As I mentioned in the prologue, Jamaicans did not enter Cyberspace until 1995. Previously, Bulletin Board Services were the closest we came to online communication.
People would try to hack into other people’s account just for fun. The only thing to get was the hour or so the BBS allowed each user, as there might be only one, maybe two lines.
In those early days where we knew each other, and the BBS had the phone number of the line used, it was pretty easy to knock on the door and confront.
What we learned from this basic hacking was to create a password like ‘t0ast’. Not easy to guess, especially as the ‘o’ is a Zero.
As this was the early days when most of the techies were ‘Must Consult Someone Else’, that is Microsoft Certified, it wasn’t difficult to do stuff; especially when you weren’t using Windows.
One fourteen year old hacked into a Bank, contacted us, and we watched him create an account, ‘Mickey Mouse’. We watched him take 1c from every account and deposit it in Mickey’s account, then send 1c back to every account, and remove Mickey Mouse’s account.
The next day I happened over the particular bank where I was acquainted with one of the geeks. I asked him how the system was running.
He told me it was fine.
I asked about security.
He told me that no one could hack into the bank.
I nodded sagely, and got out of there.