Government computers

Among hackers themselves the richest source of fantasising
revolves around official computers like those used by the tax and
national insurance authorities, the police, armed forces and
intelligence agencies.
The Pentagon was hacked in 1983 by a 19-year-old Los Angeles
student, Ronald Austin. Because of the techniques he used, a full
account is given in the operating systems section of chapter 6. NASA,
the Space Agency, has also acknowledged that its e-mail system has
been breached and that messages and pictures of Kilroy were left as
graffiti.
This leaves only one outstanding mega-target, Platform, the global
data network of 52 separate systems focused on the headquarters of
the US's electronic spooks, the National Security Agency at Fort
Meade, Maryland. The network includes at least one Cray-1, the worlds
most powerful number-cruncher, and facilities provided by GCHQ at
Cheltenham.
Although I know UK phone freaks who claim to have managed to
Hacker's Handbook
appear on the internal exchanges used by Century House (M16) and
Curzon Street House (M15) and have wandered along AUTOVON, the US
secure military phone network, I am not aware of anyone bold or
clever enough to have penetrated the UK's most secure computers.
It must be acknowledged that in general it is far easier to obtain
the information held on these machines--and lesser ones like the DVLC
(vehicle licensing) and PNC (Police National Computer)-- by criminal
means than by hacking -- bribery, trickery or blackmail, for example.
Nevertheless, there is an interesting hacker's exercise in
demonstrating how far it is possible to produce details from open
sources of these systems, even when the details are supposed to be
secret. But this relates to one of the hacker's own secret
weapons--thorough research, the subject of the next chapter.