Caution! Wireless Networking: Preventing a Data Disaster

Entertaining Hacking/Cracking Resources

If you are interested in learning more about crackers and the cracker subculture, you can find many resources on the Internet. On some of these sites, you can down- load the software tools used by crackers and hackers, but be aware that there is a high likelihood that commercial software offered for download is probably an illegal pirated copy.

I’ve only included a few sites for you to sample. If you want to see more, do a search online for the words hax0r (hacker) or war3z (warez) and you’ll find hundreds of sites run by script kiddies. If you decide to visit these sites, however, be aware that many of them contain vulgar language, nudity, porn, and adult themes. Others are just bizarre collections of poorly implemented JavaScript effects stolen from other sites.

• The Cult of the Dead Cow (www.cultdeadcow.com) — La vaca es muerta...The cow is dead. The cDc has been around since 1984 and in some circles is one of the more respected groups of crackers. Some cDc members have created popular cracking tools, including Trojans (malicious applications that masquerade as normal software).

• Chaos Computer Club (www.ccc.de) — The CCC is a German organization that began in 1981 and became a formal club in 1986. The CCC Web site is informative and worth a look, but most of it is in German.

• Attrition.org (www.attrition.org) — This is a computer security Web site that collects and disseminates information about cracking and security.

• DoC (www.dis.org) — Dis Org Crew is a talented and eclectic group of hack- ers in northern California. Peter Shipley, a prominent member, is the person credited with creating wardriving and coining the term (see Chapter 6).

• Phone Losers of America (PLA) (www.phonelosers.org) — The PLA started as an e-zine (electronic magazine) devoted to phreaking and computer cracking. The PLA site hosts projects, archives, and a lot of stuff dedicated to crank phone calls.

• Security Focus (www.securityfocus.com) — This is one of the most comprehensive security sites that you will find on the Web. While not a hacking site per se, it hosts a detailed vulnerability database that you can reference to help secure your own systems.

• 2600: The Hacker Quarterly (www.2600.com) — 2600 was named for an early phone hacking exploit (2600 Hz was the frequency used to unlock some phones). Emmanuel Goldstein first published 2600 in 1984. It contains articles about computer cracking and exploiting telecommunications systems. 2600 is interesting, informative, and has been at the center of more than one free speech legal battle.