If publishing unsourced emails claiming to be from Iran is a newsworthy event then I guess we should all copy Mikko and do the same thing.
A few years ago I received a chain of emails from ‘Michael’ that started out as the normal ‘teach me to hack’ emails I receive on an almost daily basis but this email chain went on longer than usual and took several turns I don’t usually see in such emails. I thought they might be good for a laugh or a tear depending on your viewpoint.
TL;DR
The emails start in May of 2009 and go through to December, I have not included them all and have edited some for brevity.
Things start out simple enough saying how he is a 20yr old Iranian and is a fan of the L0pht. Pretty straight forward. I responded as I usually do to emails that are at least half way intelligent. I admit I don’t always get emails from Iran with a verifiable Iranian IP address.
Then comes the first turn, ‘Micheal’ asks me to teach him to ‘hack’ specifically so he can change his grades at University. For me thats a big no no right there. If you ask me to do, or teach you to do, anything even remotely illegal in email thats where I stop. I will no longer respond. I don’t want to be considered an accessory or an accomplice or be put in an un-winnable Adrian Lamo type situation. Not to mention the whole assisting a foreign power angle. So I just stopped responding.
But Michael wouldn’t give up, he sent me an email every day for weeks, then slowed down to a few times per week. Eventually he reached out other old L0pht members, those whose email address he could find, asking them if I was OK, saying he feared for my safety since I was not responding to emails. I will admit I felt a little bad at this because who knows maybe people just disappearing like that in his country is a sign of something sinister happening. I don’t know. My remorsefulness did not last long however.
Next came the names and the threats. ‘Michael’ called me a raciest and threatened to ‘destroy my life’ and that despite my lack of assistance he was going to become the worlds greatest hacker anyway and he was going direct his efforts at me. Then he was going to hack his University, graduate and travel to America to prove to me in person that he was a great hacker and that he did it all without my help.
I had a good laugh and a tear at the time, 2009, but as I read over these emails again and place them into the context of the ongoing ‘cyber’ cold war they really take on a different meaning. How many other people in Iran have similar motivations? I wonder if Michael ever made it through University, or maybe he got caught and ‘disappeared’? I will probably never know.