I graduated high school in '92 and since my systems at home were better than what we had in our labs, I gravitated toward exploring the local University networks. You could dial in to a terminal and then connect to any of the local machines. Most were VAX/VMS or Ultrix systems. The VMS systems all had open GUEST accounts that were limited, but allowed you access to BITNET. I managed to chat with Taran King, who was co-editor of Phrack at the time, a few times over the BITNET chat protocol which was great fun.
However, my actually hacking life started on the Ultrix systems. I don't remember how I first had access since I don't think it allowed Guest logins, but I discovered a great hack: all of /dev/tty* was word-readable until someone fully logged in to a particular port at which point it was only readable by the user logged into that port. so every few hours, I'd just "cat /dev/tty* >> passwords.txt" and harvest logins for everyone who logged in during that time. I had some fun with one of the admins for awhile having unknowingly logged into his account. We chatted a bit and he was a good sport about it, but the hole was patched a few weeks after. I never knew if it was already a known issue or if I was actually the only one who found it.
A friend wardialed a system that appeared to be a Dept of Transportation front-end to the brand-new digital readerboards along the Interstate. Let's assume we never actually changed any text, but I cracked the password, TRAFFIC, on the 3rd or 4th attempt. Good one, guys!
Exploring random address on TELENET dialups was a blast as well. Most were very secure since they'd been well-picked, but every so often you'd find some interesting terminal and start poking around figuring out what it responded to and how to navigate deeper.
Don't get me started on the first 2600 meetings in Seattle. Some very prominent people in the tech/hacking space now were pretty sketchy back then.
However, my actually hacking life started on the Ultrix systems. I don't remember how I first had access since I don't think it allowed Guest logins, but I discovered a great hack: all of /dev/tty* was word-readable until someone fully logged in to a particular port at which point it was only readable by the user logged into that port. so every few hours, I'd just "cat /dev/tty* >> passwords.txt" and harvest logins for everyone who logged in during that time. I had some fun with one of the admins for awhile having unknowingly logged into his account. We chatted a bit and he was a good sport about it, but the hole was patched a few weeks after. I never knew if it was already a known issue or if I was actually the only one who found it.
A friend wardialed a system that appeared to be a Dept of Transportation front-end to the brand-new digital readerboards along the Interstate. Let's assume we never actually changed any text, but I cracked the password, TRAFFIC, on the 3rd or 4th attempt. Good one, guys!
Exploring random address on TELENET dialups was a blast as well. Most were very secure since they'd been well-picked, but every so often you'd find some interesting terminal and start poking around figuring out what it responded to and how to navigate deeper.
Don't get me started on the first 2600 meetings in Seattle. Some very prominent people in the tech/hacking space now were pretty sketchy back then.
Fun! Memories!