Friday 6 April 2012

Ray Adams, Hairymonster and Spying on the THOIC Community - UPDATED

I came across a rather interesting post on the Digital Spy Forum's discussion of hackgate by forum member FR15K, aka Hairymonster
I have remained silent on this topic up until now, I feel I have a unique perspective on this as I was the person 'HairyMonster' aka 'FR15K' who along with several others pretty much spread the message about Lee G back in 2001. I have seen first hand the emails and various other documents/evidence that the BBC has back in 2001 (Which have not been tampered with as Mr Peled has suggested) and at the time hoped something would come of it. Sadly there were more pressing things happening back then which had more of a right to be newsworthy.

I was rightly prosecuted for running a hacking advisory website of my own back in 2008 by Virgin Media and ironicly NDS who were the main expert witnesses in the case. I do not seek in any way shape or form to undermine the charges which in my opinion were fair and the correct outcome for Virgin Media. However I am pretty much disgusted that I raised this issue during police interviews and was ready to show evidence only to be told that they had spoken to NDS who had pretty much assured them it was all rubbish. Typical eh?

As someone charged and convicted of something of which it is overwhelmingly clear members from NDS operational security had done themselves I find it an utter farce that action has not been taken against the man who openly admitted running a hacking advisory service on TV along with those who have openly admitted to funding it. The law should stand not only for people like myself but also for those with wealth and power.

I hear OFCOM are looking into the Murdochs and deciding if they are fit and proper to run BSKYB, personally I would not let them run a News Agents never mind a News Empire.

I will now retreat back into the murky shadows where I belong. 
Which was followed by a second post

I deserved the Jail sentence, I held my hands up and plead guilty. I do not in any way dispute I ran a hacking advisory service. Like I said earlier it was the correct outcome for Virgin Media.

My Co Defendant was jailed for producing a tv hacking guide, something of which an NDS funded hacking advisory service had itself done 7 years earlier via the THOiC Offline Ezine.

THOiC was not only undermining ITV Digital it was undermining NTL/Telewest, now Virgin Media amongst many other platforms across Europe and Asia whilst being funded and operated by NDS. I know as I was there and saw it as I am sure there are a few others on this site who saw it too.

The BBC program touched on a small part of what was REALLY going on.
This lead my to this thread, NDS Monitoring Sites? posted in April 2001, which had a copy of a post made about the situation that makes very interesting reading
ATTENTION: THOIC FORUMS WORK FOR Sky !!!! (29-04-2001 until 30-06-2001)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hairy Monster has just been in touch with me and blown the whistle on probably the biggest SAT Forum Scandle EVER.........

Orignal Post: www.xdigital.addr.com/cgi...1&t=000603

I have place the original link also incase anyone thinks this is a wind up.
forums.modshack.co.uk/vie...2&TID=1736
THE THOIC THING - Please Read

I have received over 50 mails in my mail box asking WTF was going on a THOIC last night so rather than reply individualy I have decided to post it here since THOIC removed it PDQ.

The NOW EX THOIC MOD CyberGaf last night in spectacular fashion QUIT from thoic giving the reason for him quiting as he does not want to be a stooge for NDS (NDS=***) and claiming that Lee Gibling Paul Briton and a few others were part of NDS and that THOIC is one big cover for an orginisation whos job it is to bust people and take sites down.

A few weeks ago a member calling himself FRISK decided to post up emails alledgedly from Lee G to ted@infopop.com (UBB) which shown him to be grassing up sites for not having licences for UBB.

In the list were

Modshack (At that time merged with Xdigital)
Xdigital (After we split)
Sat4All (Who at the time were hosted by THOIC)
& a few others like All-Tech.

Anyhow to cut a long story short I removed the post as I thought it was BS but on seeing what I saw last night I aint too sure now and so I have decided to post it here.

From: THOiC Networks© <webmaster@thoic.com>
To: "Warren, Mike" <MWarren@ndsuk.com>
Subject: Re: Hi
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2000 10:00:11 +0000
Organization: THOiC Networks©
Reply-To: webmaster@thoic.com
Message-ID: <qb3scss08u2gfvnejvmclmdvk8kf06d1h9@4ax.com>
References: <71711A2AEB88D1118B5700805FF52D7001B332D4@dill.hro w.ndsuk.com>
In-Reply-To: <71711A2AEB88D1118B5700805FF52D7001B332D4@dill.hro w.ndsuk.com>
X-Mailer: Forte Agent 1.7/32.534

On Tue, 14 Mar 2000 09:26:44 -0000, you wrote to THOiC Online:

>Congratulations Vicki

Thanks Mike -
>Lee
>Your expenses were signed by R.A. and have been taken by hand to Finance
>and received by them last Wednesday I asked that they were dealt with asap.
>As a matter of interest although Len is still on holiday till Monday am I
>not right in believing there should be receipts with the invoice [not for
>one item agreed by RA, but for every thing else?]
Yes - you are totally correct - LW asked me to hang onto them for his
return - it's really not a problem, I wouldn't dare bill anything I
shouldn't

For those who downloaded the EMails in full all 30 odd meg of them then I am sure you will be left in no doubt of it.

All I can say is like Gaf I spent half my days over at thoic and even closed the old modshack and cableshack sites so I could be a bigger part of it. I went away for a few days because of family reasons and on my return found I had been booted as a MOD, even then I still supported them.

But no longer will that be as I am not a grass nor am I a tool for NDS and I will never be. This sucks big time as I have seen all the evidence I need to see to make me beleive and so have many many many others

THIS IS A WARNING

Every mail, every thread, every pivate message is logged on thoic and sent to NDS on CD each week. If you continue to use it then so be it but do not say no one warned you. I have passed on this info to several other site members and have had conversations with them all so they all know the score.

We can sit down and do nothing or we can all unite and say **** to them its your call.

For those who still don't beleive well nor did I until I got sent private emails that I had sent lee and Bigbird and only we knew about. I was then sent more info that has left me in no doubt that LEE = THOIC = NDS = BAD NEWS. Please pass this info and this message to every one you know as it effects them.

Please if you are a member of thoic then change your forum and email passes with imediate effect.
 "R.A." is almost certaintly Ray Adams, and shows he was signing off on the expenses incurred by what appears to be pulling the strings of the THOIC community, and demonstrates the extent to which Ray Adams was involved with all of this.

Update - FR15K/Hairymonster made another post on the Digital Spy forums with more information

North Wales Police Hi-Tech Crime Squad, although in their defence they were a little out of their depth with things and were pretty much reliant on NDS and VM bringing them up to speed so I can excuse them. The two officers who were in charge of my case were fairly decent human beings and I would in no way class them as the same as the other shower from London.

In my stupidity I actually thought they would ask for me to back up my claims and look a little further into things, it would of not changed the eventual outcome of my case but it would of shed a little more light on matters concerning THOiC and the involvement of NDS.

I was also shocked to be told that NDS were in my home at the time of my arrest and helping the police to gather evidence. In the end almost all of the items taken were returned with the exception of a PC and a couple of hard drives. My sky digital boxes were both un-compromised as was my free to air only satellite box. I had no card programming hardware or cards other than those supplied by Sky themselves which were once again un-compromised, I may of known how to get FREE TV but I paid just the same as everyone else.

The original charge was conspiracy to defraud which I refuted all the way and in the end I was charged with the then unheard of 'Providing a Hacking Advisory Service' which in my view and I am sure that of many others they were actually guilty of themselves, if not far more.

Since those days back in 2008/09 I have stepped away from the whole hacking scene and other than chatting to old friends in chat rooms I pretty much have no hand in it. As far as I am concerned VM got justice although I hasten to add that Cable Piracy is just as rife now as it was back then which is shame. It was only the other week I heard of a case of several people being arrested for supplying a card share service and openly condemned them on a public forum, I am sure they are not the only ones doing the same.

The thing is though, I was guilty, no more and no less. I rightly went to prison for running my site whilst these people remain at large and untouched for doing far worse to the paytv industry than hackers EVER could.

Utter Shambles in my opinion. 
Update 2 - Hairymonster made another post

If you can imagine at the time Lee as being someone people trusted then you can understand that with his position (and the fact that he hosted many hacking sites on his NDS paid server other than THOiC) he had access to things which the general public did not. This made him a valuable asset to have as he was ingrained into the world of tv hacking and very few suspected him. The emails and so far unreleased ICQ messages clearly show people passing info to Lee with regards files and hacks as well as messages from private sites being forwarded to NDS as Intel.

From the point of view of NDS he must of seemed like the golden ticket into a world they wanted access too. THOiC hosted many what were at the time thought private forums where almost ALL encryption systems were discussed. Hacking groups were formed by bringing people with similar interests and goals together and many of those groups still exist today as a result.

Anyone who was getting close to or even suspected of getting close to compromising NDS was paid a visit or shut down, in many cases they used the intel gathered from THOiC to use to formulate Electronic Countermeasures they could roll out more or less within days if needed. The cards you currently have in your boxes right now as a result of intel they gained that their current cards were about to be compromised, they acted quickly to close the doors, which tbh is fair play to them.

The problems start when you do not tell your competitors what your up too and allow and promote their systems to be compromised.

THOiC was set up by Lee as having the appearance of a hosting company and the first time I found out what was going on was when I was approaching Lee for hosting of my domain name, I was quickly asked to go to a different IRC server and was promptly told what was going on. At first I refused to believe it and demanded proof. Sadly indisputable proof was given to me and the rest as we say is history.

As someone who has spent many years hating Lee G for his betrayal with good reason I actually kind of made my peace with him to a tiny extent as he told the truth in the end.

Not all power corrupts, some people wield it responsibly and for the better good. Unfortunately many others seem to think that wealth can buy them the right to do anything they bloody well please and more than often is the case it seems that it is true. No matter what political party is in power there are people who see themselves as above the law and will use power and influence with those in downing street to get what they want.

The recent article about Sky News hacking emails highlights the idiocy of these people, it could then also be argued that the person who took Ray Adams (Stolen) emails was also acting in the publics interests? And to be honest more so?

I know there are a few on here who used THOiC in its heyday for what ever purpose and I know that these people will agree 100% that the site was a hacking advisory service.

The UK systems were the tip of the iceberg, the thing is THOiC encouraged people into that lifestyle. Everything was pretty much handed to you on a plate.

Like I said in the program my own site was considered by NDS to be a one stop shop for PayTV hacking, IF that is true then it is equally true that THOiC was a supermarket if not an entire shopping centre if I am being realistic.

During the interview with the BBC I was asked to view files that they had managed to get hold of which were taken from Lee's computer back in 2001, I quickly identified several files as being the ones put upon the site for the OD hack. I was not prompted to look at them nor was I told what to look for etc..

The reason I knew what to look for is because I had seen them before from the original source THOiC, they were correctly timestamped and dates and were the same files without a doubt.

The Panorama program whilst not covering the whole of the subject due to time constraints was pretty much spot on with minor details such as the colour of Lee's BMW which was in fact Yellow but we will forgive them for that. The Factual content was correct and they had the same story from the persons from both sides of the coin, I was shocked to see that Lee had given a full admission but then he said nothing that many people did not already know.

Ray and Len claim they had little to do with things but the emails and testimony of Lee show clearly that they were in it up to their necks. As too was Avigail Andy C and many others along the way.

I find myself in the awkward position of backing Lee as he for once is the one telling the truth. I mentioned the other day that I had kind of made my peace with Lee since the program, my reasoning being that he has come forwards and told the truth about what was going on back then which for me closes the book to some extent and validates my original claims that he was working for NDS back in 2001.

The one thing I can not and will never forgive him for is the betrayal of people who considered him to be a good friend and a noble man, those of whom he set up to fall from great heights and all in the name of an NDS paycheck.

Panorama described him as the 'King of the Pirates', well I can assure you that is NOT the Moniker that they use for him. They call him 'The Snake'.

You can contact the author on Twitter @brown_moses or by email at brownmoses@gmail.com

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