65. Mafiaboy vs the world

🎧 00:00 ericade.radio – Time for another episode of Flashback – Tracks from the past

🎧 00:06 DJ Daemon: In the 80s and 90s we had modems, games, cool computers and it was the golden age of the demo scene. But we had no concept of IT-security. It simply did not exist. In the year of 2000, a Canadian teenager brought big parts of the Internet to a halt… He was 15.

DJ Daemon 00:07.126 In the eighties and nineties we had modems, games, cool computers, and it was the golden age of the demo scene. But we had no concept of IT security. It simply did not exist. In the year of 2000, a Canadian teenager brought big parts of the internet to a halt. He was fifteen.

🎧 00:29 Van Damme – Brotherhood

🎧 03:20 DJ Daemon: In the fall of 2019, Swedish podcast IT-säkerhetspodden, run by me and collaborator Mattias Jadesköld met with Michael Calce, who is forever known to the world as Mafiaboy. On the 7th of February 2000, in the tails end of what we today note as the retro era, he took down eBay, CNN and…

DJ Daemon 03:20.558 Van Damme - Brotherhood. In the fall of twenty nineteen Swedish podcast It-säkerhetspodden run by me and collaborator Mattias Jadesköld, we met with Michael Calce, who is forever known to the world as Mafiaboy. On the seventh of february 2000, in the tail end of what we today note as the Retro Era, he took down eBay, CNN and Amazon.But the story starts much earlier.

Michael Calce 03:52.558 My journey started out at a really young age. I was six years old when I got my first computer and I was nine years old when I accessed the internet for the first time and I was quickly exposed to this community of hackers. I found it on my journey when I was looking for pirated software and as it turns out hackers ran the distribution of this pirated software. So I wanted to gain quicker access to it and I decided at this point that I should become a hacker.Alright, and I joined on an IRC network of EFNET, which is Internet Relay Chat, and there was tens of thousands of hackers, and I devoted my time to becoming the number one hacker.

🎧 04:35 Atekuro – A New Generation

🎧 08:33 DJ Daemon: It's a sure thing that any computer geek remember his or her first computer. Michael Calce has fond memories what became the start of his journey into computing.

DJ Daemon 08:34.765 New generation. It is a sure thing that any computer nerd remember his or her first computer. Michael Calce has fond memories of what became the start of his journey into computing.

Michael Calce 08:48.952 What an amazing feeling. Honestly, remember like it was like yesterday. My dad put the box in front of me and he said, here you figure it out. And I couldn't wait. I plugged it in, powered it on. I heard all the beeping noises and churning sounds. after it booted in, the system just sat there and it was waiting for me to input a command. And that's when I realized at that very moment, I am the master of this device.

🎧 09:16 Gargaj of .mla.t design – !a(drill)

🎧 12:26 DJ Daemon: We all have different experiences on the net. But Michael heard the siren call of the dark side early on. DJ Daemon: Ok, laugh at his prounounciation of warez all you want. But he's Canadian, what aboot that, eh?

DJ Daemon 12:26.744 Gargaj of .mla.t Design. The tune is called ia(Drill). We have all different experiences on the net, but Michael heard the siren call of the dark side early on.

Michael Calce 12:39.894 Yeah, that was not intentional or planned, but at a certain point I wanted to buy video games and pieces of software for my system and I wasn't sure if my dad was gonna give me his credit card, especially since a lot of video games and software were expensive. So I needed to find a way to illegally download this stuff, which was known as Warres back in the day, which was pirated software.I couldn't, I found it but I couldn't get immediate access to it. I would ask the automated bot to give me the program that I wanted or the game that I wanted but it would put me in a huge queue order and I was on a 14.4k modem so I wasn't gonna get this gamer software that I wanted for very long time. And when I realized that hackers were the ones distributing it, that's when I decided I'm gonna go into the dark side.

DJ Daemon 13:33.224 Okay, laugh at his pronunciation of wares all you want, but you know, he's Canadian, so what "aboot" that, eh?

🎧 13:43 Butch of UnLimit – Autumn secrets

🎧 17:41 DJ Daemon: Technical challenges are interesting, but social engineering, the craft of making people do your bidding was something he learned at the age of 9. His first target was AmericaOnline, formerly QuantumLink.

DJ Daemon 17:41.048 Butch of Unlimit - Autumn Secrets. Technical challenges are interesting, but social engineering, the craft of making people do your bidding, was something he learned at age of nine. His first target was America Online, formerly quantum.

Michael Calce 18:01.026 So when I was on America Online for the first time, it was actually given to me as a 30-day free trial period. And again, same issue wasn't sure if my dad was going to give me his credit card to stay online and reinstate the AOL Internet service. So I needed to find a way to continue online without paying for it. That's when I had access to a program known as AOHEL, which granted me the ability to simply appear as an administrator.to other AOL users because the administrators on America Online, their name was in a different color.

Mattias Jadesköld 18:38.27 You were also capable to throw people off AOL then.

Michael Calce 18:42.894 Right, in the same program there was the ability to punt a user which would basically sever their internet connection to AOL. And I think that was my first actual interest in hacking and kind of having that power and capability. Right. So I needed to find a way to stay online and I used this administrative capability to fool other users, convincing them that I was an administrator to give me their login and password.

🎧 19:12 Darkhalo – Liquid light

🎧 23:16 DJ Daemon: Eventually he decided to become a true hacker and joined one of the many Russian hackergroups out there.

DJ Daemon 23:16.472 Dark Halo, liquid light. Eventually he decided to become a true hacker and joined one of the many Russian hacker groups out there.

Michael Calce 23:28.364 So in the late 90s when I was a part of a really well known elite Russian hacker group that went by the name of TNT Force, when I joined them I became under fire by denial of service attacks by other hackers that were trying to take out me and other members.

DJ Daemon 23:46.972 The TNT group, they recruited you.

Michael Calce 23:49.614 Yeah, they recruited me at the age of 12. No, nobody knew anybody's age online. To be fair, even in the private channel of TNT, like two of the main members were literally from Russia and I didn't understand half of the things that they were saying because it was broken English and mixed with Russian. So it was an interesting experience, but I had access to some of the brightest minds in the world.

DJ Daemon 23:52.686 Did they know that?

Michael Calce 24:18.914 in terms of technology.

🎧 24:22 Ko0x – Time Flies

🎧 28:22 DJ Daemon: It was in this hacker group, Michael Calce, known as “Mafiaboy” learned a new tool of destruction.

DJ Daemon 28:22.254 KO Zero X Time Flies It was in this hacker group Michael Calce, known as Mafia Boy, learned a new tool of destruction.

Michael Calce 28:34.39 So when I joined them, again, I became the focus fire of the other hacker groups and other hackers. And denial of service was really potent style of attack used at this point in time. And so I decided to start using DDoS attacks against my competition. Now the problem was when I wanted to launch a large scale attack, nobody was able to do so because we had limited resources.and our actual physical computer was a Pentium 133 or something similar. So I needed to find a way and create a concept that would solve this problem. That's when I decided to hack into 30,000 plus networks and combine them all into one network and created a massive, probably the world's first ever denial of service botnet.

🎧 29:31 Extreme – ‘Lostlove' ver 3.5

🎧 33:13 DJ Daemon: By this time, he was already far into black hat territory and knew how to install malware on other's computers.

DJ Daemon 33:14.338 Extreme and a tune, it's called Lost Love. It's version three point five. Good to know. By this time he was already far into Black Hat territory, and he knew how to install malware on others' computers.

Michael Calce 33:31.018 Yeah, so I used a variation of several programs. The main one that I used for the majority of my attacks were my own creation. And I used a co-author which went by the name of Sinkhole, who's a hacker from another group that wasn't a rival to us, but he was a very close friend of mine. And I also sampled some other programs that were being created in the space.There was one known as Stacheldracht, means barbed wire in German. So I sampled with other people's technology and software that they were creating, but the program that I created was the most effective.

🎧 34:14 Gemini of Rebels – Bleeps and bloops

DJ Daemon 35:16.496 What did you do?

DJ Daemon 37:06.06 Gemini of rebels, bleeps and bloops. Yeah, the title has made me laugh. So the target's done. He really hit the big ones.

🎧 37:21 DJ Daemon: So the targets then. He really hit the big ones.

Michael Calce 37:34.146 Yeah, Yahoo, eBay, CNN, Dell, Amazon. And you didn't at the beginning. No, I was the... You know, I fell victim to my own ego at this point. Right. I was young. was 15 years old, you know, and I started boasting to other hackers in the community that I was the one responsible for these attacks. And the FBI started to catch up on that.

DJ Daemon 37:39.135 And no one was on to you like you

DJ Daemon 38:02.927 by the time wasn't it so that there were very little protection on sites for DDOS attacks?

Michael Calce 38:10.132 Absolutely. was more of a lot of it came down to certain packet types. There was packet filters in place and it was also when you look at a giant like Yahoo, the amount of bandwidth that they had available to them in comparison to everyone else was literally scary. So you needed massive amounts of bandwidth. But even to this day, there's, you know, I mean, there's obviously cloud flare. You have solutions and stuff, butDenial of service will always remain potent.

🎧 38:41 Firage – Space Justice Wolf

🎧 41:28 DJ Daemon: Imagine turning on the TV and seing the world in panic over something you did. And if you think Mr Calce didn't figure this was his doing, think again…

DJ Daemon 41:28.942 Firage and Space Justice Wolf. Imagine turning on the TV and seeing the world in panic over something you did. And if you think mister Calce didn't figure this was his doing, think again.

Michael Calce 41:45.038 I knew it was me, trust me. Pretty much crapped my pants at that. You know, being a 15 year old kid and sitting on a couch and watching live TV and watching the former President of the United States, Bill Clinton, go live on TV and convene the first ever Cyber Security Summit based on what you did, that's a lot to digest.

DJ Daemon 42:11.892 Yes. Like a it's big difference between like a normal fifteen year old.

Michael Calce 42:18.754 Yeah, some of my friends would have fun on Halloween throwing an egg at a house or a toilet paper in a tree and you know, I was shutting down major e-commerce sites.

🎧 42:29 Keen – Back to yesterday

DJ Daemon 45:37.646 Yeah.

🎧 46:02 DJ Daemon: It was then time to face the consequences.

DJ Daemon 46:02.574 Keen back to yesterday. It was then time to face the consequences.

Michael Calce 46:09.088 So when they actually came to place the arrest, I don't know if it was strategy on their part or they just made a mistake because I know they were monitoring my house. How do you know that? Because so there's a provider that provides all the internet. Well, the majority of the internet in the TV in my area, which was known as Bell, like based after Alexander Graham Bell, who created the telephone. So that's our.Basically they have pretty much a monopoly. There's only one other company that competes with them. Anyways, they were always at the end of my street in plain view. I could see them and they were there every day all night. And the truth is, like, if your internet or your TV went down in that, in that timeframe, like they would take like a week to come fix it. And here they were every single day, every night.in front of my house. I mean, it was pretty obvious.

DJ Daemon 47:06.08 It's like they say, it's not paranoia if they're really out to get you.

Michael Calce 47:10.254 That's exactly accurate.

🎧 47:13 Megus of Brainwave Tracks – Bilbo's road song

🎧 50:28 DJ Daemon: Whatever came out of this? According to Wikipedia: “The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police first noticed Calce when he started claiming in IRC chatrooms that he was responsible for the attacks. He became the chief suspect when he claimed to have…

DJ Daemon 50:29.57 Megus of Brainwave Tracks Bilbo's Road Song Whatever came out of this? According to Wikipedia, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, they first noticed Calce when he started claiming in IRC chat rooms that he was responsible for the attacks.He then became the chief suspect when he claimed to have brought down Dell's website. Calce initially denied responsibility, but later pleaded guilty to most of the charges brought against him. His lawyer insisted the child had only run unsupervised tests to help design an improved firewall, whereasTrial records indicate the youth showed no remorse and had expressed desire to move to Italy for its lax computer crime laws. The Montreal Youth Court sentenced him on September twelfth, two thousand one, to eight months of open custody, one year of probation, restricted use of the Internet, and a small fine.

🎧 51:48 MelonadeM – Through the gates of Lucifer

🎧 55:22 DJ Daemon: So, the question that we must ask ourselves, has Michael learned anything. DJ Daemon thanks you for listening.

DJ Daemon 55:23.276 Well, there is one more question. Has Michael learned anything?

Michael Calce 55:28.866 Since the attacks, I devoted my life to raising awareness around this topic and I authored a book that discusses my story and I use sort of that platform to help companies, individuals and governments.

DJ Daemon 55:43.426 Good to know. He now works as an advisor to HP. And that's all I got for you today on this podcast. Thanks for listening. This is DJ Daemon signing off. In a week, another episode will be available. Please go to ericade.radio.

🎧 56:05 Sphenx – BioCore System