHs and Happy Hacker Digests? Check out the of
ficial Happy Hacker Web page at http://www.happyhacker.org/. Us Happy
Hacker folks are against computer crime. We support good, old-fashioned hacking
of the kind that led to the creation of the Internet and a new era of freedom of
information. So please don't email us about any crimes you may have committed.
We won't be impressed. We might even call the cops on you! To subscribe to Happy
Hacker and receive the Guides to (mostly) Harmless Hacking, please email hacker
@techbroker.com with message "subscribe happy-hacker" in the body of your messag
e. Copyright 1998 Carolyn P. Meinel <cmeinel@techbroker.com>. These Guides to (m
ostly) Harmless Hacking are, in the spirit of copyleft, free for anyone to forwa
rd, post, and print out -- just so long as you keep this info attached to this G
uide so your readers know where to go to get free GTMHHs.