Becoming The Cracker in Visual C#.NET

Drawer Denso QR Bar Code in Visual C#.NET Becoming The Cracker

you need now, and next time you get something good, let me know.") Within a few months of my first postings, the word started to get around: The Cracker is OK. I learned as much as I could as fast as I could, and after several months of intensive hacking and information-trading, The Cracker was no longer a novice. I knew a lot about hacking by then, and because I liked to share what I knew, I gained the reputation of being someone to go to if you were having trouble. Others hackers began to request advice, and I continued to improve the quality of my information and knowledge by exploring as many computers as I could find. In many cases, another hacker would ask me to try an account to see if I could figure out what system it was on and who owned it. I got a lot of exposure to different machines that way. After a while, people would leave messages saying, "I know you can't help me, but I would like to get onto this system ...." To their surprise, I could usually help out. They needed someone who knew more about a particular operating system than they did - someone who had perhaps seen the inside before - or who might have a few new ideas about how to guess passwords. As The Cracker's reputation grew, answering such requests became a matter of pride. No matter how difficult the question happened to be, I would sit at the terminal for five, ten, twenty hours at a time, until I had the answer.

When I first started hacking, it took a while to find other hackers. Hacker bulletin-board systems were few and far between. But a year later, things started changing rapidly. The microcomputer revolution was putting thousands of machines into thousands of homes every week, so the number of people who began to explore telecommunications and large computers increased dramatically in 1981 and 1982. New hackers popped into the networks every day. During this time, it became very difficult to tell who it was safe to trade information with. Sometimes, the person you gave the information to would abuse the account himself, thus rendering it useless to you. Other times, the person you gave the information to would post it publicly and claim that it was he who took the time and effort to

get the account - still rendering the account useless to you, but also using your hours of work to better his reputation. In any case, if you gave information to the wrong person, you probably would not get anything in return. It was during this time that the Inner Circle was formed, and the person most responsible for its formation was the person who taught me the most about hacking. His handle was Alpha Hacker. I "met" him through one of the bulletin boards, and it was clear from our first communications that he was a hacker among hackers. We have never met face to face, and I still don't know his real name, but he introduced me to several key hacking techniques. Alpha knew tricks that I had never dreamed of. When I was a beginner, Alpha Hacker had been one of those who appreciated the quality of my information. He had been able to gain access to a number of powerful accounts as a result of what he learned from me, and we began to exchange messages. It became obvious to both of us that we were two of a kind and, like any specialists, we enjoyed the opportunity to learn from each other as much as we enjoyed solving problems for other hackers. Alpha Hacker told me he was interested in forming a kind of high-level hackers' guild, because of his concern over who might get their hands on the most useful and sensitive pieces of information we turned up. The concept of the Inner Circle was that the best hackers would meet on private bulletin boards and post their information for other members to see. We would create password-based security systems on these special bulletin boards - security systems strong enough to resist the efforts of other hackers. With these systems in place, we would not have to worry about trading information; all we had to do was place information in the message base and check back every now and then to see what was there. The Inner Circle was formed in early 1982, when Alpha Hacker called me with the idea (he was one of the few hackers to whom I had given my phone number). I agreed to join, and we started to pick out the hackers we both wanted to invite into the group. We picked the best hackers that we knew - those who seemed to fit in with our concept. And to make sure we kept strict control over membership and