He doesn't talk about anything to do with hacking on the telephone. Mostly, when he manages to capture a particularly juicy prize, he keeps news of his latest conquest to himself.
It wasn't always that way. `When I started hacking and phreaking, I had the need to learn very much and to establish contacts which I could ask for certain things—such as technical advice,' SKiMo said. `Now I find it much easier to get that info myself than asking anyone for it. I look at the source code, then experiment and discover new bugs myself.'
Asked if the ever-increasing complexity of computer technology hasn't forced hackers to work in groups of specialists instead of going solo, he said in some cases yes, but in most cases, no. `That is only true for people who don't want to learn everything.'
SKiMo can't see himself giving up hacking any time in the near future.
Who is on the other side these days?
In Australia, it is still the Australian Federal Police, although the agency has come a long way since the early days of the Computer Crimes Unit. When AFP officers burst in on Phoenix, Nom and Electron, they were like the Keystone Cops. The police were no match for the Australian hackers in the subsequent interviews. The hackers were so far out in front in technical knowledge it was laughable.
The AFP has been closing that gap with considerable alacrity. Under the guidance of officers like Ken Day, they now run a more technically skilled group of law enforcement officers. In 1995-96, the AFP had about 2800 employees, although some 800 of these worked in `community policing'—serving as the local police in places like the ACT and Norfolk Island. The AFP's annual expenditure was about $270 million in that year.
As an institution, the AFP has recently gone through a major reorganisation, designed to make it less of a command-and-control military structure and more of an innovative, service oriented organisation.
Some of these changes are cosmetic. AFP officers are now no longer called `constable' or `detective sergeant'—they are all just `federal agents'. The AFP now has a `vision' which is `to fight crime and win'.3 Its organisational chart had been transformed from a traditional, hierarchical pyramid of square boxes into a collection of little circles linked to bigger circles—all in a circle shape. No phallo-centric structures here. You can tell the politically correct management consultants have been visiting the AFP.
The AFP has, however, also changed in more substantive ways. There are now `teams' with different expertise, and AFP investigators can draw on them on an as-needed basis. In terms of increased efficiency, this fluidity is probably a good thing.