"News of the World" Closes; Inside "Phreaking"
WHITFIELD: The "News of the World" scandal in Britain has focused new attention on telecommunications hacking, or as insiders call it, "phreaking." Michael Calce was an accomplished hacker by the time he was just 15 years old, launching attacks against major websites, including CNN.com. He is now a computer security expert and the author of "Mafia Boy: How I Cracked the Internet and Why It Is Still Broken." He joins us now from Montreal. So, Michael, how does this phone hacking or phreaking, as you call it, work?</s>MICHAEL CALCE, SECURITY EXPERT: Well, there's a lot of tools that, you know, basically surround this industry. The phreaking industry is a subdivision of hacking, and they have quite a few various tools that are - that will enable them to tap phones and received messages. And as phones become more sophisticated, it's actually becoming easier because of the Bluetooth and various technologies that basically enable these phreakers to - to gain access to your phone.</s>WHITFIELD: Easier? OK, so the "News of the World" reportedly listened to the messages on a missing teenager's telephone. They even managed to erase some of the calls on the phone to make room for new calls that would come in. Can you kind of explain for us how they were able to do that? I mean, you say now it is much easier, but do you have to be, I guess, professional or really proficient in being able to do this?</s>CALCE: Well, you need some expertise in phreaking. Me, personally, I'm well versed in phreaking. I'm actually more on the hacking side, where phreaking is a subdivision of hacking. But they have a few various tools. All they need is the phone number and there's some tools that will basically grant them some access. A lot of them are sophisticated tools that aren't exactly very easy to obtain, but it's not as hard as - as some people might think. You just got to know which tools to use.</s>WHITFIELD: All right, so -</s>CALCE: You have, I suppose, in your arsenal.</s>WHITFIELD: So this wasn't exactly what you did or even what anybody has accused you of doing. You did this a little differently. You were just 15 years old and you were hacking into websites. A, why did you do that? What were - what was it that you were after?</s>CALCE: Well, I wasn't after monetary gain, which is what hacking is about now. It was more testing the status quo. And I was part of a hacker war that was conducted on an - on an Internet chat, and basically I wanted to make a show of strength and show how powerful I had become. And I was known for launching a denial of service attack, which was - which is basically a botnet combined, which is network of compromised computers connected together, generally all set up to be slaves connected to one primary computer known as a master or a hub. And from that master you are able to transmit a command to all the slaves, and you can shut down a website by using incredible amounts of</s>WHITFIELD: So there was something empowering about this, I mean, with this kind of competition, as you say, in this world of hackers?</s>CALCE: Oh, yes. It's - it's a big show of strength, and hackers are constantly battling it out. I mean, 10 years ago this is more the objective, was to show other hackers how good you were and basically what kind of power you had.</s>WHITFIELD: But you're trying to be elusive, and it's only within the world of hacking that people might know something about your identity. They may not know that it's you, Michael, you know, Calce, but they know that it's you, whatever your symbolic name was in this competitive world of hacking?</s>CALCE: That's right. I went by the nickname Mafia Boy, and basically nobody knew who - what my real name was or who I really was, but everybody goes by an alias or a nickname. And from that nickname you got to - you got to make your name for - with all the other hackers, basically make your name notorious.</s>WHITFIELD: OK, so now I understand your knowledge of this world of hacking. It certainly means that there are certain things that you don't do. May not be on Facebook, like most folks. You may not use an ATM, like a lot of people. How can one protect themselves, like you are trying to protect yourself, against phreaking or hacking?</s>CALCE: Well, you have to basically limit yourself. I am on Facebook, but I limit myself to who I accept and basically what information I'm putting out there. The - the fact is information now has monetary value. With that in mind, I think it's important to keep the information we put online to a minimal. You know, it's also important to be aware and stay up to date, constantly run scans and change your passwords. My motto is every time you change your toothbrush, you should be changing your passwords</s>WHITFIELD: Oh my gosh, so that's like every six months or so?</s>CALCE: Exactly. You got to stay one step ahead of the hackers. And another thing is a lot of people have antivirus software and firewalls, and they'll get a little box in the corner that pops up that says to update your antivirus, and for some odd reason a lot of people click no when it's very important to stay up to date because there's constant viruses being released every single day.</s>WHITFIELD: Oh, my goodness. All right, great advice. Michael Calce, thanks so much. Appreciate your time and your advice -</s>CALCE: My pleasure, Fredricka.</s>WHITFIELD: -- for those of us who want to protect ourselves against being potentially hacked. All right, up next, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge head to Skid Row. From the polo match to Skid Row. It's all for a good cause. We'll explain.