"We've gone legit," says gH co-founder "Mosthated."
Where once GH the scourge of sloppily administered Web sites everywhere, the group now claims it has sworn off such illegal activity. "We are not a hacker group," Mosthated says, in an effort to distance the group from its negative press painting the group as a malicious "hacker gang."
gH rose to more than a minor annoyance when it was linked to the defacement of the official White House Web site earlier this year. A short time later several members of the group around the nation were raided by the FBI. No arrests were made, though computer equipment was confiscated.
In the aftermath of the raid, a cyberspace border war broke out. The electronic underground erupted with a spate of Web site defacements, all vouching support for gH while spewing profanity-laden tirades at the FBI.
In perhaps the ultimate insult to the FBI, its own Web site was put out of commission through a denial-of-service attack, which moved the bureau to shut down all public access to the site until the attack could be thwarted.
On Aug. 30, the hammer dropped: A joint FBI and Army Criminal Investigation Command investigation resulted in the arrest of Chad Davis, a 19-year-old Wisconsin man also known as "Mindphasr," a co-founder of gH, for breaking into a U.S. Army computer. Davis also had been raided earlier in the year in the first crackdown on gH.
Scared straight
An indication that the sea change among gH members has actually taken hold is what happened in the aftermath of Davis' arrest: nothing.
An urgent bulletin was released by iDefense, a consulting group that monitors electronic threats, after Davis' arrest warning Web administrators to be on high alert for retaliation. It never came.
Inside an IRC chat room where gH members congregate electronically, the word went out: No retaliation. It held, despite the fact that there are no hard and fast "ground rules" that bind the group.
"There is no hard control," says "nostalg1c," a gH member, "we just know what we should and shouldn't do."
gH is a loose coalition of 15 to 20 members spanning ages from 13 to 29, its members drawn from the United States, Canada, Belgium and Southeast Asia. A band of brothers - and one female - who find solace in their digital bonding wrapped around the camaraderie that comes from the sharing of knowledge about the most intricate workings of computers and computer networks.
Though the continued pursuit of gH by the authorities has resulted in but one arrest, the fallout has inflicted a kind of "scared straight" mentality on the group.
"We have grown up and realized that hacking gets you nowhere but locked up," says Mosthated, "unless you become a type of white hat hacker to hack for networks and businesses or being a consultant, which multiple people in gH have done."
Eighteen-year-old gH member "f0bic" put a fine edge on the FBI threat: "It made me realize that hacking isn't really worth going to jail for."
When another gH member pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges related to breaking into government and military sites that were really done by Belgium-based member "nostalg1c" - when both were members of yet another hacker group - the light bulb came on: "At that point I realized it ain't no game we're playing," nostalg1c said, "It is dangerous."
No sterotypes
Members of gH are an eclectic blend whose lives, to date, could fill a couple of volumes of biographies. Several come from broken homes, others are living with both parents. Some have siblings; others are only children.
"Ben-z" a 16-year-old who was raided by the FBI, goes to a private school now because "I was a trouble maker in public school," and identifies himself , tongue-in-cheek, as a "jock, pothead, lush, asshole, geek, wigger." His big inspiration: "I was a big fan of the movie 'Tron' when I was a kid," he says.
They all love the ladies.
Several members have rap sheets; One has served time in prison for computer-related crimes dating back to the 1980s. All got into computers in their early teens, save for the group's youngest member, "Jaynus," who began to explore the inner workings of a Windows 3.1 machine at the age of 9.
By and large, their parents are unaware of any nefarious computer activity, except for those whose homes have been visited by the FBI.
"I don't think that any parent is stupid enough to know that a kid that sits in his room endless hours and endless nights is just 'chatting to his friends,'" says "obsolete." "I think that any parent with half a brain actually knows that he is doing something semi-illegal."
And there is no shortage of "comeback" stories to be found here. If the maxim "lead from above" carries any truth, one of the most inspiring stories is found in gH's own founder, Mosthated.
Long before he was raided earlier this year by the FBI, the 19-year-old says he "went legit" and started working as a security consultant and setting up computer networks.
Vallah, a former Microsoft programmer and gH member who was also raided, encouraged Mosthated to pursue more legitimate programming ventures.
"Vallah would tell me I had a future away from doing this kind of [illegal] stuff and taught me a lot of ways to just do what I love to do, but legitimately," Mosthated says.
Escaping mean streets
Computers also were a way to escape the mean streets of Mosthated's neighborhood, he says, a place where "you with get locked up or die before you reach your 20's."
Mosthated admits he's been in trouble with the law "multiple times" but that he sees computers as his way out. He also credits his girlfriend with encouraging him to stay into computers, rather than stray back to the streets.
There are no thoughts of disbanding gH, Mosthated says, despite the spate of negative publicity surrounding the group on the back of co-founder Davis' arrest.
"Don't' judge a whole group because of an individual's mistake," Mosthated says. "[Davis] knows he messed up, and the only thing we can do is hope the best for him."
And then consider the 17-year-old "egodeath," who is struggling with his new-found sobriety. Out of rehab for drug abuse, he's diving into his computer as way to try and make reality without drugs more palatable. Staying clean is "the hardest thing I've ever done," he says, noting that he didn't realize how much he missed his computer until he was locked up over the summer and couldn't get access to one. Now he holds a job at a video rental store and finds solace in the friends he's made in gH.
Charitable acts
The typical braggadocio relating computer break-in exploits was conspicuous by its absence when gH members talked to MSNBC. Instead, a surprising number of "random acts of kindness" were related.
Several of the gH members now say they content themselves with "scanning" for security holes and informing the computer system's administrator of the vulnerability. Such notices are essentially a "wake up call" that the computer system is a sitting duck.
"Scanning is just like looking in the windows of a house," Ben-z says. "That's not illegal. But once you break the window and climb in, you're in trouble."
Many of the gH members reported that when they informed a system administrator of a security hole, they were either cussed at or simply ignored. Others reported getting back messages of thanks for pointing out the flaws.
Mosthated says that when a former member of gH attacked the FBI's Web site, he called and offered assistance but was ignored.
Can't keep a good hack down
As a group, gH may have sworn off breaking into computer systems, but several members acknowledged they still continue to "dabble" in the efforts for the continued thrill of it, but on their own and outside of activities that could be linked to gH as a group.
Mnemonic, a 26-year-old gH member unabashedly admits that he's "still very much into" penetrating computer systems. "It just annoys me when I see them deface websites," he says. "If you noticed, most people who get caught defaced websites."
Mnemonic also can't brook with what he calls the "we're doing you a favor, kids," referring to the line that some computer vandals use to justify their exploits. "You get into it, you know you're doing something illegal," he says, "That's the fun about it. If it weren't illegal, a lot of people wouldn't do it."
Despite his own leanings, Mnemonic tells the younger members of gH: "If you're going to do it, plan on getting caught."
