604 lines
33 KiB
Plaintext
604 lines
33 KiB
Plaintext
|
||
Founded By: | _ _______
|
||
Guardian Of Time | __ N.I.A. _ ___ ___ Are you on any WAN? are
|
||
Judge Dredd | ____ ___ ___ ___ ___ you on Bitnet, Internet
|
||
------------------+ _____ ___ ___ ___ ___ Compuserve, MCI Mail,
|
||
Ø / ___ ___ ___ ___ ___________ Sprintmail, Applelink,
|
||
+---------+ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___________ Easynet, MilNet,
|
||
| 26OCT90 | ___ ______ ___ ___ ___ FidoNet, et al.?
|
||
| File 60 | ___ _____ ___ ___ ___ If so please drop us a
|
||
+---------+ ____ _ __ ___ line at
|
||
___ _ ___ elisem@nuchat.sccsi.com
|
||
Other World BBS __
|
||
Text Only _ Network Information Access
|
||
Ignorance, There's No Excuse.
|
||
|
||
Network Thought Machine [2]
|
||
Guardian Of Time And The Net
|
||
|
||
NIA---NIA---NIA---NIA---NIA---NIA---NIA
|
||
|
||
Early Apple Phreaking Days
|
||
|
||
Those that don't know, I was busted, back in 1980, and I will explain in this
|
||
file, what lead up to me being busted, what happened, how I got out of it.
|
||
|
||
1980, I got my first computer which was an Apple //e for a Xmas Present, and
|
||
I immediately started out in the world of Apple Phreaking. Thanks to a friend
|
||
of mine (The Mad Cracker (409) (BTW, How is Nuclear School? hehehe)), we began
|
||
our trail, meeting up w/ a person by the name of Joe Nowak from Michigan.
|
||
|
||
Joe was the person that taught both of us, who where just young pups at that
|
||
time, what Phreaking was, gave us the rules to follow, how to phreak, how to
|
||
hack, how to crack, everything.
|
||
|
||
I created my first handle, which was The Rammaster, as you can tell, I quickly
|
||
changed it to my present one. My friend, dreamt up the handle of The Mad
|
||
Cracker (even though at the time, he NEVER cracked anything that later
|
||
changed). We had our handles and we where ready for the Apple Pirate World.
|
||
|
||
Apple Pirates at that time, where the cream of the crop w/ Jack The Ripper,
|
||
Taran King running The Metal Shop AE, in Houston there was Wizzardry, Sub
|
||
Station Charlie, and the infamous Mines Of Moria (w/ the Tele Trials!), and
|
||
the 414 Group (busted for breaking into a Hospital Computer and altering
|
||
vital records), Phrack was just a dream to be made, and the ever so popular
|
||
Apple Cat Modems and running 10 megs with Ascii Express Professional.
|
||
|
||
Just for a side note, those of you who don't know what AE (Ascii Express) was,
|
||
it made all of us IBM people look bad for having Ratio's, for AE was LEECH and
|
||
LEECH it was, you would dial into an AE line, get the prompt, and then you
|
||
would have the capability (if your access was allowed), to d/l everything in
|
||
whatever disk drives or harddrives where set up. Meaning you could call and
|
||
d/l all of the latest game and never worry about Ratio's for the ratio was
|
||
set up something like 1 u/l for every 1000 d/ls or mostly they never had any
|
||
ratio's on there at all. As the year progressed, many AE lines became part
|
||
of BBS's (GBBS) as a door, and only the "Elite" or "Pirate Access" users would
|
||
have access to it. By 1982 most of the AE lines had gone away and left where
|
||
phrases like "running AE off of my 2 double sided double density 5 1/4 inch
|
||
disk drives". Those people where generally considered lame. Comparison would
|
||
be like calling up an Em/2 board running off of an IBM w/ 2 3 1/2 inch drives
|
||
and having PART of the latest game in the Xfer Section.
|
||
|
||
Those days people had massive parties, brought their Apples over and just did
|
||
MASSIVE coppying, for their copy protection was crude, and well with
|
||
Locksmith 5.0 you could crack just about everything under the sun. Pirating
|
||
was in, and phreaking was in, for there was not even a thought of ESS, or of
|
||
Operation Sundevil. Black Boxing was just being figured out, by the telco
|
||
company, and they figured out a way of "listening" for the device, but hey, w/
|
||
our trusty Apple Cat modems we just didn't send a pure 2600 htz tone and that
|
||
solved that problem, but then the Telco company got wise to that.
|
||
|
||
Well as years progressed, the phone company started getting their act together
|
||
there was rumors flying in and out of every major BBS that people where starting
|
||
to be arrested. The term 'BUSTED' came into play, which meant, being caught
|
||
by either the Feds, or by the Telco Company, while you where phreaking off of
|
||
their system. Also ESS was just starting to be testing in rural areas...
|
||
|
||
Soon BBS's started to go "private", the term "elite" no longer meant someone
|
||
w/ a special talent, or an infamous computer handle (Count Zero, Jack The
|
||
Ripper), the term started to apply to BBS's. The BBS initself, became "elite".
|
||
About the same time this was happening, BBS INFOFORMS came up, testing ones
|
||
ability. The idea at the time was to get onto said Elite BBS, you just passed
|
||
a simple test. Fill out this Questionaire and if you answered the questions
|
||
accurately then there was a chance you could get onto this Elite BBS. Problem
|
||
w/ that was shortly aftwards, Acronym Lists started floating around. Funny how
|
||
someone w/ absolutely no knowledge on a given subject, could pass the toughest
|
||
questionaire w/out blinking an eye.
|
||
|
||
How To Phreak files started to pop up everywhere, people where pumping out text
|
||
files left and right. Many people tested these files out w/out every thinking
|
||
of what they where doing, and again many people where caught by the phone co,
|
||
for being stupid.
|
||
|
||
As 1988 passed, the "Old Group" as most of us are now called, have either
|
||
pulled out or went into hiding. Many of the later 80's people are still
|
||
around, probably laughing at this file now (hehehehe, I am), and well it is
|
||
a shame, but what have we to look for?
|
||
|
||
Todays phreakers/hackers are uneducated people. I don't mean to sound like I
|
||
know what I'm doing b/c I don't either. I pulled out in 1983 and haven't
|
||
phreaked since. But as I scan BBS hacking/phreak bases I see the exact same
|
||
thing that was started back in 1983. The home computer was priced just right,
|
||
so just about every middle class person could afford one. People went out
|
||
bought one, bought a modem, and just started away at BBSing coming across those
|
||
dreaded Bad BBS's or those "Underground BBS's". People don't read the old text
|
||
files anymore, there where many ground rules laid down by many text file
|
||
magazines (Phrack, Lod, etc) you did a certain thing and not this, and the
|
||
reason why you don't do it THIS way is b/c you will get busted, yet people don't
|
||
read the warning label that says danger anymore why?
|
||
|
||
I was busted, as I mentioned earlier, but what happened? Nothing special, I got
|
||
this registered letter in the mail, which contained about 5 pages worth of BBS
|
||
numbers, I checked against my own records (I kept detailed records of what code
|
||
what service, what time and what BBS I called), narrowed down a 10,000.00$ bill
|
||
down to around 2500$. I don't remember the exact figures but it was around
|
||
those mentioned. If I refused to pay the bill, I would then appear in Galveston
|
||
County's local District Court. I mailed in a letter stating that I had made
|
||
only certain calls, attatched a sheet that contained all my codes used, numbers
|
||
dialed (fax machines where still in testing...), and they returned my letter
|
||
accepting the offfer I proposed to them.
|
||
|
||
Remember todays carders, phreakers, and hackers, are reckless, uncaring for
|
||
the system they aquire, the service they use, or the cards they card off of.
|
||
People are not what they used to be, times have changed, and they have changed
|
||
for the worse (my opinion), if we do not start re-educating people about what
|
||
to do and what not to do, and making sure that people do not abuse our knowledge
|
||
then Operation Sundevil will be a fairly common word etched in our minds.
|
||
People that card, don't be so damned stupid, carding to your house? Jesus, what
|
||
moron would do that? Someone w/ a modem and pc. Someone that is uneducated,
|
||
and someone that should be stopped.
|
||
|
||
I close this small file w/ a quote from a respected BBS User in our Community:
|
||
|
||
1980's Hacker: A person who hacked into a system w/ the sole intent on
|
||
learning the system, inside and out. To better educate
|
||
oneself, w/ no thought of harm or destructive means.
|
||
|
||
1990's Hacker: A person who hacks into a system w/ the sole intent of
|
||
destructive purposes. No benefit has come of this type
|
||
of hacker.
|
||
|
||
Today the word hacker means to break into a system for malice intent. Why
|
||
has this happened? I propose that question to you.
|
||
|
||
I hope that some of you will recall that more and more people are being busted,
|
||
it is no longer anyones fault, but YOUR own for being busted, the rules have
|
||
been layed down for years now, you just need to re-educate yourself and learn
|
||
something...
|
||
|
||
Guardian Of Time
|
||
|
||
NIA---NIA---NIA---NIA---NIA---NIA---NIA
|
||
|
||
"Whats In A Name? : Brad Templeton"
|
||
|
||
People keep trying to figure out what an electronic forum (or bulletin board)
|
||
is in traditional terms -- common carrier or publication.
|
||
|
||
I think that it is not analogous to any of the old forms, and a new type
|
||
of law has to be created to apply to it.
|
||
|
||
There are 4 types of BB today:
|
||
A) The completely open BB with no supervision (USENET newsgroup, some
|
||
BBS operations)
|
||
B) The supervised open BB. (most BBS, GEnie, CIS forums, etc.)
|
||
C) The heavily supervised BB. (Prodigy, moderated USENET group)
|
||
D) The fully edited electronic publication
|
||
|
||
D is a direct analog of the traditional publication. C is very close, but
|
||
not quite. A is close to the "common carrier" model, but does not match
|
||
it exactly. B has little analog in traditional publishing.
|
||
|
||
All four are of course(*) deserving of constitutional protection of free
|
||
speech. For all are published forms of expression.
|
||
|
||
The closest thing to A is common carrier or enhanced service provider
|
||
status, where the carrier is not liable for what is transmitted. However
|
||
there are many differences. For one, I have not heard of a "public broadcast"
|
||
common carrier, where messages are sent to arbitrary members of the public
|
||
who request the material. The closest analog might be Ham radio, although
|
||
Hams are licenced and thus not classed as general public. They are also
|
||
restricted in use. Of course "Ham radio" is a thing, not an organization.
|
||
|
||
In addition, most type A systems do have some controls and checks and
|
||
balances. They do not have the "service to anybody who asks is mandatory"
|
||
rule of common carriers.
|
||
|
||
I would view each individual author as the publisher, and the system owner
|
||
as a tool in this case. On the other hand, I would support the right of
|
||
system owners to restrict *who* has access, if not necessarily what they
|
||
say.
|
||
|
||
Type B is also a new animal. Such systems are supervised, but
|
||
supervised after-the-fact. ie. any user can post any message, but the
|
||
SYSOP/supervisor/moderator can delete things after the fact. The amount
|
||
of this deletion ranges from almost none to moderate. Sometimes it is
|
||
there as an option, but never actually practiced. This needs a new type
|
||
of law.
|
||
|
||
Type C is very close to a publication, and may not need a new type of law.
|
||
In this case, all messages must be approved before they go out -- ie. they
|
||
pass through a human being first. This is not too different from a
|
||
classical publication. However, in most such cases, the editors do not
|
||
truly act as editors. They merely select material based on appropriateness
|
||
to a forum. Only because the law requires it do they also sometimes
|
||
attempt to remove libel and criminal activity. The editors almost never
|
||
select material to match their own views, and it is not assumed that
|
||
postings reflect the editor's views.
|
||
|
||
Thus in A and B it is clear that the author is the publisher and the
|
||
system is the medium. In C the author and system operator are jointly
|
||
involved in publication. In D the system operator is the publisher, and
|
||
the author is just the author.
|
||
|
||
What new types of law? This we can discuss.
|
||
|
||
Type A:
|
||
Authors fully responsible for their postings. No liability
|
||
for SYSOP unless illegal activity deliberately encouraged.
|
||
(ie. "The Phone Phreak BBS" might have a liable SYSOP, but
|
||
"Joe's Amiga BBS" would not be liable if somebody posts a phone
|
||
credit card number.)
|
||
|
||
NO complete anonymity. Author's names need not be revealed in
|
||
the forum itself, but a record should exist for the authorities
|
||
in case of libel or other illegal activity by an author. The
|
||
sysop must maintain this list in return for the limit of SYSOP's
|
||
liability.
|
||
|
||
(Note SYSOPS still have the right to delete material, but not
|
||
the obligation.)
|
||
|
||
|
||
Type B:
|
||
Authors continue to be responsible for their postings. SYSOPS
|
||
responsible for illegal material which they are aware of but do
|
||
not delete in a timely fashion. Anonymity possible, if desired.
|
||
|
||
Type C:
|
||
Authors responsible together with SYSOPS for postings. If Author
|
||
warrants to SYSOP that material is legit, most liability goes to
|
||
Author. SYSOP must not permit any obviously illegal material,
|
||
and delete any material found to be illegal ASAP.
|
||
|
||
Type D:
|
||
Standard publication. No new law.
|
||
--
|
||
|
||
NIA---NIA---NIA---NIA---NIA---NIA---NIA
|
||
|
||
"Musing On Constituionality : Karl Lehenbauer"
|
||
|
||
In article <1990Sep20.221955.10879@spectrum.CMC.COM> lars@spectrum.CMC.COM (Lars
|
||
Poulsen) writes:
|
||
>By analogy, it may not be unreasonable to hold the "publisher" (i.e. the
|
||
>owner/SYSOP) jointly liable with the poster for whatever appears on the
|
||
>bulletin board.
|
||
|
||
>Indeed, this may require that the SYSOP not allow unmoderated discussion
|
||
>except within closed user groups whose members have all signed a pledge
|
||
>of responsible behaviour and are all known to the SYSOP.
|
||
|
||
>Seems pretty reasonable to me ...
|
||
|
||
If this were the case, it would be the end of Usenet. Further, it would
|
||
have a chilling effect on free speech via bulletin boards. As a sysop,
|
||
I would have to be very careful to never allow anything out that was
|
||
in the least bit controversial, and would always want to err on the side of
|
||
not allowing a message to go out unless I was really sure there was no chance
|
||
of me getting in trouble for it.
|
||
|
||
Shouldn't the poster of the message be accountable for its contents?
|
||
|
||
Or by your reasoning, shouldn't the phone company have to listen to *all* the
|
||
phone conversations going on at any time to make sure nothing illicit was
|
||
being said, done or planned? They tried this in Eastern Europe, you know.
|
||
|
||
Further, this would be a new and time-consuming burden on sysops and introduce
|
||
potentially long delays in messages getting out.
|
||
|
||
If a sysop let a bad message go out and it was gatewayed to a bunch of other
|
||
machines, or one was forged or somehow illicitly injected into the network,
|
||
by your reasoning wouldn't the owner/sysops of all the machines the
|
||
message went to be liable? If that were the case, it would definitely be
|
||
the end, because nobody has the resources to monitor, for example, all the
|
||
traffic on the Usenet.
|
||
|
||
I used Prodigy several times, and it is a heavily censored system, i.e.
|
||
Prodigy's censors examine every article posted before it goes into the
|
||
message base, and people on it were complaining that the censors were
|
||
capricious, arbitrary and would not state reasons why specific articles
|
||
had been censored.
|
||
|
||
Not only is there nothing like talk.religion.*, talk.politics.*,
|
||
soc.motss on Prodigy (they dropped a forum in which fundamentalist Christians
|
||
and homosexuals and homosexual rights advocates were going at it, although
|
||
they claimed it was for a different reason), but you can't even mention
|
||
or talk about most products by name because advertising is a big part
|
||
of their revenue base (about 20% of your display is permanently dedicated
|
||
to advertising when using it -- ads are continually updated in this area the
|
||
whole time you're on) and they don't want anyone to get free advertising.
|
||
Consequently messages of the "Yeah, I bought a Frobozz 917 and it works really
|
||
well" are censored. If this is IBM's view of the future of personal
|
||
electronic communications (Prodigy is a joint-venture of IBM and Sears), and
|
||
there is every reason to believe it is since this is what they chose to
|
||
provide, it is a bleak future indeed. (The reason they do this, I think, is
|
||
that Prodigy is supposed to be a "family" system. Under your one account you
|
||
can set up logins for your other family members. So they don't want anything
|
||
in there that some kid is going to read. But that restricts everything on the
|
||
system to a very low common denominator, namely that every message must be so
|
||
inoffensive that *nobody* is going to be offended by it... and that is
|
||
censorship.
|
||
--
|
||
-- uunet!sugar!karl
|
||
-- Usenet access: (713) 438-5018
|
||
|
||
NIA---NIA---NIA---NIA---NIA---NIA---NIA
|
||
|
||
From ¤The Age‡, 12th October, 1990, Melbourne, Australia.
|
||
By Leon Gettler, Communications reporter.
|
||
|
||
Is it all over between PETA and LES since she found out about the
|
||
LEOPARD? Was SID linked to the MAFIA? And where did DRACULA fit into
|
||
all this? Was he really a VAMPIRE or just one of the DAGS?
|
||
|
||
Confused? Just consult the Telecom staff dictionary, an introduction
|
||
the to world of tele-babble. Insiders in every profession have their
|
||
jargon, but no one generates it faster than telecommunications
|
||
engineers.
|
||
|
||
Take, for instance the story of the chap sent to Cairns on an
|
||
emergency mission several years ago when the phone system was wiped
|
||
out by flood. He designed the Cairns restoration and provisioning
|
||
program. No prizes for working out the acronym. "It just rolled off
|
||
the tongue," said a Telecom official this week.
|
||
|
||
Step into the world of telecommunications and you find yourself in a
|
||
sea of acronyms and jargon. Some examples: DNA (does not answer), DND
|
||
(did not dial), MBC (major business customer), HC&F (heat, coil and
|
||
fuse), LIBFA (line bearer fault analysis), DELY (delivery), CIE
|
||
(customer interface equipment), PP (prompt public telephone) and TTT
|
||
(terminatng trunk tandem).
|
||
|
||
Traditionally, acronyms have been used to help us remember
|
||
terminology. Usage has transformed many into ordinary words.
|
||
Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services is always Qantas.
|
||
The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps gave us Anzac, the North
|
||
Atlantic Treaty Organisation is NATO.
|
||
|
||
But Telecom Australia seems to have done the reverse. It produced
|
||
DRACULA (data recording and concentrator unit for line applications),
|
||
VAMPIRE (videotex access monitoring and priority incident reporting
|
||
equipment), LEOPARD (local engineering operations processing and
|
||
analyses of recorded data), MAFIA (maintenance and fleet information
|
||
analysis), SULTAN (subscribers' universal line testing access
|
||
network), CARGO (complaints analysis recording and graphing
|
||
organisation), CATNAP (computer-aided network assessment program) and
|
||
DAGS (digit-absorbing group selector).
|
||
|
||
In many ways, Telecom employees are lucky. They can see PARIS
|
||
(product accounting and reporting information system) or even MARS
|
||
(microfiche auto-retrieval system). They don't even need a MAP
|
||
(manual assistance position), the work station for telephonists.
|
||
|
||
Telephone operators-turned-philosophers can turn to PLATO (programmed
|
||
evaluation review technique) over a few POTS (plain old telephone
|
||
services) of CIDER (costing input, data editing and reporting) or SODA
|
||
(service order debit advice). and romantics can contemplate EROS
|
||
(emitter-receiver for optical systems).
|
||
|
||
But things can get confusing, too. COLDEWS (computerised lines depot
|
||
external works scheduling) does not cover grass in the morning. And
|
||
TACONET is short for Telecom Australia computer network, not tapas
|
||
tucker. Similarly, CONTRAFAST is not a Nicaraguan health regime but
|
||
the consolidated trunk forecast.
|
||
|
||
Are Telecom employees happy with the ALP (associated line prime) after
|
||
the [Australian] Labor Party's national conference last month? And
|
||
does COM (computer output to microfilm) suggest that the reds have
|
||
escaped from under the beds and infiltrated the phone exchanges?
|
||
|
||
The names are also a worry. There are nine males (REX, JACK, SID,
|
||
DAVID, LARS, LES, LEN, MARC AND SAM) but only four females (PETA,
|
||
DAISY, DOT AND SUSIE). Koorie and other non-English names do not get
|
||
a mention. And what about the indelicacy of TART (TACONET
|
||
availability and response time monitoring) and TIT (technician in
|
||
training)?
|
||
----------------------
|
||
|
||
Don't blame me if my fingers did not type what my eyes saw!
|
||
|
||
Danny
|
||
|
||
[Moderator's Note: Thanks for taking the time to type in such a clever
|
||
report. Speaking of obscure acronyms, everyone must know of CARE, the
|
||
organization which provides assistance to other countries in need. But
|
||
do you remember what the letters mean? Committee on American Relief
|
||
in Europe. And lest we forget, the zip in the postal Zip Code refers
|
||
to the Zone Improvement Plan. Seriously. PAT]
|
||
|
||
NIA---NIA---NIA---NIA---NIA---NIA---NIA
|
||
|
||
"Vanessa Layne: Education And Cyberspace"
|
||
|
||
I *can* think of a (hopefully) beneficial use to young people of Cyberspace.
|
||
It all started with a high school aged student/friend of mine who had
|
||
dyslexia (one of many) and was diagnosed rather late in his school career...
|
||
|
||
Well, my friend had (after much sweat and tears and tutoring and really great
|
||
supportive parents, teachers and counsilors) learned to read at age level
|
||
ability, more or less. More, because he was very smart; less, because no matter
|
||
how wonderful your tutoring is, it can't make up for lost practice. In addition
|
||
,
|
||
(his greatest problem in fact) was that he just couldn't articulate his ideas
|
||
in print. He had trouble with literature because he was so busy reading the
|
||
words and just figuring out what the sentences said, he missed the relevence of
|
||
the give passage. Myself and another of his teachers and he discussed what woul
|
||
d
|
||
be the most helpful to him. We knew he needed practice reading sheer volumes of
|
||
text, good and bad, to learn differences in quality and style. We knew it shoul
|
||
d
|
||
be interesting (no Dickens [pardon me if *you're* a raving rabid Dickens fan,
|
||
but...]) about things that were immediately relevant, at least to the people
|
||
writing the material. The material had to be communicating its ideas rather
|
||
straight-forwardly, like a in a letter or essay. But it couldn't be plain
|
||
factual information...it had to communicate emotion, and demonstrate attemps to
|
||
convince the reader. And we knew he needed practice trying his own hand at
|
||
communicating, not just writing reports on what he had read, but real writing
|
||
trying to *communicate* his ideas and feelings. And he needed lots of feedback,
|
||
not just ››you missed a semicolon'' but ››What did you mean by THAT crack
|
||
mister?!'' He needed practice at honing an argument, and describing things
|
||
clearly and concisely.
|
||
So we got him an account.
|
||
|
||
One of the fascinating phenomina I have noticed, in myself and others, is how
|
||
much better a person becomes (usually) at communicating via print after
|
||
doing it over the net for a while. When a person first begins using newsgroups,
|
||
emailing lists, and (here at MIT) discuss and zephyr, usually s/he will try
|
||
to communicate by typing down what it was they (damnit, I *will* use the
|
||
plural for a gender indefinite pronoun) would have said out loud, if what
|
||
they were responding to were a spoken conversation. This tends to fail
|
||
miserably (though I have known people who always sounded funny when they
|
||
talked because they talked as they read and wrote, who then ›e-sounded' fine
|
||
here in Cyberspace). I once heard that 90% of all realtime communication is
|
||
via body language. I'm not so sure that is unreasonable. Certainly
|
||
printed-out speach is odd stuff. The raised eyebrows, which turned a demand
|
||
into a statement of mock-dismayed-disbelief, disappear. The turning up of
|
||
the lips which made an insult a friendly tease disappear. The grating pulled
|
||
out note of mockery which makes a bald statement into its very inverse
|
||
disappears. How many times have you seen what was originally supposed to be
|
||
sarcasm interpreted to be opposite of what the sender intended? Printed-out
|
||
speach is raw, and cold, and its impact is not lessened by any cloaking
|
||
tones: it does not pull its punches. So the culture here developed :) :( :‡ ;)
|
||
:P and ///italics/// and *emphasis* and so forth to try to let the reader know
|
||
when the ››speaker'' would have done such things in realspace. But they are not
|
||
adequate for most of the subtleties people wish to get across. So they wind up
|
||
honing their skill with written English, often from reflex and not conscious
|
||
determination...you keep plugging away at the argument until 1) you are
|
||
understood 2) your account gets nuked enough that you decide it's not worth it.
|
||
First, usually, people figure out about the tone implicit in word choice
|
||
.
|
||
People, when speaking, and at first on the net, will vehemently deny such a thin
|
||
g
|
||
exists. But there is obvious difference between ››I think you are incorrect''
|
||
and ››I think you're wrong'' and that difference is in implied attitude. Next,
|
||
people seem to pick up on supporting arguments (like when you're nth grade teach
|
||
er
|
||
harassed you about writing essays w/ three paragraphs of support for your three
|
||
points?)...if you hear ››What makes you say that?!'' ››Who ever heard of such a
|
||
thing?'' ››Well *i've* seen...'' enough times, you begin to respond ››Well, whe
|
||
n
|
||
I...'' or ››I noticed...'' or ››Well haven't you seen...''
|
||
The more a person writes in Cyberspace, the more it seems s/he is able
|
||
to see the mood and point of other writers. Something in a person's subconsciou
|
||
s
|
||
goes ››gee, I said something in just that way when I was tired.'' People get
|
||
better at this.
|
||
If you are not clear in Cyberspace, someone is *going* to misunderstand
|
||
you (yes, someone will probably if you are clear as well, but no need to encoura
|
||
ge
|
||
it). If you are not concise (my sin [if you hadn't noticed]) your letter will
|
||
be flushed before it is read. If either happens you are GOING to be FLAMED. An
|
||
d
|
||
if you really gave a damn about what you were trying to tell people, you will
|
||
try again, on another tack, or clarifying your previous statements (all the whil
|
||
e
|
||
making mental notes not to let yourself be misunderstood the same way again,
|
||
unless it is a deliberate firestarter tactic). So people inprove, and surprizin
|
||
g
|
||
to say (for all those insulting Humanitites out there), people who use the net
|
||
for communication, get better at using the printed word, both to express
|
||
themselves and to glean the insights of other writing. I don't think it is
|
||
necessarily so that we'll all become Shakespears, but maybe it will help some
|
||
kids understand what he was saying about people.
|
||
Computers cannot solve nearly as many problems in education as many
|
||
teachers seem to hope, but surely Cyberspace is not evil, and may be a benefit
|
||
in varying degrees to those kids who need it. And certainly its computer
|
||
science benefits are not the only ones, and maybe not even it's greatest. Cyber
|
||
-
|
||
space is the greatest communications network in history to date, and perhaps
|
||
can help teach what today is that most relevant of skills: the use of the printe
|
||
d
|
||
word.
|
||
|
||
Vanessa Layne
|
||
dagoura@athena.mit.edu
|
||
|
||
NIA---NIA---NIA---NIA---NIA---NIA---NIA
|
||
|
||
"Triva Of A Hacker: Bob Bickford"
|
||
|
||
|
||
In article <748@public.BTR.COM> techie@public.BTR.COM (Bob Vaughan) writes:
|
||
>
|
||
>A friend of mine posed an interesting trivia question.
|
||
>
|
||
>What was the system manager password for the Burroughs 6700
|
||
>at the Universty Of The Pacific in 1977?
|
||
>
|
||
>This password was included in a utility program that the TA's used
|
||
>for job control (they weren't allowed to have the system manager
|
||
>password, so the program had a line that allowed the utility to
|
||
>run as the system manager)
|
||
>
|
||
>Please reply by email.
|
||
>
|
||
>Thanks in advance
|
||
>
|
||
|
||
I'm the friend. Here, I'll make this even easier:
|
||
|
||
1) The TA's utility was written in the Burroughs - specific variant of
|
||
the ALGOL language called "DCALGOL"; it used the construct
|
||
|
||
REPLACE MYSELF.USERCODE BY "XXXXXXX/YYYYY."
|
||
|
||
to change its permissions to the system manager's. The TA's were
|
||
very interested in the DCALGOL language; I distinctly recall being
|
||
in the computer center with them late one night as they waited
|
||
breathlessly for the compiler to come online so they could try
|
||
out an MCP-modifying program that they'd written. It worked, as
|
||
I recall, which was rather scary. (Yes, MCP means Master Control
|
||
Program, as in the movie TRON. No, I don't know if they were
|
||
thinking of the Burroughs machines when they wrote the movie.)
|
||
|
||
2) The name of the utility was "LOOKING-GOOD". When I obtained that
|
||
usercode/password combination, one of the things I did was to print
|
||
out a source-code listing of same, which I still have. (I was then
|
||
invited to the Dean's office for a morning chat.... ah, the trials
|
||
and irresponsibilities of youth.) I realize now, looking at it,
|
||
that it's *horribly* bad code, but in 1977 I didn't know any better.
|
||
|
||
3) I was at UOP from September of 1976 through January of 1978; the
|
||
password being queried about was in use in the Spring of 1977.
|
||
They changed it, obviously, after my little adventure.....
|
||
|
||
4) I obtained this totally by accident; I was curious as to how the
|
||
TA's utility worked, and printed out the object code. Before I
|
||
arrived at UOP, that was illegel and would crash the system every
|
||
time; I didn't know that and had crashed the system twice earlier
|
||
in the year by printing the wrong file. So they "fixed" it; what
|
||
you got was a page full of question-marks, with any quoted strings
|
||
from the source code appearing in cleartext form. So when I printed
|
||
out the object to LOOKING-GOOD, there were lots of strings lying
|
||
around in it, including one that said XXXXXXX/YYYYY. which I
|
||
immediately recognized as an ALGOL usercode/password string. So
|
||
I tried it...... and was immediately caught (but not before I'd
|
||
made a printout of the program, as mentioned above). When they
|
||
explained to me what the ramifications of having that knowledge
|
||
were, I got real scared.
|
||
|
||
BTW, the LOOKING-GOOD object file had the security attributes
|
||
"CLASSA-OUT" which meant that *anybody* could read it and print it
|
||
out as I had done. I pointed that fact out to them...... and the
|
||
Dean had a few hard words with the computer center manager. His
|
||
name was Jerry (no, that won't help you guess the password) but he
|
||
was later replaced by a friend whom I had introduced to the B6700
|
||
that year named Ed.
|
||
|
||
Ed helped me late one night to print out a voluminous system
|
||
logging file that also turned out to have lots of sensitive
|
||
security info in it; we left one copy of the printout on Jerry's
|
||
desk the next morning (Ed took the other, I don't think he ever
|
||
did anything with it) along with instructions that *any* user
|
||
could use to print the same thing out with. We were playful and
|
||
harmless; I gather that a year or so later some guys came along
|
||
that tried to repeat my stunt but with malign intent: they were
|
||
caught, and prosecuted.
|
||
|
||
I'm revealing all this now because I've finally stopped using that
|
||
password as my own on any system, and because it makes a rather
|
||
interesting challenge as a trivia question. A harmless one, too.
|
||
|
||
--
|
||
Robert Bickford ¤apple,pacbell,hplabs,ucbvax‡!well!rab
|
||
rab@well.sf.ca.us
|
||
"A Hacker is any person who derives joy from
|
||
discovering ways to circumvent limitations."
|
||
|
||
NIA---NIA---NIA---NIA---NIA---NIA---NIA
|
||
|
||
[OTHER WORLD BBS]
|
||
|
||
|