Hacking Ozemail in the 1990

Offgrid on 12/02/2022 - 19:08
Last edited 12/02/2022 - 20:01

I was apart of a group of hackers in Newcastle who were hacking Ozemail between 1995 and 1998.

During this time Ozemail cost $5 per hour to use for dial up 56k. The hacking group considered of 52 people at I personally knew of including Julian Assange but probably a lot more. The group was using credit card fraud to access the internet.

In 1998 one of the members of our hacking group worked for an internet security company in Sydney and told us the AFP had seemed their professional expertise to help find people using credit card fraud against Ozemail.

He inform the group and the credit card fraud stopped instantly.

In 1992 Malcolm Turnbull bought his share of Ozemail for $550,000. In 1999, knowing it was full of credit card fraud, he sold his share to WorldCom for $59.9mill.

I personally was never associated with the credit card fraud. I did however use username and passwords that were created with credit card fraud.

In 2016 I submitted a statuary declaration to the AFP giving them full details including the naming of names.

The AFP allowed the sale of Ozemail to go thought knowing it was full of credit card fraud.

I think its important this information is made public.

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Comments

  • isthisreallife22 on 12/02/2022 - 19:09
    +16

    Is this copypasta?

    • Offgrid on 12/02/2022 - 19:12
      -2

      That was a fast reply. Did you even read my lost?

      It took me about 10mins to write it. No copy paste. I still have a copy of the stat DEC to the AFP.

      • isthisreallife22 on 12/02/2022 - 19:14

        I did read in fact and it's very interesting. I had my first ozemail email address in 1996 so familiar with that era

      • bazza1980 on 12/02/2022 - 19:30
        +1

        I still have a copy of the stat DEC to the AFP.

        Pictures or it never happened….

        • Offgrid on 12/02/2022 - 19:38
          -2

          I can do that. It will take me some time to find it though. I'm not going looking right this min.

      • djones145 on 12/02/2022 - 21:26
        +10

        you are posting in the wrong place

        news.com.au

        they would love this, front page material

      • mskeggs on 12/02/2022 - 21:37
        +47

        I worked for OzEmail from early in 1995 to 2000.
        It was a ride, I was the 17th employee, fresh from uni, when I left it was a transfer to UUnet in Europe and there were about 550 staff across Australia (plus some sub-companies).

        Malcolm Turnbull was an active investor, along with Trevor Kennedy and Sean Howard, but Malcolm and Trevor were investors, not executives - they came to board meetings and I remember presenting to them about an important deal - but they weren't in the offices on a daily basis.

        Sean was the original CEO and the boss, working long hours with a start up atmosphere. He had previously founded Australian Personal Computer magazine. A bit later Dave Spence was hired as CEO (he is the chair of Paypal in Australia now) and ran the business in the fastest growth phase.

        It is hard to describe how keen people were to throw money at OzEmail back then. Modem use was charged hourly, the phones were literally ringing constantly with people keen to tell us their credit card number for a couple of floppy disks with 10 hours of included data.

        We stuck a pair of disks on APC magazine and got 25000 new subscribers the next month. It was nuts.

        I remember driving my WB Commodore (the first car I bought! I parked behind Sean's dusty Ferrari he rarely drove) up to the St Leonards office and listening to the ABC on the radio when the breaking news described a massive ISP hack - really, the first one in Australia of any size. It was Skeeve Stevens hacking AusNet, our biggest competitor, and the relief was huge I still had a job.

        Skeeve's trial reckoned his hack was worth $9.5m.
        https://www.afr.com/politics/hacker-jailed-for-three-years-1…

        One of the Sys Op's at OzEmail had a certificate of thanks from the AFP for their help in some forensics involved in preparing the evidence against Skeeve. I reckon Skeeve was a bit hard done by (though I have never met him). A few minor differences in the story and he would be getting a grey hat bounty these days. But that wasn't the way it worked in 1995 and he went to prison.

        We got hit with card fraud a lot!
        The way the registration system worked initially meant we only actually ran a charge against the card well after the first session started, and some script kiddies worked out they could stall things part way through sign up, open up a second browser, and surf the web until the original sign up link timed out.
        It was a nuisance, as we obviously wanted paying customers, not free loaders tying up the lines.

        Eventually we set up a kind of hard coded captured portal to limit the sign up sessions to a DMZ with no actual Internet access, but that it took at least a few months to get around to it, probably illustrates what a rounding error a few teens in Newie dialling in were to the financials.

        So, um, thanks for the trip down memory lane - what did you think would happen? Our prospectus to list on the Nasdaq (first Aussie company to do, I believe) either listed fraud risks, or they were so minor it didn't matter, just like it didn't list the monthly lease payment on the fax machine or write off of the V.42bis 14.4k modems.
        Maybe you gave yourself and your mates up to the feds for nothing?

        • core101 on 12/02/2022 - 21:42
          +2

          WB Commodore - that was nuts.

          • mskeggs on 12/02/2022 - 21:46
            +3

            @core101: Ahh! Typo. VB. Wouldn't mind a WB Holden these days.
            EDIT: Brown coloured, V6, the previous owner wrote "WOOKIE" above the number plate. $1800. I owned it for 3 years, got it serviced regularly and had just spent $600 on new tires when my partner (now spouse!) bought a newer car and said we didn't need 2.
            I sold it to a work colleague for $1500 or $1600. Annoyingly, it blew the welsh plugs a few months later so he was a bit dirty, and I was a bit apologetic, though he drove cars pretty hard.

            • DARK KHAOS on 13/02/2022 - 12:55
              +1

              @mskeggs: Straight 6 173 red motor.

              • mskeggs on 13/02/2022 - 13:31

                @DARK KHAOS: Yeah, I hesitated for a minute when I wrote V6 but couldn't remember. It roared when you put the foot down but took ages to get any power - but it was 16yro when I got it, so maybe I'm being unfair.
                I think it might have had a manual choke too!
                Overheated and stalled in the middle of Harbour bridge traffic one night, remember putting the heater on full bore on a hot muggy evening trying to keep it cool.
                Modern cars are such luxury!

        • Offgrid on 12/02/2022 - 21:45

          Thanks for a meaningful post. Good read. Do you know of a woman who worked for Ozemaile in Newcastle named (mod: Removed personal information) ?

          • mskeggs on 12/02/2022 - 22:07
            +2

            @Offgrid: I don't remember (mod: personal info removed) , but that might be my shoddy memory, so I apologise if I was talking to her all the time back in 1998!
            OzEmail bought up a bunch of regional ISPs in the later 1990s and there was a heap of super talented people who had basically hooked up dozens of modems, written their own authentication and billing systems on BSD or early Linux boxes and often ran 100:1 contention (so 40 or 50 56.6kbps modems would share a 2mbps Telstra Broadlink data circuit back to a bigger wholesale ISP like OzEmail, Connect,com.au, Optus or Bigpond).
            I can't remember the name of the Newie ISP - was it Multiplex or Hunterlink? Actually, I think those both ended up with Optus! I remember OzEmail buying Access1's ISP business (those guys ended up running Melbourne IT and the Com.au namespace) but it seemed like every month another smaller ISP got bought out.
            I was in the due diligence team on a buy of an ISP I think called Cammnet(?). I remember the network guys sheepishly telling us after 4 days they were using 64kbps satellite links for backhaul from all their regional POPs (350ms latency gamers!). We reported back the network was worth negative, but I think we still bought the customer base.

            It was a weird time. Watching Tesla or Afterpay or Bitcoin these day reminds me how in a bubble a spark of an idea can be fanned into a huge fire through lots of enthusiasm, but probably only a fraction of the pinnacle value is the long term value.

            • Offgrid on 12/02/2022 - 22:21

              @mskeggs: It was Hunterlink. (removed name) was a very significant member of the groupmI was associated with.

              • FW190 on 13/02/2022 - 01:19

                @Offgrid: lol I used to work for Hunterlink………… but I joined after it was purchased by Pacific Internet, and later it was purchased by Asia Netcomm (rebranded to Pacnet), eventually it was acquired by Telstra and the brand disappeared under it's umberlla………..

                but damn I remember those dial up modem days, I think Hunterlink was using Optus that has local POPs in Newcastle, later they switched to Telstra "mega pop" with some 1900 number I think? that killed my latency for Counter Strike lol

              • djkelly69 on 13/02/2022 - 08:56
                +3

                @Offgrid: Just checking - will you be posting your own full name as well?

        • GrueHunter on 13/02/2022 - 10:51
          +4

          Maybe you gave yourself and your mates up to the feds for nothing?

          This. Was there fraud? Sure there was. Did it represent anything close to a majority, or even a notable minority of users? Not even close.

          OP knew 52 people. Let's say it was actually a hundred. Let's say each of those was giving free access to 100 different people.

          Now chalk that up to a company that was pulling in 25,000 new, paying customers in a single month.

          Love the idea that the AFP should have the power to prevent the sale of a private company, rather than, oh, I don't know, maybe if we had some sort of Australian securities and investments commission that could be a corporate regulator and they could pursue things through a legal system led by what I'll call "courts".

        • foolsgold on 13/02/2022 - 13:20

          now this above OP is what we call an interesting post….

        • ThePunkMedia on 05/06/2023 - 11:00

          Registered an account just to say thank you for the memories Skeggs :) Found this post while researching for a feature I'm writing and I concur with all of it as well - I worked with you as a Tech / Sys OP from 96 to 99 and took off when we sold to Worldcom and were forced to sell our shares back :)

          It was very much the wild west of the early internet | The Winsock case / Pirate and Zgeek / The Invisible Warez servers and actual Hackers inside and out :) -

          There was a small amount of generated CC numbers that were created by kids using CreditMaster 4 etc that eventually got flagged as fraud but the impact was miniscule. We didn't really care

          Stories like the original post about simple cc fraud / account creation that they term "hacking" are hysterical. Love it.

          Cheers

      • toomuchdogfur on 13/02/2022 - 11:34
        +9

        I personally was never associated with the credit card fraud. I did however use username and passwords that were created with credit card fraud.

        In 2016 I submitted a statuary declaration to the AFP giving them full details including the naming of names.

        These 52 fraudsters could do up to $6,240 of fraud a day (generously assuming all 52 people were on the internet 24 x 7), defrauded from a company that had 600,000 paying subscribers who, even if only using the internet for an hour a day, would have generated $3,000,000 in revenue for the company. In one day.

        So a mate did you a solid by sharing their ISP account credentials with you, thus giving you free internet with no effort to you.

        Then you woke up guility one day over crimes you did not commit and turned all their names over to the AFP, over the princely sum of <0.2% of a company's revenue. For a company that ceased to exist over 15 years ago.

        What do you want? Applause? A medal?

        • BartholemewH on 13/02/2022 - 12:37
          +4

          Exactly. How OP thinks ratting out those that did the dirty work back then benefits anyone now is a mystery. The time for that was 24 years ago, before he used stolen credentials for personal gain.

        • terrys on 13/02/2022 - 13:26

          Bearing in mind that this is person who can't proof-read plain text, typing in the address to find scripts would be a challenge, let alone debugging actual code.

          You're asking them to do arithmetic?

          I'll be nice, and offer them a guide.

          https://resources.infosecinstitute.com/topic/25-ways-to-beco…

      • serpserpserp on 13/02/2022 - 14:45

        Was this before or after you founded whirlpool?

    • AndyC1 on 12/02/2022 - 19:19
      +6

      "He inform the group" of the pasted crap.

    • AndyC1 on 12/02/2022 - 20:06
      +6

      It's a troll post.

      • djones145 on 12/02/2022 - 21:04
        +7

        mate this guy is a national hero, coming out like this

        Australian of the year 2023

      • BoredGhost on 13/02/2022 - 15:50

        You keep saying it is copied from somewhere, but you don't provide any sources.

        I'm with djones145.

        There are also questions about whether it is illegal or not given the year it occurred in and whether exploits are illegal. Whether writing viruses are illegal.

        Remember the I Love You Virus?

    • jv on 14/02/2022 - 09:08

      A copypasta is a block of text that is copied and pasted across the Internet by individuals through online forums and social networking websites. Copypastas are said to be similar to spam as they are often used to annoy other users and disrupt online discourse.

  • CrispyChrispy on 12/02/2022 - 19:10
    +16

    I think its important this information is made public.

    Not really

    At least not on the OzBargain forums section

    • isthisreallife22 on 12/02/2022 - 19:15
      +13

      I reckon whirlpool forums might enjoy this topic

    • Offgrid on 12/02/2022 - 19:57

      I posted in the internet section. Seems the old hackers are just pushed aside now.

      • serpserpserp on 13/02/2022 - 14:48
        +4

        From your post you didn't actually hack anything. You just knowingly used fraudulent free internet (since you didn't actually do any of the credit card stuff).

        Come back to use when you can detail your righteous hack.

    • djones145 on 12/02/2022 - 21:26

      should have posted in news.com.au

  • Mokr on 12/02/2022 - 19:13

    Assange is gonna have more crimes to deal with when he comes back…

    • holdenmg on 12/02/2022 - 19:18
      +1

      Reporting or Committing?

    • djones145 on 12/02/2022 - 21:27
      +1

      we should set up a go fund page to deport him back to Australia to stand in court against these accusations

    • leelemon on 12/02/2022 - 21:41

      if he comes back…

  • Hithere on 12/02/2022 - 19:16
    +1

    I think its important this information is made public.

    It's not going to change anything.

    Not unless we can get a credit card with a discounted interest rate.

  • SBOB on 12/02/2022 - 19:19
    +16

    52 people getting some free internet does not 'full of credit card fraud' a company make…

    • djones145 on 12/02/2022 - 21:28
      +3

      in got free internet at work…. I'm in trouble

    • serpserpserp on 13/02/2022 - 14:49
      +1

      An IRC channel sharing a fraudulent login isn't a "hacking group" either.

  • holdenmg on 12/02/2022 - 19:19
    +2

    This post is so 90's

    Tell us how to hack Blockchain for fun and profit. lol

    • Offgrid on 12/02/2022 - 19:23
      -7

      I would never hack anymore.

      It would be a trip to jail.

      It important I right my wrongs. I'm always happy to produce the stat dec to the AFP. Would have to go through some paperwork though to find it.

      • holdenmg on 12/02/2022 - 19:32
        +2

        Just go to the AFP and surrender.

        • Offgrid on 12/02/2022 - 19:36

          The AFP know who I am.

          • morse on 12/02/2022 - 19:50
            +9

            @Offgrid: Not so offgrid after all

          • Quantumcat on 13/02/2022 - 08:33
            +11

            @Offgrid: The fact that they don't care kind of says everything don't you think?

          • serpserpserp on 13/02/2022 - 14:50
            +3

            @Offgrid: Yeah I'm sure you are on their "informant" file. Rolls eyes

      • GrueHunter on 13/02/2022 - 10:58
        +5

        "I'm happy to reveal a key document that's central to my story. I just don't happen to have said critical document to hand at the moment - because why would I when I've only referred to it half a dozen times - but it's totally around here somewhere, I think. I'll just hand out other people's full names in the meantime."

      • endotherm on 13/02/2022 - 17:58
        +1

        I copied a floppy once, and downloaded Napster. You have convinced me to come clean too!

      • jacross on 13/02/2022 - 19:49
        +1

        Calm down CrashOverride.

    • prisonmike on 12/02/2022 - 19:26
      -1

      I am more interested in NFT scams

      • serpserpserp on 13/02/2022 - 14:51
        +1

        The whole idea is a scam. But is there something in particular you want to know about?

    • Mokr on 12/02/2022 - 19:31
      +3

      I hacked tinder and auto swiped 10k profiles .

      Still ten more matches

      • serpserpserp on 13/02/2022 - 14:52

        Yeah but did anyone reply to your first message?

    • boomramada on 12/02/2022 - 21:24
      +4

      This story is so old skool, pretty much all the IT students in school used involved in something similar back in the day. Lol

    • Cluster on 13/02/2022 - 11:38
      +1

      Easy. Create NFTs of thousands of ugly pictures that slightly vary from each other, price them at a few thousand dollars each, and wait for the idiots to line up and fill your wallet before you rugpull. Crime has never been so easy.

  • dscott85 on 12/02/2022 - 19:22
    +20

    I don’t make a habit of trusting the words of anyone who admits to committing credit card fraud in their first paragraph.

    Your post also reads likes a claim to fame from somebody down at the pub who is the “friend of a friend” of some B grade actor.

    • Offgrid on 12/02/2022 - 19:25
      -2

      Its not something I'm proud of. The is no claim to fame here. Assange is no hacker. I could teach my 86yo mother yo hack better than he ever could.

      • BartholemewH on 13/02/2022 - 12:44
        +3

        So the first trigger you pull on an anonymous forum is: "I stole some dialup…. Well, nearly…. I used credentials that someone else obtained". Thanks for the laughs.

    • terrys on 13/02/2022 - 13:43
      +1

      I'm not wary of claims of hacker nous from someone who clearly couldn't type in a 60 line BASIC program into a VIC20 given the magazine page it was printed on - "suffused with hilarity" would come closer

  • Qazxswec on 12/02/2022 - 19:23
    +4

    He sold his share for 57 million, not 59 billion

    • Offgrid on 12/02/2022 - 19:28
      +1

      Depends on who reports it. Seriously out of all the infoI just gave your quesoning $2mill bucks? Thats a great investment.

      Did you also know Neville Rann recieved $10mill from the sale?

      • randomusername2017 on 12/02/2022 - 19:30
        +1

        Any relation to Neville Wran?

        Or was that the unpopular Neville that runn for office and nobody voted for?

      • SBOB on 12/02/2022 - 19:45
        +11

        Seriously out of all the infoI just gave your quesoning $2mill bucks?

        pretty sure he's questioning/pointing out your $58,943,000,000 difference

        • autonomate on 12/02/2022 - 19:49

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTmXHvGZiSY

          This guy's ill.

        • Offgrid on 12/02/2022 - 19:54
          -7

          I think you better re read.

          Turnbull bought his share for $550,000 and sold for …… Depends on the source $57-60mill less than 5 years later.

          • SBOB on 12/02/2022 - 19:56
            +10

            @Offgrid: your OP quote
            " In 1999, knowing it was full of credit card fraud, he sold his share to WorldCom for $59.9bill."

            I think you better re read.

            • Offgrid on 12/02/2022 - 20:00
              -1

              @SBOB: Ahh I see now…. Sorry I will correct it. Small minds!

              • terrys on 13/02/2022 - 13:44
                +3

                @Offgrid: You need outside help for your small mind mate!

  • bloom on 12/02/2022 - 19:23
    +28

    No spell check since 1995

  • bazza1980 on 12/02/2022 - 19:24
    +1

    Username checks out

    he sold his share to WorldCom for $59.9bill.

    Malcolm wish he got 59 billion, he only got $57m, still a pretty penny..

  • Qazxswec on 12/02/2022 - 19:25
    +3

    and i don't understand what you mean by you submitted a declaration in 2016 and they let the sale go through, how can they stop a sale that went through 17 years earlier, what do you mean?

    • Offgrid on 12/02/2022 - 19:29

      The AFP were well informed before the sale went through.

      • hayne on 13/02/2022 - 12:08
        +1

        I'm pretty puzzled as to why you think the AFP should stop the sale of a business because they were aware that Ozemail was a victim of criminal activities. As @mskeggs pointed out earlier from his own experience as an Ozemail employee, it was probably a very small part of a substantial business - credit card fraud afflicts all sorts of companies.

        Take your logic further. Does that mean that any company which suffers from credit card fraud can no longer be sold? Should this only affect private companies and not publicly listed companies? Or should all publicly listed companies which have had instances of credit card fraud be forced to delist from stock exchanges so that no potential investor could trade in ownership of their shares?

        If it helps you clear your conscience, that's a good thing but there's no compelling logic to prevent the sale (pre- or post-sale) and it's certainly outside the jurisdiction of the AFP.

  • SBOB on 12/02/2022 - 19:27
    +2

    hacking Ozemail between 1995 and 1998.
    During this time Ozemail cost $5 per hour

    Pretty sure Ozemail wasn't 5 bucks an hour in 98….

    • Offgrid on 12/02/2022 - 19:30
      +1

      Sure was. It was being used continually too.

    • djones145 on 12/02/2022 - 21:03

      was at pc world in central
      5 bucks for counter strike an hour

  • Qazxswec on 12/02/2022 - 19:28
    +4

    And by the way, i hope that you realise that your hacker friends were getting paid to inflate the value of the business

  • randomusername2017 on 12/02/2022 - 19:29
    +7

    In 2017 I began my journey to redemption and enrolled in an adult literacy course at TAFE. Unfortunately all those years off the grid had stunted my development and here I am today with a declaration of preparedness to enter mainstream society.

  • Qazxswec on 12/02/2022 - 19:29
    +2

    does anyone remember Global Freeway, it used to be a cd you would get, and once you installed it and set it up, it gave you free internet, it was awesome

    • Offgrid on 12/02/2022 - 19:32

      Yep I remember that. Most of us ended up using Newcastle Uni accounts for free which had a 2 hour cut off limit.

      • SBOB on 12/02/2022 - 19:52
        +1

        using Newcastle Uni accounts for free which had a 2 hour cut off limit.

        had to access the Moo (hippo moo) somehow

        • Offgrid on 12/02/2022 - 19:59

          Huh? We were all Uni students. I don't get your comment.

          • SBOB on 12/02/2022 - 20:20
            +2

            @Offgrid: at 50 possibly just after your time, but i find it hard to believe someone involved in technology/computers at the Newcastle University in the 97-00 era does not know what the hippo moo was.

            • pegaxs on 12/02/2022 - 23:49
              +3

              @SBOB: That’s because OP is LARPing.

    • bmerigan on 12/02/2022 - 22:57

      Yep, had that one for a while

  • Offgrid on 12/02/2022 - 19:33

    Sorry for the grammar everyone. I'm on a tablet with text prediction and in serious need of glasses. Thanks for the comments on this though.

    • djones145 on 12/02/2022 - 21:02
      +10

      are you like off the grid, stealing bandwidth at the local maccas?

      • blurn on 13/02/2022 - 13:23
        +6

        He hacked the self service kiosk to write his posts

        • serpserpserp on 13/02/2022 - 15:02

          I laughed hard at this one

  • Hithere on 12/02/2022 - 19:35
    +2

    All those free AOL software CD's that were available back then.

    We used them as frisbees we had so many.

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