Nahshon Even-Chaim

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Nahshon Even-Chaim (b. May 1971), aka Phoenix, was the first major computer hacker to be convicted in Australia. He was one of the most highly-skilled members of an elite computer hacking group called The Realm, based in Melbourne, Australia, from the late 1980s until his arrest by the Australian Federal Police in early 1990. His targets centered on defense and nuclear weapons research networks.

1 The trail of evidence
2 The victims
3 The raid and aftermath
4 References
5 External links

[edit] The trail of evidence

Like other hackers of his era, Even-Chaim began breaking into systems by dialling in directly or placing a call through X.25 networks, later taking advantage of Internet connectivity as it became available. He developed a reputation within The Realm for his skill, persistence, determination and arrogance.

In late 1988 Australian Federal Police officers turned their attention towards him and discovered his identity using a combination of undercover work and informants who were hostile to Even-Chaim because of his disregard for hacker ethics.

Aided by tough new computer crime legislation [1] that came into force in June 1988, the AFP obtained a warrant in January 1990 to eavesdrop not only on Even-Chaim's phone conversations but also the data transmitted through his modem. The tap on his voice calls, which began on January 26, 1990, ran for eight weeks, while the technically more troublesome data tap started two weeks later and ran for six weeks. The intercepts were being monitored by the AFP at its Telephone Intercept Branch in Canberra, 650km from Even-Chaim's home.

Both intercepts provided police with a wealth of incontrovertible evidence to prosecute him and two other Realm members, Richard Jones, .a.k.a Electron and David John Woodcock, a.k.a. Nom. The data taps revealed Even-Chaim spent marathon sessions at his computer, working at a rapid pace to enter and tamper with computer systems. It was the first time in the world a remote data intercept had been used to gain evidence for a computer crime prosecution.

Transcripts of the phone taps captured Even-Chaim laughing with another hacker about how he had been "fucking with NASA", adding: "Yeah, they're gonna really want me bad. This is fun!" In another conversation, this time with an American hacker, he claimed: "The guys down at the local universities here are screaming with rage because they couldn't get rid of us. The Americans are getting pretty damn pissed off with me because I'm doing so much and they can't do much about it. I'm getting to the point now where I can get into almost any system on the Internet. I've virtually raped the Internet beyond belief."

Accounts of the police investigation that identified Even-Chaim and the two other offenders, as well as their arrest and prosecution, are contained in the book Hackers: The Hunt for Australia’s Most Infamous Computer Cracker, co-written by Bill Apro, an AFP computer crime investigator who led the investigation, and In the Realm of the Hackers, a film by Kevin Anderson.

[edit] The victims

Among the victims of his hacking were:

NASA, where he stole a closely-guarded password cracking program;
University of Texas, where he claimed to have accessed the Over the Horizon laser gun being developed for the US Defense Department;
University of California, Berkeley, where he claimed to have gained the highest-level access on almost every computer system. Among these were computers involved in nuclear energy research;
US Naval Research Laboratory, a secretive organisation involved in electronic warfare and development of Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" space defence program;
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a government lab charged with the security of the US nuclear stockpile, and which helped develop nuclear warheads for the Polaris and Minuteman missiles. Even-Chaim boasted of having tampered with their files, crashed their system and accessed the computer that controlled Nova, the world's largest and most powerful laser, which could reproduce the intense energy released as a nuclear weapon was detonated; and
Execucom, a software and technology company in Austin, Texas, where Even-Chaim gained superuser status. In an intercepted telephone conversation he was heard discussing with Texas hacker Chris Goggans (Erik Bloodaxe) the possibility of stealing source code and developmental software and selling it to rival companies.

So skilled was Even-Chaim that many of his victims were unaware of his intrusions until the evidence was presented to them by AFP investigators. Some, embarrassed by the implications of the breaches, refused to co-operate with the investigation.

Flushed with success after intrusions into the lairs of Eugene Spafford (Spafford's personal machine at Purdue University), Clifford Stoll (a number of machines at University of California, Berkeley), and Russell L. Brand (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), Even-Chaim raised the ire of the computer security community and more of his fellow hackers by calling New York Times journalist John Markoff in response to an article in which Markoff had attributed a recent spate of computer break-ins to a worm. Even-Chaim boasted to Markoff that the break-ins had been the work of himself and his compatriots, and ridiculed the computer security community, claiming: "It used to be the security guys chasing the hackers. Now, it's the hackers chasing the security guys." Markoff published the claims in a follow-up article in March, 1990.

[edit] The raid and aftermath

In the early hours of April 2, 1990, Even-Chaim's home in Caulfield North, suburban Melbourne, was raided by the Australian Federal Police and he was arrested. Simultaneously, the AFP raided the homes of fellow Realm members Jones and Woodcock. Even-Chaim was charged with 48 offences, most of which carried a maximum 10-year jail sentence. On October 6, 1993, Even-Chaim, who by then had negotiated a deal in which he would plead guilty if the number of charges was reduced to 15, was sentenced to 500 hours of community service, with a 12 month suspended jail term. Unlike his two co-accused, he had revealed little at his police interview or in court that might explain his motivation for his hacking.

Even-Chaim apparently worked in IT for at least some time after his conviction and has pursued an interest in music. Despite approaches by The Age newspaper in 2003 and the producer of a television documentary on The Realm, Even-Chaim has declined to discuss his hacking career.

[edit] References

Books

[2] *Suelette Dreyfus (1997). Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier. Mandarin. ISBN 1-86330-595-5.
Bill Apro & Graeme Hammond (2005). Hackers: The Hunt for Australia’s Most Infamous Computer Cracker. Five Mile Press. ISBN 1-74124-722-5.

Newspapers

Hack to the Future, The Sunday Age, May 25, 2003. [3]
How I Nailed the Master Hacker, Sunday Herald Sun, July 31, 2005.

Magazines

Hackers 'plan revenge' for police clampdown on computer crime: Extract of New Scientist article on arrest of hackers, April 21, 1990: [4]

Film

In the Realm of the Hackers, written and directed by Kevin Anderson, (Film Australia, 2003, 55 minutes). [5]

E-zines:

Reprint of article Hacker Revelled In Spotlight, Court Told (The Age, Aug 23, 1993) in Phrack. [6]
Reference to article in New York Times, April 4, 1990, on arrest of hackers in The Risks Digest. [7]