textfiles/news/hacker.hac

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		     =	  Abuse Hits Computer Networking    =
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Typed by   :Byte Rider
Actical by :William C. Rempel
From	   :L.A. Times Newspaper
Date	   :Aug 1, 1985
Subject    :Abuse with BBSes

  From Long Island, an electronic bulletin board is open to computer users who
want to share opinions about American foreign policy in Central America.  Gay
activists around the country can exchange information over several electronic in
San Francisco.	And a Texas-based white supremacist group that claims computer
technology is "Aryan technology" uses a computer network to disseminate racist
hate propaganda.

  These invisible networks, blending computer technology with the free speech
tradition of 18th-Century pamphleteering, represents America's newest
communications forums.

  Anyone with a computer equipped to send or recieve messages over a telephone
line can participate.  An electronic bulletin board is simply a computer that
can answer telephones and exchange messages with other computers.



1,500+ Boards in Use:

  Industry experts estimate that there are more than 1,500 computer bulletin
boards operated out of offices and homes across America, serving a potential
audience of about 1 million computer users equipped with telephone connectors
called modems.

  Doctors, business executives, engineers, Vietnam veterans and teen-agers are
among the growing number of bulletin board users sharing information or opinions
via computer on subjects ranging from famine in Africa, tax law changes or the
nuclear freeze movement to science, software or sports.

  But computer bulletin boards also are being used to exchange stolen credit
card numbers, to organize illicit sex rings and to offer advice on how to
assemble bombs or break into the data banks of credit bureaus, schools or
government agencies.



7 Teen-Agers Arrested

  Earlier this month, for example, New Jersey police arrested seven teen-agers
and closed down a bulletin board that published false credit card numbers,
details on how to assemble a pipe bomb and private telephone numbers to computer
systems in the Pentagon, a credit agency and a medical library.

  Two teen-agers in Monterey were arrested and their computers seized last April
after they posted extortion demands on an Encino bulletin board.

  This is a corner of the high-tech underworld, the world of "pirate" bulletin
boards where law enforcement investigators increasingly are finding clues to
such criminal activities as fraud and vandalism.

  "I guess it's like with anything else-there's always going to be someone who
abuses a good thing," Paul Zurkowski, president of the Information Industry
Assn.  in Washington, said.

  Corporations that have been victims of computer criminals-among them TRW Inc,
which operates a nationwide credit bureau out of Orange County, and MCI
Communications Corp., the long distance telephone service in Washington-now
monitor scores of underground bulletin boards daily.

  In a typical investigation last April, an undercover "hacker" at TRW spent
several days "lurking" in two New York-based bulletin boards-named Sherwood
Forest II and III-where the agent found a published appeal for credit cards with
credit limits of $5,000 to $25,000.  The message offered to pay cash or trade
Commodore computer software.

  A responce came three days later when another bulletin board patron using the
code name "Circuit Breaker" left a message that he had some credit card account
numbers to trade.  During that same period other Sherwood Forest patrons
published a stolen telephone credit card number, solicited help to gai
unauthorized entry to an insurance company computer and requested information on
how to make a bomb.

  TRW notified authorities, and Secret Service agents subsequently seized about
$25,000 in computers from two upstate New York teen-agers.  They Face federal
wire fraud charges.



Monitoring Efforts Pay Off

  In recent months, numerous arrest and confiscated computers have resulted from
the bulletin board monitoring programs of corporations and law enforcement
agencies.  Roger A.  Braham, TRW's security assurance supervisor, estimates that
at least 26 pirate bulletin boards have been closed down in the last year, about
half as a direct response to TRW-initiated investigations.

  Cats Den, a Boston-area bulletin boards, was shut down in February after a TRW
agent came upon published plans of a 14-year-old computer user to attempt to
sabotage the credit of another teenager's parents.  (TRW denied that sabotage
was possible.)

  Dragon Fire, the popular bulletin board of a well-to-do teen-ager in
Gainesville, TEX., was taken off-line in May after TRW found telephone credit
card numbers published as well as messages indicating that users in
Massachusetts planned to vandalize a high school there.

  And Farmers of Doom, a Denver-area bulletin board that routed its incoming
calls through a suburban public phone both to foil any tracing attempts, was
closed in May based on a tip from TRW agents.

  "We want them to know they're being watched," Braham, a retired Orange city
police investigator, said.

  The stepped-up campaign to intercept illegal computer activities prompted ne
hacker-calling himself "Doctor Who"-to warn in a recent electronic bulletin
board message to fellow hackers:  "This is way!!  Say .  .  .  away from TRW
untill it kools down."

  In California, legislation is pending that would make it unlawful to publish,
on a computer network, anyones unlisted phone number, credit card numbers or
computer access codes without their approval.  Bulletin boar operators who fail
to remove such private information after notifacation also would be liable in
the bill sponsored by State Sen.  John Doolittle (R-Citrus Heights).

  "Bulletin boards are great.  We'd like to encourage their use, but we're
concerned about the abuse of privacy," Ted Blanchard, legislative consultant
Doolittle, said.  "Everyone needs to understand the rules."



Originated in Chicago

  The nation's first electronic bulletin board is believed to have originated in
Chicago where two computer buffs set up a home-grown system on Feb.  16,
1978-still in the early days of the personal computer revolution.

  At first, they were the venue primarily of computer hobbyists who used the
message system to send out calls for assistance to solve technical programs.
Rapidly, their protential was recognized by national organizations and
professional groups such as doctors and engineers who set up computer networks
to organize conventions, share a variety of communications.

  Today electronic bulletin board networks are operated by such widely disparate
groups by such viduals as the Ku Klux Klan, an alleged prostitution ring in
Florida, scientists working with the national Areonautics and Space
Administration and local police agentcies in Arizona.  Almost anyone with a
personal computer can set up his own electronic bulletin board with investments
in readily avaliable electronics gear for as little as $2,000.

  "All you need is a cheap computer, the right software and a modem (that hooks
your computer to your telephone) and you're a bulletin board," Everick Bowens,
director of security for MCI and president of the newly formed Communications
Fraud Control Assn., said.

  While most bulletin board networks are small, many operated by large companies
such as CompuServe, Dialog and The Source-each of them major data base
providers-who monitor users of their bulletin boards.

  MCI routinely monitors bulletin boards to see if its long distance access
codes-popular among youths who call themselves "Phreakers"-are being distributed
illegally.

  Bowens said that the enforcement efforts has been largely effective, but one
side effect of success is that operators of pirate bulletin boards have become
more sophisticated and, therefore, more difficult to investigate.

  "A lot of these phreaks have gone
Special Thanks to:  The Prophet, for his excellent file:  Unix Use and Security
From the Ground Up.

The End, good luck, enjoy yourself, and don't get caught!

                                 Lord Lawless
                               Phortune 500/BOD

	    --This has been a Lord Lawless Presentation, (C) 1987.--


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