PLA Issue #1: Hacking WWIV BBSes

Happy Valintines Day! This file is for all of you wanna-be cool system hackers
and crackers but don’t have the slightest idea what you’re doing. Well here’s
your chance to be a real hacker. In addition to the axe method, I’ve included
some secret WWIV commands that even Wayne Bell might not be aware of.

• Ladder
  
• Ax (or hedge trimmers if you want to be creative)
  
• Sysop you don’t really like

Log on to your hated WWIV board under a false alias and start chatting up the
sysop. Be really nice to him and ask for your own sub and upload a lot of
files and offer advice on ways to better his board and just be a really,
really nice guy.

After you gain his trust, find out through social engineering when him and
all the other members of his family are going to be gone for an hour or so.
Stake out across the street and wait for him to leave.

Now, when they’re all gone take your hacking equipment to his house. Use the
ladder to climb up to his window and shatter it with your ax. (The window,
not the ladder.) Climb into his room. If his room is in the basement, walk
downstairs. Of course, you could have just broken into the basement window
but that would have been too easy and only a true dedicated hacker would do
it this way.

Find his computer. If someone is logged on hit F10 to go into chat mode and
type, “I’M SORRY BUT I’M GOING TO HAVE TO LOG YOU OFF SO I CAN HACK THIS
BOARD.” Log the loser, I mean user off and proceed to hack. Hold the ax high
over your head and bring it down with as much force as possible on his
computer to hack a big gash in the middle of it. Hack all of his WWIV backup
disks, his monitor and his keyboard. Oh, and the modem. Hack everything that
has to do with WWIV to bits.

After you’re all done hacking, you could format his C: drive although it’s
not really neccessary. Now you can brag to all your friends about what a cool
hacker you are. Take your ax and go home. Call his board and see if it answers.

If his board does answer when you call it you’ve obviously done something
seriously wrong here, possibly broken into the wrong house. Go back and finish
the job, but be sure to check and make sure you have the correct address.

Please contact me and let me know if this method of hacking works on other
types of bbses other than WWIV or if you have any problems with this method.
I’ve personally only attempted the “axe” method on WWIV and it’s been
successful every time but there’s a rumor going around that perhaps this will
also work on VBBS, Wildcat and Citadel software, but some modifications may
have to be made.

We all know what an amazing programmer and hacker I am. While passing a rainy
day last week I was looking through the WWIV program and source code and
noticed a number of flaws and back doors throughout the program. Perhaps
Wayne Bell is trying to pull a fast one just so he can get free access anywhere
or destroy computers of sysops he doesn’t like or something, I don’t know, but
there was definitely some really odd stuff in there. Here’s a breakdown of
what I found. Keep in mind that I’ve called WWIV bbses around the country and
all of these “secret” commands seem to work in most every version of WWIV.

1. From the main menu if you hit [CTRL] [R] [O] [Y] and stomp on the floor six
times REAL HARD you’ll get a DOS prompt. From there you can do anything you
want to the victim’s hard drive.

2. From the main menu type /OCEAN for a super-secret ansi music menu. This
does a lot of really amazing things. This is for real.

3. WWIV has a built-in virus command that can be activated by any user, even
with a SL of 10. From the main menu type “//I AM A TOTAL LOSER” with your left
hand only. If you use your right hand in any way, the virus will backfire in
a very bad way. Oh also, if your nose is pierced, DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS. I won’t
get into why, though.

The virus will turn the outside casing of the sysop’s computer bright orange
and will kill off any smaller life forms in his house, including dogs, cats,
fish and all the house plants. It will also cause the sysop’s front doorbell
to malfunction for a few weeks and cause the top left drawer in the sysop’s
desk to stick alot.

4. While transferring any file, repeatedly hit [CTRL] & [C] until the transfer
aborts. A split second before it aborts, though, type “booga booga” and flip
the computer’s power switch on and off quickly fifteen times. If you get a
message saying something like, “System failure” don’t worry. This is only a
part of the back door. This trick allows you to read all the users’ private
mail.