Cyber Criminals Trivia Quiz

Answer: Lamo

Adrian Lamo has since retired from the "dark side" of computing. He spent some time as a successful and award winning journalist. In an anecdote reminiscent of the hacker character, portrayed in the film "Swordfish" by Hugh Jackman, Lamo infiltrated the NBC network, on camera, in less than five minutes. Consequently, NBC canceled his scheduled spot with Tom Brokaw.

Answer: All of these

Some years after the worm incident, Morris ironically, became a professor at MIT, from where his famous, or infamous internet worm was initially dispatched. Intentional or not, the worm rapidly spread across the internet, affecting Unix-based network servers, for the most part. As the worm replicated, networks ground to a halt.

Answer: Dark Dante

Kevin Poulsen's online persona was "Dark Dante". Poulsen is the subject of a book by Jonathan Littman entitled "The Watchman: The Twisted Life and Crimes of Serial Hacker Kevin Poulsen". In one of Poulsen's earlier escapades, he engineered the phone lines of a radio station, in order to become the 102nd caller, in a "Win a Porsche by Friday" contest, thus ensuring that he would win the prize offered.

He went on to become a senior editor at "Wired News".

Answer: John Draper

It is said that John Draper had a friend who introduced John Draper to the existence of a seemingly innocuous whistle, found in boxes of Cap'n Crunch cereal. Draper was a talented programmer and engineer, who later created a word processor for Apple, called "EasyWriter".

Answer: Inner Circle

Bill Landreth was arrested by the FBI while still a minor. Since then he has moved into computer security. He authored the book entitled "Out of the Inner Circle: A Hacker's Guide to Computer Security". "Bad Boys" is a reference to the song of the same name, performed by the Reggae group called "The Inner Circle."

Answer: Mark Abene

Mark Abene is prominently featured in the book entitled "Masters of Deception: The Gang that Ruled Cyberspace" by Michelle Slatalla and Joshua Quittner. One of Abene's acts, along with his fellow club members, was the display of the following message on WNET: "Happy Thanksgiving you turkeys from all of us at MOD".

Answer: Jonathan James

Jonathan Joseph James infiltrated highly sensitive U.S. government computers, including those of NASA and the Department of Defense. Jonathan James said this in an interview with "Frontline": "I certainly learned that there's a serious lack of computer security. If there's a will, there's a way, and if a computer enthusiast such as myself was determined to get into anywhere, be it the Pentagon or Microsoft, it's been demonstrated that it's possible and they will do it. And there's next to nothing they can do about it, because there's people with skill out there, and they'll get what they want." He sadly passed away in May of 2008.

Answer: The Simpsons

In an episode from the first season of "The Simpsons" Bart lazily lays down all of his tiles in random order, spelling the word "kwyjibo." In a message left on one of the computers Smith had penetrated he wrote: "twenty-two, plus triple-word score, plus fifty points for using all my letters. Game's over. I'm outta here." Smith later cooperated with the FBI and his sentence was reduced.

Answer: The Conscience of a Hacker (Hacker Manifesto)

Blankenship wrote an essay "The Conscience of a Hacker" in the early part of 1986. It reached a wide audience and it was also noted in the film "Hackers". Blankenship also appears, as the "Mentor," in a documentary entitled "BBS: The Documentary". In an interview, Blankenship offered this advice for young hacker aspirants: "If you're going to break into computers, be careful out there. You're most likely gonna get caught, and it sucks. There is so much you can do legally (learn Linux & programming, for instance) that I'd recommend starting with that."

Answer: Australia

Nahshon Even-Chaim, also known as "Phoenix", broke into a number of prominent research facilities, including NASA and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He belonged to a club located in Melbourne, Australia. He apparently had run-ins with prominent figures in the computer security field.

He said, "It used to be the security guys chasing the hackers. Now, it's the hackers chasing the security guys." The pursuit and apprehension of Evan-Chaim is detailed in "Hackers: The Hunt for Australia's Most Infamous Computer Cracker".