[freefolks]

Actually the most overlooked things about AOL is about how their internal network (Merlin) got breeched through social engineering by a 14 yr old and did not have a clue about it for 5 years. Merlin is their tool that they use internally for their entire customer database and had a RAT installed that allowed people to create admin accounts, view peoples credit card, addresses, names and also allowed people to terminate accounts. AOL had 34 million paying users at this time.

[mtnGoat]

I do not believe there was a RAT installed, I think that was just some not entirely true bragging you heard. rather it was ints(internals) that were in on the game and/or tunnels. Merlin lived inside a LAN, to get to it you’d need to break an SSID account which was always a clever trick. Same trick, 20 years later, can still be used to this day to bypass every MFA mechanism I know presently(aws, BofA, etc), if you are smart. The other option was to install a rat(sub7 was a good one) on an employees home machine and then tunnel through it to AOL when they were logged in with an ssid. Which then allowed you to invoke the forms you needed to do things that normally only employees could do. You ever wondered why so many l33ts were from Virginia? They were using mom and dads int accounts when they weren’t looking to lookup account info, then have a friend call in to reset the passwords. Installing a PWS on one of those home PCs was priceless, as you always have the employees password.

Ah, the good old days.

[montag]

Any source for this? Interested to read more. I feel the whole AOL saga would make a great Netflix documentary series. Lots of interesting wrinkles, like the acquisition of Winamp.

[johnla]

I don't have a source but in my Technology specialized HS a classmate came in with a THICK looseleaf ringbound book filled with Names, address, phone and credit card info. Each sheet was in tiny print and absolutely filled to the brim. I'd have to guess there were easily over 500 pages print front and back. He said it was from AOL hacking. I was just noob playing with the AOHell prog and didn't really utilize the app for anything more than "busting" into Lobbies that were full.