The Holy Grail

gave to Phoenix. The two hackers then began searching the growing Internet for computers belonging to the targets.

It was an impressive hit list. Matthew Bishop, author of Deszip. Russell Brand, of the Lawrence Livermore National Labs, a research laboratory funded by the US Department of Energy. Dan Farmer, an author of the computer program COPS, a popular security-testing program which included a password cracking program. There were others. And, at the top of the list, Eugene Spafford, or Spaf, as the hackers called him.

By 1990, the computer underground viewed Spaf not just as security guru, but also as an anti-hacker zealot. Spaf was based at Purdue University, a hotbed of computer security experts. Bishop had earned his PhD at Purdue and Dan Farmer was still there. Spaf was also one of the founders of usenet, the Internet newsgroups service. While working as a computer scientist at the university, he had made a name for himself by, among other things, writing a technical analysis of the RTM worm. The worm, authored by Cornell University student Robert T. Morris Jr in 1988, proved to be a boon for Spaf's career.

Prior to the RTM worm, Spaf had been working in software engineering. After the worm, he became a computer ethicist and a very public spokesman for the conservatives in the computer security industry. Spaf went on tour across the US, lecturing the public and the media on worms, viruses and the ethics of hacking. During the Morris case, hacking became a hot topic in the United States, and Spaf fed the flames. When Judge Howard G. Munson refused to sentence Morris to prison, instead ordering him to complete 400 hours community service, pay a $10000 fine and submit to three years probation, Spaf publicly railed against the decision. The media reported that he had called on the computer industry to boycott any company which chose to employ Robert T. Morris Jr.

Targeting Spaf therefore served a dual purpose for the Australian hackers. He was undoubtedly a repository of trea- sures such as Deszip, and he was also a tall poppy.