Phrack is an e-zine written by and for hackers, first published November 17, 1985. It had a wide circulation which included both hackers and computer security professionals.
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.
The Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC) is a student organization at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Historically it has been a wellspring of hacker culture and the oldest such hacking group in North America. Formed in 1946, its HO scale layout specializes in automated operation of model trains.
Masters of Deception (MOD) was a New York–based group of hackers, most widely known in media for their exploits of telephone company infrastructure and later prosecution.
Project Blue Book was the code name for the systematic study of unidentified flying objects by the United States Air Force from March 1952 to its termination on December 17, 1969. The project, headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, was initially directed by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt and followed projects of a similar nature such as Project Sign established in 1947, and Project Grudge in 1948. Project Blue Book had two goals, namely, to determine if UFOs were a threat to national security, and to scientifically analyze UFO-related data.
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.
In the context of information security, social engineering is the psychological manipulation of people into performing actions or divulging confidential information. A type of confidence trick for the purpose of information gathering, fraud, or system access, it differs from a traditional "con" in that it is often one of many steps in a more complex fraud scheme. It has also been defined as "any act that influences a person to take an action that may or may not be in their best interests."
Rome Laboratory is the US "Air Force 'superlab' for command, control, and communications" research and development and is responsible for planning and executing the USAF science and technology program.
Nahshon Even-Chaim, aka Phoenix, was the first major computer hacker to be convicted in Australia. He was one of the most highly skilled members of a computer hacking group called The Realm, based in Melbourne, Australia, from the late 1980s until his arrest by the Australian Federal Police in early 1990. His targets centered on defense and nuclear weapons research networks.
Electron was the computer handle of Richard Jones, a member of an underground hacker community called The Realm. Jones, born in June 1969, was one of three members of the group arrested in simultaneous raids by the Australian Federal Police in Melbourne, Australia, on 2 April 1990. All three — Nahshon Even-Chaim, Electron and Nom — were convicted of a range of computer crimes involving the intrusion into US defense and government computer systems and the theft of an online computer security newsletter in the late 1980s and early 1990.
Griffiss Air Force Base is a former United States Air Force installation in the northeastern United States, located in Central New York state at Rome, about fifteen miles (25 km) northwest of Utica.
The attack on the Sui-ho Dam was the collective name for a series of mass air attacks during the Korean War on thirteen hydroelectric generating facilities by United Nations Command air forces as part of the North Korean bombing campaign on June 23–24 and June 26–27, 1952. Primarily targeting the hydroelectric complex associated with the Sui-ho Dam in North Korea, the attacks were intended to apply political pressure at the stalled truce negotiations at Panmunjeom.
Jim Christy is an American government employee, who retired from his position as the Director of Futures Exploration (FX) for the Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center in 2013. FX was in charge of establishing strategic relationships between the US Government and private agencies and academia. Christy was the Director of the Defense Cyber Crime Institute from 2003 to 2006, and Director of Operations of the Defense Computer Forensics Laboratory from 2001 to 2003.
The 1994 Black Hawk shootdown incident, sometimes referred to as the Black Hawk Incident, was a friendly fire incident over northern Iraq that occurred on 14 April 1994 during Operation Provide Comfort (OPC). The pilots of two United States Air Force (USAF) F-15 fighter aircraft, operating under the control of a USAF airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft, misidentified two United States Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters as Iraqi Mil Mi-24 "Hind" helicopters. The F-15 pilots fired on and destroyed both helicopters, killing all 26 military and civilians aboard, including personnel from the United States, United Kingdom, France, Turkey, and the Kurdish community.
The United States Air Force became a separate military service on 18 September 1947 with the implementation of the National Security Act of 1947. The Act created the National Military Establishment, later renamed the United States Department of Defense, which was composed of four of the five branches, the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and a newly created Air Force. Prior to 1947, the responsibility for military aviation was divided between the Army for land-based operations and the Navy and Marine Corps for sea-based operations from aircraft carrier and amphibious aircraft. The Army created the first antecedent of the Air Force on 1 August 1907, which through a succession of changes of organization, titles, and missions advanced toward eventual separation 40 years later. The predecessor organizations leading up to today's U.S. Air Force are:
The United States Space Force's 5th Electromagnetic Warfare Squadron is a space electromagnetic warfare unit located at Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado.
Leonard Rose, aka Terminus, is an American hacker who in 1991 accepted a plea bargain that convicted him of two counts of wire fraud stemming from publishing an article in Phrack magazine.
Hancock Field Air National Guard Base is a United States Air Force base, co-located with Syracuse Hancock International Airport. It is located 4.6 miles (7.4 km) north-northeast of Syracuse, New York, at 6001 East Molloy Road, Mattydale, NY 13211. The installation consists of approximately 350 acres (1.4 km2) of flight line, aircraft ramp and support facilities on the south side of the airport.
The Bangladesh Bank robbery, also known colloquially as the Bangladesh Bank cyber heist, was a theft that took place in February 2016. Thirty-five fraudulent instructions were issued by security hackers via the SWIFT network to illegally transfer close to US$1 billion from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York account belonging to Bangladesh Bank, the central bank of Bangladesh. Five of the thirty-five fraudulent instructions were successful in transferring US$101 million, with US$81 million traced to the Philippines and US$20 million to Sri Lanka. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York blocked the remaining thirty transactions, amounting to US$850 million, due to suspicions raised by a misspelled instruction. As of 2018, only around US$18 million of the US$81 million transferred to the Philippines has been recovered, and all the money transferred to Sri Lanka has since been recovered. Most of the money transferred to the Philippines went to four personal accounts, held by single individuals, and not to companies or corporations.
