my story (Part 1)

[Snorri Helgarsson]

Preface

The following text consists of a number of parts, how many I don't
know at this time. Each part will be posted when completed, given
that I just started a new job it may be that there will be
interuptions of two or three day's. It may also be that attempts
could be made to stop me from publishing the names of individuals
who played a role in the course of events.

The reason for this series of postings is the fact that it is likely
that the American Embassy The Hague the Netherlands will claim
immunity blocking the whole story from coming out in a Dutch Court
of Law. I'm seriously considering to export the case to the United
States in the event that immunity will be granted. In 1989 such
immunity was granted and confirmed by the Dutch High Court, in the
case of Mrs. van Hulst who contested her 1984 dismissal from the
American Embassy, on the basis that there were security aspects to
her dismissal. Mrs. van Hulst is a Dutch citizen who previously was
employed as a secretary.

In order to make deal with the October 95 events I first have dwell
on that what took place in the period 92/93. From there I will
describe the events just prior to October 95 and finally that what
really happend and how an unholy alliance between the Co$ and the
American Embassy The Hague could arise. A tale of manipulation,
cover ups, and blatant disregard of that where an Embassy of the US
should stand for, it's people.

Infiltrating Hacktic (92/93)

During the period 92/93 it was thought that a group of Dutch hackers
were actively penetrating US Defense Systems and that information
obtained was transferred to countries hostile to the United States.

It was in that context that I was approached by William Parker, who
at that time was assigned to Mission Plans and Programs under the
name Sean Mayberry. Parker, who at that time was looking into the
Dutch Hacking scene, asked me to take an account at Utopia.Hacktic.nl
and Comsat.hacktic.nl. Utopia, at that time, was a BBS operated by
Nonsenso (Felipe Rodriguez) while Comsat was BBS operated by Marcel
Kat, who happens to be one of the main suspects. Utopia was of
interest as it was a gate to Rop Gonggrijp, who was suspected of
about everything imaginable.

The story was that stray cats (name for targeted hackers) were
engaged in hacking and espionage activities endangering national
security. The view was that, even though the vast majority of
those who engaged themselves in hacking were students who were just
more curious than the average person, that there was a hard core
which consisted of people who, for either financial or political
reasons, went much further and thereby had become a very real danger.

It was suspected that there was a link to groups like RaRa and that
hacking had become a means to obtain information which could either
be sold or used for other purposes.

Given that I was a programmer it wouldn't be all that obvious if I
were to get inside. Parker did maintain an account on Utopia but
remained a silent reader, not very practical from the perspective of
information acquisition. Given the nature of his affiliation the
objective was information acquisition rather than law enforcement and
there for nobody would be prosecuted as a the result of our activities
at least as long as it would concern innocent hacking (anything which
was not considered danger to national security).

It was clear that Bill had at least one other inside informant, whose
name I don't know (there was no use for that) but who was considered
somewhat unreliable. Nevertheless some of the information was
interesting and he did provide some e-mail messages. One problem was
the lack of structure and the fact that the information flow was not
very regular. Another source of irritation was that he somehow
proofed to be a specialist in the art of delivering lousy diskettes
resulting in lost time.

After a number of discussions focusing on how to effectively
infiltrate without having to resort to hacking activities of our own
it was decided to get some accounts on the main systems of interest
and take a slow approach. It was during that time that I adopted
the name Newkid, first it indicated a newbe and second simply because
I liked the Eagles. The first step was simply to be present and to
subscribe to hacking related newsgroups. In the mean time I began
downloading every hacking/phreaking related file I could get at,
nothing wild, just to increase our collection.

The second step was to seek contact by asking questions relating to
an American system I needed to get into but really not having any
clue on how to do it. This resulted in some information but nothing
which could be of any direct use. The decision was taken to begin an
own hacker BBS, which I called Stycx. There were many advantages to
that, as it became clear that Newkid as an entity only had limited
potential as an information gatherer, Stycx was the perfect
opportunity to spawn. So Itcha Yayawuti came into being as a female
alter ego, she was a lot more effective in that there was much more
willingness to provide her with information. She was after the same
system as Newkid was talking about, in fact we were related. Two
factors proved to be of advantage to her, first the fact that she was
female and second that she was able to establish a far larger degree
of urgency. Her choice was either to get into it via the net or
otherwise having to physically get into their EDP section, which was
highly dangerous.

From there on I began splitting myself up into a large number of
other entities. Newkid in the mean while began to politicize in
order to gain standing. Lucky circumstance was that Harry Onderwater
of the CRI had an account on Utopia about which I knew. As it was in
the period leading up to the new law, he posted a number of messages
in hacktic.heibel on which I began to respond, basically looking for a
fight. This resulted in a seemingly endless exchange in which I
took an extremely radical position. Challenging him when and
wherever I could. As time went on he became aware of where I
worked and purpose of my activities.

There had been a few incidents which strongly pointed in that
direction, on my invitation he obtained an account on Stycx under
real name. Reason for the invitation was to somewhat improve
relations which were not at peak. Shortly after he was there I
had a talk session with one of my user's during which a question
came up pertaining to which newsgroups he actually scanned. More
in a joke as anything else. Next posting by Onderwater hinted at
me spying on what he was doing on my system and the possibility of
me reading his e-mail messages. Due to this a few other oddities
I came to suspect that my line was being tapped. So from there
on a increased the BS level of my own communications.

Than a few day's later there was a rather nasty incident in which
I was stopped in The Hague and my car was impounded. There was
indeed a problem with it. I had bought this car in Luxemburg and
had been experiencing a load of problems in getting it legal in
the Netherlands. After raising hell and involving the Security
Office my car was returned to me and apologies were offered. In
spite of the fact that I was at least partly at fault. The
whole thing went rather strange and it appeared that the CRI may
have had it's hand in it, couldn't really proof that but there
were good reasons to assume just that. We took the decision to
send a strong signal by mocking up a dramatized version of the
event and post it hacktic.heibel, which caused some upset especially
because at that time there were a lot of rumors circulating
pertaining to illegal and semi-legal activities of law enforcement
in the Netherlands. An ideal environment in which to gather
interesting stories. Stycx kinda specialized on that, own newsgroups
dealing with wiretapping etc,. It was clear that something was
going wrong but not how much was known and what was being thought.

By that time Parker had left the country and contact was maintained by
exchange of diskettes, which were forwarded to him by his replacement
and ever changing e-mail addresses. This contact was
maintained until as recent as October 1995 even though the hacktic
thing had ended in 1993.

In spite of the fact that he had assured me that his own contact inside
of the BVD (Dutch Intelligence) was informed of my activities, there
was concern that things could go wrong. In retrospective I doubt that
the BVD actually was informed.

In order to find out in howfar Onderwater was actually suspecting
anything, a way had to be found to setup a contact. First I invited
Onderwater to take an account on Stycx. It was considered a bit tricky
to propose a contact via an e-mail message to his account on Utopia.
The proposition I made to him was to have lunch (pancakes) in The Hague
in order to clear the air. The idea was to tell him that I was working
for the Embassy and that I solely was attempting to get information in
order to be able to anticipate possible attacks on my own system. No
real problem just a sysop seeking to protect his own system.

This scheme didn't work, somehow he wasn't hungry. Something else had
to found. It just so happens that the CRI also advises on system
security issues. Now the Regional Security Office maintains contact
with the CRI (contact to the BVD is maintained by Mission Plans and
Programs, in effect just another word for CIA) so the next idea was to
sucker them into sending me to the CRI for system security advise.
The Regional Security Office was not informed about Parker having
recruited me and it was most certainly not the idea to change that.
Even though the State people pretty well knew that I was Parker's boy,
nothing was ever signalled to them. In fact there had been some
conflicts between Parker and Mr. E. Shearer who at that time was the
Information Management Officer, and therefor my boss, about me spending
to much time with him. Both Mr. Shearer and Mr. Galewicz (the Systems
Manager) knew that I was working for Parker, both when he was in The
Hague and after that, but not what I did for him. Especially the
Systems Manager hated every moment of it, but as he was an FSN there
was not a whole damn lot he could do about it.

Now the Regional Security Office employs an FSN (Foreign Service
National) security investigator, whose job it is to maintain contact
with the Dutch Police, who proofed to be the perfect tool to arrange
for a visit to the CRI and in particular Mr. Onderwater. I do withhold
his name as he was used and didn't have a clue of the real motives.

The CRI meeting went sour in that it became clear that Onderwater knew,
or at least strongly suspected, what was going on and demanded Stycx to
be closed down. If not he would file a formal complaint to the Embassy.

I told him that the whole idea was untrue and that the only reason for
me to seek information was in the context of system security and that
there was no other involvement.

Now there was a problem, first what to do with the unfortunate and
shocked security investigator, couldn't have him blurt out the whole
story to his boss, the RSO wasn't informed remember. So I told him
what the whole thing was sanctioned and that it would be a whole damn
lot better to stay out it, which he did nothing leaked. The second
problem was more serious, how to deal with Onderwater.

Closing Stycx just like that was no option, this would cause
to many questions to be asked. So a deal was made that I would phase
out Stycx and refrain from further confrontation. I made a public
announcment that I would be gone for a vacation and that Stycx would
run on it's own (a Waffle). In the mean time a few alter ego's
remained active. A new contact was established to Onderwater who
opend and account on Stycx, this time under a cover name
(Hellhound). An attempt was made to still hammer out a deal in which
he would get information, however under conditions. First I
only would share information if and only if it would be pertaining
actual criminal activities.

This was not acceptable to him and he informed me that the only deal
would be that he could come over and inspect my disk. This I refused
as it was by no means my intention to have law enforcement go through
my user's private area's. Anyhow my sympathies had shifted in the
direction of the Hacktic people, there was no evidence or even
credible indications that Hacktic was of danger to anyone. Nothing
wild just some people I came to like. From Parker's perspective it
was sufficiently clear that the whole Hacktic thing had been overblown
and that there was no evidence to the contrary.

I closed Stycx and everybody remained silent about the whole episod,
the damage was pretty much contained nothing was lost other than that
I hadn't made myself popular with the CRI. Parker and myself stayed
in contact and did exchange some information outside of the whole
hacktic affair, but the order of the day was to lay low and avoid
further irritation.

EOF Part1