Tom Parker

Chapter 3 – Product of Fate: The Evolution of a Hacker

This chapter draws a picture of Sauls evolution as a hacker. Sauls father was a hard working man and his mother was famous among social circles. Sauls father gave him a laptop and he used to teach him basics like net surfing, software installation etc. Thus, a keen interest developed in Saul. Unfortunately Sauls love for computer comes came in the way between him and his father, and the relation deteriorated. As for his mother, she had never been much of a good influence either and had a tendency to spend far too much time partying with her friends. Eventually, the normal middle-class family began to break apart; his parents divorced and Saul found himself being forced to live with his mother in the city, picking up empty scotch bottles and feeding her canned soup when she could no longer feed herself. Despite all this, however, it was really just boredom that drove Saul into a project of hacking. He was just another bright kid at a local high school; bored with courses that continually failed to keep his interest, with a severe lack of friends due, in part, to his own introverted personality.

h3X and the Big Picture

This chapter discusses the story of h3X—a female hacker. She saw the whole hacking thing as a process and an excellent way to constantly learn and have fun at the same time. Meanwhile, a news hit the Net that parts of Microsofts Windows source code leaked from the fortress-like perimeter into the world of the more or less free Internet. Scores of hackers all over the world started looking for the code and got their HTTP or FTP connections on it sooner or later. A hacker named “gta” sent an e-mail to a well-known list explaining the first bug he spotted in Windows MS_HTML engine. It is then h3X decided to find whether this was a real security threat.

Chapter 5 – For Whom Ma Bell Tolls

This chapter discusses about The Don, whose real name was Dono Crotcho. This name was respected in the underworld of computer misfits and organized criminal enterprises far and wide. Don happened to come in contact with Knuth—a professional hacker. Knuth asked him to gain access to a specific cellular phone in Mauritius. Don agreed and demanded 10 thousand dollars for this job. Don then made a plan to gain access to the specific cellular phone. He made some initial research on the switch that Knuth wanted him to access. He did some preliminary Google searches to learn about Mauritius and to find the Web sites of the cellular telephone providers. ToneLoc was the Dons wardialer of choice. Although it was a few years old, it worked fine with current Windows versions.

Chapter 1 – Control Yourself

Publisher Summary This chapter describes a story of a professional hacker named Bob Knuth, and his ambitions. Knuth wished to be billionaire and live like a king and a virtual dictator .To accomplish his ambition, Knuth switched to unfair, illegal and unethical means. To hide his identity, Knuth wished to go to a place where he could accomplish his aim without catching peoples attention. So, Knuth thought of a place other than the United States where all this could be easily achievable. He started looking for a house with some space that can be converted to fulfill some special requirements. He wanted a large and secluded property, with a significant private property buffer from other nearby residents or visitors. In addition, he wanted the climate to be very moderate, without any extreme weather that would drive significant maintenance work or hinder local travel.

Chapter 8 – The Story of Dex

Paul, known to most as Dex, is a highly paid computer programmer who moved to underworld due to the “dot com” downfall. Since then Paul was doing illegal, unethical and immoral jobs for his livelihood. He had grown to become a very selfish and unrelenting thief, caring only about profit, gain, and survival. He managed to pay bills by breaking as many laws as possible. It started with selling stolen Intellectual property to the highest bidder, mostly software source code and customer information databases. Dex built a huge network doing transfer of funds from one country to another. If there were one thing that drove Dex more than greed, perhaps it was no one knowing about his greed. In particular with money, some would call him a financial evil genius, or a mad digital professor of the accounting world. Because every dollar that was paid to Dex usually came from a questionable source, he was careful to make sure the money was laundered (cleaned) before it reached him.

Automatic Terror Machine

Knuth, a professional hacker of the United States, promised to pay Matthew 700, 000 rand. Knuth had already deposited half the money—that is, 3, 50,000 rand into Matthews secret bank account. Knuth sent an encrypted mail to him and told his demand in the mail. Knuth threatened in his mail to cause financial loses and a public humiliation to the National Bank of South Africa (NBSA). Matthew became tensed to find that NBSA is a huge bank with so many branches across South Africa. He verified the funds were transferred and available in his emergency account. Though his personal account was indeed with NBSA, he had the foresight to choose a different establishment for his other accounts. Suddenly, an idea struck in his mind— Matthew recalled of Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs). Matthew then decided to attack ATMs that were old and easily vulnerable to attacks.

Product of Fate

This chapter draws a picture of Sauls evolution as a hacker. Sauls father was a hard working man and his mother was famous among social circles. Sauls father gave him a laptop and he used to teach him basics like net surfing, software installation etc. Thus, a keen interest developed in Saul. Unfortunately Sauls love for computer comes came in the way between him and his father, and the relation deteriorated. As for his mother, she had never been much of a good influence either and had a tendency to spend far too much time partying with her friends. Eventually, the normal middle-class family began to break apart; his parents divorced and Saul found himself being forced to live with his mother in the city, picking up empty scotch bottles and feeding her canned soup when she could no longer feed herself. Despite all this, however, it was really just boredom that drove Saul into a project of hacking. He was just another bright kid at a local high school; bored with courses that continually failed to keep his interest, with a severe lack of friends due, in part, to his own introverted personality.

Product of Fate: The Evolution of a Hacker

This chapter draws a picture of Sauls evolution as a hacker. Sauls father was a hard working man and his mother was famous among social circles. Sauls father gave him a laptop and he used to teach him basics like net surfing, software installation etc. Thus, a keen interest developed in Saul. Unfortunately Sauls love for computer comes came in the way between him and his father, and the relation deteriorated. As for his mother, she had never been much of a good influence either and had a tendency to spend far too much time partying with her friends. Eventually, the normal middle-class family began to break apart; his parents divorced and Saul found himself being forced to live with his mother in the city, picking up empty scotch bottles and feeding her canned soup when she could no longer feed herself. Despite all this, however, it was really just boredom that drove Saul into a project of hacking. He was just another bright kid at a local high school; bored with courses that continually failed to keep his interest, with a severe lack of friends due, in part, to his own introverted personality.