Read about it; Just another incredible scene; There's no doubt about it.
-- from `Read About It', 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Pad had an important warning for the Australian hackers: the computer
security community was closing in on them. It was the end of February
1990, not long after Phoenix and Electron had captured Zardoz and just
missed out on Deszip. Pad didn't scream or shout the warning, that
wasn't his style. But Electron took in the import of the warning loud
and clear.
`Feen, they know you did over Spaf's machine,' Pad told Phoenix. `They
know it's been you in other systems also. They've got your handle.'
Eugene Spafford was the kind of computer security expert who loses a
lot of face when a hacker gets into his machine, and a wounded bull is
a dangerous enemy.
The security people had been able to connect and link up a series of
break-ins with the hacker who called himself Phoenix because his style
was so distinctive. For example, whenever he was creating a root
shell--root access--for himself, he would always save it in the same
filename and in the same location on the
computer. In some instances, he even created accounts called `Phoenix'
for himself. It was this consistency of style which had made things so
much easier for admins to trace his movements.
In his typical understated fashion, Pad suggested a change of style.
And maybe, he added, it wasn't such a bad idea for the Australians to
tone down their activities a bit. The undercurrent of the message was
serious.
`They said that some security people had contacted Australian law
enforcement, who were supposed to be "dealing with it",' Pad said.
`Do they know my real name?' Phoenix asked, worried. Electron was also
watching this conversation with some concern.
`Don't know. Got it from Shatter. He's not always reliable,
but ...'
Pad was trying to soften the news by playing down Shatter's importance
as a source. He didn't trust his fellow British hacker but Shatter had
some good, if mysterious, connections. An enigmatic figure who seemed
to keep one foot in the computer underworld and the other in the
upright computer security industry, Shatter leaked information to Pad
and Gandalf, and occasionally to the Australians.
While the two British hackers sometimes discounted Shatter's advice,
they also took the time to talk to him. Once, Electron had intercepted
email showing Pengo had turned to Shatter for advice about his
situation after the raid in Germany. With some spare time prior to his
trial, Pengo asked Shatter whether it was safe to travel to the US on
a summer holiday in 1989. Shatter asked for Pengo's birthdate and
other details. Then he returned with an unequivocal answer: Under no
circumstances was Pengo to travel to the US.
Subsequently, it was reported that officials in the US Justice
Department had been examining ways to secretly coax Pengo onto
American soil, where they could seize him. They would then force him
to face trial in their own courts.
Had Shatter known this? Or had he just told Pengo not to go to the US
because it was good commonsense? No-one was quite sure, but people
took note of what Shatter told them.
`Shatter definitely got the info right about Spaf's machine. 100%
right,' Pad continued. `He knew exactly how you hacked it. I couldn't
believe it. Be careful if you're still hacking m8, especially on the
Inet.' The `Inet' was shorthand for the Internet.
The Altos hackers went quiet.
`It's not just you,' Pad tried to reassure the Australians. `Two
security people from the US are coming to the UK to try and find out
something about someone named Gandalf. Oh, and Gand's mate, who might
be called Patrick.'
Pad had indeed based his handle on the name Patrick, or Paddy, but
that wasn't his real name. No intelligent hacker would use his real
name for his handle. Paddy was the name of one of his favourite
university lecturers, an Irishman who laughed a good deal. Like Par's
name, Pad's handle had coincidentally echoed a second meaning when the
British hacker moved into exploring X.25 networks. An X.25 PAD is a
packet assembler disassembler, the interface between the X.25 network
and a modem or terminal server. Similarly, Gandalf, while being first
and foremost the wizard from The Lord of The Rings, also happened to
be a terminal server brand name.
Despite the gravity of the news that the security community was
closing the net around them, none of the hackers lost their wicked
sense of humour.
`You know,' Pad went on, `Spaf was out of the country when his machine
got hacked.'
`Was he? Where?' asked Gandalf, who had just joined the conversation.
`In Europe.'
Electron couldn't resist. `Where was Spaf, Gandalf asks as he hears a
knock on his door ...'
`Haha,' Gandalf laughed.
`<knock> <knock>' Electron went on, hamming it up.
`Oh! Hello there, Mr Spafford,' Gandalf typed, playing along.
`Hello, I'm Gene and I'm mean!'
Alone in their separate homes on different corners of the globe, the
four hackers chuckled to themselves.
`Hello, and is this the man called Patrick?' Pad jumped in.
`Well, Mr Spafford, it seems you're a right fucking idiot for not
patching your FTP!' Gandalf proclaimed.
`Not to mention the CHFN bug--saved by a Sequent! Or you'd be very
fucking embarrassed,' Phoenix added.
Phoenix was laughing too, but he was a little nervous about Pad's
warning and he turned the conversation back to a serious note.
`So, Pad, what else did Shatter tell you?' Phoenix asked
anxiously.
`Not much. Except that some of the security investigations might be
partly because of UCB.'
UCB was the University of California at Berkeley. Phoenix had been
visiting machines at both Berkeley and LLNL so much recently that the
admins seemed to have not only noticed him, but they had pinpointed
his handle. One day he had telnetted into dewey.soe.berkeley.edu--the
Dewey machine as it was known--and had been startled to find the
following message of the day staring him in the face:
Phoenix,
Get out of Dewey NOW!
Also, do not use any of the `soe' machines.
Thank you,
Daniel Berger
Phoenix did a double take when he saw this public warning. Having been
in and out of the system so many times, he just zoomed past the words
on the login screen. Then, in a delayed reaction, he realised the
login message was addressed to him.
Ignoring the warning, he proceeded to get root on the Berkeley machine
and look through Berger's files. Then he sat back, thinking about the
best way to deal with the problem. Finally, he decided to send the
admin a note saying he was leaving the system for good.
Within days, Phoenix was back in the Dewey machine, weaving in and out
of it as if nothing had happened. After all, he had broken into the
system, and managed to get root through his own wit. He had earned the
right to be in the computer. He might send the admin a note to put him
at ease, but Phoenix wasn't going to give up accessing Berkeley's
computers just because it upset Daniel Berger.
`See,' Pad continued, `I think the UCB people kept stuff on their
systems that wasn't supposed to be there. Secret things.'
Classified military material wasn't supposed to be stored
on non-classified network computers. However, Pad guessed that
sometimes researchers broke rules and took short cuts because they
were busy thinking about their research and not the security
implications.
`Some of the stuff might have been illegal,' Pad told his captive
audience. `And then they find out some of you guys have been in there
...'
`Shit,' Phoenix said.
`So, well, if it APPEARED like someone was inside trying to get at
those secrets ...' Pad paused. `Then you can guess what happened. It
seems they really want to get whoever was inside their machines.'
There was momentary silence while the other hackers digested all that
Pad had told them. As a personality on Altos, Pad remained ever so
slightly withdrawn from the other hackers, even the Australians whom
he considered mates. This reserved quality gave his warning a certain
sobriety, which seeped into the very fabric of Altos that day.
Eventually, Electron responded to Pad's warning by typing a comment
directed at Phoenix: `I told you talking to security guys is nothing
but trouble.'
It irritated Electron more and more that Phoenix felt compelled to
talk to white hats in the security industry. In Electron's view,
drawing attention to yourself was just a bad idea all around and he
was increasingly annoyed at watching Phoenix feed his ego. He had made
veiled references to Phoenix's bragging on Altos many times, saying
things like `I wish people wouldn't talk to security guys'.
Phoenix responded to Electron on-line somewhat piously. `Well, I will
never talk to security guys seriously again.'
Electron had heard it all before. It was like listening to an
alcoholic swear he would never touch another drink. Bidding the others
goodbye, Electron logged off. He didn't care to listen to Phoenix any
more.
Others did, however. Hundreds of kilometres away, in a special room
secreted away inside a bland building in Canberra, Sergeant Michael
Costello and Constable William Apro had been methodically capturing
each and every electronic boast as it poured from Phoenix's phone. The
two officers recorded the data transmissions passing in and out of his
computer. They then played this recording into their own modem and
computer and created a text file they could save and use as evidence
in court.
Both police officers had travelled north from Melbourne, where they
worked with the AFP's Computer Crime Unit. Settling into their
temporary desks with their PC and laptop, the officers began their
secret eavesdropping work on 1 February 1990.
It was the first time the AFP had done a datatap. They were happy to
bide their time, to methodically record Phoenix hacking into Berkeley,
into Texas, into NASA, into a dozen computers around the world. The
phone tap warrant was good for 60 days, which was more than enough
time to secrete away a mountain of damning evidence against the
egotistical Realm hacker. Time was on their side.
The officers worked the Operation Dabble job in shifts. Constable Apro
arrived at the Telecommunications Intelligence Branch of the AFP at 8
p.m. Precisely ten hours later, at 6 the next morning, Sergeant
Costello relieved Apro, who knocked off for a good sleep. Apro
returned again at 8 p.m. to begin the night shift.
They were there all the time. Twenty-four hours a day. Seven days a
week. Waiting and listening.
It was too funny. Erik Bloodaxe in Austin, Texas, couldn't stop
laughing. In Melbourne, Phoenix's side hurt from laughing so much.
Phoenix loved to talk on the phone. He often called Erik, sometimes
every day, and they spoke for ages. Phoenix didn't worry about cost;
he wasn't paying for it. The call would appear on some poor sod's bill
and he could sort it out with the phone company.
Sometimes Erik worried a little about whether Phoenix wasn't going to
get himself in a jam making all these international calls. Not that he
didn't like talking to the Australian; it was a hoot. Still, the
concern sat there, unsettled, in the back of his mind. A few times he
asked Phoenix about it.
`No prob. Hey, AT&T isn't an Australian company,' Phoenix would say.
`They can't do anything to me.' And Erik had let it rest at that.
For his part, Erik didn't dare call Phoenix, especially not since his
little visit from the US Secret Service. On 1 March 1990, they burst
into his home, with guns drawn, in a dawn raid. The agents searched
everywhere, tearing the student house apart, but they didn't find
anything incriminating. They did take Erik's $59 keyboard terminal
with its chintzy little 300 baud modem, but they didn't get his main
computer, because Erik knew they were coming.
The Secret Service had subpoenaed his academic records, and Erik had
heard about it before the raid. So when the Secret Service arrived,
Erik's stuff just wasn't there. It hadn't been there for a few weeks,
but for Erik, they had been hard weeks. The hacker found himself
suffering withdrawal symptoms, so he bought the cheapest home computer
and modem he could find to tide him over.
That equipment was the only computer gear the Secret Service
discovered, and they were not happy special agents. But without
evidence, their hands were tied. No charges were laid.
Still, Erik thought he was probably being watched. The last thing he
wanted was for Phoenix's number to appear on his home phone bill. So
he let Phoenix call him, which the Australian did all the time. They
often talked for hours when Erik was working nights. It was a slack
job, just changing the back-up tapes on various computers and making
sure they didn't jam. Perfect for a student. It left Erik hours of
free time.
Erik frequently reminded Phoenix that his phone was probably tapped,
but Phoenix just laughed. `Yeah, well don't worry about it, mate. What
are they going to do? Come and get me?'
After Erik put a hold on his own hacking activities, he lived
vicariously, listening to Phoenix's exploits. The Australian called
him with a technical problem or an interesting system, and then they
discussed various strategies for getting into the machine. However,
unlike Electron's talks with Phoenix, conversations with Erik weren't
only about hacking. They chatted about life, about what Australia was
like, about girls, about what was in the newspaper that day. It was
easy to talk to Erik. He had a big ego, like most hackers, but it was
inoffensive, largely couched in his self-effacing humour.
Phoenix often made Erik laugh. Like the time he got Clifford Stoll, an
astronomer, who wrote The Cuckoo's Egg. The book described his pursuit
of a German hacker who had broken into the computer system Stoll
managed at Lawrence Berkeley Labs near San Francisco. The hacker had
been part of the same hacking ring as Pengo. Stoll took a hard line on
hacking, a position which did not win him popularity in the
underground. Both Phoenix and Erik had read Stoll's book, and one day
they were sitting around chatting about it.
`You know, it's really stupid that Cliffy put his email address in his
book,' Phoenix said. `Hmm, why don't I go check?'
Sure enough, Phoenix called Erik back about a day later. `Well, I got
root on Cliffy's machine,' he began slowly, then he burst out
laughing. `And I changed the message of the day. Now it reads, "It
looks like the Cuckoo's got egg on his face"!'
It was uproariously funny. Stoll, the most famous hacker-catcher in
the world, had been japed! It was the funniest thing Erik had heard in
weeks.
But it was not nearly so amusing as what Erik told Phoenix later about
the New York Times. The paper had published an article on 19 March
suggesting a hacker had written some sort of virus or worm which was
breaking into dozens of computers.
`Listen to this,' Erik had said, reading Phoenix the lead paragraph,
`"A computer intruder has written a program that has entered dozens of
computers in a nationwide network in recent weeks, automatically
stealing electronic documents containing users' passwords and erasing
files to help conceal itself."'
Phoenix was falling off his chair he was laughing so hard. A program?
Which was automatically doing this? No. It wasn't an automated
program, it was the Australians! It was the Realm hackers! God, this
was funny.
`Wait--there's more! It says, "Another rogue program shows a
widespread vulnerability". I laughed my ass off,' Erik said,
struggling to get the words out.
`A rogue program! Who wrote the article?'
`A John Markoff,' Erik answered, wiping his eyes. `I called him up.'
`You did? What did you say?' Phoenix tried to gather himself together.
`"John," I said, "You know that article you wrote on page 12 of the
Times? It's wrong! There's no rogue program attacking the Internet."
He goes, "What is it then?" "It's not a virus or a worm," I said.
"It's PEOPLE."'
Erik started laughing uncontrollably again.
`Then Markoff sounds really stunned, and he goes, "People?" And I
said, "Yeah, people." Then he said, "How do you know?" And I said,
"Because, John, I KNOW."'
Phoenix erupted in laughter again. The Times reporter obviously had
worms on his mind, since the author of the famous Internet worm,
Robert T. Morris Jr, had just been tried and convicted in the US. He
was due to be sentenced in May.
US investigators had tracked the hacker's connections, looping through
site after site in a burrowing manner which they assumed belonged to a
worm. The idea of penetrating so many sites all in such a short time
clearly baffled the investigators, who concluded it must be a program
rather than human beings launching the attacks.
`Yeah,' Erik continued, `And then Markoff said, "Can you get me to
talk to them?" And I said I'd see what I could do.'
`Yeah,' Phoenix said. `Go tell him, yes. Yeah, I gotta talk to this
idiot. I'll set him straight.'
Page one, the New York Times, 21 March 1990: `Caller Says he Broke
Computers' Barriers to Taunt the Experts', by John Markoff.
True, the article was below the crease--on the bottom half of the
page--but at least it was in column 1, the place a reader turns to
first.
Phoenix was chuffed. He'd made the front page of the New York Times.
`The man identified himself only as an Australian named Dave,' the
article said. Phoenix chuckled softly. Dave Lissek was the pseudonym
he'd used. Of course, he wasn't the only one using the name Dave. When
Erik first met the Australians on Altos, he marvelled at how they all
called themselves Dave. I'm Dave, he's Dave, we're all Dave, they told
him. It was just easier that way, they said.
The article revealed that `Dave' had attacked Spaf's and Stoll's
machines, and that the Smithsonian Astronomical Observatory at Harvard
University--where Stoll now worked--had pulled its computers off the
Internet as a result of the break in. Markoff had even included the
`egg on his face' story Phoenix had described to him.
Phoenix laughed at how well he had thumbed his nose at Cliffy Stoll.
This article would show him up all right. It felt so good, seeing
himself in print that way. He did that. That was him there in black in
white, for all the world to see. He had outsmarted the world's best
known hacker-catcher, and he had smeared the insult across the front
page of the most prestigious newspaper in America.
And Markoff reported that he had been in Spaf's system too! Phoenix
glowed happily. Better still, Markoff had quoted `Dave' on the
subject: `The caller said ... "It used to be the security guys chasing
the hackers. Now it's the hackers chasing the security people."'
The article went on: `Among the institutions believed to have been
penetrated by the intruder are the Los Alamos National Laboratories,
Harvard, Digital Equipment Corporation, Boston University and the
University of Texas.' Yes, that list sounded about right. Well, for
the Australians as a group anyway. Even if Phoenix hadn't masterminded
or even penetrated some of those himself, he was happy to take the
credit in the Times.
This was a red-letter day for Phoenix.
Electron, however, was furious. How could Phoenix be so stupid? He
knew that Phoenix had an ego, that he talked too much, and that his
tendency to brag had grown worse over time, fed by the skyrocketing
success of the Australian hackers. Electron knew all of that, but he
still couldn't quite believe that Phoenix had gone so far as to strut
and preen like a show pony for the New York Times.
To think that he had associated with Phoenix. Electron was disgusted.
He had never trusted Phoenix--a caution now proved wise. But he had
spent hours with him on the phone, with most of the information
flowing in one direction. But not only did Phoenix show no discretion
at all in dealing with the paper, he bragged about doing things that
Electron had done! If Phoenix had to talk--and clearly he should have
kept his mouth shut--he should have at least been honest about the
systems for which he could claim credit.
Electron had tried with Phoenix. Electron had suggested that he stop
talking to the security guys. He had continually urged caution and
discretion. He had even subtly withdrawn each time Phoenix suggested
one of his hair-brained schemes to show off to a security bigwig.
Electron had done this in the hope that Phoenix might get the hint.
Maybe, if Phoenix couldn't hear someone shouting advice at him, he
might at least listen to someone whispering it. But no. Phoenix was
far too thick for that.
The Internet--indeed, all hacking--was out of bounds for weeks, if not
months. There was no chance the Australian authorities would let a
front-page story in the Times go by un-heeded. The Americans would be
all over them. In one selfish act of hubris, Phoenix had ruined the
party for everyone else.
Electron unplugged his modem and took it to his father. During exams,
he had often asked his father to hide it. He didn't have the
self-discipline needed to stay away on his own and there was no other
way Electron could keep himself from jacking in--plugging his modem
into the wall. His father had become an expert at hiding the device,
but Electron usually still managed to find it after a few days,
tearing the house apart until he emerged, triumphant, with the modem
held high above his head. Even when his father began hiding the modem
outside the family home it would only postpone the inevitable.
This time, however, Electron vowed he would stop hacking until the
fallout had cleared--he had to. So he handed the modem to his father,
with strict instructions, and then tried to distract himself by
cleaning up his hard drive and disks. His hacking files had to go too.
So much damning evidence of his activities. He deleted some files and
took others on disks to store at a friend's house. Deleting files
caused Electron considerable pain, but there was no other way. Phoenix
had backed him into a corner.
Brimming with excitement, Phoenix rang Electron on a sunny March
afternoon.
`Guess what?' Phoenix was jumping around like an eager puppy at the
other end of the line. `We made the nightly news right across the US!'
`Uhuh,' Electron responded, unimpressed.
`This is not a joke!' We were on cable news all day too. I called Erik
and he told me.'
`Mmm,' Electron said.
`You know, we did a lot of things right. Like Harvard. We got into
every system at Harvard. It was a good move. Harvard gave us the fame
we needed.'
Electron couldn't believe what he was hearing. He didn't need any
fame--and he certainly didn't need to be busted. The
conversation--like Phoenix himself--was really beginning to annoy him.
`Hey, and they know your name,' Phoenix said coyly.
That got a reaction. Electron gulped his anger.
`Haha! Just joshing!' Phoenix practically shouted. `Don't worry! They
didn't really mention anyone's name.'
`Good,' Electron answered curtly. His irritation stewed
quietly.
`So, do you reckon we'll make the cover of Time or Newsweek?'
Good grief! Didn't Phoenix ever give up? As if it wasn't enough to
appear on the 6 o'clock national news in a country crawling with
over-zealous law enforcement agencies. Or to make the New York Times.
He had to have the weeklies too.
Phoenix was revelling in his own publicity. He felt like he was on top
of the world, and he wanted to shout about it. Electron had felt the
same wave of excitement from hacking many high-profile targets and
matching wits with the best, but he was happy to stand on the peak by
himself, or with people like Pad and Gandalf, and enjoy the view
quietly. He was happy to know he had been the best on the frontier of
a computer underground which was fresh, experimental and, most of all,
international. He didn't need to call up newspaper reporters or gloat
about it in Clifford Stoll's face.
`Well, what do you reckon?' Phoenix asked impatiently.
`No,' Electron answered.
`No? You don't think we will?' Phoenix sounded disappointed.
`No.'
`Well, I'll demand it!' Phoenix said laughing, `Fuck it, we want the
cover of Newsweek, nothing less.' Then, more seriously, `I'm trying to
work out what really big target would clinch it for us.'
`Yeah, OK, whatever,' Electron replied, distancing himself again.
But Electron was thinking, Phoenix, you are a fool. Didn't he see the
warning signs? Pad's warning, all the busts in the US, reports that
the Americans were hunting down the Brits. As a result of these news
reports of which Phoenix was so proud, bosses across the world would
be calling their computer managers into their offices and breathing
down their necks about their own computer security.
The brazen hackers had deeply offended the computer security industry,
spurring it into action. In the process, some in the industry had also
seen an opportunity to raise its own public profile. The security
experts had talked to the law enforcement agencies, who were now
clearly sharing information across national borders and closing in
fast. The conspirators in
the global electronic village were at the point of maximum
overreach.
`We could hack Spaf again,' Phoenix volunteered.
`The general public couldn't give a fuck about Eugene Spafford,'
Electron said, trying to dampen Phoenix's bizarre enthusiasm. He was
all for thumbing one's nose at authority, but this was not the way to
do it.
`It'd be so funny in court, though. The lawyer would call Spaf and
say, "So, Mr Spafford, is it true that you are a world-renowned
computer security expert?" When he said, "Yes" I'd jump up and go, "I
object, your honour, this guy doesn't know jackshit, 'cause I hacked
his machine and it was a breeze!"'
`Mmm.'
`Hey, if we don't get busted in the next two weeks, it will be a
miracle,' Phoenix continued happily.
`I hope not.'
`This is a lot of fun!' Phoenix shouted sarcastically. `We're gonna
get busted! We're gonna get busted!'
Electron's jaw fell to the ground. Phoenix was mad. Only a lunatic
would behave this way. Mumbling something about how tired he was,
Electron said goodbye and hung up.
At 5.50 a.m. on 2 April 1990, Electron dragged himself out of bed and
made his way to the bathroom. Part way through his visit, the light
suddenly went out.
How strange. Electron opened his eyes wide in the early morning
dimness. He returned to his bedroom and began putting on some jeans
before going to investigate the problem.
Suddenly, two men in street clothes yanked his window open and jumped
through into the room shouting, `GET DOWN ON THE FLOOR!'
Who were these people? Half-naked, Electron stood in the middle of his
room, stunned and immobile. He had suspected the police might pay him
a visit, but didn't they normally wear uniforms? Didn't they announce
themselves?
The two men grabbed Electron, threw him face down onto the floor and
pulled his arms behind his back. They jammed handcuffs on his
wrists--hard--cutting his skin. Then someone kicked him in the
stomach.
`Are there any firearms in the house?' one of the men asked.
Electron couldn't answer because he couldn't breathe. The kick had
winded him. He felt someone pull him up from the floor and prop him in
a chair. Lights went on everywhere and he could see six or seven
people moving around in the hallway. They must have come into the
house another way. The ones in the hallway were all wearing bibs with
three large letters emblazoned across the front: AFP.
As Electron slowly gathered his wits, he realised why the cops had
asked about firearms. He had once joked to Phoenix on the phone about
how he was practising with his dad's .22 for when the feds came
around. Obviously the feds had been tapping his phone.
While his father talked with one of the officers in the other room and
read the warrant, Electron saw the police pack up his computer
gear--worth some $3000--and carry it out of the house. The only thing
they didn't discover was the modem. His father had become so expert at
hiding it that not even the Australian Federal Police could find it.
Several other officers began searching Electron's bedroom, which was
no small feat, given the state it was in. The floor was covered in a
thick layer of junk. Half crumpled music band posters, lots of
scribbled notes with passwords and NUAs, pens, T-shirts both clean and
dirty, jeans, sneakers, accounting books, cassettes, magazines, the
occasional dirty cup. By the time the police had sifted through it all
the room was tidier than when they started.
As they moved into another room at the end of the raid, Electron bent
down to pick up one of his posters which had fallen onto the floor. It
was a Police Drug Identification Chart--a gift from a friend's
father--and there, smack dab in the middle, was a genuine AFP
footprint. Now it was a collector's item. Electron smiled to himself
and carefully tucked the poster away.
When he went out to the living room, he saw a policemen holding a
couple of shovels and he wanted to laugh again. Electron had also once
told Phoenix that all his sensitive hacking disks were buried in the
backyard. Now the police were going to dig it up in search of
something which had been destroyed a few days before. It was too
funny.
The police found little evidence of Electron's hacking at his house,
but that didn't really matter. They already had almost everything they
needed.
Later that morning, the police put the 20-year-old Electron into an
unmarked car and drove him to the AFP's imposing-looking headquarters
at 383 Latrobe Street for questioning.
In the afternoon, when Electron had a break from the endless
questions, he walked out to the hallway. The boyish-faced Phoenix,
aged eighteen, and fellow Realm member Nom, 21, were walking with
police at the other end of the hall. They were too far apart to talk,
but Electron smiled. Nom looked worried. Phoenix looked annoyed.
Electron was too intimidated to insist on having a lawyer. What was
the point in asking for one anyway? It was clear the police had
information they could only have obtained from
tapping his phone. They also showed him logs taken from Melbourne
University, which had been traced back to his phone. Electron figured
the game was up, so he might as well tell them the whole story--or at
least as much of it as he had told Phoenix on the phone.
Two officers conducted the interview. The lead interviewer was
Detective Constable Glenn Proebstl, which seemed to be pronounced
`probe stool'--an unfortunate name, Electron thought. Proebstl was
accompanied by Constable Natasha Elliott, who occasionally added a few
questions at the end of various interview topics but otherwise kept to
herself. Although he had decided to answer their questions truthfully,
Electron thought that neither of them knew much about computers and
found himself struggling to understand what they were trying to ask.
Electron had to begin with the basics. He explained what the FINGER
command was--how you could type `finger' followed by a username, and
then the computer would provide basic information about the user's
name and other details.
`So, what is the methodology behind it ... finger ... then, it's
normally ... what is the normal command after that to try and get the
password out?' Constable Elliott finally completed her convoluted
attempt at a question.
The only problem was that Electron had no idea what she was talking
about.
`Well, um, I mean there is none. I mean you don't use finger like that
...'
`Right. OK,' Constable Elliott got down to business. `Well, have you
ever used that system before?'
`Uhm, which system?' Electron had been explaining commands for so long
he had forgotten if they were still talking about how he hacked the
Lawrence Livermore computer or some other site.
`The finger ... The finger system?'
Huh? Electron wasn't quite sure how to answer that question. There was
no such thing. Finger was a command, not a computer.
`Uh, yes,' he said.
The interview went the same way, jolting awkwardly through computer
technology which he understood far better than either officer.
Finally, at the end of a long day, Detective Constable Proebstl asked
Electron:
`In your own words, tell me what fascination you find with accessing
computers overseas?'
`Well, basically, it's not for any kind of personal gain or anything,'
Electron said slowly. It was a surprisingly difficult question to
answer. Not because he didn't know the answer, but because it was a
difficult answer to describe to someone who had never hacked a
computer. `It's just the kick of getting in to a system. I mean, once
you are in, you very often get bored and even though you can still
access the system, you may never call back.
`Because once you've gotten in, it's a challenge over and you don't
really care much about it,' Electron continued, struggling. `It's a
hot challenge thing, trying to do things that other people are also
trying to do but can't.
`So, I mean, I guess it is a sort of ego thing. It's knowing that you
can do stuff that other people cannot, and well, it is the
challenge and the ego boost you get from doing something well ...
where other people try and fail.'
A few more questions and the day-long interview finally
finished. The police then took Electron to the Fitzroy police
station. He guessed it was the nearest location with a JP they could
find willing to process a bail application at that hour.
In front of the ugly brick building, Electron noticed a small group of
people gathered on the footpath in the dusky light. As the police car
pulled up, the group swung into a frenzy of activity, fidgeting in
over-the-shoulder briefcases, pulling out notebooks and pens, scooping
up big microphones with fuzzy shag covers, turning on TV camera
lights.
Oh NO! Electron wasn't prepared for this at all.
Flanked by police, Electron stepped out of the police car and blinked
in the glare of photographers' camera flashes and TV camera
searchlights. The hacker tried to ignore them, walking as briskly as
his captors would allow. Sound recordists and reporters tagged beside
him, keeping pace, while the TV cameramen and photographers weaved in
front of him. Finally he escaped into the safety of the watchhouse.
First there was paperwork, followed by the visit to the JP. While
shuffling through his papers, the JP gave Electron a big speech about
how defendants often claimed to have been beaten by the police.
Sitting in the dingy meeting room, Electron felt somewhat confused by
the purpose of this tangential commentary. However, the JP's next
question cleared things up: `Have you had any problems with your
treatment by the police which you would like to record at this time?'
Electron thought about the brutal kick he had suffered while lying on
his bedroom floor, then he looked up and found Detective Constable
Proebstl staring him in the eye. A slight smile passed across the
detective's face.
`No,' Electron answered.
The JP proceeded to launch into another speech which Electron found
even stranger. There was another defendant in the lock-up at the
moment, a dangerous criminal who had a disease the JP knew about, and
the JP could decide to lock Electron up with that criminal instead of
granting him bail.
Was this meant to be helpful warning, or just the gratification of
some kind of sadistic tendency? Electron was baffled but he didn't
have to consider the situation for long. The JP granted bail.
Electron's father came to the watchhouse, collected his son and signed
the papers for a $1000 surety--to be paid if Electron skipped town.
That night Electron watched as his name appeared on the late night
news.
At home over the next few weeks, Electron struggled to come to terms
with the fact that he would have to give up hacking forever. He still
had his modem, but no computer. Even if he had a machine, he realised
it was far too dangerous to even contemplate hacking again.
So he took up drugs instead.
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 25000 pages,
and Crown prosecutor Lisa West planned to call up to twenty expert
witnesses from Australia, Europe and the US.
Those witnesses had some tales to tell about the Australian hackers,
who had caused havoc in systems around the world. Phoenix had
accidentally deleted a Texas-based company's inventory of assets--the
only copy in existence according to Execucom Systems Corporation. The
hackers had also baffled security personnel at the US Naval Research
Labs. They had bragged to the New York Times. And they forced NASA to
cut off its computer network for 24 hours.
AFP Detective Sergeant Ken Day had flown halfway around the world to
obtain a witness statement from none other than NASA Langley computer
manager Sharon Beskenis--the admin Phoenix had accidentally kicked off
her own system when he was trying to get Deszip. Beskenis had been
more than happy to oblige and on 24 July 1990 she signed a statement
in Virginia, witnessed by Day. Her statement said that, as a result of
the hackers' intrusion, `the entire NASA computer system was
disconnected from any external communications with the rest of the
world' for about 24 hours on 22 February 1990.
In short, Electron thought, there didn't seem to be much chance of
winning at the committal hearing. Nom seemed to feel the same way. He
faced two counts, both `knowingly concerned' with Phoenix obtaining
unauthorised access. One was for NASA Langley, the other for
CSIRO--the Zardoz file. Nom didn't fight his committal either,
although Legal Aid's refusal
to fund a lawyer for the procedure no doubt weighed in his
decision.
On 6 March 1991, Magistrate Robert Langton committed Electron and Nom
to stand trial in the Victorian County Court.
Phoenix, however, didn't agree with his fellow hackers' point of view.
With financial help from his family, he had decided to fight his
committal. He wasn't going to hand this case to the prosecution on a
silver platter, and they would have to fight him every step of the
way, dragging him forward from proceeding to proceeding. His
barrister, Felicity Hampel, argued the court should throw out 47 of
the 48 charges against her client on jurisdictional grounds. All but
one charge--breaking into the CSIRO machine in order to steal
Zardoz--related to hacking activities outside Australia. How could an
Australian court claim jurisdiction over a hacked computer in Texas?
Privately, Phoenix worried more about being extradited to the US than
dealing with the Australian courts, but publicly he was going into the
committal with all guns blazing. It was a test case in many ways; not
only the first major hacking case in Australia but also the first time
a hacker had fought Australian committal proceedings for computer
crimes.
The prosecution agreed to drop one of the 48 counts, noting it was a
duplicate charge, but the backdown was a pyrrhic victory for Phoenix.
After a two-day committal hearing, Magistrate John Wilkinson decided
Hampel's jurisdictional argument didn't hold water and on 14 August
1991 he committed Phoenix to stand trial in the County Court.
By the day of Electron's committal, in March, Electron's father had
begun his final decline. The bowel cancer created a roller-coaster of
good and bad days, but soon there were only bad days, and they were
getting worse. On the last day of March, the doctors told him that it
was finally time to make the trip to hospital. He stubbornly refused
to go, fighting their advice, questioning their authority. They
quietly urged him again. He protested. Finally, they insisted.
Electron and his sister stayed with their father for hours that day,
and the following one. Their father had other visitors to keep his
spirits up, including his brother who fervently beseeched him to
accept Jesus Christ as his personal saviour before he died. That way,
he wouldn't burn in hell. Electron looked at his uncle, disbelieving.
He couldn't believe his father was having to put up with such crap on
his deathbed. Still, Electron chose to be discreet. Apart from an
occasional rolling of the eyes, he kept his peace at his father's
bedside.
Perhaps, however, the fervent words did some good, for as Electron's
father spoke about the funeral arrangements, he made a strange slip of
the tongue. He said `wedding' instead of funeral, then paused,
realising his mistake. Glancing slowly down at the intricate braided
silver wedding band still on his finger, he smiled frailly and said,
`I suppose, in a way, it will be like a wedding'.
Electron and his sister went to hospital every day for four days, to
sit by their father's bed.
At 6 a.m. on the fifth day, the telephone rang. It was the family
friend their father had asked to watch over them. Their father's life
signs were very, very weak, fluttering on the edge of death.
When Electron and his sister arrived at the hospital, the nurse's face
said everything. They were too late. Their father had died ten minutes
before they arrived. Electron broke down and wept. He hugged his
sister, who, for a brief moment, seemed almost reachable. Driving them
back to the house, the family friend stopped and bought them an
answering machine.
`You'll need this when everyone starts calling in,' she told them.
`You might not want to talk to anyone for a while.'
In the months after his bust in 1990 Electron began smoking marijuana
regularly. At first, as with many other university students, it was a
social thing. Some friends dropped by, they happened to have a few
joints, and so everybody went out for a night on the town. When he was
in serious hacking mode, he never smoked. A clear head was much too
important. Besides, the high he got from hacking was a hundred times
better than anything dope could ever do for him.
When Phoenix appeared on the front page of the New York Times,
Electron gave up hacking. And even if he had been tempted to return to
it, he didn't have anything to hack with after the police took his
only computer. Electron found himself casting around for something to
distract him from his father's deteriorating condition and the void
left by giving up hacking. His accounting studies didn't quite fit the
bill. They had always seemed empty, but never more so than now.
Smoking pot filled the void. So did tripping. Filled it very nicely.
Besides, he told himself, it's harder to get caught smoking dope in
your friends' houses than hacking in your own. The habit grew
gradually. Soon, he was smoking dope at home. New friends began coming
around, and they seemed to have drugs with them all the time--not just
occasionally, and not just for fun.
Electron and his sister had been left the family home and enough money
to give them a modest income. Electron began spending this money on
his new-found hobby. A couple of Electron's new friends moved into the
house for a few months. His sister didn't like them dealing drugs out
of the place, but Electron didn't care what was happening around him.
He just sat in his room, listening to his stereo, smoking dope,
dropping acid and watching the walls.
The headphones blocked out everyone in the house, and, more
importantly, what was going on inside Electron's own head. Billy
Bragg. Faith No More. Cosmic Psychos. Celibate Rifles. Jane's
Addiction. The Sex Pistols. The Ramones. Music gave Electron a
pinpoint, a figurative dot of light on his forehead where he could
focus his mind. Blot out the increasingly strange thoughts creeping
through his consciousness.
His father was alive. He was sure of it. He knew it, like he knew the
sun would rise tomorrow. Yet he had seen his father lying, dead, in
the hospital bed. It didn't make sense.
So he took another hit from the bong, floated in slow motion to his
bed, lay down, carefully slid the earphones over his head, closed his
eyes and tried to concentrate on what the Red Hot Chilli Peppers were
saying instead. When that wasn't enough, he ventured down the hallway,
down to his new friends--the friends with the acid tabs. Then, eight
more hours without having to worry about the strange thoughts.
Soon people began acting strangely too. They would tell Electron
things, but he had trouble understanding them. Pulling a milk carton
from the fridge and sniffing it, Electron's sister might say, `Milk's
gone off'. But Electron wasn't sure what she meant. He would look at
her warily. Maybe she was trying to tell him something else, about
spiders. Milking spiders for venom.
When thoughts like these wafted through Electron's mind, they
disturbed him, lingering like a sour smell. So he floated back to the
safety of his room and listened to songs by Henry Rollins.
After several months in this cloudy state of limbo, Electron awoke one
day to find the Crisis Assessment Team--a mobile psychiatric team--in
his bedroom. They asked him questions, then they tried to feed him
little blue tablets. Electron didn't want to take the tablets. Were
little blue pills placebos? He was sure they were. Or maybe they were
something more sinister.
Finally, the CAT workers convinced Electron to take the Stelazine
tablet. But when they left, terrifying things began to happen.
Electron's eyes rolled uncontrollably to the back of his head. His
head twisted to the left. His mouth dropped open, very wide. Try as he
might, he couldn't shut it, any more than he could turn his head
straight. Electron saw himself in the mirror and he panicked. He
looked like a character out of a horror
picture.
His new house-mates reacted to this strange new behaviour by trying to
psychoanalyse Electron, which was less than helpful. They discussed
him as if he wasn't even present. He felt like a ghost and, agitated
and confused, he began telling his friends that he was going to kill
himself. Someone called the CAT team again. This time they refused to
leave unless he would guarantee not to attempt suicide.
Electron refused. So they had him committed.
Inside the locked psychiatric ward of Plenty Hospital (now known as
NEMPS), Electron believed that, although he had gone crazy, he wasn't
really in a hospital psychiatric ward. The place was just supposed to
look like one. His father had set it
all up.
Electron refused to believe anything that anyone told him. It was all
lies. They said one thing, but always meant another.
He had proof. Electron read a list of patients' names on the wall and
found one called Tanas. That name had a special meaning. It was an
anagram for the word `Santa'. But Santa Claus was a myth, so the name
Tanas appearing on the hospital list proved to him that he shouldn't
listen to anything anyone told him.
Electron ate his meals mostly in silence, trying to ignore the
voluntary and involuntary patients who shared the dining hall. One
lunchtime, a stranger sat down at Electron's table and started talking
to him. Electron found it excruciatingly painful talking to other
people, and he kept wishing the stranger would go away.
The stranger talked about how good the drugs were in
hospital.
`Mm,' Electron said. `I used to do a lot of drugs.'
`How much is a lot?'
`I spent $28000 on dope alone in about four months.'
`Wow,' the stranger said, impressed. `Of course, you don't have to pay
for drugs. You can always get them for free. I do.'
`You do?' Electron asked, somewhat perplexed.
`Sure! All the time,' the stranger said grandly. `No problem. Just
watch.'
The stranger calmly put his fork down on the tray, carefully stood up
and then began yelling at the top of his lungs. He waved his arms
around frantically and shouted abuse at the other patients.
Two nurses came running from the observation room. One of them tried
to calm the stranger down while the other quickly measured out various
pills and grabbed a cup of water. The stranger swallowed the pills,
chased them with a swig of water and sat down quietly. The nurses
retreated, glancing back over their shoulders.
`See?' The stranger said. `Well, I'd better be on my way, before the
pills kick in. See ya.'
Electron watched, amazed, as the stranger picked up his bag, walked
through the dining-hall door, and straight out the front door of the
psychiatric ward.
After a month, the psychiatrists reluctantly allowed Electron to leave
the hospital in order to stay with his maternal grandmother in
Queensland. He was required to see a psychiatrist regularly. He spent
his first few days in Queensland believing he was Jesus Christ. But he
didn't hold onto that one for long. After two weeks of patiently
waiting and checking for signs of the imminent apocalypse, consistent
with the second coming, he decided he was really the reincarnation of
Buddha.
In late February 1992, after three months of psychiatric care up
north, Electron returned to Melbourne and his university studies, with
a bag full of medication. Prozac, major tranquillisers, Lithium. The
daily routine went smoothly for a while. Six Prozac--two in the
morning, two at midday and two at night. Another anti-depressant to be
taken at night. Also at night, the anti-side effect tablets to combat
the involuntary eye-rolling, jaw-dropping and neck-twisting associated
with the anti-depressants.
All of it was designed to help him deal with what had by
now become a long list of diagnoses. Cannabis psychosis.
Schizophrenia. Manic depression. Unipolar effective disorder.
Schizophrenaform. Amphetamine psychosis. Major effective disorder.
Atypical psychosis. And his own personal favourite--facticious
disorder, or faking it to get into hospital. But the medication wasn't
helping much. Electron still felt wretched, and returning to a host of
problems in Melbourne made things worse.
Because of his illness, Electron had been largely out of the loop of
legal proceedings. Sunny Queensland provided a welcome escape. Now he
was back in Victoria facing a tedious university course in accounting,
an ongoing battle with mental illness, federal charges which could see
him locked up for ten years, and publicity surrounding the first major
hacking case in Australia. It was going to be a hard winter.
To make matters worse, Electron's medication interfered with his
ability to study properly. The anti-side effect pills relaxed the
muscles in his eyes, preventing them from focusing. The writing on the
blackboard at the front of the lecture hall was nothing but a hazy
blur. Taking notes was also a problem. The medication made his hands
tremble, so he couldn't write properly. By the end of a lecture,
Electron's notes were as unreadable as the blackboard. Frustrated,
Electron stopped taking his medicine, started smoking dope again and
soon felt a little better. When the dope wasn't enough, he turned to
magic mushrooms and hallucinogenic cactus.
The hacking case was dragging on and on. On 6 December 1991, just
after he left psych hospital but before he flew to Queensland, the
office of the DPP had formally filed an indictment containing fifteen
charges against Electron, and three against Nom, in the Victorian
County Court.
Electron didn't talk to Phoenix much any more, but the DPP lawyers
hadn't forgotten about him--far from it. They had much bigger plans
for Phoenix, perhaps because he was fighting every step of the way.
Phoenix was uncooperative with police in the interview on the day of
the raid, frequently refusing to answer their questions. When they
asked to fingerprint him, he refused and argued with them about it.
This behaviour did not endear him to either the police or the DPP.
On 5 May 1992, the DPP filed a final indictment with 40 charges
against Phoenix in the County Court. The charges, in conjunction with
those against Electron and Nom, formed part of a joint indictment
totalling 58 counts.
Electron worried about being sent to prison. Around the world, hackers
were under siege--Par, Pengo, LOD and Erik Bloodaxe, MOD, The Realm
hackers, Pad and Gandalf and, most recently, the International
Subversives. Somebody seemed to be trying to make a point.
Furthermore, Electron's charges had changed considerably--for the
worse--from the original ones documented in April 1990.
The DPP's final indictment bore little resemblance to the original
charge sheet handed to the young hacker when he left the police
station the day he was raided. The final indictment read like a
veritable Who's Who of prestigious institutions around the world.
Lawrence Livermore Labs, California. Two different computers at the US
Naval Research Laboratories, Washington DC. Rutgers University, New
Jersey. Tampere University of Technology, Finland. The University of
Illinios. Three different computers at the University of Melbourne.
Helsinki University of Technology, Finland. The University of New
York. NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia. CSIRO, Carlton,
Victoria.
The charges which worried Electron most related to the
US Naval Research Labs, CSIRO, Lawrence Livermore Labs
and NASA. The last three weren't full hacking charges. The
DPP alleged Electron had been `knowingly concerned' with Phoenix's
access of these sites.
Electron looked at the thirteen-page joint indictment and didn't know
whether to laugh or cry. He had been a lot more than `knowingly
concerned' with accessing those sites. In many cases, he had given
Phoenix access to those computers in the first place. But Electron
tried to tread quietly, carefully, through most systems, while Phoenix
had noisily stomped around with all the grace of a buffalo--and left
just as many footprints. Electron hardly wanted to face full charges
for those or any other sites. He had broken into thousands of sites on
the X.25 network, but he hadn't been charged with any of them. He
couldn't help feeling a little like the gangster Al Capone being done
for tax evasion.
The proceedings were attracting considerable media attention. Electron
suspected the AFP or the DPP were alerting the media to upcoming court
appearances, perhaps in part to prove to the Americans that `something
was being done'.
This case had American pressure written all over it. Electron's
barrister, Boris Kayser, said he suspected that `the
Americans'--American institutions, companies or government
agencies--were indirectly funding some of the prosecution's case by
offering to pay for US witnesses to attend the trial. The Americans
wanted to see the Australian hackers go down, and they were throwing
all their best resources at the case to make sure it happened.
There was one other thing--in some ways the most disturbing matter of
all. In the course of the legal to-ing and fro-ing, Electron was told
that it was the US Secret Service back in 1988 which had triggered the
AFP investigation into The Realm hackers--an investigation which had
led to Electron's bust and current legal problems. The Secret Service
was after the hackers who broke into Citibank.
As it happened, Electron had never touched Citibank. Credit cards
couldn't interest him less. He found banks boring and, the way he
looked at it, their computers were full of mundane numbers belonging
to the world of accounting. He had already suffered through enough of
those tedious types of numbers in his university course. Unless he
wanted to steal from banks--something he would not do--there was no
point in breaking into their computers.
But the US Secret Service was very interested in banks--and in
Phoenix. For they didn't just believe that Phoenix had been inside
Citibank's computers. They believed he had masterminded the Citibank
attack.
And why did the US Secret Service think that? Because, Electron was
told, Phoenix had gone around bragging about it in the underground. He
hadn't just told people he had hacked into Citibank computers, he
reportedly boasted that he had stolen some $50000 from the bank.
Going through his legal brief, Electron had discovered something which
seemed to confirm what he was being told. The warrant for the
telephone tap on both of Phoenix's home phones mentioned a potential
`serious loss to Citibank' as a justification for the warrant.
Strangely, the typed words had been crossed out in the handwritten
scrawl of the judge who approved the warrant. But they were still
legible. No wonder the US Secret Service began chasing the case,
Electron thought. Banks get upset when they think people have found a
way to rip them off anonymously.
Electron knew that Phoenix hadn't stolen any money from Citibank.
Rather, he had been circulating fantastic stories about himself to
puff up his image in the underground, and in the process had managed
to get them all busted.
In September 1992, Phoenix rang Electron suggesting they get together
to discuss the case. Electron wondered why. Maybe he suspected
something, sensing that the links binding them were weak, and becoming
weaker by the month. That Electron's mental illness had changed his
perception of the world. That his increasingly remote attitude to
Phoenix suggested an underlying anger about the continual bragging.
Whatever the reason, Phoenix's gnawing worry must have been confirmed
when Electron put off meeting with him.
Electron didn't want to meet with Phoenix because he didn't like him,
and because he thought Phoenix was largely responsible for getting the
Australian hackers into their current predicament.
With these thoughts fermenting in his mind, Electron listened with
interest a few months later when his solicitor, John McLoughlin,
proposed an idea. In legal circles, it was nothing new. But it was new
to Electron. He resolved to take up McLoughlin's advice.
Electron decided to testify as a Crown witness against Phoenix.