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NoRoute #1 � French Scene ? � 4763 � NeurAlien � NoRoute #1
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Ce texte a ete ecrit par NeurAlien pour Phrack. L'esprit qui se degage de ce
texte est excellent et reflete tout a fait l'actualite (bon a part nivo net
bien entendu mais les gens n'ont pas change...)
On espere qu'il aurait accepte la parution de son article dans NoRoute...
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French Scene
-=-=-=-=-=-
By NeurAlien
The French scene has always been portrayed as weak by both French and
foreign people. There's a paradox here: France was one of the first
countries to develop a modern network (in 1981) YET there have been
few _good hackers_. How is that explained? I DUNNO !
In fact, stating that France is underdeveloped at a hacker level is
partly false. In France, hackers have always been isolated or hidden
in little isolated groups. Whenever a good group formed, everyone was
quickly busted by DST (the agency in charge of computer fraud). Moreover,
this agency (DST) is somewhat effective and hacking has been illegal here
since 1988. The risks when you are caught are VERY HEAVY and the trial
lasts forever! Usually, it takes 3 years to go to trial and the material
is ALWAYS seized even if you're not charged with anything!.
The Videotex initiative that provided France such a breakthrough
in technology is now an handicap because it can't follow the evolution of
modems and isn't well adapted for networking with the Internet.
I- The Videotex aka Minitel
------------------------
Minitel has been developed in 1981 by France Telecom. It was excellent at
the time but it hasn't evolved very much. Let's see what hacking has
been like in the Minitel world.
To explain a little what "Minitel hacking" was, I must detail
a little how Teletel (the network that supports Minitel) works.
Teletel is based on X25 and provides multiple price levels:
Teletel 0 (T0) is free for the user, costs a lot for the server.
Teletel 1 (T1) costs a local call to the user, the price of the X25
collect connection to the server.
Teletel 2 (T2) costs the price of a local call + X25 communication
(6+ cents per minute) to the user.)
Teletel 3 (T3) costs T2 + a charge that is reversed to the server
(costs 20 cents to $1 per minute to the user.)
A lot of servers are accessible only in T3 for the users.
The principle of hacking Teletel was to find a the X25 number corresponding
to the T3 CODE in order to log on the T3 server from T2 level.
Eventually, there could be a password on the T2 access.
Actually, it's very basic and very dumb hacking since you can only do
some scanning to find the x25 number of the servers.
T1 was used for more professional type servers and the hackers
that used to hack T1 were better than T2 hackers.
T2 K0d3z were very popular among wannabe hackers, some Special Interest
Groups about T2 were formed on a lot of servers and there was even a server
dedicated to T2 codes. The quality of information has always been extremely
low in this kind of club. Moreover, the kind of k0dez kidz on these SIGs and
servers were particularly dumb (sorry for them). It got really bad in 1991
when a lot of T2 guys started to flame each other, accusing them of leeching
some T2 codes from one server and posting them to another, saying that the
other guys were ripping everyone off etc... It may be continuing now but I'm
totally uninterested by these people so I completely left this scene.
The "good ones" of the T2 K0d3z k1dz stopped T2 (it's not free so it's
too expensive!). They usually started to Hack T0 which is totally free.
(it's like a 1-800 for Teletel). The servers of T0 are nearly all of the
"restricted access" kind. But they have weak protection schemes and can
be easily bypassed with some experience. The hackers of T0 servers don't
usually know each other and some of them may form a kind of little "islands".
(I'm calling them "islands" because it is always placed in an Information
System on T0, deep within the system. There are perhaps 10 or so "islands"
that have no connection with other hackers. A typical "island" consists of
5 to 10 hackers. Some hackers may go on 2 or more "islands" but prefer to
keep the presence of both "islands" secret. Why? In order not to destroy
both if one of them is found and shut down!
One reason most never heard of these person is that there is nearly
no connection between the Teletel world and the Internet. The only way
to escape to Internet and Intl X25 is Teletel 1 (T1).
II- When Teletel goes professional
-------------------------------
As I said, the T1 is the only way for a Teletel hacker to evolve
to hacking Internet or International ASCII X25. On Teletel 1, you can
sometimes log on to some interesting Unixes, Vaxes etc.
T1 is also the only way on Teletel to use the International X25 network.
You have to get a Transpac NUI to call a foreign address from T1.
Until 1991, the Transpac NUIs were a 4 to 6 random alphanumeric
characters. A man called IER had made an NUI Scanner that allowed him to
find NUIs by scanning out every 4 character NUI. It WAS effective,
but Transpac changed to a 6 character NUI. (IER was busted and caught.
No news from him since that day!)
Many good hackers used T1 a lot to hack systems and to go on the Internet
and the Intl X25 networks. For example, you may have heard of people
like Netlink, Furax, Jansky or Synaps. They hacked X25 and Internet but
it seems that each of them was busted and caught. Some are still alive on
the Net, but some aren't!!!
Some French hackers were really good but it seems that no one can hide
very long from the DST. They are very effective, and with the help of
France Telecom, they trace back a lot of calls.
Places like QSD haven't been used very much by the French because of
their lack of technological knowledge. ahem...
Moreover, QSD/The Line is tapped by governmental agencies so g00d French
hackers don't like it.
IV- The groups
----------
Some groups have been formed in France but they've never lived long enough
to give new hackers the knowledge of the old hackers. Some groups were:
NICK, Hardcore Hackers, Piratel, TeKila Underground. Many of them
were hacking systems in Teletel 1.
A group called CCCF appeared in 1991. It was founded by Jean Bernard
Condat and in fact it was not really a group. This guy, JBC, is deft
at maneuvering people into doing what he wants. He organized fake contests
like "The price of the Chaos" to get more information and then act as
if he personally discovered the hacks that were given to him.
He recently started the Chaos newsletter where nothing originates from
him...it's taken from everywhere and from his personal contacts.
He has big power because he works for SVP which is a private
information company that has the goal of providing information to whoever
wants it, for a large amount of money.
Nobody knows what JBC really wants but he is definitely a threat to the
underground. Somebody, I don't recall who, already mentioned that in Phrack.
V- Phreaking in Phrance
--------------------
Phone phreaking became really active in France in 1992 after the
massive release of a blue box that worked in France. Several months
later discovery of this caused the death of blue boxing from France.
The blue box program was running on ST and several people that used it
formed the TeKila Underground. As far as i know, this was an happy group
that had a lot of parties and liked smoking... :)
They weren't very effective: just into using the blue box.
Then came the movement of the "Horlogers", it was due to the credit you
could gain if you connected in Teletel 3 on some server. The "horlogers" were
staying HOURS and DAYS on a server with blue box just to have more credit
(counted in minute of connection) on those server.
They were staying connected on a place called "L'horloge" (the timer) that
enabled you not to be disconnected by the server when being idle for a long
time.
Blue boxing is now very hard in France. The Australian blue box
ceased to work and a lot of phreakers couldn't phreak anymore.
The real problem in France is that nobody (or almost nobody) knows how
the France Telecom phone network works so we can't really use any flaws
in this system.
Calling cards have been heavily used in France, placing the country
in the top ten consumers of stolen CC's. When ATT MCI saw that,
they contacted France Telecom and now each calling card from ATT, MCI
can't call back to France.
Moreover, FT's CC called "Carte France Telecom" (CFT or CP) is traced and
recorded: I mean, when the person who owns the CFT receives the bill,
written on the bill is the number of the caller and of the called party.
HARD isn't it?
Recently, some busts were done on ATT and MCI CC users. They are now
awaiting trial.
VI- Magazines
---------
Back before 1990 a magazine was published twice and sent to every
single university in France. It was called "Hackito" from the
"Hackito ergo sum" motto. (I've never found an issue of it, but if you have
one, send me it to me in email.)
There is also this shitty zine called Chaos...
Now, a new zine is making the underground react in France:
It's called "N0 Way" and I'm the Editor.
This magazine is written entirely in French. The current issue is number 3.
Anyone wanting to submit something to "N0 Way" can send me a message in Email.
Today we are seeing a lot of people in France wanting to know more about
hacking. It seems to have taken off here but not as much as in Holland or
in the USA.
Email me to receive "N0 Way":
[email protected]
++NeurAlien.
