Overview

Like many professional penetration testers, Sendai was not always the wholesome ethical hacker described in his employer s marketing material. In his youth, he stepped well over the line between questionable (grey hat) and flat-out illegal (black hat) behavior. Yet he never felt that he was doing anything wrong

Sendai did not intentionally damage systems, and was only trying to learn more about UNIX, networking, security, phone systems, and related technology. Yet the law might consider some of his actions to be unauthorized access, theft of services, wire fraud, copyright infringement, and trade secret theft. In the rare times that Sendai thought of this, he found solace in the words of the Mentor s Hacker Manifesto: Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. Surely his innocent motives would prevent prosecution. Besides, his teenage arrogance assured him that the government and targeted corporations were too dumb to catch him.

This perception changed dramatically in 1989 and 1990 when the Operation Sundevil raids took place. Well-known security enthusiasts, including The Prophet, Knight Lightning, and Erik Bloodaxe, were raided and many more were indicted. The popular Phrack e-zine was shut down while its editor faced trial. Sendai worried that he, too, might be swept up in the persecution. After all, he had been active on some of the same bulletin boards as many suspects, performing similar activities. Sendai was never targeted, but those nine months of stress and paranoia changed his outlook on hacking. He was...