Issue No. 254 August 3-10, 2000 Code of honor ------------- With one of their own embroiled in a lawsuit, hackers at this year's H2K convention talked--gasp!--ethics By Dan Scheraga Emmanuel Goldstein sits on a stage on the top floor of the Pennsylvania Hotel, across from Madison Square Garden. On the phone, he's got "Jim from security" at AT&T's New Jersey headquarters--Goldstein finagled Jim's number out of a gullible AT&T employee just minutes earlier. The PA system pipes the phone call to an audience of several hundred snickering computer hackers. Pretending to be "Armand from marketing," Goldstein tries to obtain a faxed copy of an AT&T internal memo warning staffers to be on heightened alert, as a hacker convention called H2K was about to convene in Manhattan, and its attendees were expected to seek confidential information by impersonating AT&T employees over the phone (a common ploy hackers refer to as "social engineering"). "Is this convention even legal ?" Goldstein asks Jim, in the voice of a concerned worker. Stifled laughter again ripples through the audience. Soon, the jig is up: Jim checks Goldstein's alias against an employee list and comes up empty. Yet the poor man still sounds confused. He mumbles and stumbles; Goldstein lets him off the hook. "We were just making our first phone call from the convention," he explains. Cheers fill the room. Beaming, Goldstein holds up the receiver for Jim to hear. The air of mischief at this year's H2K event, held the weekend of July 1516, was unmistakable. More than 2,000 hackers from around the globe came to socialize, trade information and attend seminars like "How I Got My Own Area Code" and "Why Hacking NASA is a Stupid Idea." The convention was organized by the definitive hacker magazine, 2600, of which Goldstein--an alias for hacker advocate Eric Corley-- is the publisher. Despite the fun, however, this year's fest was more serious than it's been in previous years; the atmosphere was more like that of a real political gathering than of Animal House, as hackers began to agitate for their civil rights out in the real world. The Monday after the convention, at the United States Courthouse overlooking Foley Square, a demonstration was held in support of Goldstein, who is being sued by the Motion Picture Association of America for allegedly violating the controversial and, as yet, untested Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which outlaws technology specifically designed to circumvent copyright protection systems. At issue is Goldstein's publication of the free DVD decryption utility DeCSS on the 2600 website (www.2600.com). DeCSS, which was created late last year--independently of 2600--by 16-year-old programmer Jon Johansen allows users to copy DVD movies into their computers (so you can play them as easily as you would load something like Tomb Raider). It was published by the hacker magazine after the program was already widely available on the Internet; still, the MPAA, which represents the American film industry, went after Goldstein under the DMCA, calling DeCSS a tool for DVD piracy. Goldstein and his supporters argue that it's always been possible to copy DVDs without decryption, and anyway, DeCSS has legitimate applications that fall under the "fair use" provisions of copyright law, which allow the copying of media for personal use. (At press time, the trial is still in session; for a transcript, go to www.2600.com.) To much of the hacker community, the MPAA's challenge represents an intimidation tactic and an affront to free speech--two things sure to piss off this group, as evidenced by other topics at the conference. In addition to a panel discussion titled "Information to the Masses," the floor was given to the elite hacking group Cult of the Dead Cow, which announced the launch of a project that undermines Internet censorship technologies in countries like Cuba and China. (Details on that plan were scarce; the group seemed to spend more time on cow sound effects than on the presentation.) "Hacking has always been a great tool for democracy," said Master Dogen, a 27-year-old Swede who makes his living testing his clients' security by hacking into their systems. He believes that the hacker stigma is undeserved; most of them, he says, are out for information that everyone should have. Others concur. "The public only hears about hackers when the FBI's web page is defaced, or Yahoo! gets taken out for three hours," says Eddan Katz, legal counsel at the nonprofit group Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is aiding Goldstein's defense. "But hacking is really about educating oneself. It's not about pulling Internet pranks." The H2K event backed up this claim. While some attendees were the same people who've panicked corporate America for years, you wouldn't know it to look at them. Some piercings and purple-dyed coiffures were evident, but no more than you'd find in your average subway car. The nerd stereotype didn't apply either; I didn't see a horned rim in the place, and while the crowd was predominantly male, it was not exclusively so. If not for the "freebsd" and "got root?" T-shirts, these people could have been at a travel convention. And despite Goldstein's goofy phone call, there were a number of educational sessions dedicated to hacker ethics--which is not an oxymoron, according to independent computer-security consultant John Katz (no relation to EFF's Katz). The hacker community is a subculture with a well-defined set of tenets: Experiment with technology, share information, never damage another person's data. But as in any loosely organized subculture, it's impossible to impose a single standard of behavior on everyone. "A lot of kids take up hacking when they're very young. I started when I was 11," says John Katz. "At that age, a kid's sense of morals is undeveloped. An ordinary kid might toilet-paper his neighbor's tree, but if he knows how to hack, he may deface a website instead." And as for the older, malicious hackers who should know better? "There are people of all ages and walks of life with weak morals," Katz continues. H2K attendees believe Goldstein has scruples. They--and the movie industry--anxiously wait to see if the court agrees. * © 2000. All Rights Reserved. Time Out New York.