HACKERS CREATE THEIR OWN HEAVEN : SUPPORT GROUP MEMBERS SHARE IDEAS, WORLD VIEWS.

Byline: Dawn Yoshitake Daily News Staff Writer

Sitting near a bank of pay phones in the 1930s-vintage Union Station train terminal in Los Angeles, nearly a dozen people from teen-agers to a man in his 50s displayed their latest gadgets and shared tips on how to alter equipment.

Lowrider was there. So were Chance, Flea, Panther and Technopagan. They're all hackers and tend to avoid using their real names.

In fact, hackers from San Francisco to San Diego show up at the group's monthly meetings - which are among the many gatherings conducted nationwide by 2600 - publisher of The Hackers Quarterly.

The local group's revved-up technology stands in stark contrast to its historic surroundings inside the old-fashioned, elegant depot, near Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles.

The meetings are anything but secret. In fact, they're open to anyone who wants to attend, including security specialists, the curious and the law.

Hackers like Lowrider are part of a global community that's also organized enough to produce hacker magazines, maintain sites on the World Wide Web and hold annual hacker conventions in Europe and the United States; among these are DefCon IV, which begins Friday in Las Vegas.

But in between conventions, hackers can meet the first Friday of each month at designated locations throughout the U.S. - such as Union Station.

They meet not only to share information about equipment and techniques, but also to bond with kindred minds.

``I can't talk to a lot of my friends about computers and phone (hacking),'' said Lowrider, a 16-year-old Orange County resident. ``But here, people understand. It's an acceptance thing.''

Chance, a 22-year-old San Diego resident, said local bulletin boards provide a source of information, but the monthly meetings provide both information and a place to hang with other hackers.

``I started coming here a few months ago with my friends,'' Chance said. ``It started when one of my friends bought a hacker magazine and learned about these meetings.''

So, what are hackers about?

Flea said hacking is the equivalent of walking around and trying doorknobs to see which door opens. Feedle, a 26-year-old Anaheim resident, had a different hacker description.

``Taking something and turning it into something that it's not supposed to do is the essence of hacking,'' Feedle said.

Feedle, for example, took an electronic organizer that the manufacturer said could not handle DOS because it lacked a driver for the screen. But after making some alterations, Feedle turned his organizer into a hand-held computer.

Social engineering sometimes plays a greater role than technical mastery when it comes to hacking.

Computer security specialists have a different view of hackers.

``Hackers are criminals by definition of what hacking is - trying to get unauthorized access,'' said Ira Winkler, technology director for the National Computer Security Association, a Pennsylvania-based consulting company that organizes security conferences.

Hackers violate the personal privacy of computer users; they also fail to realize costs will be passed on to consumers if equipment is damaged by hacking, Winkler said.

``Hackers love to share information,'' Winkler said. ``If they broke into a place, they'll go on (computer) bulletin boards and tell the world about it and how they did it. But there's criminals on the bulletin boards who'll take that information and use it. And that's damaging.''

He said he'd seen a case in which a teen-ager gained access to classified information and unwittingly gave it to a member of organized crime who was posing as another hacker.

Seventy-seven percent of computer-related crimes are committed by an employee of the targeted organization, and about 15 percent by outsiders, Winkler said.

But he noted that hackers who break into a company with the sole intent of looking around can also cost a business big bucks. Companies may spend hours or days to determine whether a hacker plans to take valuable information or divert funds. And looky-loos can dwarf the number of employees committing computer-related crimes, he added.

Unauthorized computer access is illegal in almost every state - ranging from a misdemeanor to a felony, said Mark Rasch, an attorney specializing in computer crime and fraud in Virginia.

``If you get into a computer without authorization, it's a misdemeanor. And depending on what you do once you're there, it can be a felony,'' he said. ``It's considered a felony, punishable (by) up to 20 years, if you access classified information intentionally.''

Ascertaining that a crime has been committed is one thing, but putting a hacker in jail is another.

``You can prosecute a case, but determining damages is difficult,'' Rasch said. ``And sentencing is based on the level of loss or damage. If a hacker only reads the information and doesn't exploit it, what are your losses?''

The U.S. sentencing commission took up the issue three years ago, and it's still under review, he said.

Hackers don't have to be caught in the act to be arrested and jailed.

Under a 1984 federal law, it is illegal to possess a device that can be used to gain unauthorized access to computers or telecommunications systems. The devices range from tools for making credit card numbers to an off-the-shelf tone dialer that has been altered.

The Bernie S. lawsuit is one example of how hacker suspects can be prosecuted.

Ed Cummings, also known as Bernie S., was arrested in 1995 on suspicion of possessing a store-bought tone dialer, a laptop computer and software capable of modifying a cellular phone.

He faced two counts of possession of modified telecommunications instruments and one count for possession of hardware and software that could be used for altering telecommunications instruments. Cummings entered a guilty plea in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and received a six to 24-month jail sentence and a $3,000 fine.

And there was the case of Kevin Mitnick, who made the FBI's most-wanted-hacker list. The son of a Panorama City waitress will be sentenced in September in federal court for possession of cellular telephone codes and violating a supervised release stemming from a 1989 hacking conviction. Other changes may surface from his three-year flight from FBI agents.

Mitnick was tied to the theft of computer software worth up to $1 million, and was accused of computer hacking in San Jose, San Francisco and San Diego.

Another hacker, a Buenos Aires resident, has been accused of using stolen Harvard University passwords to sneak into U.S. government computers from his home in Argentina.

Authorities say he hacked his way into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, poked around the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and even made a failed attempt to invade the Army Research Laboratory's computer system.

Even hackers can be victims of hackers.

Flea was the victim of one who ran up a $1,000 phone bill.

``It made me feel like I'd been violated,'' Flea said.

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Photo: (Color) Cell phones are a hacker's friend. Hackers m eet monthly to discuss the latest gadgets.

David Sprague/Daily News Illustration