99 lines
6.2 KiB
Plaintext
99 lines
6.2 KiB
Plaintext
(*> The Great Satellite Caper <*)
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(*> Reprinted without permission from TIME Magazine <*)
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(*> Typed by ZiGGY <*)
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Hacker's arrests point up the growing problem of system security
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It started innocuously enough: a credit card costomer in Conneticutt opened
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his monthly statement and noticed a charge for a peice of electronic equipment
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that he had never purchased. By last week that apparent billing error had
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blossomed int a full-fledged hacker scandal and led to the arrest of seven New
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Jersey teenagers who were charged with conspiracy and using their home
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computers and telephone hookups to commit computer theft.
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According to police, who confiscated $30,000 worth of computer equipment and
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hundreds of floppy disks, the youths had exchanged stolen credit card numbers,
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bypasses long-distance telephone fees, traded supposedly secret fone numbers
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(including those of Pentagon [Gasp!] officials), and published instructions on
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how to build a letter bomb. But most remarkable of all, the first reports
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said, the youngsters had even managed to shift the orbit of one or more
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comunication satellites. That feat, the New York Post decided, was worth a
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front page head line: WHIZ KIDS ZAP U.S. SATELLITES.
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It was the latest real-life version of War Games, in which an ingenious
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teenager penetrates a sensitive military computer system and nearly sets off
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World War III. Two years sgo, for instance, the story was re-enacted by the
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so-called 414 Gang, a group of Milwaukee-area youths who managed to break into
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various computer systems all over the US.
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The new Jersey episode assumed heroic proportions when Middlesex County
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Prosecuter Alan Rockoff that the youths, in addition to carrying on other
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mischief, had been "Changing the positions of the satellites up in the blue
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heavens." That achievment, if true, could have disrupted the telefone an telex
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communications on two continents. Officials from AT&T and Comsat hastily
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denied that anything of the sort had taken place. In fact, the computers that
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control the satelites cannot be reached by the lines of public fones. By
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week's end the prosecuter's office was quietly backing away from its most
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startling assertion, but to most Americans, the satellite caper remained real,
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a dramatic reminder for a bright youngster steeped inthe secret arts of the
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computer age, anything is possible. Says Stephen Levey, author of Hackers:
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"It's an immensley seductive myth, that a kid with a computer can bring a
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powerful institution to it's knees."
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Last spring postal authorities traced the Conneticut credit card purchase and
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a string of other fraudulent transactions to a post office box in Soutn
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Plainfield New Jersey. Someone was using the box to take delivery of sterio
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and radar-detection equipment ordered through a computerized mail order
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catalog. The trail led to a young New jersey enthusiast who used the alias
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"New Jersey Hack Sack" and communicated regularly with other computer owners in
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a loosley organized network of electronic bulletin boards. A computer search
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of the contents of those boards by detective GEORGE GREEN and patrolman MICHAEL
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GRENNIER, who is something of a hacker himself, yeilded a flood of gossip,
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advice, tall tales, and hard information, including excerpts from an AT&T
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satellite manual, dozens of secret telephone numbers, and lists of stolen
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credit card numbers.
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The odd mix was not unique to the suspect bulliten boards. Explains DONN
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PARKER, a computer crime expert at SRI International in Menlo Park, California:
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"Hacking is a meritocracy. You rise in the culture depending on the
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information you can supply to other hackers. It's like trading bubble gum
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cards." ( <- Whatta ass!)
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Some of the information posted by the New Jersey hackers may have been
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gleaned by cracking supposedly secure systems. Other data, like the access
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numbers of remote computers, were probably gatheres automatically by so called
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"demon dialers", programs that search the phone system for online computers by
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dialing every number within an area code. "In some cases penetrating a
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computer system is extremely difficult and requires a great deal of knowledge
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and luck" says PARKER. "In others it's as simple as dialing into a bulletin
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board and finding the passwords that other kids have left." And sometimes it's
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even simpler than that. Two of the New Jersey youths admitted that at least
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one of the credit card numbers they used had not come from a computer but from
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a slip of carbon paper retreived from a trash can.
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No matter how mundane, the actions of the New jersey hackers have again
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focused national attention on a real and growing problem: how to safeguard the
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information that is stored inside of computers. Americans now carry more than
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600 million credit and charge cards, many of them allowing at least partial
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access to a computerized banking system that moves over $400 billion every day.
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Corporate data blanks hold consumer records and business plans worth untold
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billions more.
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Alerted to the threat by earlier break-ins, corporations and government
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agencies have been moving to shore up their systems. Many have issued multiple
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layers of password protection, imposing strict dicipline on the security of
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passwords and requiring users to change their passwords frequently. Others
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have installed scrambling devices that encode sensitive data before they are
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sent over the wires. Audit trails make crime detection easier by keeping
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permanent record of who did what within a system. Dialback services help keep
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out unauthorized users by recording each callers ID number, disconnecting the
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call and then re-dialing only that telefone number authorized to the holder of
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the ID.
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All told, U.S. business spent $600 million on security equipment and
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software. By 1993, according to DataPro research, security systems should
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exceed $2 billion annually. in addition to the cost, these measures tend to
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make the systems less "friendly," in the jargon of the trade. But computer
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operators who keep their systems casual may be courting trouble. Says SRI's
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PARKER: "These are sush reasonable, cost-effective steps that managers who
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don't use them pretty much deserve what they get."
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