๐งข"Quentin" Overview
An unknown hacker with the pseudonym "Quentin" was the first.
Earliest: "Quentin" on Dateline NBC and in Phrack
1992 Dateline NBC segment--"Quentin" is interviewed, with other hackers. YouTube video, alternate
This segment was also described in a text file on ParaNet.
"Quentin told us he's...browsed through secret government files on UFOs, and gone snooping in our nation's military computers." - Narrator (2:15)
1993 Project Green Cheese / Project ALF-1 published in Phrack Magazine, Issue 42, File 13. (Use
CTRL+F
to find "Text File
" for the relevant part.) The e-zine prints UFO-related search terms and IP addresses of US secret networks, information supplied by "Quentin" and possibly two or more accomplices.Here's a mailing list that predates the Phrack article. (Archived commentary)
1994 Columns in UFO Magazine by T. Scott Crain, who wrote letters to NBC.
2019 article about the NBC segment by Nick Redfern, who attributes the quote:
"The hacker is aware of the interest his apparent UFO data has provoked, but does not wish to respond." - the late Susan Adams (Dateline NBC producer)
Quentin influenced Mathew Bevan and Gary McKinnon, the hackers who succeeded him. From email correspondence:
"I was referencing this textfile... Phrack... it was picked up in the BBS I went to." - Mathew Bevan
"I remember the Quentin docs and other stuff. IP Addresses of some of them overlap with what I found." - Gary McKinnon
I contacted Chris "Erik Bloodaxe" Goggans, the editor of Phrack. Here are two things he said:
"I know that Quentin had at least two people in the hacker scene that he considered friends and was usually working with on whatever it was he was up to. Don't know much more about them."
"I have no real way to track down authors of the submitted articles at this point, as I don't have the Phrack email archives from 1993."
Quentin's true identity remains unknown.
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