Hackers’ Excellent Adventures
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With his baby face and doughy body, 17-year-old Joshua Gilson does not look like your typical FBI quarry.

In fact, huddled over his Toshiba laptop, with rock music blaring from his bedroom stereo and Jerry Springer flickering on the TV, the Sheepshead Bay resident looks like any other teenager, albeit one experiencing maximum sensory overload, 1998-style.

But actually Gilson is part of a nationwide networkof teenage computer hackers who have stolen everything from Internet accounts to credit card numbers, a cybergang that has flourished despite a yearlong effort by the FBI to curb this online piracy, the Voice has learned. “I’ve stolen accounts and stuff like that. I didn’t even think it was that big of a deal,” Gilson said. “Everybody does it.”

For months, federal investigators have been serving subpoenas and search warrants at the homes of these young hackers, carting away computers, disks, modems, and other items as parents watch in horror. Agents with the FBI’s computer crimes squad have recently raided homes across the metropolitan area–from Brooklyn to the New Jersey suburbs–as part of a probe into wide-scale credit card fraud and other cybercrimes.

In several instances, agents visited the same residences more than once — first in mid 1997 and then again earlier this year — because some young hackers were undeterred by the federal probe. According to one court record, a hacker recently boasted to a friend that “nothing could be done to him because he was a minor.”

One federal investigator acknowledged that while “it’s tough to prosecute a juvenile,” the FBI is “not always sure you’re gonna find a teenager” at “the end of the string.” The source added, “And if you do, it still doesn’t mean the game is off, because if the damage is severe enough it is still a crime and it’s still a problem.”

Since the probe is ongoing–and every target appears to be underage —
investigators have tried to keep details of the case confidential, including whether any teenagers have been arrested on federal charges. But interviews with several subjects of the criminal inquiry and a confidential FBI document obtained by the Voice provide a detailed look at the current investigation.

The federal probe began last spring, when agents learned of the “massive deployment of a password-stealing program” on the Internet, according to the FBI document. The scheme targeted accounts on America Online (AOL), the nation’s largest online service. AOL is a favorite nesting place for young hackers, who congregate in chat rooms with names like Dead End and Island 55. “Fifteen seems to be the preferred age for an AOL hacker,” said one long-in-the-tooth 18-year-old hacker.

MR Tokens
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The following numbers are MR tokens for use with AOL. If you have the right equipment (which many don't), you can use these to go directly to a conference room. Some of these tokens lead to staff-only rooms, however, these can STILL be accessed by non-staff. 1    Town Hall 3    Classroom 4    The OGF Commons 5    Writers Workshop 6-8  Classroom 9    Geoworks Chat Room 10  .....
Hackers’ Excellent Adventures by William Bastone
Hackers’ Excellent Adventures by William Bastone
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HACKERS' EXCELLENT ADVENTURESBY WILLIAM BASTONEHow Underage Pranksters Ended Up in the Middle of an FBI Cybercrime Investigation With his baby face and doughy body, 17-year-old Joshua Gilson does not look like your typical FBI quarry. In fact, huddled over his Toshiba laptop, with rock music blaring from his bedroom stereo and Jerry Springer flickering on the TV, the Sheepshead Bay resident looks like any other teenager, albeit one.....
Digital5k.com
Digital5k.com
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aol progz… a digital throw back to AOL, 1995.

one of the main reasons that i decided to recreate my digital5k.com website was the constant memories of the AOL progz days.  i won’t lie, there are redundant reminders of my AOL/visual basic (vb)/C++ childhood.  it was a great time in life and the internet, if you ask me.  let’s start off by how it all caught my attention and obsession… ascii art – which doomed my future and solidified my career in computers, programming, development and marketing.

2014-10-25 10_14_23-aol progz… a digital throw back to AOL, 1995.

yep, ascii art was the one little element that attack my attention span and made me say ‘whoa, that’s pretty cool’.  better known in those days as scrollers or macros.  a macro is simple font characters put together to form a type of pre-digital art.  i’ll never forget the first time i signed into AOL and say that beautiful scroll ascii art by ao-hell.

AOHellSplashScreen (1)

i was in 6th grade.  who knows how old i was, i don’t feel like doing the math.  i had just moved to the hell hole known as _____ from Houston, Texas.  i had no friends.  i knew nobody.  i just wanted to go home.  since Texas schools let out a few weeks earlier, i had some time to kill.  a very dangerous thing for a teenager.  what is a borderline anti social teen to do in a city with no friends?  go on the internet with the elite speed of 56 bits per second.

for those of us who remember, AOL was very… fucked.  the horrible chatrooms, stupid interface, laggy system and overall confusing nature, yet – it’s all we had.  the internet was a different place back in 1995.  images of a woman’s breasts were downloaded one pixel line at a time.  often stopping right above the nipple or right below the belly button.  there were no scams, very little spam, limited advertising and an innocence that can never be restored.  the internet was the preacher’s virgin daughter that was just getting ready to leave home, go off to college and get fucked, hard.

it took 3-4 attempts to connect to AOL back then, i would go on to later know the swift backdoor, alternate numbers and general brute force attacks that would prioritize my place in dial up line.  once you gained a stable connection, it was a release of endorphins that no drug has been able to reignite in my brain.  it was instant freedom.  no reality, no physical or gravitational limits, nobody to answer to.  it was an open digital playground with visual basic as monkey bars and the rush of adrenaline for swings.  it was a beautiful feeling for a child at the age of 12 with no real world experience.

finally,  you’re logged into AOL and you’re at the horrible start screen.  let’s go to a chatroom and see what’s popping.  ASL?  remember that?  jesus christ, why do i?  i must have been in a basketball related chatroom when i saw the very thing that would literally go on to change my life.  for the best.  a fucking scrolling advertisement for an aol prog known as ao-hell in an ascii format.

when i saw the 2 line scroll in a basketball chatroom i was first intrigued and then a bit shocked.  my initial thought was, what the hell is this?  i had no idea what it was, but i knew i needed it.  i needed to own it.  i needed to download it.  i needed to run this application.  just by the name, i knew it was something i would appreciate.
aol25_940x700-300x211

i started to IM the person who had ran this ao-hell prog.  the username?  that, too i will never forget – da chronic.

after 10-20 ignored IM’s i finally got an email.  a bit confused, i checked out the email.  it was blank.  cocksucker.  but wait, there’s an attachment?  aohell32.exe?  this must be the prog i’ve seen advertised.  without caution, i download and run it… and with that, my career choice is altered in a very dramatic way.

wait, a tool that i can use to flood emails? scroll and flood chatrooms?  boot people offline and cause all kinds of general hell and annoyances?  this is what i want.  this is what i need – this is what i want to make.  however, before i even thought about how/what it took to make one, i needed to study them all.  i cannot honestly tell you how many hours i spent in my bedroom over the next 2 years downloading, running, studying and then networking with the AOL progs and their programmers.  a few huge ones stick out for some reason for me;gothic nightmares, fate zero, millennium, pepsi, havok, ao-hell and the prophecy trilogy by unab0mber.