The Monitor from McAllen, Texas • 33

2D Sunday, September 29, 1938 THE MONITOR, McAIIen, Texas 1 Fresh out of prison, hacker is forbidden to use computers By CAROL MORELLO Knighl-Ridder Newspapers LOS ANGELES Kevin Lee Poulsen can do amazing things with a computer and a modem, many of them illegal. He can tap the FBI's phones, rig radio call-in lines to win big prizes, even make his own calls traceable to the bow els of the phone company itself. But he is forbidden to use any computer for three years, even for school work or a job. He considers his megabyte machinations an art form, like so many oils and brushes in the hands of Picasso. But to prosecutors, letting the 30-year-old Poulsen be in the same room with a computer is like handing a baseball bat to AT Capone.

In a world increasingly driven by computers and plagued by a spreading rash of security breaches and viruses, authorities fear sophisticated hackers such as Poulsen can outwit all the barriers they conjure. Even among hackers, Poulsen's computer -shenanigans are legendary. And that is why authorities made an example of him and he landed more hard time than any hacker in history. Fresh out of five years in prison. job.

There are a lot of legitimate opportunities in computers. I'm a reformed guy." Poulsen already lost one chance to prove it. As a teen-ager, he was a brilliant hacker who went by the handle "Dark Dante." Working on a cheap Radio Shack TRS-80, he got his thrills penetrating the Pentagon's computer web of military and research centers, as well as various universities and think tanks that work on classified military projects. It was all reminiscent of WarCames, the hallmark movie of teen-age hacking culture. He was just 17 when the FBI and UCLA campus cops caught up with him in 1983.

He was never charged because he was a juvenile, but his $200 computer was seized. As Poulsen tells it, he was ready to give up clandestine hacking for a legitimate job with a prestigious think tank near Stanford University that recruited him after publicity over his exploits. The job initially was boring, but he quickly ad-. vanced in pay and responsibilities. The Pentagon even approved his security clearance for military projects.

Although he had made a smooth transition from renegade to govern-ment-approved hacker, Poulsen was surrounded by other computerphiles who talked about their hacking ex- literature that doesn't require computer literacy. He needs work, but most office jobs are out of the question, so he's pursuing an opening for a boot salesman at a country-western store. For how, he lives with his parents, although on the advice of his probation officer they stashed their new computer in a warehouse before he moved in. Fearful of crossing the line unwittingly, he has gone to the extreme of seeking permission to use automated teller machines and drive automobiles equipped with computer chips that regulate the engines. Poulsen has found being comput-erless such an impediment to normal life that he has asked the U.S.

district judge who sentenced him to grant a little leeway to enroll in college courses as a student, not a teacher in computer science to get his degree. "I can do without computers for three years if I have, to, but it's where my talents lie," said Poulsen, a slender, clean-cut blond who looks as though he belongs at a fraternity party instead of sitting outside a Santa Monica Starbucks swapping prison stories with a homeless ex-con who tried to cadge some change from him. "I have to pay almost $70,000 in restitution, and I have no chance of doing that without a computer show Unsolved Mysteries, he called in a tip that the real Kevin Lee Poulsen was the actor playing him on the program. He desperately needed cash to live on. So, using his computer expertise, he jimmied telephone lines during radio contests so he was guaranteed to be whatever number caller would win.

He raked in $30,000 cash, a Porsche and a vacation in Hawaii. In the end, all his subterfuges came to nothing. He was caught in 1991 when authorities staked out the supermarket he frequented. In his contact-lens case, the FBI found a handcuff key he had stashed in case he was caught. Ultimately, the government dropped its espionage charges and Poulsen pleaded guilty to computer fraud, mail fraud, intercepting wire and electronic communications, money laundering, and removing property to prevent seizure.

He spent five years in jail before his release in July. Today, he sounds only somewhat contrite. "By profiting as a hacker, I went over the line," he said. "I saw it as victimless. And they were; giving the prizes away, anyway.

But among hacker culture, it's accepted a hacker doesn't profit from what he does. With profit, the work is corrupted. I have regret, as far as moral decisions go. I just felt circumstances swept me along." Ordered to pay restitution for the prizes' he swindled, Poulsen be- lieves he should be permitted to get a degree in computer science so he can eventually get a well-paying' job. His friends have designed a Web page in which he outlines his case in a letter to the judge: http: www.cataIog.comkevin The prosecutor who handled the case believes Poulsen needs supervision at the keyboard.

ploits. "We started swapping war stories about the trouble we got into and how to avoid it," Poulsen said. "It got the old juices going." Soon Poulsen and a colleague were picking the locks of phone-company buildings and entering at night to purloin manuals, passwords anything that got him access to pearls such as the unlisted phone numbers of the Soviet Consulate in San Francisco. In essence, Poulsen was living out a fantasy computer game, going in stealth to explore dark rooms filled with exotic goodies. "To be physically inside an office, finding the flaws in the system and what works, was intellectually challenging," said Poulsen, recalling the time he crawled through the transom to break into the local phone company's security office.

"It proved irresistible. It wasn't for ego or money. It was for curiosity. A need for adventure. An intellectual challenge and an; adrenalin rush.

It was fun. And at the time, it seemed pretty harmless." Eventually, Poulsen got word that the FBI and the phone-company police were asking questions about him at work. Poulsen went into hiding, but he set up a voice mail where the feds could leave messages for him. He learned they were talking accusing him of infiltrating federal investigations of mobsters and former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos. Poulsen felt he was being set up, and figured out both low- and high-tech ways to elude capture.

He rented an apartment and an office under an alias, dyed his hair and tapped FBI phones so he could determine which of his friends and family they were tapping. When his case was profiled on the television HEALTH AWARENESS SCREENING RESULTS ADMINISTERED BY FULLY ACCREDITED CLINICAL LABORATORY Edinburg Pediatric flight Clinic Is pleased to announce rVE ARE NOW OPEUWEEKEHDS -i Sat. 8 to 11 a.m. Sunday flights "Your child will always be 6 Night 6 to 9 p.m. p.m.

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A local Internet-access provider needs to set one up for you. j. Listservs come with various names listproc and majordomo, for instance but they all do the same thing. After setup, the provider will tell you how to subscribe and unsubscribe to the group, which usually requires sending an e-mail to the group with your e-mail address in the message. You can set up either a "moderated" or "unmoderated" group.

Moderated means all mail comes through you first before being forwarded, which can get tiresome; unmoderated groups forward all mail without review, which is easi- er, but sometimes the group can get crowded with junk. Unmoderated groups are usually best for small groups of friends. IRC Internet Relay Chat can be kind of complicated. You need to use UNIX, which is the original text-based Internet protocol. And it is only accessible by direct Internet- access providers or universities.

Make sure your provider supports IRC before signing on. At a UNIX prompt (the command line), type IRC. This will connect you to any one of various servers around the country. To connect with others, you need to pick the same' server (a computer from which the IRC program is run). All commands within IRC must be preceded with a slash () otherwise your words are posted to whichever IRC channel you're in.

A good place to start is to have everyone transfer to a large server try typing "server irc.dal.net" without the quotes. This connects you to the irc.dal.net server. Then you create a channel AU channels start with a pound sign 0 and you join by typing "join name" again without quotes. Try "join hottub" and you'll enter one of the more popular chat channels. You can create a new channel just by joining it.

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