Surfing Off The Edge

By RICHARD BEHAR

MORTY ROSENFELD WAS SO STONED on Euphoria, a hot new synthetic drug, that he danced faster than a speeding cursor on a computer screen. It was 3 o'clock one morning last July at the Limelight, one of New York City's wildest night spots, and the computer-generated "techno" music was deafening. Not the best place for an interview, perhaps, but Rosenfeld, 21, a promoter who did marketing work for the club, insisted on this surreal setting. He feared that the interview could be some kind of setup arranged by Secret Service or FBI agents, and thus he wanted to be near "friends and security" in case something went wrong.

The young man had reason to be wary. He had been busted several months earlier by the feds and was awaiting his sentence, having already pleaded guilty to a crime that was just as high-tech as his favorite nightclub: stealing credit reports from TRW Inc.'s computer system. Four months after that encounter at the Limelight, he moved into a Michigan jail cell, where he is serving an eight-month term.

Rosenfeld -- known on computer networks by the code name Storm Shadow -- is a hacker who went to extremes, a cyberpunk who surfed right off the edge. Authorities say he was just one of many bandits stalking the electronic highways. In recent years, individual outlaws and entire "gangs" have broken / into computers all over the U.S., using their wits and wiles to pilfer and destroy data.

Though barely of drinking age, Rosenfeld is a veteran hacker. He says he invaded his first computer -- a low-level NASA system -- at age 15 as a member of a cyberpunk gang called Force Hackers. Before long, he was devising electronic schemes to swipe cash from Western Union, phone service from the Baby Bells and valuable credit information wherever it could be found. "We once pulled the credit reports of a whole town in Oregon," Storm Shadow recalls.

Rosenfeld was arrested in 1991 after hatching a plot to build and sell IBM computers. He and some pals bought nearly $1 million worth of computer parts using credit-card numbers from strangers' credit reports. A Secret Service raid on Rosenfeld's Brooklyn, New York, home uncovered 176 credit reports stolen from TRW, a leading credit-rating company. He says he sold "thousands" of such reports to private investigators.

While Storm Shadow is doing time, a bigger case involves five other young hackers, some of whom have had dealings with Rosenfeld. All five are allegedly members of a gang called Masters of Disaster. They are charged with breaking into computers at a host of companies and institutions, including the University of Washington, Bank of America, ITT and Martin Marietta. In one of its most damaging raids, the group allegedly wiped out most of the data on the Learning Link, a computer owned by a New York City public-TV station that provides educational information for hundreds of schools. A chilling electronic message was left behind: "Happy Thanksgiving, you turkeys, from all of us at MOD." It was signed with five code names: Phiber Optik, Acid Phreak, Outlaw, Corrupt and Scorpion.

Could MOD have been stupid enough to leave behind such a confession? One member says the gang was framed by a rival hacker who liquidated the Learning Link himself. The defendants' court-appointed lawyers claim the feds have built an elaborate Mafia-like case against rebellious yet relatively harmless kids. "Being arrogant and obnoxious is not a crime," argues attorney Michael Godwin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group that defends exploratory hacking. As for Masters of Disaster, he adds, "it's just a way-cool name. Teenagers aren't going to call themselves the Electronic Birdwatchers Society." While most charges remain to be proved, in December two MOD members pleaded guilty to selling Rosenfeld passwords to TRW computers.

- Rosenfeld, the alleged MODsters and their ilk do not fit the standard image of a hacker: the wealthy, suburban geek who trespasses on computers just for fun. These cyberpunks are ethnically mixed (from blacks and Hispanics to Italians and Lithuanians), favor close-cropped hip-hop haircuts and live in urban, blue-collar neighborhoods. They fight rival gangs with cheap computers, not sticks or knives. Some are big drug users; most are simply addicted to what Rosenfeld calls the "adrenaline rush of computer power, which is better than sex, drugs or rock 'n' roll."

The best known of the hackers accused in the MOD case, Mark Abene (alias Phiber Optik), insists that he's innocent and not a gang member. This acid- tongued media darling, featured in Esquire magazine and on the Geraldo show, offers weekly computer advice on a New York City radio program. A high school dropout, Abene, 20, still lives in the city with his parents, whose home has been raided twice by the Secret Service. In 1991 he pleaded guilty to stealing service off a 900 phone-sex line, but now denies the charge.

For all their bravado, many of the hacker hoods come from broken homes and have deep psychological problems. Rosenfeld's parents split up when he was 15, and the young man recalls brutal physical fights with his hard-drinking father. Several months ago, the hacker literally hacked his wrists with a razor, in his second attempt to kill himself since 1991. "Most of my childhood is a blur, partly because of LSD and partly because I just don't want to remember," says Rosenfeld, who is open, insightful and very likable when he removes the cybermask. "I have no clue who I am."