Hackers in Jail, Part Two (Winter, 1993-1994)
---------------------------------------------

Yet again, we must pay sad tribute to a hacker who has been imprisoned. Last
issue we mentioned that two New York hackers, Acid Phreak and Scorpion, had
been sent to prison for six months for "crimes" that nobody was ever able to
define in clear terms. Before them were the three Atlanta hackers, who served
time for reading a worthless Bell South document on a password-free computer.
And Kevin Mitnick, locked up in solitary confinement because the authorities
were afraid of what he could do if he got near a phone. Not to mention
Shadowhawk and Len Rose, who downloaded programs that some huge company didn't
want them to have and were sent away for it. They weren't the only ones but
they were the ones you might remember by reading 2600 over the years. And now,
there's one more.

What was unique about the Phiber Optik case was the attention it got. Here was
a hacker who was not afraid to go public and show people exactly what it was he
was talking about. It's precisely this kind of openness that we here at 2600
have been trying to get across for nearly ten years. After all, standing behind
voice synthesizers and digital distortion tends to convey the image of somebody
with something to hide. Phiber Optik was one of the first hackers to shed this
mask and come forward with information. His tutorials went well beyond hacking
anything concerning high technology was a topic worth pursuing. Over the past
couple of years, he guest lectured for various college courses on the subject
of technology and the general public, made numerous appearances at panel
discussions and conferences, was a frequent guest on WBAI's Off The Hook radio
program in New York where he would answer numerous telephone and computer
related questions from listeners, and helped design three separate public
access UNIX systems in New York City, the most recent one being Echo
(echonyc.com), which introduced hundreds, if not thousands, of people to the
Internet. Not exactly the life of a criminal, one has to admit. As people who
have come to know Phiber well over the years, we've seen what his driving force
has been: the ability to answer questions and figure things out. In the eyes of
the U.S. Department of Justice, it was subversive.

On November 3, Phiber Optik was sentenced to a year and a day in federal
prison. The charges dated back several years and were sufficiently vague to
convince Phiber to plead guilty this past July. After all, a hacker can always
be convicted for something and the mystery of not knowing what it is they're
going to come after you for is enough to convince many people to plead guilty.
(Read a little Kafka if you doubt this.) The penalty for being found guilty
after pleading innocent can be much more severe. And there is also the
financial consideration; legal costs can be crippling, as in the case of Craig
Neidorf, even after the government dropped its case against him. In Phiber's
case, the charges were conspiracy and access to a federal interest computer.
Conspiracy is very difficult to disprove, especially when you're friends with
other hackers and you believe in sharing information. It also doesn't help when
the government fears hackers as much as any national enemy. As for accessing
computers, this was never something that Phiber denied doing. But it happened
years ago, it happened because of bad security, no damage was ever alleged to
have been done, and Phiber always was willing to talk about security problems
with anyone willing to listen. The government didn't want to hear it.

Judge Stanton, in sentencing him, said, "Invasion of computers is seductive to
the young both because of the intellectual challenge and the risk. A message
must be sent that it is serious.... The defendant stands as a symbol because of
his own efforts; therefore, he stands as a symbol here today." In other words,
because he has come to represent so much to so many, what better target for
severe punishment? The total sentence was for a year and a day in prison, 600
hours of community service, and three years of supervised probation. The judge
imposed no restitution because there was no evidence of any damage.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman was positively ecstatic with the
decision. He said, "The sentence is important because it sends a message that
it is a crime to intrude in public data networks. MOD was one of the biggest
hacking organizations in the country. The case was very significant." MOD was
the name of the group that Phiber and a few others were in at one point.
Hearing it referred to as an "organization" only confirms how clueless the
prosecutors were in this case. Basically, they succeeded in sending a few
friends to prison for trespassing. Forgive us if we forego the champagne.

So what do we get out of this, we being the people on the receiving end of this
message? Well, we've got another prisoner to take care of at a cost equivalent
to four years in college. What we don't have is somebody who can help us hook
into the Internet for the first time. We don't have the opportunity to hear
another side of the story when the next technological innovation is heralded.
We don t have someone to explain what might have gone wrong the next time the
phone system crashes. What we've got is a warning a warning not to stray from
the safe curriculum, ask too many questions, expose embarrassing truths, or try
to find answers through unconventional means.

Sending hackers to prison is a mockery of justice and one day will be
recognized as such. Until that day comes, we can only hope that their lives
will not be irreversibly harmed and that those of us on the outside won't push
each other into a pit of paranoia as we desperately struggle to remain
innocent.

On a personal level, we all feel a deep sadness here at 2600 for what has
happened. We don't mean to diminish all of the other cases that have taken
place and those that unfortunately will occur in the future. But this one hit
rather close to home. It's going to be very difficult to go to a 2600 meeting,
analyze the latest Star Trek, argue over UNIX, or hang out in our favorite
Ukrainian restaurant without thinking of the familiar voices that have been
locked out.