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Bryan Clough (born 1932, Oldham, Lancashire [1] ) is an English writer.
Clough has written several books and articles dealing with phreakers, hackers and computer virus writers; credit card fraud; banking; and the activities of MI5 during World War II, specifically the Tyler Kent–Anna Wolkoff Affair (2005).
In 1990, Clough and Paul Mungo, a journalist, wrote Approaching Zero (1992) a book that covered the activities of phreakers, hackers and computer virus writers. It was later published in North America and translations appeared in French, Spanish, Turkish and Japanese.
Three incidents of credit card fraud described in the book resulted in much interest[ citation needed ] in the press. [2] Further investigations resulted in articles on computer viruses, [3] and investigations into 'phantom withdrawals' from ATMs and credit card fraud. [4]
These investigations culminated in the publication of Cheating at Cards (1994) which revealed 40 ways of fraudulently obtaining money from ATMs; and Beware of Your Bank (1995) in which he examined mistakes made by banks and explained how to detect errors, and how to obtain compensation.
Sparked by a close interest in cryptology, he then turned to the strange case of Tyler Kent, an American national employed as a code and cipher clerk at the American Embassy in London, at a time when Great Britain was at war with Germany and America claimed to be strictly neutral. In May 1940, Kent was arrested, tried in camera and sentenced to seven years' penal servitude.
Clough's book State Secrets: The Kent–Wolkoff Affair (2005) took advantage of privileged access to Government files and also the release of others under the Freedom of Information Act. Sixty-five years after the event, Clough finally revealed the 'real reason' for Kent's arrest and imprisonment – which was very different from the earlier versions in officially inspired publications. Clough appeared in the documentary Churchill and the Fascist Plot broadcast on Channel Four on 16 March 2013. [5]
Clough was educated at the Hulme Grammar School, Oldham and served his national service with the 10th Royal Hussars in Germany. He then worked in a variety of industries, mainly in engineering, before becoming chief executive for a major international company which allowed him to travel widely.
He set up his own computer supply and maintenance company in 1983 which he sold out in 1990 in order to concentrate on research and writing.
Clough married his wife in 1971 [1] and they had two daughters. [1] He now lives in Hove, Sussex. [6]
An automated teller machine (ATM) is an electronic telecommunications device that enables customers of financial institutions to perform financial transactions, such as cash withdrawals, deposits, funds transfers, balance inquiries or account information inquiries, at any time and without the need for direct interaction with bank staff.
Karl Werner Lothar Koch was a German hacker in the 1980s, who called himself "hagbard", after Hagbard Celine. He was involved in a Cold War computer espionage incident.
Phreaking is a slang term coined to describe the activity of a culture of people who study, experiment with, or explore telecommunication systems, such as equipment and systems connected to public telephone networks. The term phreak is a sensational spelling of the word freak with the ph- from phone, and may also refer to the use of various audio frequencies to manipulate a phone system. Phreak, phreaker, or phone phreak are names used for and by individuals who participate in phreaking.
EMV is a payment method based on a technical standard for smart payment cards and for payment terminals and automated teller machines which can accept them. EMV stands for "Europay, Mastercard, and Visa", the three companies that created the standard.
Bank fraud is the use of potentially illegal means to obtain money, assets, or other property owned or held by a financial institution, or to obtain money from depositors by fraudulently posing as a bank or other financial institution. In many instances, bank fraud is a criminal offence.
Operation Sundevil was a 1990 nationwide United States Secret Service crackdown on "illegal computer hacking activities." It involved raids in approximately fifteen different cities and resulted in three arrests and the confiscation of computers, the contents of electronic bulletin board systems (BBSes), and floppy disks. It was revealed in a press release on May 9, 1990. The arrests and subsequent court cases resulted in the creation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The operation is now seen as largely a public-relations stunt. Operation Sundevil has also been viewed as one of the preliminary attacks on the Legion of Doom and similar hacking groups. The raid on Steve Jackson Games, which led to the court case Steve Jackson Games, Inc. v. United States Secret Service, is often attributed to Operation Sundevil, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation states that it is unrelated and cites this attribution as a media error.
Tyler Gatewood Kent was an American diplomat who stole thousands of secret documents while working as a cipher clerk at the US Embassy in London during World War II.
ShadowCrew was a cybercrime forum that operated under the domain name ShadowCrew.com between August 2002 and November 2004.
AIDS, also known as Aids Info Disk or PC Cyborg Trojan, is a DOS Trojan horse whose payload mungs and encrypts the names of all directories on drive C:. It was developed by Dr. Joseph Popp (1950-2006), an evolutionary biologist with a doctorate from Harvard. The virus was isolated in 1989.
A security hacker is someone who explores methods for breaching defenses and exploiting weaknesses in a computer system or network. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, such as profit, protest, information gathering, challenge, recreation, or evaluation of a system weaknesses to assist in formulating defenses against potential hackers.
Anna Nikolayevna Wolkova, sometimes known as Anna de Wolkoff, was a White Russian émigrée, and secretary of The Right Club, which was opposed to Britain's involvement in World War II.
Payment cards are part of a payment system issued by financial institutions, such as a bank, to a customer that enables its owner to access the funds in the customer's designated bank accounts, or through a credit account and make payments by electronic transfer with a payment terminal and access automated teller machines (ATMs). Such cards are known by a variety of names, including bank cards, ATM cards, client cards, key cards or cash cards.
Credit card fraud is an inclusive term for fraud committed using a payment card, such as a credit card or debit card. The purpose may be to obtain goods or services or to make payment to another account, which is controlled by a criminal. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard is the data security standard created to help financial institutions process card payments securely and reduce card fraud.
Albert Gonzalez is an American computer hacker, computer criminal and police informer, who is accused of masterminding the combined credit card theft and subsequent reselling of more than 170 million card and ATM numbers from 2005 to 2007, the biggest such fraud in history. Gonzalez and his accomplices used SQL injection to deploy backdoors on several corporate systems in order to launch packet sniffing attacks which allowed him to steal computer data from internal corporate networks.
Max Ray Vision is a former computer security consultant and hacker who served a 13-year prison sentence, the longest sentence ever given at the time for hacking charges in the United States. He was convicted of two counts of wire fraud, including stealing nearly 2 million credit card numbers and running up about $86 million in fraudulent charges.
Overbilling is the practice of charging more than is legally or ethically acceptable on an invoice or bill.
Carding is a term describing the trafficking and unauthorized use of credit cards. The stolen credit cards or credit card numbers are then used to buy prepaid gift cards to cover up the tracks. Activities also encompass exploitation of personal data, and money laundering techniques. Modern carding sites have been described as full-service commercial entities.
Enid Mary Riddell was a British socialite and racing driver during the 1930s and 1940s. She was also a member of some far-right political groups in the United Kingdom and was imprisoned for violating the Official Secrets Act 1911 during the Second World War.
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