Australian Hackers

Research in the early 1990s within Australia showed that computer crime and hacking was a problem. Victoria was the first Australian state to implement state law to outlaw hacking in 1988, and the Commonwealth followed in 1989 (Hughes, 1990). An analysis of computer crime in 1991 showed that within Australia between 1990 and 1991, there were 497 computer abuse incidents and 31 incidents related to hacking (around 6% of incidents) (Kamay & Adams, 1992). Research at that time also indicated that Australian perception towards computer crime was influenced by cultural precedents (Coldwell, 1995). Other studies at that time looked at the Australian perception of computer crime. A study was undertaken looking at teachers perceptions of hacking and found from a sample group that 60.2% thought hacking was unacceptable, and 39.8% thought hacking was acceptable (Coldwell, 1994). In 1997, Underground described the history of Australian hackers during the early 1990s, the development of the Wank virus and plans to destroy NASA computer systems (Dreyfus, 1997). Since that time, the Australian hacking community has disappeared and no well-known Australian hacking groups, or even Australian hacking conventions, are in existence. The only large Australian hacking group is 2600 Australia ( http://www.2600.org.au/ ), a group based on the famous U.S. hacking group 2600. The philosophy of 2600 Australia is that 2600 Australia is a loose-knit group of people interested in computer security, electronic gadgetry, communications, and just technology exploration in general. In terms of their activities, they can be described best as a computer club.

The most recent famous Australian hacking case was concerned with sewage. In October 2001, Vitek Boden was convicted on 30 charges involving computer hacking of the Maroochy Shire Council sewage system. The attacks, which commenced in late 1999, involved using remote radio transmissions to alter the actions of the sewage pumping stations and caused hundreds of thousands of litres of raw sewage to be pumped into public waterways (Kingsley, 2002).