133 lines
6.2 KiB
Plaintext
133 lines
6.2 KiB
Plaintext
H-NET H-NET H-NET H-NET H-NET H-NET H-NET H
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N N
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E ** H-Net Magazine ** E
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T T
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H Volume One, Issue 1, File #13 of 20 H
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N N
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E Hacking SIGNET, logfile by WEAZLE E
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T T
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H-NET H-NET H-NET H-NET H-NET H-NET H-NET H
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CONNECT 1200
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8p8p8p8p8p8p8p8p8p8p8p8p8p8p8p8p8p8p
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Login: XXXXX
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Password:
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Please wait....
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Welcome to the Special Intelligence Government NETwork....
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****** ***** ***** ** * ****** ********
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* * * * * * * **
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****** * * *** * * * ****** **
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* * * * * * * * **
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****** ***** ***** * ** ****** **
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[256/879/SIGNET001/1H6C6L]
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: P.S.T.N. Access logged, last used 05/FEB/1990 13:20 GMT.
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> ls
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? unknown command 'LS'
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> help
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HELP knows about :
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CRIS CCN STATUS IVAN CEDRIC PNC
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CAFS FTR CDIIIU CODA CODIN1 COP
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> help ftr
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.
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FTR [ Free Text Retrieval System] [SIGNET/help/0065458inf/ftr]
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FTR makes searching for random items of information much faster than
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previous methods. A search taking half an hour is a very long time indeed
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by computer standards. The use of such time on a large system such as
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SIGNET is also costly.
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To make searching a database more efficient, more than one element may be
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indexed.
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FTR takes an alternative approach. Suppose, for example, that we want to
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perform a search on unstructered data like the text in this file. Free text
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retrieval can do that for us. A newpaper article - or thousands of other
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potential data sources like it - could be fed into a database, without
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predefining any structure or context for the data concerned, and every
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substantive word of every record would be indexed. So every occurence of
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any data item - whether it be in a newspaper report, a criminal records
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file, a report from an informant, the electoral register - can rapidly be
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located. The characteristic of free text storage is that there is no need
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to define in advance what data will be entered or to define any structure
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within which the given data will appear.
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Because every significant word (other than common words like 'the', 'of' or
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'for') in the SIGNET FTR database is indexed unless the user chooses
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otherwise, a lot of extra space is required. Instead of, say, one 5
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gigabyte disc store, we should probably need three, for the same amount of
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basic data stored. The SIGNET computers' processor also has to be larger,
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since as well as answering the terminal operators enquiries, it would have
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to maintain the many indexes, keeping them up to date as new data was
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entered, deleted, amended or moved around the storage system. For this
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reason, the extra expense of operating an FTR system can only be met by
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organisations - such as SIGNET - who expect many of their enquiries of the
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database to be of the unstructured, unpredictable kind.
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Another aspect of FTR is the ability to provide a dictionary, thesaurus or
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'concordance' of equivalent or similar terms or phrases. Different people
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entering data into the system may use different terms or descriptions for
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the same attribute - for example, by describing eye colour variously as
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'blue-grey', 'grey' or 'blue-green'; or light brown hair as 'fair' or just
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'brown'. Such a dictionary system will also make an allowance for such
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things as phonetically equivalent or near-equivalent names - for example, by
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treating Smythe, Smith, Smiths and Schmitt as the same when searching the
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database. The SIGNET computer uses a particularly extensive system of this
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kind, called Soundex, when searching its criminal names or 'marked persons'
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indexes.
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When making an enquiry of the SIGNET FTR database the usual practice is to
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specify various words, names or attributes, and the ways in which they might
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occur together. The separate paragraphs of this text file form some of the
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many records in the SIGNET database which usesd FTR. An Operative arrives
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with news that a reliable informant has phoned to say that a man called
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Young and, of all people, a vicar or a priest, whose name is unknown, plan
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to murder a man known as Sandy. Typed on the VDU screen, the enquiry could
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look something like this :
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FIND : Young + [vicar,priest] + Sandy
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This is an instruction to the FTR software to look for any record which
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contains the name Young, refers to a vicar or a priest and to someone called
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Sandy. There is no point in looking at everybody called Young - there would
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be too many. But someone who is called Young and who is associated with a
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priest or a vicar and with a man called Sandy, might be a very good bet
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indeed.
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The SIGNET FTR system should search and reply within twelve seconds.
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Other FTR systems which can be accessed via SIGNET :
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STATUS - Met. Special Branch & 'C Department'.
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IVAN - Home Office (immigration service).
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CEDRIC - Customs and Excise.
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Also, of course, PNC, the Police National Computer.
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ADDENDUM :
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The power of computers to handle and analyse large quantities of personal
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data was - until recently - constrained by technical limitations on the
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absorption of information. Printed information, such as a magazine article,
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was not 'machine-readable'. Until recently this meant that a human operator
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had to enter information into the computer's memory store. Database
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operators can now feed a magazine, newspaper or ordinary typed report page
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by page into a scanner; the computer 'reads' the page using optical
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character recognition (OCR), no further typing is needed.
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End.
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.
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> logout
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OK
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===============================================================================
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[Hackernet BBS,LEEDS,UK(0532)557739, 24hrs. Home of H-Net Hacking magazine]
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