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>C O M P U T E R U N D E R G R O U N D<
|
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>D I G E S T<
|
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*** Volume 3, Issue #3.21 (June 17, 1991) **
|
||
****************************************************************************
|
||
|
||
MODERATORS: Jim Thomas / Gordon Meyer (TK0JUT2@NIU.bitnet)
|
||
ARCHIVISTS: Bob Krause / / Bob Kusumoto
|
||
ARCHMASTER: Brendan Kehoe
|
||
|
||
+++++ +++++ +++++ +++++ +++++
|
||
|
||
CONTENTS THIS ISSUE:
|
||
File 1: Moderator's Corner
|
||
File 2: From the Mailbag
|
||
File 3: Review of Gary Marx's UNDERCOVER
|
||
File 4: Review of PROTECTORS OF PRIVILEGE
|
||
File 5: Review of THE INFORMATION WEB
|
||
File 6: Hollywood Hacker Sentenced
|
||
File 7: Len Rose Sentenced (Reprint from Newsbytes)
|
||
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
|
||
|
||
USENET readers can currently receive CuD as alt.society.cu-digest.
|
||
Back issues of Computer Underground Digest on CompuServe can be found
|
||
in these forums:
|
||
IBMBBS, DL0 (new uploads) and DL4 (BBS Management)
|
||
LAWSIG, DL1 (Computer Law)
|
||
TELECOM, DL0 (New Uploads) and DL12 (Electronic Frontier)
|
||
Back issues are also available from:
|
||
GEnie, PC-EXEC BBS (414-789-4210), and at 1:100/345 for those on FIDOnet.
|
||
Anonymous ftp sites: (1) ftp.cs.widener.edu (192.55.239.132);
|
||
(2) cudarch@chsun1.uchicago.edu;
|
||
(3) dagon.acc.stolaf.edu (130.71.192.18).
|
||
E-mail server: archive-server@chsun1.uchicago.edu.
|
||
|
||
COMPUTER UNDERGROUND DIGEST is an open forum dedicated to sharing
|
||
information among computerists and to the presentation and debate of
|
||
diverse views. CuD material may be reprinted as long as the source is
|
||
cited. Some authors, however, do copyright their material, and those
|
||
authors should be contacted for reprint permission. It is assumed
|
||
that non-personal mail to the moderators may be reprinted unless
|
||
otherwise specified. Readers are encouraged to submit reasoned
|
||
articles relating to the Computer Underground. Articles are preferred
|
||
to short responses. Please avoid quoting previous posts unless
|
||
absolutely necessary.
|
||
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
|
||
DISCLAIMER: The views represented herein do not necessarily represent
|
||
the views of the moderators. Contributors assume all
|
||
responsibility for assuring that articles submitted do not
|
||
violate copyright protections.
|
||
|
||
********************************************************************
|
||
>> END OF THIS FILE <<
|
||
***************************************************************************
|
||
|
||
------------------------------
|
||
|
||
From: Moderators
|
||
Subject: Moderator's Corner
|
||
Date: June 17, 1991
|
||
|
||
********************************************************************
|
||
*** CuD #3.21: File 1 of 7: Moderators Corner ***
|
||
********************************************************************
|
||
|
||
A few quick notes:
|
||
|
||
CuDs ON COMPUSERVE: Back issues of Computer Underground Digest on
|
||
CompuServe can be found in these forums:
|
||
|
||
IBMBBS, DL0 (new uploads) and DL4 (BBS Management)
|
||
LAWSIG, DL1 (Computer Law)
|
||
TELECOM, DL0 (New Uploads) and DL12 (Electronic Frontier)
|
||
|
||
Issues in the IBMBBS and LAWSIG libraries are binary files that can be
|
||
extracted using recent versions of ARC or ARC-compatible programs.
|
||
The issues uploaded to TELECOM have thus far been ASCII text that can
|
||
be read on-line or downloaded. Thanks to Scott Loftesness for
|
||
uploading the issues to TELECOM. Special thanks to Bob Izenberg who
|
||
sent this information along to us and has been meticulously diligent
|
||
in keeping Compuserve files current.
|
||
|
||
PAPER ON THE CU: Back in February, The Butler passed along to us his
|
||
paper on THE COMPUTER UNDERGROUND. We intended to publish it, but
|
||
because of the size, we haven't yet had the chance. So, we've made it
|
||
available in the ftp cites. If you do not have ftp access, let us know
|
||
and we'll send a copy via bitnet.
|
||
|
||
********************************************************************
|
||
>> END OF THIS FILE <<
|
||
***************************************************************************
|
||
|
||
------------------------------
|
||
|
||
From: Various
|
||
Subject: From the Mailbag
|
||
Date: 15 June, 1991
|
||
|
||
********************************************************************
|
||
*** CuD #3.21: File 2 of 7: From the Mailbag ***
|
||
********************************************************************
|
||
|
||
From: vnend@PRINCETON.EDU(D. W. James)
|
||
Subject: Re: Cu Digest, #3.20 (file 5--response to M. Hittinger)
|
||
Date: 13 Jun 91 16:08:27 GMT
|
||
|
||
In CuD #3.20, file 5, (an288@freenet.cleveland.edu) Mark Hittinger writes:
|
||
) Personal computers are so darn powerful now. The centralized MIS
|
||
)department is essentially dead. Companies are moving away from the
|
||
)big data center and just letting the various departments role their
|
||
)own with PCs. It is the wild west again! The new users are on their
|
||
)own again! The guys who started the stagnation are going out of
|
||
)business! The only thing they can cling to is the centralized data
|
||
)base of information that a bunch of PCs might need to access. This
|
||
)data will often be too expensive or out-of-date to justify, so even
|
||
)that will die off. Scratch one of the vested definers! Without
|
||
)centralized multi-million dollar computing there can't be any credible
|
||
)claims for massive multi-million dollar damages.
|
||
|
||
In some areas maybe, but not on most college campuses. And they
|
||
are just as oppressive as the MIS's of old that Mark's article mentioned.
|
||
And it is not just *CCs...
|
||
|
||
Some time ago the NSF directed that all sites that have access to the
|
||
Internet have some means of authenticating who is accessing it from
|
||
those sites. It used to be that, in most any college town, you could
|
||
call the local campus network access number, and with a few keystrokes
|
||
be accessing your account across the country, or even out of the
|
||
country. Now, as more and more sites come into compliance with the
|
||
NSF, this is becoming a thing of the past. Is this a bad thing?
|
||
Maybe not. But the network is a little less useful than it used to
|
||
be.
|
||
|
||
As computers become smaller and cheaper and more powerful, the power
|
||
that the central Computing Center had is being weakened. But that is
|
||
not the end of the story. Those smaller and cheaper and more powerful
|
||
computers are (for me, and I suspect for most of us) not all that
|
||
useful unless they can talk to other computers. So *that* is where
|
||
the CC of the 90's is becoming powerful. Instead of controlling CPU
|
||
cycles and diskspace, they are controlling bandwidth.
|
||
|
||
An example: a talented programmer at a major state school started
|
||
writing a suite of network communications tools. He realized that
|
||
what he had written would make it easy to write a chat program that
|
||
ran over the Internet (or a lan), and hacked one together. It was a
|
||
wild success. In its first year there were two papers written about
|
||
it's conversational dynamics and NASA requested the sources. It was
|
||
used to get news out of the Bay area after the Oct. '89 earthquake.
|
||
The programmer learned a lot. People who decided to write their own
|
||
versions of the client learned a lot. Sounds like the kind of thing
|
||
that a major university would like to hear about, right?
|
||
|
||
Wrong. As soon as someone at the CC heard about it, there were
|
||
questions about it as a "legitimate use of University resources".
|
||
Finally, though no one at the Computing Center would claim
|
||
responsibility, a filter was put in place that effectively killed it.
|
||
|
||
Some of the people in the administration claimed that they had to do
|
||
it because the NSF didn't feel it was an appropriate use of the
|
||
facilities. The NSF's own documentation puts the lie to this. But
|
||
the utility is still dead. It never reached its second birthday.
|
||
|
||
The MIS departments, as Mark refers to them, are not dead. They just
|
||
changed what they sell.
|
||
|
||
)The witch hunts are over and poorly designed systems are going to become
|
||
)extinct.
|
||
|
||
I very much hope that you are correct. I don't believe it for a
|
||
moment though...
|
||
|
||
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
|
||
|
||
From: "Genetics Lifeguard: YOU!!! Out of the pool!!!"@UNKNOWN.DOMAIN
|
||
Subject: On Achley's making an arrest %File 2, CuD 3.20%
|
||
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1991 16:21 CDT
|
||
|
||
Anyone can make a citizen's arrest for a crime which the person being
|
||
arrested did in fact commit. However, the person making the arrest
|
||
had better be sure, because if the prosecution doesn't get a
|
||
conviction FOR ANY REASON, they become liable for civil and criminal
|
||
charges of false arrest and kidnapping.
|
||
|
||
However, this does NOT give the arresting citizen the right to lay
|
||
hands on the arrestee UNLESS THE ARRESTEE tries to resist the arrest.
|
||
So don't be surprised if Atchley doesn't find himself in trouble for
|
||
assault and battery.
|
||
|
||
********************************************************************
|
||
>> END OF THIS FILE <<
|
||
***************************************************************************
|
||
|
||
------------------------------
|
||
|
||
From: Sanford Sherizen <0003965782@MCIMAIL.COM>
|
||
Subject: Review of Gary Marx's UNDERCOVER
|
||
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 91 15:07 GMT
|
||
|
||
********************************************************************
|
||
*** CuD #3.21: File 3 of 7: Review of Gary Marx's UNDERCOVER ***
|
||
********************************************************************
|
||
|
||
Gary T. Marx, UNDERCOVER: POLICE SURVEILLANCE IN AMERICA
|
||
A Twentieth Century Fund Book
|
||
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988
|
||
|
||
Reviewed by Sanford Sherizen, President of Data Security Systems, Inc.,
|
||
Natick, MA, MCI MAIL: SSHERIZEN (396-5782)
|
||
|
||
|
||
On the western (non-electric) frontier of the U.S., disagreements on
|
||
property rights led to almost continuous battles between Native
|
||
Americans, farmers, cattle ranchers, sheep herders, and the
|
||
propertyless. To a large degree, these battles were decided by the
|
||
invention of barbed wire. Ownership was quite literally set by the
|
||
wire, which defined the property lines. They who had the wire had the
|
||
rights. Livestock or crops could be kept in and trespassers or the
|
||
unwanted could be kept out.
|
||
|
||
For some, the current battle over electronic information property
|
||
rights is a search for the electronic equivalent of barbed wire.
|
||
Ownership of intellectual property, only in part a battle to control
|
||
that "stuff" called cyberspace, is becoming an almost continuous set
|
||
of encounters. The participants differ from the western frontier days
|
||
but the stakes are as high for the future of this nation.
|
||
|
||
As LAN increasingly stands for *L*imitless *A*ccess *N*ationwide and
|
||
the Sun Devil and Steve Jackson cases take on new twists and turns,
|
||
there is a need for guidance on how to resolve essential questions of
|
||
electronic property. As computer people discuss the law and BBS's are
|
||
filled with terms like attractive nuisance, it is clear that there is
|
||
a need to ask essential questions. Can we have appropriate controls
|
||
over certain illegal/unethical/ inappropriate behavior and, at the
|
||
same time, establish accountability over the behaviors of the police
|
||
and other control agents? How can we develop the rules of behavior,
|
||
using old laws, new technologies, and uncertain etiquette?
|
||
|
||
To help me answer these questions, I decided to reread Gary Marx's
|
||
book on undercover policing. He had written one of the few analytical
|
||
books that cover the dilemmas of covert policing in a democratic
|
||
society. His perspective on the issue is quite clear. In starting
|
||
his research for this book, Marx viewed undercover police tactics as
|
||
an *unnecessary* evil. In the course of his research, he reached the
|
||
conclusion, however reluctantly, that in the United States these
|
||
tactics are a *necessary* evil. As he explores the troubling issues of
|
||
covert policing in great detail, he documents the problems and
|
||
pitfalls rather than singing its praises. He also point out that it
|
||
is sometimes difficult to separate the heroes from the villains. This
|
||
is a book for the Information Age that I highly recommend.
|
||
|
||
One of the strengths of the book, and of sociologist Gary Marx's more
|
||
general work found in his many public speeches, articles, and research
|
||
reports, is the broadness of his analysis. While focusing on
|
||
undercover policing, he discusses a much broader set of insights on
|
||
the delicate and often difficult decisions that have to be made to
|
||
establish a society that is based on law as well as on order. He
|
||
makes clear that easy answers ("unhandcuff the police", "All
|
||
information is free") are non-answers. What is necessary is for
|
||
public policy to reach some new understandings on appropriate conduct,
|
||
both for computer users and for policing authorities.
|
||
|
||
Marx points out that undercover policing has developed from the
|
||
society at large rather than as a rogue activity. It is often stated
|
||
that a society gets the crime that it deserves. Similarly, we get the
|
||
policing that we accept. Covert policing developed as a result of
|
||
changing crime patterns, which included acts such as white collar
|
||
crimes and drug smuggling that were difficult to control with
|
||
traditional policing. Specific funding supports from the federal
|
||
government and changes in judicial and legislative priorities also
|
||
supported more active policing activities. Finally, new surveillance
|
||
technology allowed different types of police work. Undercover
|
||
policing was the child of major changes in our society.
|
||
|
||
The last chapter sums up his arguments about policing as well as the
|
||
larger issues of social change by discussing the new surveillance.
|
||
Whether humans or computers as informers, visual and audio
|
||
surveillance, electronic leashes or person truth technologies, there
|
||
is a steadily increasing technological way and technological will to
|
||
gather information on individuals. The new surveillance transcends
|
||
anything possible during earlier eras. It transcends, distance,
|
||
darkness, physical barriers, and time. It is often involuntary. It
|
||
is more intensive and more extensive. The result could mean a
|
||
maximum-security society.
|
||
|
||
How does this book help us to understand the cyberspace battles? In
|
||
some ways, that book can be seen as a counter-argument, both against
|
||
the Secret Service (and other computer crime-fighting organizations)
|
||
as well as against the EFF (and the other information freeing
|
||
organizations). Rather than taking a middle road that says both sides
|
||
of this argument are equally right or wrong, Marx suggests that in
|
||
democratic societies, we are faced with police techniques that offer
|
||
us a queasy ethical and moral paradox. "The choice between anarchy
|
||
and repression is not a happy one, wherever the balance is struck. We
|
||
are caught on the horns of a moral dilemma. In Machiavelli's words:
|
||
"...(P)rudence consists in knowing how to recognize the nature of the
|
||
difficulties and how to choose the least bad as good.' " The barbed
|
||
wire of the electronic age must have a different set of conditions.
|
||
|
||
The book draws out relevant questions and issues, not only about the
|
||
police but more about public policy. Marx presents what he calls a
|
||
compass, not a map. The questions that he raises should be seen as
|
||
navigational aids and not as a flight plan. He ventures to ask,
|
||
"Where and how should the lines (of appropriate police activities) be
|
||
drawn?" That is a good start for the development of electronic
|
||
rights.
|
||
|
||
For those who would like a more constitutional view of the policing
|
||
problem, I would also recommend the report from the U.S. Congress,
|
||
Office of Technology Assessment, CRIMINAL JUSTICE, NEW TECHNOLOGIES
|
||
AND THE LAW. This 1988 report, available from the Government Printing
|
||
Office (No. 052-003-01105-1, $2.75) is a useful supplement to the Marx
|
||
book.
|
||
|
||
********************************************************************
|
||
>> END OF THIS FILE <<
|
||
***************************************************************************
|
||
|
||
------------------------------
|
||
From: Jim Thomas >jthomas@well@sf.ca.us<
|
||
Subject: Review of PROTECTORS OF PRIVILEGE
|
||
Date: 14 June, 1991
|
||
|
||
********************************************************************
|
||
*** CuD #3.21: File 4 of 7: Review of PROTECTORS OF PRIVILEGE ***
|
||
********************************************************************
|
||
|
||
|
||
Review of: PROTECTORS OF PRIVILEGE: RED SQUADS AND POLICE REPRESSION
|
||
IN URBAN AMERICA, by Frank Donner. Berkeley: University of California
|
||
Press; 503 pp. $34.95 (cloth).
|
||
Reviewed by Jim Thomas, Northern Illinois University
|
||
|
||
Sandy Sherizen's review of Gary Marx's UNDERCOVER (file 3, this issue)
|
||
demonstrates the potential dangers of covert police work to the
|
||
cyberworld. Frank Donner's PROTECTORS OF PRIVILEGE extends Marx's work
|
||
by illustrating the potential dangers of state intrusion into the
|
||
lives of those who appear to challenge a preferred view of the world.
|
||
|
||
Imagine the following scenario dredged from the depths of paranoid
|
||
fantasies: Stodgy, a massive computer system into which over 750,000
|
||
customers call for benign services such as shopping by computer or
|
||
arranging travel plans, provides each customer with a package of
|
||
software that connects Stodgy's computer to each user's personal home
|
||
computer. Now, imagine that this software is highly proprietary and
|
||
nobody is really quite sure what it does when it is in the home
|
||
computer. It could provide many user-friendly conveniences, such as
|
||
replacing and deleting old versions of itself; it can scan the home
|
||
computer's operation system and files to assure smooth functioning and
|
||
non-disruption of other existing programs, and it assure smooth
|
||
communication between the home and master unit. However,
|
||
communication means that the home computer is giving information,
|
||
albeit of a benign technical nature, just as it is receiving it.
|
||
|
||
Now, add a different scenario. Law enforcement agents suspect that a
|
||
serial killer is also a computer afficianado and subscribes to Stodgy.
|
||
Agents request that Stodgy add a component to their software that
|
||
allows it to scan through all the files, and even deleted files, in a
|
||
user's home computer and transfer that information back to the offices
|
||
of Stodgy, who would in turn give it over to agents for analysis.
|
||
With such user-interface software, it becomes quite possible to
|
||
collect copious quantities of private, personal information from
|
||
millions of citizens and keep computerized files on citizens for the
|
||
professed noble goal of protecting the social order.
|
||
|
||
What does this have to do with Frank Donner's "Protectors of
|
||
Privilege?" The basis of a democratic society rests on the ability of
|
||
citizens to openly discuss competing ideas, challenge political power
|
||
and assemble freely with others. These fundamental First Amendment
|
||
rights are subverted when, through neglect, the state fails to protect
|
||
them. Worse, they are shattered when the state itself silences
|
||
political dissent and disrupts freedom of assembly.
|
||
|
||
PROTECTORS OF PRIVILEGE details silencing of the worst sort: State
|
||
agents who systematically used their power and resources to subvert
|
||
the democratic process by targeting generally law-abiding private
|
||
citizens for surveillance, "dirty tricks," or violence. Given the
|
||
revelations from the report of the Senate Select Committee on
|
||
Intelligence (Church Report) in 1975 and from other sources, it is
|
||
hardly a secret that local, state, and federal agencies have engaged
|
||
in extreme covert surveillance and disruption of groups or individuals
|
||
of whom they disapprove. However, Donner does not simply repeat what
|
||
we already know. The contribution of PROTECTORS OF PRIVILEGE lies
|
||
in Donner's meticulous research of the scope and depth of political
|
||
surveillance and in pulling together the voluminous data within an
|
||
implicit conflict paradigm (although he neither uses this term nor
|
||
alludes to his work in this fashion) to illustrate how surveillance
|
||
has historically been employed to protect the interests of those in
|
||
power in the guise of safeguarding democracy. The roots of political
|
||
surveillance, Donner argues, began with the state's intervention in
|
||
labor unrest in the nineteenth century. In Chicago, for example, the
|
||
police "unambiguously served as the arm of the dominant manufacturing
|
||
and commercial interests" and dispersed strikers, raided meetings, and
|
||
terrorized demonstrators (p. 11). By portraying labor activists as a
|
||
threat to the commonweal, the police acquired public support--or at
|
||
least tolerance--to subvert First Amendment rights of freedom of
|
||
speech and association.
|
||
|
||
Although Donner perhaps overstates the quiescence of labor and radical
|
||
groups in the early twentieth century, he correctly identifies
|
||
Depression-era activism as the source of a new phase of government
|
||
suppression. Former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, in MASTERS OF
|
||
DECEIT, equated Communism with cancer, and cancer was a disease to be
|
||
eradicated. Hoover's views and policies serve as an icon for
|
||
understanding the fear of a nebulous social menace that justified the
|
||
organization of special, usually secret, "red squads" within police
|
||
agencies of large urban cities in the post-depression years, and the
|
||
social unrest of the 1960s further stimulated data acquisition on and
|
||
disruption of those whose politics were judged as unacceptable.
|
||
|
||
Donner devotes the bulk of his study to the period between 1960-80,
|
||
and and focuses on the major U.S. cities (Chicago, New York,
|
||
Philadelphia, Los Angeles). Drawing from court documents, files
|
||
obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, media accounts, and
|
||
other sources, an image emerges of law enforcement run amok in its
|
||
efforts to amass information, much of it useless or fabricated, to
|
||
disrupt dissenters who appeared excessively liberal, and to attack
|
||
those who challenged police authority. Donner's controlled
|
||
indignation is relatively restrained, and he relies on the power of
|
||
chilling examples of law enforcement abuses to convey the message that
|
||
political surveillance had far less to do with maintaining social
|
||
stability than in protecting the interests of a dominant class on one
|
||
hand and enhancing the careers of cynical politicians or police
|
||
officials on the other.
|
||
|
||
Lest his readers be left with the impression that the subversion of
|
||
Constitutionally protected rights of political expression by the state
|
||
was simply an anomaly occuring only in a few large cities, Donner
|
||
includes a chapter on "second tier" cities, including Detroit,
|
||
Baltimore, and Washington D.C. The pattern of abusive surveillance
|
||
duplicates the larger cities, suggesting that excesses were the norm,
|
||
not the exception.
|
||
|
||
Donner's work would be valuable if it were only a history of official
|
||
abuse in our nation's recent past. But, his work is much more than
|
||
simply a chronicle. Although most agencies have at least attempted to
|
||
curtail the most serious forms of abuse--albeit only when forced to as
|
||
the result of public outrage or legal action--there is no evidence
|
||
that the surveillance has stopped. The FBI's monitoring of of
|
||
political organizations such as CISPES or the Secret Service's
|
||
creation of a "sting" computer bulletin board system in a way that
|
||
contradicts the "official" explanation of it, are just two recent
|
||
examples that challenge claims that surveillance is under control.
|
||
Computer technology creates a new danger for those concerned with
|
||
surveillance. Law enforcement now has the technological means to
|
||
monitor activities and process data infinitely more comprehensively,
|
||
quickly, and surreptitiously than a decade ago. Donner's work reminds
|
||
us that an open society can in no way tolerate threats to our liberty
|
||
from those entrusted to protect it.
|
||
|
||
Just as I completed writing the above review, I noticed the following
|
||
news article:
|
||
|
||
"Killing Columnist Plotted, Liddy Says" (Chicago Tribune, (June
|
||
13, 1991: Sect. 1, p. 2):
|
||
|
||
New York (AP)--In their first face-to-face meeting, G. Gordon
|
||
Liddy, mastermind of the bungled Watergate burglary, told
|
||
columnist Jack Anderson that the president's men vetoed plans to
|
||
silence the newsman.
|
||
|
||
"The rationale was to come up with a method of silencing you
|
||
through killing you," Liddy tells Anderson on "The Real Story," a
|
||
news show to be shown Thursday night on cable TV's CNBC.
|
||
|
||
With not a hint of irony, the story continues that the White House
|
||
thought such a sanction was too severe. Rumors of this have been
|
||
floating around for awhile, but it's the first time, to my knowledge,
|
||
a participant has made a public comment, but there's something so
|
||
postmodernly absurd about talking about it F2F on national TV in the
|
||
same way that the galloping gourmet would trade recipes with Julia.
|
||
Marx's and Donner's cynicism in and distrust of gov't seens terribly
|
||
understated if we can so serenely turn a potential gov't murder plot
|
||
into TV fare.
|
||
|
||
Given the government's actions in Operation Sun Devil and other abuse
|
||
of existing law enforcement procedures, concern for protections of
|
||
rights in cyberspace seem crucial.
|
||
|
||
********************************************************************
|
||
>> END OF THIS FILE <<
|
||
***************************************************************************
|
||
|
||
------------------------------
|
||
|
||
From: Kevin Kehoe
|
||
Subject: Review of THE INFORMATION WEB
|
||
Date: 20 Apr 91 19:55:45
|
||
|
||
********************************************************************
|
||
*** CuD #3.21: File 5 of 7: Review of THE INFORMATION WEB ***
|
||
********************************************************************
|
||
|
||
Review of: THE INFORMATION WEB: ETHICAL AND SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS
|
||
IN COMPUTER NETWORKING
|
||
Author: Carol C. Gould
|
||
Reviewed by: Kevin Kehoe
|
||
|
||
In "The Information Web: Ethical and Social Implications of Computer
|
||
Networking", Carol C. Gould brings together papers from a number of
|
||
sources, ranging in concentration from philosopher to chemist to
|
||
physicist. Each gives their own views on the shape of ethics in
|
||
computing and technology as a whole today (and in the future).
|
||
|
||
Topics range from formal and implied rights of privacy (whether a
|
||
person is giving implied consent to have/relinquish his/her privacy by
|
||
using the system in the first place); whether computer conferencing
|
||
can be considered a public or private forum; the case of privacy vs. a
|
||
person or persons' right to know; whether or not a violation of
|
||
computer privacy (e.g. breaking into medical records) comprises a
|
||
violation of personal privacy, or if the two are legally and morally
|
||
separated by the same technological boundary that brought them
|
||
together in the first place; the benefits & dangers of performing
|
||
scientific research and the dissemination of the results of that
|
||
research through a network; voting with computers (how it effects
|
||
democracy, the social effects of voting in such a totally neutral
|
||
atmosphere); the moral responsibility inherent in all forms of
|
||
technology; our growing reliance on electronic information (will it
|
||
ever reach a point where the computers have more control than the
|
||
humans? or has it already?); the ethics involved in computer crimes --
|
||
how viruses, hackers, and security methods all inter-mesh in a way
|
||
that leaves many things open to interpretation; personal ethics vs
|
||
professional (an excellent example of a chemist who's hired to create
|
||
a deadly disease -- should he be allowed to restrict its use after
|
||
realizing its incredible potential?); and how to handle the voluntary
|
||
and involuntary disclosure of company-private information.
|
||
|
||
Gould did an excellent job of putting the book together --she
|
||
assembled a group of people in the ethics project that not only made
|
||
valid points, but they did so in a way that was logical and clear.
|
||
(Far too many aspects of ethics today have proven markedly vague. But
|
||
perhaps that's just another part of the whole concept of trying to
|
||
define an ethic or ethics to begin with.)
|
||
|
||
The book was published by Westview Press (ISBN 0-8133-0699-X) 5500
|
||
Central Avenue, Boulder, CO 80301.
|
||
|
||
I highly recommend it as a read for anyone who's interested in
|
||
computer ethics and privacy; particularly for those who have a
|
||
definite feeling on the subject, but aren't able to adequately
|
||
articulate their views -- these papers may well serve that purpose.
|
||
|
||
********************************************************************
|
||
>> END OF THIS FILE <<
|
||
***************************************************************************
|
||
|
||
------------------------------
|
||
|
||
From: Rambo Pacifist@placid.com.uunet.uu.net
|
||
Subject: Hollywood Hacker Sentenced
|
||
Date: Sun, 9 Jun 91 09:29:09 PDT
|
||
|
||
********************************************************************
|
||
*** CuD #3.21: File 6 of 7: Hollywood Hacker Sentenced ***
|
||
********************************************************************
|
||
|
||
"Writer Gets Probation in Sting at Fox." From THE LA TIMES,
|
||
May 29, 1991, p. B-3 (Metro Section). By John Kendall.
|
||
|
||
Free-lance writer Stuart Goldman pleaded no contest Tuesday to three
|
||
felony charges of illegally entering Fox Televisions computer system
|
||
and stealing story ideas planted by Los Angeles police in a sting
|
||
operation.
|
||
|
||
In a plea bargain presented by prosecutors and approved by Superior
|
||
Court Judge Richard Neidorf, the 45-year-old self-proclaimed muckraker
|
||
was placed on five years' probation and ordered to pay $90,000 in
|
||
restitution, reduced to $12,000 with Fox's approval.
|
||
|
||
The judge ordered Goldman to serve 120 days in County Jail but stayed
|
||
the sentence.
|
||
|
||
Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Lowenstein moved for dismissal of four
|
||
additional counts of entry of a computer illegally. Goldman's
|
||
no-contest pleas were tantamount to admitting guilt, the prosecutor
|
||
said.
|
||
|
||
Despite the pleas, Goldman continued to insist outside the courtroom
|
||
Tuesday that Hollywood-based Fox had attempted to silence him.
|
||
|
||
"There's been an effort by Fox Television to silence me and, as far as
|
||
I'm concerned, that's what this case was all about," Goldman told
|
||
reporters.
|
||
|
||
Attorney James E. Hornstein, representing Fox Television, denied
|
||
Goldman's charge. He said his client had agreed to reduce the
|
||
court-ordered restitution from $90,000 to $12,000 on Goldman's "plea
|
||
and statement that he is indigent."
|
||
|
||
"Throughout these proceedings, Mr. Goldman has tried to argue that
|
||
someone was out to get him," Hornstein said. "The only victims in
|
||
these proceedings were the computers of "A Current Affair which Mr.
|
||
Goldman has admitted by the plea he accessed illegally."
|
||
|
||
Goldman was arrested at his Studio City apartment in March of last
|
||
year by Secret Service agents and Los Angeles police who confiscated a
|
||
personal computer, floppy disks, Rolodexes and a loaded .38 caliber
|
||
handgun.
|
||
|
||
Prosecutors accused Goldman of using a password apparently gained when
|
||
the journalist worked briefly for "A Current Affair" to enter the Fox
|
||
production's computer system. They charged that Goldman stole bogus
|
||
tips, including one involving "Ronald Reagan Jr.'s Lover," and
|
||
attempted to sell the items to a national tabloid magazine.
|
||
|
||
In an interview with The Times last year Goldman explained that he was
|
||
engaged in a free-lance undercover inquiry of gossip news-papers and
|
||
TV shows, and he claimed that his arrest was a setup to get him.
|
||
|
||
"These people will look very foolish when they get into court,"
|
||
Goldman insisted at the time. "I'm a good guy, and I'm going to prove
|
||
it. This is going to be the biggest soap opera you ever saw."
|
||
|
||
After his arrest, Goldman said he was writing a book about his
|
||
experience as a former gossip media insider who once attacked
|
||
feminists, gays and other targets in vitriolic columns in the National
|
||
Review.
|
||
|
||
After Tuesday's court session, Goldman vowed to publish his completed
|
||
book, "Snitch," as soon as possible.
|
||
|
||
Neidorf ordered authorities to return Goldman's computer.
|
||
|
||
"I'm sure you know now that computers will get you in trouble," the
|
||
judge said. "If you don't, I'll see you back in her again."
|
||
|
||
********************************************************************
|
||
>> END OF THIS FILE <<
|
||
***************************************************************************
|
||
|
||
------------------------------
|
||
|
||
From: Barbara E. McMullen and John F. McMullen
|
||
Subject: Len Rose Sentenced (Reprint from Newsbytes)
|
||
Date: 12 June, 1991
|
||
|
||
********************************************************************
|
||
*** CuD #3.21: File 7 of 7: Len Rose Sentenced ***
|
||
********************************************************************
|
||
|
||
LEN ROSE SENTENCED TO 1 YEAR 06/12/91
|
||
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, U.S.A., 1991 JUNE 12 (NB) -- Leonard Rose, Jr., a
|
||
computer consultant also known as "Terminus", was sentenced to a year
|
||
and a day in prison for charges relating to unauthorized sending of
|
||
AT&T UNIX source code via telephone to another party. Rose is
|
||
scheduled to begin serving his sentence on July 10th.
|
||
|
||
The original indictment against Rose was for interstate transportation
|
||
of stolen property and violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
|
||
but those charges were dropped and replaced by a single charge of wire
|
||
fraud under a plea agreement entered into in March. The charges
|
||
involving the violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act had been
|
||
challenged in a friend of the court brief filed in January by the
|
||
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) who challenged the statute as
|
||
"unconstitutionally vague and overbroad and in violation of the First
|
||
Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and association." The issues
|
||
raised by EFF were not resolved as the charges to which they objected
|
||
were dropped as part of the plea agreement.
|
||
|
||
In his plea, Rose admitted to receiving misappropriated UNIX source
|
||
code and modifying it to introduce a trojan horse into the login
|
||
procedures; the trojan horse would allow its developer to collect
|
||
passwords from unsuspecting persons logging on to a system containing
|
||
this code. Rose admitted that he transmitted the modified code via
|
||
telephone lines to a computer operator in Lockport, IL and a student
|
||
account at the University of Missouri. He also admitted putting
|
||
warnings in the transmitted code saying "Warning: This is AT&T
|
||
proprietary source code. DO NOT get caught with it."
|
||
|
||
U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz, in sentencing Rose, ordered him
|
||
to sell his computer equipment and to inform potential employers of
|
||
his conviction. Assistant United States Attorney Geoffrey Garinther,
|
||
who prosecuted Rose, explained these portions of the sentence to
|
||
Newsbytes, saying "The equipment was seized as evidence during the
|
||
investigation and was only returned to him as part of the agreement
|
||
when it became evident that he had no means of supporting his wife and
|
||
two children. It was returned to him for the sole purpose of selling
|
||
the equipment for this purpose and, although he has not yet sold it,
|
||
he has shown evidence of efforts to do so. The judge just formalized
|
||
the earlier agreement in his sentence. The duty to inform potential
|
||
employers puts the burden of proof on him to insure that he is not
|
||
granted "Root" privileges on a system without the employer's
|
||
knowledge."
|
||
|
||
Garinther added "I don't have knowledge of the outcome of all the
|
||
cases of this type in the country but I'm told that this is one of the
|
||
stiffest sentences a computer hacker has received. I'm satisfied
|
||
about the outcome."
|
||
|
||
Jane Macht, attorney for Rose, commenting to Newsbytes on the
|
||
sentence, said "The notification of potential employers was a
|
||
negotiated settlement to allow Len to work during the three years of
|
||
his supervised release while satisfying the government's concern that
|
||
employers be protected." Macht also pointed out that many reports of
|
||
the case had glossed over an important point,"This is not a computer
|
||
intrusion or security case; it was rather a case involving corporate
|
||
computer software property rights. There were no allegations that Len
|
||
broke into anyone's system. Further, there are no reported cases of
|
||
anyone installing his modified code on any system. It should be
|
||
understood that it would require a system manager or someone else with
|
||
'superuser' status to install this routine into the UNIX login
|
||
procedure. The publishing of the routine did not, as has been
|
||
reported, open the door to a marked increase in unauthorized computer
|
||
access."
|
||
|
||
Macht said that she believed that Rose had reached an agreement to
|
||
sell the computer equipment. He had been offering it through the
|
||
Internet for $6,000, the amount required to prepay his rent for the
|
||
length of his prison sentence. Because of his financial circumstances,
|
||
which Macht referred to as a "negative net worth", the judge did not
|
||
order any restitution payments from Rose to AT&T.
|
||
|
||
(Barbara E. McMullen & John F. McMullen/19910612)
|
||
|
||
********************************************************************
|
||
|
||
------------------------------
|
||
|
||
**END OF CuD #3.21**
|
||
********************************************************************
|
||
|
||
|
||
|