faif-2.0

94 CHAPTER 7. A STARK MORAL CHOICE
better prevented by overhauling the source code. Unfortunately, the
number of hackers with the time and inclination to perform this sort
of overhaul had dwindled to the point that the system-administrator
argument prevailed.
The initial policy was that any lab member could have the “wheel
privilege” to bypass security restrictions. But anyone who had the
“wheel privilege” could take it away from anyone else, who would
then be powerless to restore it. This state of affairs tempted a small
group of hackers to try to seize total control by canceling the “wheel
privilege” for all but themselves.
Cadging passwords, and applying the debugger during startup,
Stallman successfully foiled these attempts. After the second foiled
“coup d’état,” Stallman issued an alert to all the AI Lab personnel. 9
“There has been another attempt to seize power,” Stallman wrote.
“So far, the aristocratic forces have been defeated.” To protect his
identity, Stallman signed the message “Radio Free OZ.”
The disguise was a thin one at best. By 1982, Stallman’s aversion to
passwords and secrecy had become so well known that users outside the
AI Laboratory were using his account from around the ARPAnet – the
research-funded computer network that would serve as a foundation for
today’s Internet. One such “tourist” during the early 1980s was Don
Hopkins, a California programmer who learned through the hacking
grapevine that all an outsider needed to do to gain access to MIT’s
vaunted ITS system was to log in under the initials RMS and enter the
same three-letter monogram when the system requested a password.
“I’m eternally grateful that MIT let me and many other people
use their computers for free,” says Hopkins. “It meant a lot to many
people.”
This so-called “tourist” policy, which had been openly tolerated
by MIT management during the ITS years, 10 fell by the wayside when
Oz became the lab’s primary link to the ARPAnet. At first, Stallman
continued his policy of repeating his login ID as a password
so outside users could have access through his account. Over time,
however, Oz’s fragility prompted administrators to bar outsiders who,
through sheer accident or malicious intent, might bring down the system.
When those same administrators eventually demanded that Stallman
stop publishing his password, Stallman, citing personal ethics,
instead ceased using the Oz system altogether. 11