Forwarded From: Nicholas Charles Brawn <ncb05at_private> 24Jun98 UK: HACKERS FIGHT NET MONSTERS. By Adam Barnard. A new breed of hackers who use their codebreaking skills to crack down on paedophiles and child pornographers on the Internet could help those campaigning to make the Net safe for children. Hackers were once the scourge of the computing world, reviled as anarchists on a trail of wanton electronic destruction. Now they are joining forces and forming secret societies to combat the people they accuse of posting child pornography on the Web and trying to procure youths in chat rooms. StRyKe (as he is known) is typical. By day an electronic systems specialist in Cumbria, the 25-year-old hacker spends evenings and weekends furthering the cause of his Internet Combat Group (ICG). Formed last year, the group's 15 members are united in two areas - their skills with the keyboard, and their hatred of people who exploit children. "It makes me sick," says StRyKe, his Lakeland tones giving way to an angry snarl. "These people are animals. They commit the worst sort of evil. There is no such thing as a good paedophile." The ICG is the first group of its kind to emerge in the UK, following a series of similar groups in America who report that only by breaking into the computer systems of alleged paedophiles can their locations be traced and their activities stopped. Although the processes involved are usually illegal, police in America accept information passed on to them on a "no questions asked" basis. Scotland Yard also says it will act on any information - no matter where it comes from. Suddenly hackers, who once occupied themselves with distributing pirated software, breaking into bank accounts and lifting classified information >from defence networks, are taking on new ethical responsibilities. One American group has gone so far as to christen itself Ethical Hackers Against Paedophilia. "I do think of myself as moral," says StRyKe. "The traditional image of a hacker is no longer a valid one. I don't attack anyone who doesn't deserve it. We are talking about people who deliberately harm minors." The problems are well known. Paedophiles, rejected by society, have found sanctuary in the anonymity of the online world, where users can disguise their name, age and location. The Internet Watch Foundation, Britain's Internet watchdog, reports a trade of tens of thousands of pictures on the Web and on newsgroups, some of children as young as seven involved in sexual acts. Others use e-mail and chat rooms to lure children into the open, a practice known as "enticement". The difficulty facing police is that it is often impossible to trace people who post pictures and talk to children because the Internet makes it so easy for users to disguise themselves in layers of networks and routers. Child pornographers and child abusers have been able to communicate freely. But hackers like StRyKe hope they may finally reverse the trend. By using a host of advanced code-cracking techniques they are waging war against paedophiles, tracing their identities, attacking their computers and removing the pictures they post. StRyKe says he started his crusade after stumbling on a link to a child porn site in a hacking newsgroup. "It was an Amsterdam site which offered pictures of little boys and girls," he says. "It was pretty horrendous." He reported the website to the service provider who carried its files, but "they didn't care. Those people never do anything." Shocked into action by what he had seen and frustrated by the apa thy of others, he turned to hacking. "I am fully aware that what I do is illegal," he says. "But I'm careful, and if I think I can get away with something I'll do it. I risk being banned from computers, fined and sent to jail, but if people are using a computer for something illegal it is indefensible. If you don't break the law, you don't get the results." StRyKe's first goal is to identify and locate suspected paedophiles. "There are ways of pinning down where they are working from, even if they have tried to disguise their identity," he says. He uses techniques with names such as "pinging" and "fingering" to trace users back to their original Internet service provider. "Once you have traced the path they take, you can use search engines and other methods to find a person's e-mail address and then learn their real name and address." Another option is to attack suspected paedophiles' computers to discourage them from logging on. "You can 'bomb' them, and there is a flaw in Windows 95 which you can take advantage of to lock up their system. You can knock them off-line." An Australian hacking friend wrote a virus - appropriately named Codebreaker - for StRyKe and his colleagues. "It will wipe a computer clean," says StRyKe with palpable excitement. "It will take over the hard disk and destroy all the pictures. "Anything is possible. You can delete pictures posted on newsgroups and change what's on a website. You can take over a chat room and then ban everyone from it. You can even shut down an entire system. It's all a question of knowing how. "I'll do anything if I think it will ultimately help to protect children." Critics of StRyKe's tactics claim that legal methods work just as well. David Kerr, chief executive of the Internet Watch Foundation, which has the support of the Home Office and the Department of Trade and Industry, argues that there are things his organisation can do that hackers cannot. "While we sympathise with their motives we can't condone what hackers do," he says. "We have a general brief against illegal activity on the Net and that includes hacking. There are legal ways of dealing with the problem, even if these methods can seem laborious and slow. Hackers may be able to do more damage but they are not as well connected to the police, which is ultimately what matters." It is often hard for hackers to find out whether their information has helped police. But American groups such as the Ethical Hackers Against Paedophilia insist they are already making a difference, and the FBI has gone on record supporting the practice. But even StRyKe concedes that hackers may never entirely rid the Internet of child abuse. "It is almost an impossible battle," he admits. "But if you stop one person from harming one child then it's been worth it. -o- Subscribe: mail majordomoat_private with "subscribe isn". Today's ISN Sponsor: Repent Security Incorporated [www.repsec.com]
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