UNDERGROUND

‘I bet.’ Prime Suspect paused. ‘You reckon the Feds have dropped the line traces for real?’

‘Looks like it. I mean if RMIT kicks them out, there isn’t much the Feds can do without the uni’s cooperation. The letter sounded like they just wanted to get on with securing their systems. Hang on. I’ve got it here.’

Mendax pulled up a letter on his computer and scrolled through it.

From aarnet-contacts-request@jatz.aarnet.edu.au Tue May 28 09:32:31 1991 Received: by jatz.aarnet.edu.au id AA07461 (5.65+/IDA-1.3.5 for pte900); Tue, 28 May 91 09:31:59 +1000 Received: from possum.ecg.rmit.OZ.AU by jatz.aarnet.edu.au with SMTP id AA07457 (5.65+/IDA-1.3.5 for /usr/lib/sendmail -oi -faarnet-contacts-request aarnet-contacts-recipients); Tue, 28 May 91 09:31:57 +1000 Received: by possum.ecg.rmit.OZ.AU for aarnet-contacts@aarnet. edu.au) Date: Tue, 28 May 91 09:32:08 +1000

From: rcoay@possum.ecg.rmit.OZ.AU (Alan Young) Message-Id: <9105272332.29621@possum.ecg.rmit.OZ.AU> To: aarnet-contacts@aarnet.edu.au Subject: Re: Hackers Status: RO While no one would disagree that ‘Hacking’ is bad and should be stopped, or at least minimised there are several observations which I have made over the last six or eight months relating to the persuit of these people: 1. The cost involved was significant, we had a CSO working in

conjunction with the Commonwealth Police for almost three

months full time. 2. While not a criticism of our staff, people lost sight of the ball,

the chase became the most important aspect of the whole

exercise.