4139 lines
211 KiB
Plaintext
4139 lines
211 KiB
Plaintext
Telecommunications Digest
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The following files are taken from numerous sources regarding
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telecommunications, infringement issues, and numberous other issues.
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Some of the material contained herein is of a "sensitive" nature
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in that the subjects are often misinterpreted.
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This information has been carefully reviewed by members of Doc's
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House BBS for content and compliance with applicable Federal Regulations
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and we decided it appropriate to release to educate and enlighten the
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computer hobbist community.
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In one article, you will note that the U.S. Government has dropped
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all charges regarding certain "defendants" in what has been previously
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reported as: The 911 Affair.......we will attempt to see if further articles
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exist on that case and others herein regarding improper interception of
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E-Mail, hardware, or electronic media by agencies which appear to be
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outside the normal "balance" of legal investigative authority versus
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individual and civil Constitutional and Federal rights.
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DISCLAIMER: THIS INFORMATION HAS ALREADY APPEARED IN THE WALL STREET
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JOURNAL, BUSINESS MAGAZINES, AND NUMEROUS PRINT AND
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ELECTRONIC MEDIA SOURCES. None of the information is
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known nor marked proprietary, nor is any of the informa-
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tion of a nature which would cause improper actions or
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illegal actions by any party. Further, none of these
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articles would, to our knowledge, allow a reader to
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improperly gain access to another's electronic system.
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Released 06/01/91 Doc's House BBS (614) 855-3114
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350meg HST V.42bis 2400 - 19200
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Concerning Hackers Who Break into Computer Systems
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Dorothy E. Denning
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Digital Equipment Corp., Systems Research Center
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130 Lytton Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94301
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415-853-2252, denning@src.dec.com
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Abstract
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A diffuse group of people, often called ``hackers,'' has been
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characterized as unethical, irresponsible, and a serious danger to
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society for actions related to breaking into computer systems. This
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paper attempts to construct a picture of hackers, their concerns,
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and the discourse in which hacking takes place. My initial findings
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suggest that hackers are learners and explorers who want to help
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rather than cause damage, and who often have very high standards
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of behavior. My findings also suggest that the discourse surrounding
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hacking belongs at the very least to the gray areas between larger
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conflicts that we are experiencing at every level of society and
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business in an information age where many are not computer literate.
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These conflicts are between the idea that information cannot be owned
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and the idea that it can, and between law enforcement and the First
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and Fourth Amendments. Hackers have raised serious issues about
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values and practices in an information society. Based on my findings,
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I recommend that we work closely with hackers, and suggest several
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actions that might be taken.
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1. Introduction
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The world is crisscrossed with many different networks that are used
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to deliver essential services and basic necessities -- electric power,
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water, fuel, food, goods, to name a few. These networks are all
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publicly accessible and hence vulnerable to attacks, and yet virtually
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no attacks or disruptions actually occur.
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The world of computer networking seems to be an anomaly in the
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firmament of networks. Stories about attacks, breakins, disruptions,
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theft of information, modification of files, and the like appear
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frequently in the newspapers. A diffuse group called ``hackers''
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is often the target of scorn and blame for these actions. Why are
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computer networks any different from other vulnerable public networks?
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Is the difference the result of growing pains in a young field?
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Or is it the reflection of deeper tensions in our emerging information
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society?
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There are no easy or immediate answers to these questions. Yet it
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is important to our future in a networked, information-dependent
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world that we come to grips with them. I am deeply interested in
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them. This paper is my report of what I have discovered in the early
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stages of what promises to be a longer investigation. I have
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concentrated my attention in these early stages on the hackers
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themselves. Who are they? What do they say? What motivates them?
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What are their values? What do that have to say about public policies
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regarding information and computers? What do they have to say about
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computer security?
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From such a profile I expect to be able to construct a picture of
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the discourses in which hacking takes place. By a discourse I mean
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the invisible background of assumptions that transcends individuals
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and governs our ways of thinking, speaking, and acting. My initial
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findings lead me to conclude that this discourse belongs at the very
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least to the gray areas between larger conflicts that we are
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experiencing at every level of society and business, the conflict
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between the idea that information cannot be owned and the idea that
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it can, and the conflict between law enforcement and the First and
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Fourth Amendments.
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But, enough of the philosophy. On with the story!
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2. Opening Moves
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In late fall of 1989, Frank Drake (not his real name), editor of
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the now defunct cyberpunk magazine W.O.R.M., invited me to be
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interviewed for the magazine. In accepting the invitation, I hoped
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that something I might say would discourage hackers from breaking
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into systems. I was also curious about the hacker culture. This
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seemed like a good opportunity to learn about it.
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The interview was conducted electronically. I quickly discovered
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that I had much more to learn from Drake's questions than to teach.
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For example, he asked: ``Is providing computer security for large
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databases that collect information on us a real service? How do
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you balance the individual's privacy vs. the corporations?'' This
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question surprised me. Nothing that I had read about hackers ever
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suggested that they might care about privacy. He also asked: ``What
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has (the DES) taught us about what the government's (especially NSA's)
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role in cryptography should be?'' Again, I was surprised to discover
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a concern for the role of the government in computer security. I
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did not know at the time that I would later discover considerable
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overlap in the issues discussed by hackers and those of other computer
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professionals.
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I met with Drake to discuss his questions and views. After our
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meeting, we continued our dialog electronically with me interviewing
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him. This gave me the opportunity to explore his views in greater
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depth. Both interviews appear in ``Computers Under Attack,''
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edited by Peter Denning (DenningP90).
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My dialog with Drake increased my curiosity about hackers. I read
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articles and books by or about hackers. In addition, I had discussions
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with nine hackers whom I will not mention by name. Their ages ranged
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from 17 to 28.
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The word ``hacker'' has taken on many different meanings ranging
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from 1) ``a person who enjoys learning the details of computer systems
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and how to stretch their capabilities'' to 2) ``a malicious or
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inquisitive meddler who tries to discover information by poking around
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... possibly by deceptive or illegal means ...'' (Steele83). The
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hackers described in this paper are both learners and explorers who
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sometimes perform illegal actions. However, all of the hackers I
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spoke with said they did not engage in or approve of malicious acts
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that damage systems or files. Thus, this paper is not about malicious
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hackers. Indeed, my research so far suggests that there are very
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few malicious hackers. Neither is this paper about career criminals
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who, for example, defraud businesses, or about people who use stolen
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credit cards to purchase goods. The characteristics of many of the
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hackers I am writing about are summed up in the words of one of the
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hackers: ``A hacker is someone who experiments with systems...
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(Hacking) is playing with systems and making them do what they were
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never intended to do. Breaking in and making free calls is just
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a small part of that. Hacking is also about freedom of speech and
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free access to information -- being able to find out anything. There
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is also the David and Goliath side of it, the underdog vs. the system,
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and the ethic of being a folk hero, albeit a minor one.''
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Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation who calls
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himself a hacker according to the first sense of the word above,
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recommends calling security-breaking hackers ``crackers''
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(Stallman84). While this description may be more accurate, I shall
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use the term ``hacker'' since the people I am writing about call
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themselves hackers and all are interested in learning about computer
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and communication systems. However, there are many people like
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Stallman who call themselves hackers and do not engage in illegal
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or deceptive practices; this paper is also not about those hackers.
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In what follows I will report on what I have learned about hackers
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from hackers. I will organize the discussion around the principal
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domains of concerns I observed. I recommend Meyer's thesis (Meyer89)
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for a more detailed treatment of the hackers' social culture and
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networks, and Meyer and Thomas (MeyerThomas90) for an interesting
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interpretation of the computer underground as a postmodernist rejection
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of conventional culture that substitutes ``rational technological
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control of the present for an anarchic and playful future.''
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I do not pretend to know all the concerns that hackers have, nor
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do I claim to have conducted a scientific study. Rather, I hope
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that my own informal study motivates others to explore the area
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further. It is essential that we as computer security professionals
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take into account hackers' concerns in the design of our policies,
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procedures, laws regulating computer and information access, and
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educational programs. Although I speak about security-breaking hackers
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as a group, their competencies, actions, and views are not all the
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same. Thus, it is equally important that our policies and programs
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take into account individual differences.
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In focusing on what hackers say and do, I do not mean for a moment
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to set aside the concerns of the owners and users of systems that
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hackers break into, the concerns of law enforcement personnel, or
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our own concerns as computer security professionals. But I do
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recommend that we work closely with hackers as well as these other
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groups to design new approaches and programs for addressing the
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concerns of all. Like ham radio operators, hackers exist, and it
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is in our best interest that we learn to communicate and work with
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them rather than against them.
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I will suggest some actions that we might consider taking, and I
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invite others to reflect on these and suggest their own. Many of
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these suggestions are from the hackers themselves; others came from
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the recommendations of the ACM Panel on Hacking (Lee86) and from
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colleagues.
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I grouped the hackers' concerns into five categories: access to
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computers and information for learning; thrill, excitement and
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challenge; ethics and avoiding damage; public image and treatment;
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and privacy and first amendment rights. These are discussed in
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the next five subsections. I have made an effort to present my
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findings as uncritical observations. The reader should not infer
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that I either approve or disapprove of actions hackers take.
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3. Access to Computers and Information for Learning
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Although Levy's book ``Hackers'' (Levy84) is not about today's
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security-breaking hackers, it articulates and interprets a ``hacker
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ethic'' that is shared by many of these hackers. The ethic includes
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two key principles that were formulated in the early days of the
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AI Lab at MIT: ``Access to computers -- and anything which might
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teach you something about the way the world works -- should be
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unlimited and total,'' and ``All information should be free.'' In
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the context in which these principles were formulated, the computers
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of interest were research machines and the information was software
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and systems information.
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Since Stallman is a leading advocate of open systems and freedom
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of information, especially software, I asked him what he means by
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this. He said: ``I believe that all generally useful information
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should be free. By `free' I am not referring to price, but rather
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to the freedom to copy the information and to adapt it to one's own
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uses.'' By ``generally useful'' he does not include confidential
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information about individuals or credit card information, for example.
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He further writes: ``When information is generally useful,
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redistributing it makes humanity wealthier no matter who is
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distributing and no matter who is receiving.'' Stallman has argued
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strongly against user interface copyright, claiming that it does
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not serve the users or promote the evolutionary process (Stallman90).
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I asked hackers whether all systems should be accessible and all
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information should be free. They said that it is OK if some systems
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are closed and some information, mainly confidential information
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about individuals, is not accessible. They make a distinction between
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information about security technology, e.g., the DES, and confidential
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information protected by that technology, arguing that it is the
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former that should be accessible. They said that information hoarding
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is inefficient and slows down evolution of technology. They also
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said that more systems should be open so that idle resources are
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not wasted. One hacker said that the high costs of communication
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hurts the growth of the information economy.
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These views of information sharing seem to go back at least as far
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as the 17th and 18th centuries. Samuelson (Samuelson89) notes that
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``The drafters of the Constitution, educated in the Enlightenment
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tradition, shared that era's legacy of faith in the enabling powers
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of knowledge for society as well as the individual.'' She writes
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that our current copyright laws, which protect the expression of
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information, but not the information itself, are based on the belief
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that unfettered and widespread dissemination of information promotes
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technological progress. (Similarly for patent laws which protect
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devices and processes, not the information about them.) She cites
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two recent court cases where courts reversed the historical trend
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and treated information as ownable property. She raises questions
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about whether in entering the Information Age where information is
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the source of greatest wealth, we have outgrown the Enlightenment
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tradition and are coming to treat information as property.
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In a society where knowledge is said to be power, Drake expressed
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particular concern about what he sees as a growing information gap
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between the rich and poor. He would like to see information that
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is not about individuals be made public, although it could still
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be owned. He likes to think that companies would actually find it
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to their advantage to share information. He noted how IBM's disclosure
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of the PC allowed developers to make more products for the computers,
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and how Adobe's disclosure of their fonts helped them compete against
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the Apple-Microsoft deal. He recognizes that in our current political
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framework, it is difficult to make all information public, because
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complicated structures have been built on top of an assumption that
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certain information will be kept secret. He cites our defense policy,
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which is founded on secrecy for military information, as an example.
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Hackers say they want access to information and computing and network
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resources in order to learn. Both Levy (Levy84) and Landreth
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(Landreth89) note that hackers have an intense, compelling interest
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in computers and learning, and many go into computers as a profession.
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Some hackers break into systems in order to learn more about how
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the systems work. Landreth says these hackers want to remain
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undiscovered so that they can stay on the system as long as possible.
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Some of them devote most of their time to learning how to break the
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locks and other security mechanisms on systems; their background
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in systems and programming varies considerably. One hacker wrote
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``A hacker sees a security hole and takes advantage of it because
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it is there, not to destroy information or steal. I think our
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activities would be analogous to someone discovering methods of
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acquiring information in a library and becoming excited and perhaps
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engrossed.''
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We should not underestimate the effectiveness of the networks in
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which hackers learn their craft. They do research, learn about
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systems, work in groups, write, and teach others. One hacker said
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that he belongs to a study group with the mission of churning out
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files of information and learning as much as possible. Within the
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group, people specialize, collaborate on research projects, share
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information and news, write articles, and teach others about their
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areas of specialization. Hackers have set up a private system of
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education that engages them, teaches them to think, and allows them
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to apply their knowledge in purposeful, if not always legal,
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activity. Ironically, many of our nation's classrooms have been
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criticized for providing a poor learning environment that seems to
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emphasize memorization rather than thinking and reasoning. One hacker
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reported that through volunteer work with a local high school, he
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was trying to get students turned on to learning.
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Many hackers say that the legitimate computer access they have through
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their home and school computers do not meet their needs. One student
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told me that his high school did not offer anything beyond elementary
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courses in BASIC and PASCAL, and that he was bored by these. Hans
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Huebner, a hacker in Germany who goes by the name Pengo, wrote in
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a note to the RISKS Forum (Huebner89) : ``I was just interested in
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computers, not in the data which has been kept on their disks. As
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I was going to school at that time, I didn't even have the money
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to buy my own computer. Since CP/M (which was the most sophisticated
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OS I could use on machines which I had legal access to) didn't turn
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me on anymore, I enjoyed the lax security of the systems I had access
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to by using X.25 networks. You might point out that I should have
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been patient and waited until I could go to the university and
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use their machines. Some of you might understand that waiting was
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just not the thing I was keen on in those days.''
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Brian Harvey, in his position paper (Harvey86) for the ACM Panel on
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Hacking, claims that the computer medium available to students, e.g.,
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BASIC and floppy disks, is inadequate for challenging intellectual
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work. His recommendation is that students be given access to real
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computing power, and that they be taught how to use that power
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responsibly. He describes a program he created at a public high school
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in Massachusetts during the period 1979-1982. They installed a
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PDP-11/70 and let students and teachers carry out the administration
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of the system. Harvey assessed that putting the burden of dealing
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with the problems of malicious users on the students themselves was
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a powerful educational force. He also noted that the students who
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had the skill and interest to be password hackers were discouraged
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from this activity because they also wanted to keep the trust of
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their colleagues in order that they could acquire ``superuser'' status
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on the system.
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Harvey also makes an interesting analogy between teaching computing
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and teaching karate. In karate instruction, students are introduced
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to the real, adult community. They are given access to a powerful,
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deadly weapon, and at the same time are taught discipline and
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responsibility. Harvey speculates that the reason that students
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do not misuse their power is that they know they are being trusted
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with something important, and they want to live up to that trust.
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Harvey applied this principle when he set up the school system.
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The ACM panel endorsed Harvey's recommendation, proposing a
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three-tiered computing environment with local, district-wide, and
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nation-wide networks. They recommended that computer professionals
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participate in this effort as mentors and role models. They also
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recommended that government and industry be encouraged to establish
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regional computing centers using donated or re-cycled equipment;
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that students be apprenticed to local companies either part-time
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on a continuing basis or on a periodic basis; and, following a
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suggestion from Felsenstein (Felsenstein86) for a ``Hacker's League,''
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that a league analogous to the Amateur Radio Relay League be
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established to make contributed resources available for educational
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purposes.
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Drake said he liked these recommendations. He said that if hackers
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were given access to powerful systems through a public account system,
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they would supervise themselves. He also suggested that Computer
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Resource Centers be established in low-income areas in order to help
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the poor get access to information. Perhaps hackers could help run
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the centers and teach the members of the community how to use the
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facilities. One of my colleagues suggested cynically that the hackers
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would only use this to teach the poor how to hack rich people's
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systems. A hacker responded by saying this was ridiculous; hackers
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would not teach people how to break into systems, but rather how
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to use computers effectively and not be afraid of them.
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In addition, the hackers I spoke with who had given up illegal
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activities said they stopped doing so when they got engaged in other
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work.
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Geoff Goodfellow and Richard Stallman have reported that they have
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given hackers accounts on systems that they manage, and that the
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hackers have not misused the trust granted to them. Perhaps
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universities could consider providing accounts to pre-college students
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on the basis of recommendations from their teachers or parents.
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The students might be challenged to work on the same homework problems
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assigned in courses or to explore their own interests. Students
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who strongly dislike the inflexibility of classroom learning might
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excel in an environment that allows them to learn on their own, in
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much the way that hackers have done.
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4. Thrill, Excitement, and Challenge
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One hacker wrote that ``Hackers understand something basic about
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computers, and that is that they can be enjoyed. I know none who
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hack for money, or hack to frighten the company, or hack for anything
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but fun.''
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In the words of another hacker, ``Hacking was the ultimate cerebral
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buzz for me. I would come home from another dull day at school,
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turn my computer on, and become a member of the hacker elite. It
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was a whole different world where there were no condescending adults
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and you were judged only by your talent. I would first check in
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to the private Bulletin Boards where other people who were like me
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would hang out, see what the news was in the community, and trade
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some info with people across the country. Then I would start actually
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hacking. My brain would be going a million miles an hour and I'd
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basically completely forget about my body as I would jump from one
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computer to another trying to find a path into my target. It was
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the rush of working on a puzzle coupled with the high of discovery
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many magnitudes intensified. To go along with the adrenaline rush
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was the illicit thrill of doing something illegal. Every step I made
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could be the one that would bring the authorities crashing down on
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me. I was on the edge of technology and exploring past it, spelunking
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into electronic caves where I wasn't supposed to be.''
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||
The other hackers I spoke with made similar statements about the
|
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fun and challenge of hacking. In SPIN magazine (Dibbel90), reporter
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Julian Dibbell speculated that much of the thrill comes from the
|
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dangers associated with the activity, writing that ``the technology
|
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just lends itself to cloak-and-dagger drama,'' and that ``hackers
|
||
were already living in a world in which covert action was nothing
|
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more than a game children played.''
|
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Eric Corley (Corley89) characterizes hacking as an evolved form of
|
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mountain climbing. In describing an effort to construct a list of
|
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active mailboxes on a Voice Messaging System, he writes ``I suppose
|
||
the main reason I'm wasting my time pushing all these buttons is
|
||
simply so that I can make a list of something that I'm not supposed
|
||
to have and be the first person to accomplish this.'' He said that
|
||
he was not interested in obtaining an account of his own on the system.
|
||
Gordon Meyer says he found this to be a recurring theme: ``We aren't
|
||
supposed to be able to do this, but we can'' -- so they do.
|
||
|
||
One hacker said he was now working on anti-viral programming. He
|
||
said it was almost as much fun as breaking into systems, and that
|
||
it was an intellectual battle against the virus author.
|
||
|
||
|
||
5. Ethics and Avoiding Damage
|
||
|
||
|
||
All of the hackers I spoke with said that malicious hacking was morally
|
||
wrong. They said that most hackers are not intentionally malicious,
|
||
and that they themselves are concerned about causing accidental
|
||
damage. When I asked Drake about the responsibility of a person
|
||
with a PC and modem, his reply included not erasing or modifying
|
||
anyone else's data, and not causing a legitimate user on a system
|
||
any problems. Hackers say they are outraged when other hackers cause
|
||
damage or use resources that would be missed, even if the results
|
||
are unintentional and due to incompetence. One hacker wrote ``I
|
||
have ALWAYS strived to do NO damage, and to inconvenience as few people
|
||
as possible. I NEVER, EVER, EVER DELETE A FILE. One of the first
|
||
commands I do on a new system is disable the delete file command.''
|
||
Some hackers say that it is unethical to give passwords and similar
|
||
security-related information to persons who might do damage. In
|
||
the recent incident where a hacker broke into Bell South and downloaded
|
||
a text file on the emergency 911 service, hackers say that there
|
||
was no intention to use this knowledge to break into or sabotage
|
||
the 911 system. According to Emmanuel Goldstein (Goldstein90), the
|
||
file did not even contain information about how to break into the
|
||
911 system.
|
||
|
||
The hackers also said that some break-ins were unethical, e.g.,
|
||
breaking into hospital systems, and that it is wrong to read
|
||
confidential information about individuals or steal classified
|
||
information. All said it was wrong to commit fraud for personal
|
||
profit.
|
||
|
||
Although we as computer security professionals often disagree with
|
||
hackers about what constitutes damage, the ethical standards listed
|
||
here sound much like our own. Where the hackers' ethics differ from
|
||
the standards adopted by most in the computer security community
|
||
is that hackers say it is not unethical to break into many systems,
|
||
use idle computer and communications resources, and download system
|
||
files in order to learn. Goldstein says that hacking is not wrong:
|
||
it is not the same as stealing, and uncovers design flaws and security
|
||
deficiencies (Goldstein89).
|
||
|
||
Brian Reid, a colleague at Digital who has spoken with many hackers,
|
||
speculates that a hacker's ethics may come from not being raised
|
||
properly as a civilized member of society, and not appreciating the
|
||
rules of living in society. One hacker responded to this with ``What
|
||
does `being brought up properly' mean? Some would say that it is
|
||
`good' to keep to yourself, mind your own business. Others might
|
||
argue that it is healthy to explore, take risks, be curious and
|
||
discover.'' Brian Harvey (Harvey86) notes that many hackers are
|
||
adolescents, and that adolescents are at a less advanced stage of
|
||
moral development than adults, where they might not see how the effects
|
||
of their actions hurt others. Larry Martin (Martin89) claims that
|
||
parents, teachers, the press, and others in society are not aware
|
||
of their responsibility to contribute to instilling ethical values
|
||
associated with computer use. This could be the consequence of the
|
||
youth of the computing field; many people are still computer illiterate
|
||
and cultural norms may be lagging behind advances in technology and
|
||
the growing dependency on that technology by businesses and society.
|
||
Hollinger and Lanza-Kaduce (HollingerLanza-Kaduce88) speculate that
|
||
the cultural normative messages about the use and abuse of computer
|
||
technology have been driven by the adoption of criminal laws in the
|
||
last decade. They also speculate that hacking may be encouraged
|
||
during the process of becoming computer literate. Some of my
|
||
colleagues say that hackers are irresponsible. One hacker responded
|
||
``I think it's a strong indication of the amount of responsibility
|
||
shown that so FEW actually DAMAGING incidents are known.''
|
||
|
||
But we must not overlook that the differences in ethics also reflect
|
||
a difference in philosophy about information and information handling
|
||
resources; whereas hackers advocate sharing, we seem to be advocating
|
||
ownership as property. The differences also represent an opportunity
|
||
to examine our own ethical behavior and our practices for information
|
||
sharing and protection. For example, one hacker wrote ``I will accept
|
||
that it is morally wrong to copy some proprietary software, however,
|
||
I think that it is morally wrong to charge $6000 for a program that
|
||
is only around 25K long.'' Hence, I shall go into a few of the ethical
|
||
points raised by hackers more closely. It is not a simple case of
|
||
good or mature (us) against bad or immature (hackers), or of teaching
|
||
hackers a list of rules.
|
||
|
||
Many computer professionals such as Martin (Martin89) argue the moral
|
||
questions by analogy. The analogies are then used to justify their
|
||
judgment of a hacker's actions as unethical. Breaking into a system
|
||
is compared with breaking into a house, and downloading information
|
||
and using computer and telecommunications services is compared with
|
||
stealing tangible goods. But, say hackers, the situations are not
|
||
the same. When someone breaks into a house, the objective is to
|
||
steal goods, which are often irreplaceable, and property is often
|
||
damaged in the process. By contrast, when a hacker breaks into a
|
||
system, the objective is to learn and avoid causing damage. Downloaded
|
||
information is copied, not stolen, and still exists on the original
|
||
system. Moreover, as noted earlier, information has not been
|
||
traditionally regarded as property. Dibbel (Dibbel90) says that
|
||
when the software industries and phone companies claim losses of
|
||
billions of dollars to piracy, they are not talking about goods that
|
||
disappear from the shelves and could have been sold.
|
||
|
||
We often say that breaking into a system implies a lack of caring
|
||
for the system's owner and authorized users. But, one hacker says
|
||
that the ease of breaking into a system reveals a lack of caring
|
||
on the part of the system manager to protect user and company assets,
|
||
or failure on the part of vendors to warn managers about the
|
||
vulnerabilities of their systems. He estimated his success rate
|
||
of getting in at 10-15%, and that is without spending more than an
|
||
hour on any one target system. Another hacker says that he sees
|
||
messages from vendors notifying the managers, but that the managers
|
||
fail to take action.
|
||
|
||
Richard Pethia of CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) reports
|
||
that they seldom see cases of malicious damage caused by hackers,
|
||
but that the break-ins are nevertheless disruptive because system
|
||
users and administrators want to be sure that nothing was damaged.
|
||
(CERT suggests that sites reload system software from secure backups
|
||
and change all user passwords in order to protect against possible
|
||
back doors and Trojan Horses that might have been planted by the
|
||
hacker. Pethia also noted that prosecutors are generally called
|
||
for government sites, and are being called for non-government sites
|
||
with increasing frequency.) Pethia says that break-ins also generate
|
||
a loss of trust in the computing environment, and may lead to adoption
|
||
of new policies that are formulated in a panic or management edicts
|
||
that severely restrict connectivity to outside systems. Brian Harvey
|
||
says that hackers cause damage by increasing the amount of paranoia,
|
||
which in turn leads to tighter security controls that diminish the
|
||
quality of life for the users. Hackers respond to these points by
|
||
saying they are the scapegoats for systems that are not adequately
|
||
protected. They say that the paranoia is generated by ill-founded
|
||
fears and media distortions (I will return to this point later),
|
||
and that security need not be oppressive to keep hackers out; it
|
||
is mainly making sure that passwords and system defaults are
|
||
well chosen.
|
||
|
||
Pethia says that some intruders seem to be disruptive to prove a
|
||
point, such as that the systems are vulnerable, the security personnel
|
||
are incompetent, or ``it's not nice to say bad things about hackers.''
|
||
In the N.Y. Times, John Markoff (Markoff90) wrote that the hacker
|
||
who claimed to have broken into Cliff Stoll's system said he was
|
||
upset by Stoll's portrayal of hackers in ``The Cuckoo's Egg''
|
||
(Stoll90). Markoff reported that the caller said: ``He (Stoll)
|
||
was going on about how he hates all hackers, and he gave pretty much
|
||
of a one-sided view of who hackers are.''
|
||
|
||
``The Cuckoo's Egg'' captures many of the popular stereotypes of
|
||
hackers. Criminologist Jim Thomas criticizes it for presenting a
|
||
simplified view of the world, one where everything springs from the
|
||
forces of light (us) or of darkness (hackers) (Thomas90). He claims
|
||
that Stoll fails to see the similarities between his own activities
|
||
(e.g., monitoring communications, ``borrowing'' monitors without
|
||
authorization, shutting off network access without warning, and lying
|
||
to get information he wants) and those of hackers. He points out
|
||
Stoll's use of pejorative words such as ``varmint'' to describe
|
||
hackers, and Stoll's quote of a colleague: ``They're technically
|
||
skilled but ethically bankrupt programmers without any respect for
|
||
others' work -- or privacy. They're not destroying one or two
|
||
programs. They're trying to wreck the cooperation that builds our
|
||
networks,'' (Stoll90, p. 159). Thomas writes ``at an intellectual
|
||
level, it (Stoll's book) provides a persuasive, but simplistic, moral
|
||
imagery of the nature of right and wrong, and provides what -- to
|
||
a lay reader -- would seem a compelling justification for more statutes
|
||
and severe penalties against the computer underground. This is
|
||
troublesome for two reasons. First, it leads to a mentality of social
|
||
control by law enforcement during a social phase when some would
|
||
argue we are already over-controlled. Second, it invokes a punishment
|
||
model that assumes we can stamp out behaviors to which we object
|
||
if only we apprehend and convict a sufficient number of violators.
|
||
... There is little evidence that punishment will in the long run
|
||
reduce any given offense, and the research of Gordon Meyer and I
|
||
suggests that criminalization may, in fact, contribute to the growth
|
||
of the computer underground.''
|
||
|
||
|
||
6. Public Image and Treatment
|
||
|
||
|
||
Hackers express concern about their negative public image and
|
||
identity. As noted earlier, hackers are often portrayed as being
|
||
irresponsible and immoral. One hacker said that ``government
|
||
propaganda is spreading an image of our being at best, sub-human,
|
||
depraved, criminally inclined, morally corrupt, low life. We need
|
||
to prove that the activities that we are accused of (crashing systems,
|
||
interfering with life support equipment, robbing banks, and jamming
|
||
911 lines) are as morally abhorrent to us as they are to the general
|
||
public.''
|
||
|
||
The public identity of an individual or group is generated in part
|
||
by the actions of the group interacting with the standards of the
|
||
community observing those actions. What then accounts for the
|
||
difference between the hacker's public image and what they say about
|
||
themselves? One explanation may be the different standards. Outside
|
||
the hacking community, the simple act of breaking into systems is
|
||
regarded as unethical by many. The use of pejorative words like
|
||
``vandal'' and ``varmint'' reflect this discrepency in ethics. Even
|
||
the word ``criminal'' carries with it connotations of someone evil;
|
||
hackers say they are not criminal in this sense. Katie Hafner notes
|
||
that Robert Morris Jr., who was convicted of launching the Internet
|
||
worm, was likened to a terrorist even though the worm did not destroy
|
||
data (Hafner90)
|
||
|
||
Distortions of events and references to potential threats also create
|
||
an image of persons who are dangerous. Regarding the 911 incident
|
||
where a hacker downloaded a file from Bell South, Goldstein reported
|
||
``Quickly, headlines screamed that hackers had broken into the 911
|
||
system and were interfering with emergency telephone calls to the
|
||
police. One newspaper report said there were no indications that
|
||
anyone had died or been injured as a result of the intrusions. What
|
||
a relief. Too bad it wasn't true,'' (Goldstein90). In fact, the
|
||
hackers involved with the 911 text file had not broken into the 911
|
||
system. The dollar losses attributed to hacking incidents also are
|
||
often highly inflated.
|
||
|
||
Thomas and Meyer (ThomasMeyer90) say that the rhetoric depicting
|
||
hackers as a dangerous evil contributes to a ``witch hunt'' mentality,
|
||
wherein a group is first labeled as dangerous, and then enforcement
|
||
agents are mobilized to exorcise the alleged social evil. They see
|
||
the current sweeps against hackers as part of a reaction to a broader
|
||
fear of change, rather than to the actual crimes committed.
|
||
|
||
Hackers say they are particularly concerned that computer security
|
||
professionals and system managers do not appear to understand hackers
|
||
or be interested in their concerns. Hackers say that system managers
|
||
treat them like enemies and criminals, rather than as potential helpers
|
||
in their task of making their systems secure. This may reflect
|
||
managers' fears about hackers, as well as their responsibilities
|
||
to protect the information on their systems. Stallman says that
|
||
the strangers he encounters using his account are more likely to
|
||
have a chip on their shoulder than in the past; he attributes this
|
||
to a harsh enforcer mentality adopted by the establishment. He says
|
||
that network system managers start out with too little trust and
|
||
a hostile attitude toward strangers that few of the strangers deserve.
|
||
One hacker said that system managers show a lack of openness to those
|
||
who want to learn.
|
||
|
||
Stallman also says that the laws make the hacker scared to communicate
|
||
with anyone even slightly ``official,'' because that person might
|
||
try to track the hacker down and have him or her arrested. Drake
|
||
raised the issue of whether the laws could differentiate between
|
||
malicious and nonmalicious hacking, in support of a ``kinder, gentler''
|
||
relationship between hackers and computer security people. In fact,
|
||
many states such as California initially passed computer crime laws
|
||
that excluded malicious hacking; it was only later that these laws
|
||
were amended to include nonmalicious actions (HollingerLanza-Kaduce88).
|
||
Hollinger and Lanza-Kaduce speculate that these amendments and other
|
||
new laws were catalyzed mainly by media events, especially the reports
|
||
on the ``414 hackers'' and the movie ``War Games,'' which created
|
||
a perception of hacking as extremely dangerous, even if that perception
|
||
was not based on facts.
|
||
|
||
Hackers say they want to help system managers make their systems
|
||
more secure. They would like managers to recognize and use their
|
||
knowledge about system vulnerabilities. Landreth (Landreth89)
|
||
suggests ways in which system managers can approach hackers in order
|
||
to turn them into colleagues, and Goodfellow also suggests befriending
|
||
hackers (Goodfellow83). John Draper (Cap'n Crunch) says it would
|
||
help if system managers and the operators of phone companies and
|
||
switches could cooperate in tracing a hacker without bringing in
|
||
law enforcement authorities.
|
||
|
||
Drake suggests giving hackers free access in exchange for helping
|
||
with security, a suggestion that I also heard from several hackers.
|
||
Drake says that the current attitude of treating hackers as enemies
|
||
is not very conducive to a solution, and by belittling them, we only
|
||
cause ourselves problems.
|
||
|
||
I asked some of the hackers whether they'd be interested in breaking
|
||
into systems if the rules of the ``game'' were changed so that instead
|
||
of being threatened by prosecution, they were invited to leave a
|
||
``calling card'' giving their name, phone number, and method of
|
||
breaking in. In exchange, they would get recognition and points
|
||
for each vulnerability they discovered. Most were interested in
|
||
playing; one hacker said he would prefer monetary reward since he
|
||
was supporting himself. Any system manager interested in trying
|
||
this out could post a welcome message inviting hackers to leave their
|
||
cards. This approach could have the advantage of not only letting
|
||
the hackers contribute to the security of the system, but of allowing
|
||
the managers to quickly recognize the potentially malicious hackers,
|
||
since they are unlikely to leave their cards. Perhaps if hackers
|
||
are given the opportunity to make contributions outside the
|
||
underground, this will dampen their desire to pursue illegal activities.
|
||
|
||
Several hackers said that they would like to be able to pursue their
|
||
activities legally and for income. They like breaking into systems,
|
||
doing research on computer security, and figuring out how to protect
|
||
against vulnerabilities. They say they would like to be in a position
|
||
where they have permission to hack systems. Goodfellow suggests
|
||
hiring hackers to work on tiger teams that are commissioned to locate
|
||
vulnerabilities in systems through penetration testing. Baird
|
||
Info-Systems Safeguards, Inc., a security consulting firm, reports
|
||
that they have employed hackers on several assignments (Baird87).
|
||
They say the hackers did not violate their trust or the trust of
|
||
their clients, and performed in an outstanding manner. Baird believes
|
||
that system vulnerabilities can be better identified by employing
|
||
people who have exploited systems.
|
||
|
||
One hacker suggested setting up a clearinghouse that would match
|
||
hackers with companies that could use their expertise, while
|
||
maintaining anonymity of the hackers and ensuring confidentiality
|
||
of all records. Another hacker, in describing an incident where
|
||
he discovered a privileged account without a password, said ``What
|
||
I (and others) wish for is a way that hackers can give information
|
||
like this to a responsible source, AND HAVE HACKERS GIVEN CREDIT
|
||
FOR HELPING! As it is, if someone told them that `I'm a hacker, and
|
||
I REALLY think you should know...' they would freak out, and run
|
||
screaming to the SS (Secret Service) or the FBI. Eventually, the
|
||
person who found it would be caught, and hauled away on some crazy
|
||
charge. If they could only just ACCEPT that the hacker was trying
|
||
to help!'' The clearinghouse could also provide this type of service.
|
||
|
||
Hackers are also interested in security policy issues. Drake expressed
|
||
concern over how we handle information about computer security
|
||
vulnerabilities. He argues that it is better to make this information
|
||
public than cover it up and pretend that it does not exist, and cites
|
||
the CERT to illustrate how this approach can be workable. Other
|
||
hackers, however, argue for restricting initial dissemination of
|
||
flaws to customers and users. Drake also expressed concern about
|
||
the role of the government, particularly the military, in
|
||
cryptography. He argues that NSA's opinion on a cryptographic standard
|
||
should be taken with a large grain of salt because of their code
|
||
breaking role.
|
||
|
||
Some security specialists are opposed to hiring hackers for security
|
||
work, and Eugene Spafford has urged people not to do business with
|
||
any company that hires a convicted hacker to work in the security
|
||
area (ACM90). He says that ``This is like having a known arsonist
|
||
install a fire alarm.'' But, the laws are such that a person can
|
||
be convicted for having done nothing other than break into a system;
|
||
no serious damage (i.e., no ``computer arson'') is necessary. Many
|
||
of our colleagues, including Geoff Goodfellow (Goodfellow83) and
|
||
Brian Reid (Frenkel87), admit to having broken into systems in the
|
||
past. Reid is quoted as saying that because of the knowledge he gained
|
||
breaking into systems as a kid, he was frequently called in to help
|
||
catch people who break in. Spafford says that times have changed,
|
||
and that this method of entering the field is no longer socially
|
||
acceptable, and fails to provide adequate training in computer science
|
||
and computer engineering (Spafford89). However, from what I have
|
||
observed, many hackers do have considerable knowledge about
|
||
telecommunications, data security, operating systems, programming
|
||
languages, networks, and cryptography. But, I am not challenging
|
||
a policy to hire competent people of sound character. Rather, I
|
||
am challenging a strict policy that uses economic pressure to close
|
||
a field of activity to all persons convicted of breaking into
|
||
systems. It is enough that a company is responsible for the behavior
|
||
of its employees. Each hacker can be considered for employment based
|
||
on his or her own competency and character.
|
||
|
||
Some people have called for stricter penalties for hackers, including
|
||
prison terms, in order to send a strong deterrent message to hackers.
|
||
John Draper, who was incarcerated for his activities in the 1970's,
|
||
argues that in practice this will only make the problem worse. He
|
||
told me that he was forced under threat to teach other inmates his
|
||
knowledge of communications systems. He believes that prison sentences
|
||
will serve only to spread hacker's knowledge to career criminals.
|
||
He said he was never approached by criminals outside the prison,
|
||
but that inside the prison they had control over him.
|
||
|
||
One hacker said that by clamping down on the hobbyist underground,
|
||
we will only be left with the criminal underground. He said that
|
||
without hackers to uncover system vulnerabilities, the holes will
|
||
be left undiscovered, to be utilized by those likely to cause real
|
||
damage.
|
||
|
||
Goldstein argues that the existing penalties are already way out
|
||
of proportion to the acts committed, and that the reason is because
|
||
of computers (Goldstein89). He says that if Kevin Mitnick had
|
||
committed crimes similar to those he committed but without a computer,
|
||
he would have been classified as a mischief maker and maybe fined
|
||
$100 for trespassing; instead, he was put in jail without bail
|
||
(Goldstein89). Craig Neidorf, a publisher and editor of the electronic
|
||
newsletter ``Phrack,'' faces up to 31 years and a fine of $122,000
|
||
for receiving, editing, and transmitting the downloaded text file
|
||
on the 911 system (Goldstein90). (Since the time I wrote this, a new
|
||
indictment was issued with penalties of up to 65 years in prison.
|
||
Neidorf went on trial beginning July 23. The trial ended July 27
|
||
when the government dropped all charges. DED)
|
||
|
||
7. Privacy and the First and Fourth Amendments
|
||
|
||
The hackers I spoke with advocated privacy protection for sensitive
|
||
information about individuals. They said they are not interested
|
||
in invading people's privacy, and that they limited their hacking
|
||
activities to acquiring information about computer systems or how
|
||
to break into them. There are, of course, hackers who break into
|
||
systems such as the TRW credit database. Emanuel Goldstein argues
|
||
that such invasions of privacy took place before the hacker arrived
|
||
(Harpers90). Referring to credit reports, government files, motor
|
||
vehicle records, and the ``megabytes of data piling up about each
|
||
of us,'' he says that thousands of people legally can see and use
|
||
this data, much of it erroneous. He claims that the public has been
|
||
misinformed about the databases, and that hackers have become
|
||
scapegoats for the holes in the systems. One hacker questioned the
|
||
practice of storing sensitive personal information on open systems
|
||
with dial-up access, the accrual of the information, the methods
|
||
used to acquire it, and the purposes to which it is put. Another
|
||
hacker questioned the inclusion of religion and race in credit records.
|
||
Drake told me that he was concerned about the increasing amount of
|
||
information about individuals that is stored in large data banks,
|
||
and the inability of the individual to have much control over the
|
||
use of that information. He suggests that the individual might be
|
||
co-owner of information collected about him or her, with control
|
||
over the use of that information. He also says that an individual
|
||
should be free to withhold personal information, of course paying
|
||
the consequences of doing so (e.g., not getting a drivers license
|
||
or credit card). In fact, all Federal Government forms are required
|
||
to contain a Privacy Act Statement that states how the information
|
||
being collected will be used and, in some cases, giving the option
|
||
of withholding the information.
|
||
|
||
Goldstein has also challenged the practices of law enforcement agencies
|
||
in their attempt to crack down on hackers (Goldstein90). He said
|
||
that all incoming and outgoing electronic mail used by ``Phrack''
|
||
was monitored before the newsletter was shutdown by authorities.
|
||
``Had a printed magazine been shut down in this fashion after having
|
||
all of their mail opened and read, even the most thick-headed
|
||
sensationalist media types would have caught on: hey, isn't that
|
||
a violation of the First Amendment?'' He also cites the shutdown
|
||
of several bulletin boards as part of Operation Sun Devil, and quotes
|
||
the administrator of the bulletin board Zygot as saying ``Should
|
||
I start reading my users' mail to make sure they aren't saying anything
|
||
naughty? Should I snoop through all the files to make sure everyone
|
||
is being good? This whole affair is rather chilling.'' The
|
||
administrator for the public system The Point wrote ``Today, there
|
||
is no law or precedent which affords me ... the same legal rights
|
||
that other common carriers have against prosecution should some other
|
||
party (you) use my property (The Point) for illegal activities.
|
||
That worries me ...''
|
||
|
||
About 40 personal computer systems and 23,000 data disks were seized
|
||
under Operation Sun Devil, a two-year investigation involving the
|
||
FBI, Secret Service, and other federal and local law enforcement
|
||
officials. In addition, the Secret Service acknowledges that its
|
||
agents, acting as legitimate users, had secretly monitored computer
|
||
bulletin boards (Markoff90a). Markoff reports that California
|
||
Representative Don Edwards, industry leader Mitchell Kapor, and civil
|
||
liberties advocates are alarmed by these government actions, saying
|
||
that they challenge freedom of speech under the First Amendment and
|
||
protection against searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment.
|
||
Markoff asks: ``Will fear of hackers bring oppression?''
|
||
|
||
John Barlow writes ``The Secret Service may actually have done a
|
||
service for those of us who love liberty. They have provided us
|
||
with a devil. And devils, among their other galvanizing virtues,
|
||
are just great for clarifying the issues and putting iron in your
|
||
spine,'' (Barlow90). Some of the questions that Barlow says need
|
||
to be addressed include ``What are data and what is free speech?
|
||
How does one treat property which has no physical form and can be
|
||
infinitely reproduced? Is a computer the same as a printing press?''
|
||
Barlow urges those of us who understand the technology to address
|
||
these questions, lest the answers be given to us by law makers and
|
||
law enforcers who do not. Barlow and Kapor are constituting a
|
||
foundation to ``raise and disburse funds for education, lobbying,
|
||
and litigation in the areas relating to digital speech and the
|
||
extension of the Constitution into Cyberspace.''
|
||
|
||
8. Conclusions
|
||
|
||
|
||
Hackers say that it is our social responsibility to share information,
|
||
and that it is information hoarding and disinformation that are the
|
||
crimes. This ethic of resource and information sharing contrasts
|
||
sharply with computer security policies that are based on authorization
|
||
and ``need to know.'' This discrepancy raises an interesting question:
|
||
Does the hacker ethic reflect a growing force in society that stands
|
||
for greater sharing of resources and information -- a reaffirmation
|
||
of basic values in our constitution and laws? It is important that
|
||
we examine the differences between the standards of hackers, systems
|
||
managers, users, and the public. These differences may represent
|
||
breakdowns in current practices, and may present new opportunities
|
||
to design better policies and mechanisms for making computer resources
|
||
and information more widely available.
|
||
|
||
The sentiment for greater information sharing is not restricted to
|
||
hackers. In the best seller, ``Thriving on Chaos,'' Tom Peters
|
||
(Peters87) writes about sharing within organizations: ``Information
|
||
hoarding, especially by politically motivated, power-seeking staffs,
|
||
has been commonplace throughout American industry, service and
|
||
manufacturing alike. It will be an impossible millstone around the
|
||
neck of tomorrow's organizations. Sharing is a must.'' Peters argues
|
||
that information flow and sharing is fundamental to innovation and
|
||
competitiveness. On a broader scale, Peter Drucker (Drucker89) says
|
||
that the ``control of information by government is no longer possible.
|
||
Indeed, information is now transnational. Like money, it has no
|
||
`fatherland.' ''
|
||
|
||
Nor is the sentiment restricted to people outside the computer security
|
||
field. Harry DeMaio (DeMaio89) says that our natural urge is to
|
||
share information, and that we are suspicious of organizations and
|
||
individuals who are secretive. He says that information is exchanged
|
||
out of ``want to know'' and mutual accommodation rather than ``need
|
||
to know.'' If this is so, then some of our security policies are
|
||
out of step with the way people work. Peter Denning (DenningP89)
|
||
says that information sharing will be widespread in the emerging
|
||
worldwide networks of computers and that we need to focus on ``immune
|
||
systems'' that protect against mistakes in our designs and recover
|
||
from damage.
|
||
|
||
I began my investigation of hackers with the question, who are they
|
||
and what is their culture and discourse? My investigation uncovered
|
||
some of their concerns, which provided the organizational structure
|
||
to this paper, and several suggestions for new actions that might
|
||
be taken. My investigation also opened up a broader question: What
|
||
conflict in society do hackers stand at the battle lines of? Is
|
||
it owning or restricting information vs. sharing information -- a
|
||
tension between an age-old tradition of controlling information as
|
||
property and the Englightenment tradition of sharing and disseminating
|
||
information? Is it controlling access based on ``need to know,''
|
||
as determined by the information provider, vs. ``want to know,''
|
||
as determined by the person desiring access? Is it law enforcement
|
||
vs. freedoms granted under the First and Fourth Amendments? The
|
||
answers to these questions, as well as those raised by Barlow on
|
||
the nature of information and free speech, are important because
|
||
they tell us whether our policies and practices serve us as well
|
||
as they might. The issue is not simply hackers vs. system managers
|
||
or law enforcers; it is a much larger question about values and
|
||
practices in an information society.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Acknowledgments
|
||
|
||
I am deeply grateful to Peter Denning, Frank Drake, Nathan Estey,
|
||
Katie Hafner, Brian Harvey, Steve Lipner, Teresa Lunt, Larry Martin,
|
||
Gordon Meyer, Donn Parker, Morgan Schweers, Richard Stallman, and
|
||
Alex for their comments on earlier versions of this paper and helpful
|
||
discussions; to Richard Stallman for putting me in contact with
|
||
hackers; John Draper, Geoff Goodfellow, Brian Reid, Eugene Spafford,
|
||
Dave, Marcel, Mike, RGB, and the hackers for helpful discussions;
|
||
and Richard Pethia for a summary of some of his experiences at CERT.
|
||
The opinions expressed here, however, are my own and do not necessarily
|
||
represent those of the people mentioned above or of Digital Equipment
|
||
Corporation.
|
||
|
||
|
||
References
|
||
|
||
|
||
ACM90
|
||
``Just say no,'' Comm. ACM, Vol. 33, No. 5, May 1990, p. 477.
|
||
|
||
Baird87
|
||
Bruce J. Baird, Lindsay L. Baird, Jr., and Ronald P. Ranauro, ``The
|
||
Moral Cracker?,'' Computers and Security, Vol. 6, No. 6, Dec. 1987,
|
||
p. 471-478.
|
||
|
||
Barlow90
|
||
John Barlow, ``Crime and Puzzlement,'' June 1990, to appear in Whole
|
||
Earth Review.
|
||
|
||
Corley89
|
||
Eric Corley, ``The Hacking Fever,'' in Pamela Kane, V.I.R.U.S.
|
||
Protection, Bantam Books, New York, 1989, p. 67-72.
|
||
|
||
DeMaio89
|
||
Harry B. DeMaio, ``Information Ethics, a Practical Approach,''
|
||
Proc. of the 12th National Computer Security Conference, 1989,
|
||
p. 630-633.
|
||
|
||
DenningP89
|
||
Peter J. Denning, ``Worldnet,'' American Scientist, Vol. 77, No. 5,
|
||
Sept.-Oct., 1989.
|
||
|
||
DenningP90
|
||
Peter J. Denning, Computers Under Attack, ACM Press, 1990.
|
||
|
||
Dibbel90
|
||
Julian Dibbel, ``Cyber Thrash,'' SPIN, Vol. 5, No. 12, March 1990.
|
||
|
||
Drucker89
|
||
Peter F. Drucker, The New Realities, Harper and Row, New York, 1989.
|
||
|
||
Felsenstein86
|
||
Lee Felsenstein, ``Real Hackers Don't Rob Banks,'' in full report on
|
||
ACM Panel on Hacking (Lee86).
|
||
|
||
Frenkel87
|
||
Karen A. Frenkel, ``Brian Reid, A Graphics Tale of a Hacker
|
||
Tracker,'' Comm. ACM, Vol. 30, No. 10, Oct. 1987, p. 820-823.
|
||
|
||
Goldstein89
|
||
Emmanuel Goldstein, ``Hackers in Jail,'' 2600 Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 1,
|
||
Spring 1989.
|
||
|
||
Goldstein90
|
||
Emmanuel Goldstein, ``For Your Protection,'' 2600 Magazine, Vol. 7,
|
||
No. 1, Spring 1990.
|
||
|
||
Goodfellow83
|
||
Geoffrey S. Goodfellow, ``Testimony Before the Subcommittee on
|
||
Transportation, Aviation, and Materials on the Subject of
|
||
Telecommunications Security and Privacy,'' Sept. 26, 1983.
|
||
|
||
Hafner90
|
||
Katie Hafner, ``Morris Code,'' The New Republic, Feb. 16, 1990,
|
||
p. 15-16.
|
||
|
||
Harpers90
|
||
``Is Computer Hacking a Crime?" Harper's, March 1990, p. 45-57.
|
||
|
||
Harvey86
|
||
Brian Harvey, ``Computer Hacking and Ethics,'' in full report on
|
||
ACM Panel on Hacking (Lee86).
|
||
|
||
HollingerLanza-Kaduce88
|
||
Richard C. Hollinger and Lonn Lanza-Kaduce, ``The Process of
|
||
Criminalization: The Case of Computer Crime Laws,'' Criminology,
|
||
Vol. 26, No. 1, 1988, p. 101-126.
|
||
|
||
Huebner89
|
||
Hans Huebner, ``Re: News from the KGB/Wiley Hackers,'' RISKS Digest,
|
||
Vol. 8, Issue 37, 1989.
|
||
|
||
Landreth89
|
||
Bill Landreth, Out of the Inner Circle, Tempus, Redmond, WA, 1989.
|
||
|
||
Lee86
|
||
John A. N. Lee, Gerald Segal, and Rosalie Stier, ``Positive
|
||
Alternatives: A Report on an ACM Panel on Hacking,'' Comm. ACM,
|
||
Vol. 29, No. 4, April 1986, p. 297-299; full report available from
|
||
ACM Headquarters, New York.
|
||
|
||
Levy84
|
||
Steven Levy, Hackers, Dell, New York, 1984.
|
||
|
||
Markoff90
|
||
John Markoff, ``Self-Proclaimed `Hacker' Sends Message to Critics,''
|
||
The New York Times, March 19, 1990.
|
||
|
||
Markoff90a
|
||
John Markoff, ``Drive to Counter Computer Crime Aims at Invaders,''
|
||
The New York Times, June 3, 1990.
|
||
|
||
Martin89
|
||
Larry Martin, ``Unethical `Computer' Behavior: Who is Responsible?,''
|
||
Proc. of the 12th National Computer Security Conference, 1989.
|
||
|
||
Meyer89
|
||
Gordon R. Meyer, The Social Organization of the Computer Underground,
|
||
Master's thesis, Dept. of Sociology, Northern Illinois Univ., Aug.
|
||
1989.
|
||
|
||
MeyerThomas90
|
||
Gordon Meyer and Jim Thomas, ``The Baudy World of the Byte Bandit:
|
||
A Postmodernist Interpretation of the Computer Underground,'' Dept.
|
||
of Sociology, Northern Illinois Univ., DeKalb, IL, March 1990.
|
||
|
||
Peters87
|
||
Tom Peters, Thriving on Chaos, Harper & Row, New York, Chapter VI, S-3,
|
||
p. 610, 1987.
|
||
|
||
Spafford89
|
||
Eugene H. Spafford, ``The Internet Worm, Crisis and Aftermath,''
|
||
Comm. ACM, Vol. 32, No. 6, June 1989, p. 678-687.
|
||
|
||
Stallman84
|
||
Richard M. Stallman, Letter to ACM Forum, Comm. ACM, Vol. 27,
|
||
No. 1, Jan. 1984, p. 8-9.
|
||
|
||
Stallman90
|
||
Richard M. Stallman, ``Against User Interface Copyright'' to appear
|
||
in Comm. ACM.
|
||
|
||
Steele83
|
||
Guy L. Steele, Jr., Donald R. Woods, Raphael A. Finkel, Mark R.
|
||
Crispin, Richard M. Stallman, and Geoffrey S. Goodfellow, The
|
||
Hacker's Dictionary, Harper & Row, New York, 1983.
|
||
|
||
Stoll90
|
||
Clifford Stoll, The Cuckoo's Egg, Doubleday, 1990.
|
||
|
||
Thomas90
|
||
Jim Thomas, ``Review of The Cuckoo's Egg,'' Computer Underground
|
||
Digest, Issue #1.06, April 27, 1990.
|
||
|
||
ThomasMeyer90
|
||
Jim Thomas and Gordon Meyer, ``Joe McCarthy in a Leisure Suit:
|
||
(Witch)Hunting for the Computer Underground,'' Unpublished
|
||
manuscript, Department of Sociology, Northern Illinois University,
|
||
DeKalb, IL, 1990; see also the Computer Underground Digest, Vol.
|
||
1, Issue 11, June 16, 1990.
|
||
|
||
_______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
==Phrack Classic==
|
||
|
||
Volume Three, Issue 32, File #4 of 12
|
||
|
||
|
||
***** T H E A R T O F I N V E S T I G A T I O N *****
|
||
***** *****
|
||
***** *****
|
||
***** Brought to You By *****
|
||
***** *****
|
||
***** The Butler *****
|
||
***** *****
|
||
***** 10/31/90 *****
|
||
***** *****
|
||
***** *****
|
||
|
||
There are many ways to obtain information about individuals. I am going to
|
||
cover some of the investigative means of getting the low down on people whom
|
||
you wish to know more about.
|
||
|
||
Some of the areas I will cover are:
|
||
|
||
Social Security Checks
|
||
Driving/Vehicular Records
|
||
Police Reports
|
||
FBI Records
|
||
Insurance Records
|
||
Legal Records
|
||
Credit Bureau Checks
|
||
Probate Records
|
||
Real Estate Records
|
||
Corporate Records
|
||
Freedom Of Information Act
|
||
Governmental Agency Records
|
||
Maps
|
||
Tax Records
|
||
|
||
To obtain information from some organizations or some individuals one must be
|
||
able to "BULLSHIT"!!! Not only by voice but in writing. Many times you must
|
||
write certain governmental bodies requesting info and it can only be done in
|
||
writing. I can't stress enough the need for proper grammer and spelling.
|
||
|
||
For you to obtain certain information about another person you must first
|
||
get a few KEY pieces of info to make your investigation easier. The persons
|
||
Full Name, Social Security Number, Date & Place of Birth will all make your
|
||
search easier and more complete.
|
||
|
||
First of all in most cases you will know the persons name you want to invest-
|
||
igate. If not you must obtain it any way you can. First you could follow them
|
||
to their home and get their address. Then some other time when they are gone
|
||
you could look at their mail or dig through their trash to get their Full Name.
|
||
While in their trash you might even be able to dig up more interesting info
|
||
like: Bank Accout Numbers, Credit Card Numbers, Social Security Number, Birth
|
||
Day, Relatives Names, Long Distance Calls Made, etc.
|
||
|
||
If you can't get to their trash for some reason take their address to your
|
||
local library and check it against the POLKS and COLES Directories. This
|
||
should provide you with their Full Name, Phone Number, Address, and how long
|
||
they have lived at the current location.
|
||
|
||
You can also check the Local Phone Book, Directory Assistance, City Directories,
|
||
Post Office, Voter Registration, Former Neighbors, Former Utilities (water, gas,
|
||
electric, phone, cable, etc.)
|
||
|
||
If you know someone who works at a bank or car dealer you could have them run
|
||
a credit check which will reveal all of their credit cards and if they have
|
||
ever had any late payments or applied for any loans. If you are brave enough
|
||
you could even apply for a loan impersonating the individual under investigation
|
||
|
||
The Credit Bureau also has Sentry Services that can provide deceased social
|
||
security numbers, postal drop box address and known fraudulent information.
|
||
|
||
You can get an individuals driving record by sending a letter to your states
|
||
Department of Revenue, Division of Vehicles. You can also get the following:
|
||
|
||
Driver Control Bureau
|
||
For Driving Record send Name, Address, Date of Birth and usually a $1 process-
|
||
ing fee for a 5 year record.
|
||
|
||
Titles & Registration Bureau
|
||
For ownership information (current and past).
|
||
|
||
Driver License Examination Bureau
|
||
To see what vision was rated.
|
||
|
||
Motor Carrier Inspection & Registration Bureau
|
||
To check on licensing and registration of trucks/trucking companies.
|
||
|
||
Revocation Dept
|
||
Can verify if someone's driver's license has ever been suspended or revoked.
|
||
|
||
You can even obtain a complete vehicle history by sending the vehicle descrip-
|
||
tion, identification # for the last registered owner, and a small fee. Send
|
||
this info to your states Dept of Vehicles. It is best to contact them first
|
||
to get their exact address and fees. I would advise using a money orders and
|
||
a P.O. Box so they cannot trace it to you without a hassle.
|
||
|
||
Police Records
|
||
|
||
All Police and Fire Records are Public record unless the city is involved.
|
||
You can usually get everything available from the police dept including:
|
||
Interviews, maps, diagrams, misc reports, etc.
|
||
|
||
|
||
FBI Records
|
||
|
||
If the individual you are inquiring about is deceased the FBI will provide
|
||
some info if you give them Full Name, SSN, Date & Place of Birth. Contact
|
||
you local FBI office to get the details.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Real Estate Records
|
||
|
||
Recorder of Deeds offices in each county maintain land ownership records.
|
||
Most are not computerized and you have to manually search. Then you must
|
||
review microfilm/fiche for actual deeds of trust, quit claim deeds,
|
||
assignments, mortgage, liens, etc.
|
||
|
||
A title company can run an Ownership & Equity (O&E) search for a fee ($80-$100)
|
||
which will show ownership, mortgage info, easements, taxes owned, taxes
|
||
assessed, etc.
|
||
|
||
Most county assessors will provide an address and value of any real property
|
||
if you request a search by name.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Social Security Records
|
||
|
||
Social Security Administrator
|
||
Office of Central Records Operations
|
||
300 North Greene Street
|
||
Baltimore, Maryland 21201
|
||
301-965-8882
|
||
|
||
Title II and Title XVI disability claims records, info regarding total earnings
|
||
for each year, detailed earnings information show employer, total earnings, and
|
||
social security paid for each quarter by employer.
|
||
|
||
Prices are approximately as follows:
|
||
|
||
1st year of records $15.00
|
||
2nd-5th year of records $ 2.50 per person
|
||
6th-10th year of records $ 2.00 per person
|
||
11th-15th year of records $ 1.50 per person
|
||
16th-on year of records $ 1.00 per person
|
||
|
||
** Call for verification of these prices. **
|
||
|
||
Social Security records are a great source of information when someone has
|
||
been relatively transient in their work, or if they are employed out of a
|
||
union hall.
|
||
|
||
If you want to review a claim file, direct your request to the Baltimore
|
||
office. They will send the file to the social security office in your city
|
||
for you to review and decide what you want copies of.
|
||
|
||
The first three digits of a social security number indicate the state of
|
||
application.
|
||
|
||
The Social Security Number
|
||
|
||
SSA has continually emphasized the fact that the SSN identifies a particular
|
||
record only and the Social Security Card indicates the person whose record is
|
||
identified by that number. In no way can the Social Security Card identify
|
||
the bearer. From 1946 to 1972 the legend "Not for Identification" was printed
|
||
on the face of the card. However, many people ignored the message and the
|
||
legend was eventually dropped. The social security number is the most widely
|
||
used and carefully controlled number in the country, which makes it an
|
||
attractive identifier.
|
||
|
||
With the exception of the restrictions imposed on Federal and some State and
|
||
local organizations by the Privacy Act of 1974, organizations requiring a
|
||
unique identifier for purposes of controlling their records are not prohibited
|
||
from using (with the consent of the holder) the SSN. SSA records are
|
||
confidential and knowledge of a person's SSN does not give the user access to
|
||
information in SSA files which is confidential by law.
|
||
|
||
Many commercial enterprises have used the SSN in various promotional efforts.
|
||
These uses are not authorized by SSA, but SSA has no authority to prohibit
|
||
such activities as most are not illegal. Some of these unauthorized uses are:
|
||
SSN contests; skip-tracers; sale or distribution of plastic or metal cards;
|
||
pocketbook numbers (the numbers used on sample social security cards in
|
||
wallets); misleading advertising, commercial enterprises charging fees for SSN
|
||
services; identification of personal property.
|
||
|
||
The Social Security Number (SSN) is composed of 3 parts, XXX-XX-XXXX, called
|
||
the Area, Group, and Serial. For the most part, (there are exceptions), the
|
||
Area is determined by where the individual APPLIED for the SSN (before 1972)
|
||
or RESIDED at time of application (after 1972). The areas are assigned as
|
||
follows:
|
||
|
||
000 unused 387-399 WI 528-529 UT
|
||
001-003 NH 400-407 KY 530 NV
|
||
004-007 ME 408-415 TN 531-539 WA
|
||
008-009 VT 416-424 AL 540-544 OR
|
||
010-034 MA 425-428 MS 545-573 CA
|
||
035-039 RI 429-432 AR 574 AK
|
||
040-049 CT 433-439 LA 575-576 HI
|
||
050-134 NY 440-448 OK 577-579 DC
|
||
135-158 NJ 449-467 TX 580 VI Virgin Islands
|
||
159-211 PA 468-477 MN 581-584 PR Puerto Rico
|
||
212-220 MD 478-485 IA 585 NM
|
||
221-222 DE 486-500 MO 586 PI Pacific Islands*
|
||
223-231 VA 501-502 ND 587-588 MS
|
||
232-236 WV 503-504 SD 589-595 FL
|
||
237-246 NC 505-508 NE 596-599 PR Puerto Rico
|
||
247-251 SC 509-515 KS 600-601 AZ
|
||
252-260 GA 516-517 MT 602-626 CA
|
||
261-267 FL 518-519 ID *Guam, American Samoa,
|
||
268-302 OH 520 WY Northern Mariana Islands,
|
||
303-317 IN 521-524 CO Philippine Islands
|
||
318-361 IL 525 NM
|
||
362-386 MI 526-527 AZ
|
||
|
||
627-699 unassigned, for future use
|
||
|
||
700-728 Railroad workers through 1963, then discontinued
|
||
729-899 unassigned, for future use
|
||
900-999 not valid SSNs, but were used for program purposes
|
||
when state aid to the aged, blind and disabled was
|
||
converted to a federal program administered by SSA.
|
||
|
||
As the Areas assigned to a locality are exhausted, new areas from the pool are
|
||
assigned. This is why some states have non-contiguous groups of Areas.
|
||
|
||
The Group portion of the SSN has no meaning other than to determine whether or
|
||
not a number has been assigned. SSA publishes a list every month of the
|
||
highest group assigned for each SSN Area. The order of assignment for the
|
||
Groups is: odd numbers under 10, even numbers over 9, even numbers under 9
|
||
except for 00 which is never used, and odd numbers over 10. For example, if the
|
||
highest group assigned for area 999 is 72, then we know that the number
|
||
999-04-1234 is an invalid number because even Groups under 9 have not yet been
|
||
assigned.
|
||
|
||
The Serial portion of the SSN has no meaning. The Serial is not assigned in
|
||
strictly numerical order. The Serial 0000 is never assigned.
|
||
|
||
Before 1973, Social Security Cards with pre-printed numbers were issued to
|
||
each local SSA office. The numbers were assigned by the local office. In 1973,
|
||
SSN assignment was automated and outstanding stocks of pre-printed cards were
|
||
destroyed. All SSNs are now assigned by computer from headquarters. There
|
||
are rare cases in which the computer system can be forced to accept a manual
|
||
assignment such as a person refusing a number with 666 in it.
|
||
|
||
A pamphlet entitled "The Social Security Number" (Pub. No.05-10633) provides
|
||
an explanation of the SSN's structure and the method of assigning and
|
||
validating Social Security numbers.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Tax Records
|
||
|
||
If you can find out who does the individuals taxes you might be able to get
|
||
copies from them with the use of creative social engineering.
|
||
|
||
If you want to run a tax lien search there is a service called Infoquest.
|
||
1-800-777-8567 for a fee. Call with a specific request.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Post Office Records
|
||
|
||
If you have an address for someone that is not current, always consider writing
|
||
a letter to the postmaster of whatever post office branch services the zip code
|
||
of the missing person. Provide them the name and the last known address and
|
||
simply ask for the current address. There might be a $1 fee for this so it
|
||
would be wise to call first.
|
||
|
||
City Directory, Polk's, Cole's, etc.
|
||
|
||
Information in these directories is contained alphabetically by name,
|
||
geographically by street address, and numerically by telephone number, so if
|
||
you have any of those three pieces of info, a check can be done. The Polk's
|
||
directory also shows whether the person owns their home or rents, their marital
|
||
status, place of employment, and a myriad of other tidbits of information.
|
||
However, these books are not the be-all and end-all of the information as they
|
||
are subject to public and corporate response to surveys. These directories are
|
||
published on a nationwide basis so if you are looking for someone outside of
|
||
your area, simply call the public library in the area you have an interest and
|
||
they also can perform a crisscross check for you.
|
||
|
||
You can also call a service owned by Cole's called the National Look up Library
|
||
at 402-473-9717 and either give a phone number and get the name & address or
|
||
give the address and get the name and phone number. This is only available to
|
||
subscribers, which costs $183.00 dollars for 1991. A subscriber gets two free
|
||
lookups per day and everyone after that costs $1.25. A subscriber can also mail
|
||
in a request for a lookup to:
|
||
|
||
National Look Up Library
|
||
901 W. Bond Street
|
||
Lincoln, NE 68521-3694
|
||
|
||
A company called Cheshunoff & Company can, for a $75 fee, obtain a 5-year
|
||
detailed financial analysis of any bank.
|
||
|
||
505 Barton Springs Road
|
||
Austin, Texas 78704
|
||
512-472-2244
|
||
|
||
Professional Credit Checker & Nationwide SSN-locate.
|
||
|
||
!Solutions! Publishing Co.
|
||
8016 Plainfield Road
|
||
Cincinnati, Ohio 45236
|
||
513-891-6145
|
||
1-800-255-6643
|
||
|
||
Top Secret Manuals
|
||
|
||
Consumertronics
|
||
2011 Crescent Drive
|
||
P.O. Drawer 537-X
|
||
Alamogordo, New Mexico 88310
|
||
505-434-0234
|
||
|
||
|
||
Federal Government Information Center is located at
|
||
|
||
1520 Market Street
|
||
St. Louis, Missouri
|
||
1-800-392-7711
|
||
|
||
|
||
U.S. Dept of Agriculture has located aerial photos of every inch of the United
|
||
States.
|
||
|
||
2222 West 2300 S.
|
||
P.O. Box 36010
|
||
Salt Lake City, Utah 84130
|
||
801-524-5856
|
||
|
||
|
||
To obtain general information regarding registered agent, principals, and good
|
||
standing status, simply call the Corporate Division of the Secretary of State
|
||
and they will provide that information over the phone. Some corporate divisions
|
||
are here:
|
||
|
||
Arkansas Corporate Division 501-371-5151
|
||
Deleware Corporate Division 302-736-3073
|
||
Georgia Corporate Division 404-656-2817
|
||
Indiana Corporate Division 317-232-6576
|
||
Kansas Corporate Division 913-296-2236
|
||
Louisiana Corporate Division 504-925-4716
|
||
Missouri Corporate Division 314-751-4936
|
||
New York Corporate Division 518-474-6200
|
||
Texas Corporate Division 512-475-3551
|
||
|
||
|
||
Freedom Of Information
|
||
|
||
The Freedom of Information Act allows the public to request information
|
||
submitted to, or generated by, all executive departments, military departments,
|
||
government or government controlled corporations, and regulatory agencies. Each
|
||
agency, as described above, publishes in the Federal Register, descriptions of
|
||
its central and field organizations and places where and how requests are to be
|
||
directed. Direct a letter to the appropriate person designated in the Federal
|
||
Register requesting reasonably described records be released to you pursuant to
|
||
the Freedom of Information Act. Be sure to follow each agency's individually
|
||
published rules which state the time, place, fees, and procedures for the
|
||
provisions of information. The agency should promptly respond.
|
||
|
||
How to Find Information About Companies, Ed. II, 1981, suggests, "Government
|
||
personnel you deal with sometimes become less helpful if you approach the
|
||
subject by threatening the Freedom of Information Act action - it's best to ask
|
||
for the material informally first." While this will probably enable you to find
|
||
the correct person to send your request to, be prepared to spend at least half
|
||
an hour on the phone talking to several people before you find the person who
|
||
can help you. The book also has a brief description of what each governmental
|
||
agency handles.
|
||
|
||
If you want to see if someone you are trying to locate is a veteran, has a
|
||
federal VA loan, or receives some sort of disability benefit, use Freedom
|
||
of Information and provide the person's SSN.
|
||
|
||
You will get a bill but you can ask for a fee waiver if this contributes to a
|
||
public understanding of the operation of the government. You can also request
|
||
an opportunity to go through the files yourself and then decide what you want
|
||
copied.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Insurance Records
|
||
|
||
PIP carrier records (may contain statements, medical records, new doctors/
|
||
hospital names, records of disability payments, adjuster's opinions,
|
||
applications for insurance coverage, other claim info, etc.)
|
||
|
||
Health insurance records (may contain medical records, record of bills, new
|
||
doctors/hospital names, pre-existing conditions information, info regarding
|
||
other accidetns/injuries, etc.)
|
||
|
||
Often you will have to go through the claims office, the underwriting dept, and
|
||
the business office to get complete records as each individual dept maintains
|
||
its own seperate files.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Workers Compensation
|
||
|
||
Some states will let you simply request records. Just submit your request
|
||
including the SSN and Birthdate, to the Department of Human Resources, Division
|
||
of Worker's Compensation. They will photocopy the records and send you the
|
||
copies. Other states require an authorization to obtain these records.
|
||
|
||
|
||
You can always call your local Private Investigator pretending you are a
|
||
student doing a research paper on the methods of getting personal information
|
||
about people or even trash his place to find tips on tracking down people.
|
||
|
||
I hope this PHILE helps you in one way or another, if not, maybe a future PHILE
|
||
by The Butler will...........
|
||
|
||
|
||
Till Next Time,
|
||
|
||
|
||
The Butler...
|
||
_______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
==Phrack Classic==
|
||
|
||
Volume Three, Issue 32, File #7 of 12
|
||
|
||
|
||
13th Annual National Computer Security Conference
|
||
October 1-4, 1990
|
||
Omni Shoreham Hotel
|
||
Washington, D.C.
|
||
A "Knight Lightning" Perspective
|
||
by Craig M. Neidorf
|
||
|
||
Dr. Dorothy Denning first hinted at inviting me to take part on her panel
|
||
"Hackers: Who Are They?" in May 1990 when we first came into contact while
|
||
preparing for my trial. At the time I did not feel that it was a very good
|
||
idea since no one knew what would happen to me over the next few months. At
|
||
the conclusion of my trial I agreed to participate and surprisingly, my
|
||
attorney, Sheldon Zenner (of Katten, Muchin, & Zavis), accepted an invitation
|
||
to speak as well.
|
||
|
||
A few weeks later there was some dissension to the idea of having me appear at
|
||
the conference from some professionals in the field of computer security. They
|
||
felt that my presence at such a conference undermined what they stood for and
|
||
would be observed by computer "hackers" as a reward of sorts for my notoriety
|
||
in the hacker community. Fortunately Dr. Denning stuck to her personal values
|
||
and did not exclude me from speaking.
|
||
|
||
Unlike Gordon Meyer, I was unable to attend Dr. Denning's presentation
|
||
"Concerning Hackers Who Break Into Computer Systems" and the ethics sessions,
|
||
although I was informed upon my arrival of the intense interest from the
|
||
conference participants and the reactions to my now very well known article
|
||
announcing the "Phoenix Project."
|
||
|
||
Not wishing to miss any more class than absolutely necessary, I arrived in
|
||
Washington D.C. late in the day on Wednesday, October 4th. By some bizarre
|
||
coincidence I ended up on the same flight with Sheldon Zenner.
|
||
|
||
I had attended similar conventions before such as the Zeta Beta Tau National
|
||
Convention in Baltimore the previous year, but there was something different
|
||
about this one. I suppose considering what I have been through it was only
|
||
natural for me to be a little uneasy when surrounded by computer security
|
||
professionals, but oddly enough this feeling soon passed as I began to
|
||
encounter friends both old and new.
|
||
|
||
Zenner and I met up with Dorothy and Peter Denning and soon after I met Terry
|
||
Gross, an attorney hired by the Electronic Frontier Foundation who had helped
|
||
with my case in reference to the First Amendment issues. Emmanuel Goldstein,
|
||
editor of 2600 Magazine and probably the chief person responsible for spreading
|
||
the news and concern about my indictment last Spring, and Frank Drake, editor
|
||
of W.O.R.M. showed up. I had met Drake once before. Finally I ran into Gordon
|
||
Meyer.
|
||
|
||
So for a while we all exchanged stories about different events surrounding our
|
||
lives and how things had changed over the years only to be interrupted once by
|
||
a odd gentleman from Germany who inquired if we were members of the Chaos
|
||
Computer Club. At the banquet that evening, I was introduced to Peter Neumann
|
||
(who among many other things is the moderator of the Internet Digest known as
|
||
"RISKS") and Marc Rotenberg (Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility).
|
||
|
||
Because of the great interest in the ethics sessions and comments I had heard
|
||
from people who had attended, I felt a strange irony come into play. I've
|
||
hosted and attended numerous "hacker" conventions over the years, the most
|
||
notable being "SummerCon". At these conventions one of the main time consuming
|
||
activities has always been to play detective and attempt to solve the mystery
|
||
of which one of the guests or other people at the hotel were there to spy on us
|
||
(whether they were government agents or some other form of security personnel).
|
||
|
||
So where at SummerCon the youthful hackers were all racing around looking for
|
||
the "feds," at the NCSC I wondered if the security professionals were reacting
|
||
in an inverse capacity... Who Are The Hackers? Despite this attitude or maybe
|
||
because of it, I and the other panelists, wore our nametags proudly with a
|
||
feeling of excitement surrounding us.
|
||
|
||
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
|
||
|
||
October 4, 1990
|
||
|
||
Dorothy Denning had gathered the speakers for an early morning brunch and I
|
||
finally got a chance to meet Katie Hafner in person. The panelists discussed
|
||
some possibilities of discussion questions to start off the presentation and
|
||
before I knew it, it was time to meet the public.
|
||
|
||
As we gathered in the front of the conference room, I was dismayed to find that
|
||
the people in charge of the setting up the nameboards (that would sit in front
|
||
of each panelist) had attended the Cook school of spelling and labeled me as
|
||
"Neirdorf." Zenner thought this was hysterical. Luckily they were able to
|
||
correct the error before we began.
|
||
|
||
Hackers: Who Are They?
|
||
|
||
Dr. Denning started the presentation by briefly introducing each panelist and
|
||
asking them a couple of questions.
|
||
|
||
Katie Hafner disputed the notion that her work has caused a glorification
|
||
of hacking because of the severe hardships the people she interviewed had to
|
||
endure. I found myself sympathizing with her as I knew what it was like to
|
||
be in their positions. Many people commented later that her defense of Mitnick
|
||
seemed a little insincere as he had indeed committed some serious acts. Not
|
||
knowing all of the details surrounding Mitnick's case and not relying on the
|
||
general newsmedia as a basis for opinion I withheld any sort of judgment.
|
||
|
||
Emmanuel Goldstein and Frank Drake appeared to take on the mantle of being the
|
||
spokespersons for the hackers, although I'm unsure if they would agree with
|
||
this characterization. Drake's main point of view dealt with the idea that
|
||
young hackers seek to be able to use resources that they are otherwise excluded
|
||
from. He claimed to once have been a system intruder, but now that he is in
|
||
college and has ample computing resources available to him, he no longer sees a
|
||
need to "hack."
|
||
|
||
Goldstein on the other hand sought to justify hacking as being beneficial to
|
||
society because the hackers are finding security holes and alerting security to
|
||
fix these problems before something catastrophic occurs.
|
||
|
||
Gordon Meyer tried to explain the hacker mind-set and how the average hackers
|
||
does not see using corporate resources as having a real financial burden to
|
||
today's companies. Some people misunderstood his remarks to be speaking from a
|
||
factual position and took offense, stating that the costs are great indeed.
|
||
He also explained the differences between Phrack and the Computer Underground
|
||
Digest. Most notable is that CuD does not print tutorials about computer
|
||
systems.
|
||
|
||
Sheldon Zenner focused on the freedom of the speech and press issues. He also
|
||
spoke about technical details of the U.S. v. Neidorf case and the court rulings
|
||
that resulted from it. One major point of interest was his quite reasonable
|
||
belief that the courts will soon be holding companies financially liable for
|
||
damages that may occur because of illegal intrusion into their systems. This
|
||
was not to suggest that a criminal defense strategy could be that a company did
|
||
not do enough to keep an intruder out, but instead that the company could be
|
||
held civilly liable by outside parties.
|
||
|
||
Zenner and Denning alike discussed the nature of Phrack's articles. They found
|
||
that the articles appearing in Phrack contained the same types of material
|
||
found publicly in other computer and security magazines, but with one
|
||
significant difference. The tone of the articles. An article named "How to
|
||
Hack Unix" in Phrack usually contained very similar information to an article
|
||
you might see in Communications of the ACM only to be named "Securing Unix
|
||
Systems." But the differences were more extreme than just the titles. Some
|
||
articles in Phrack seemed to suggest exploiting security holes while the
|
||
Communications of the ACM concentrated more on fixing the problem. The
|
||
information in both articles would be comparable, but the audiences reading and
|
||
writing these articles were often very different.
|
||
|
||
I explained the concept and operation of Phrack and wandered into a discussion
|
||
about lack of privacy concerning electronic mail on the Internet from
|
||
government officials, system managers, and possibly even by hackers. I went on
|
||
to remark that the security professionals were missing the point and the
|
||
problem. The college and high-school students while perhaps doing some
|
||
exploration and causing some slight disturbances are not the place to be
|
||
focusing their efforts. The real danger comes from career criminals and
|
||
company insiders who know the systems very well from being a part of it. These
|
||
people are the source of computer crime in this country and are the ones who
|
||
need to be dealt with. Catching a teenage hacker may be an easier task, but
|
||
ultimately will change nothing. To this point I agreed that a hacker gaining
|
||
entry and exposing holes on computer systems may be a service to some degree,
|
||
but unlike Goldstein, I could not maintain that such activity should bring
|
||
prosecutorial immunity to the hacker. This is a matter of discretion for
|
||
security personnel and prosecutors to take into consideration. I hope they do.
|
||
|
||
To a large degree I was rather silent on stage. Perhaps because I was cut off
|
||
more than once or maybe even a little stagefright, but largely because many of
|
||
the questions posed by the audience were wrong on their face for me to answer.
|
||
I was not going to stand and defend hacking for its own sake nor was I there to
|
||
explain the activities of every hacker in existence.
|
||
|
||
So I let Goldstein and Drake handle questions geared to be answered by a system
|
||
intruder and I primarily only spoke out concerning the First Amendment and
|
||
Phrack distribution. In one instance a man upset both by Drake's comments
|
||
about how the hackers just want to use resources they can't get elsewhere and
|
||
by Goldstein's presentation of the Operation Sun-Devil raids and the attack on
|
||
"Zod" in New York spoke up and accused us of being viciously one sided.
|
||
|
||
He said that none of us (and he singled me out specifically) look to be age 14
|
||
(he said he could believe I was 18) and that "our" statement that its ok for
|
||
hackers to gain access to systems simply because they lacked the resources
|
||
elsewhere meant it was ok for kids to steal money to buy drugs.
|
||
|
||
I responded by asking him if he was suggesting that if these "kids" were rich
|
||
and did not steal the money, it would be ok to purchase drugs? I was sure that
|
||
it was just a bad analogy so I changed the topic afterwards. He was right to a
|
||
certain extent, all of the hackers are not age 14 or even in highschool or
|
||
college, but is this really all that important of a distinction?
|
||
|
||
The activities of the Secret Service agents and other law enforcement officials
|
||
in Operation Sun-Devil and other investigations have been overwhelming and very
|
||
careless. True this is just their standard way of doing business and they may
|
||
not have even singled out the hackers as a group to focus excess zeal, but
|
||
recognizing that the hackers are in a worst case scenario "white-collar
|
||
offenders," shouldn't they alter their technique? Something that might be
|
||
important to make clear is that in truth my indictment and the indictments on
|
||
members of the Legion of Doom in Atlanta had absolutely nothing to do with
|
||
Operation Sun-Devil despite the general media creation.
|
||
|
||
Another interesting point that was brought out at the convention was that there
|
||
was so much activity and the Secret Service kept so busy in the state of
|
||
Arizona (possibly by some state official) concerning the hacker "problem" that
|
||
perhaps this is the reason the government did not catch on to the great Savings
|
||
& Loan multi-Billion dollar loss.
|
||
|
||
One gentleman spoke about his son being in a hospital where all his treatments
|
||
were being run by computer. He added that a system intruder might quite by
|
||
accident disrupt the system inadvertently endangering his son's life. Isn't
|
||
this bad? Obviously yes it is bad, but what was worse is that a critical
|
||
hospital computer system would be hooked up to a phoneline anyway. The main
|
||
reason for treatment in a hospital is so that the doctors are *there* to
|
||
monitor and assist patients. Could you imagine a doctor dialing in from home
|
||
with a modem to make his rounds?
|
||
|
||
There was some discussion about an editor's responsibility to inform
|
||
corporations if a hacker were to drop off material that he/she had breached
|
||
their security. I was not entirely in opposition to the idea, but the way I
|
||
would propose to do it was probably in the pages of a news article. This may
|
||
seem a little roundabout, but when you stop and consider all of the private
|
||
security consultants out there, they do not run around providing information to
|
||
corporations for free. They charge enormous fees for their services. There
|
||
are some organizations that do perform services for free (CERT comes to mind),
|
||
but that is the reason they were established and they receive funding from the
|
||
government which allows them to be more generous.
|
||
|
||
It is my belief that if a hacker were to give me some tips about security holes
|
||
and I in turn reported this information to a potential victim corporation, the
|
||
corporation would be more concerned with how and from whom I got the
|
||
information than with fixing the problem.
|
||
|
||
One of the government's expert witnesses from U.S. v. Neidorf attended this
|
||
session and he prodded Zenner and I with questions about the First Amendment
|
||
that were not made clear from the trial. Zenner did an excellent job of
|
||
clarifying the issues and presenting the truth where this Bellcore employee
|
||
sought to show us in a poor light.
|
||
|
||
During the commentary on the First Amendment, Hafner, Zenner, and I discussed a
|
||
July 22, 1988 article containing a Pacific Bell telephone document copied by a
|
||
hacker and sent to John Markoff that appeared on the front page of the New York
|
||
Times. A member of the audience said that this was ok, but the Phrack article
|
||
containing the E911 material was not because Phrack was only sent to hackers.
|
||
Zenner went on to explain that this was far from true since private security,
|
||
government employees, legal scholars, reporters, and telecom security personnel
|
||
all received Phrack without discrimination. There really is a lot that both
|
||
the hackers and security professionals have to learn about each other.
|
||
|
||
It began to get late and we were forced to end our session. I guess what
|
||
surprised me the most were all of the people that stayed behind to speak with
|
||
us. There were representatives from NASA, U.S. Sprint, Ford Aerospace, the
|
||
Department of Defense, a United States Army Lt. Colonel who all thanked us
|
||
for coming to speak. It was a truly unique experience in that a year ago I
|
||
would have presumed these people to be fighting against me and now it seems
|
||
that they are reasonable, decent people, with an interest in trying to learn
|
||
and help end the problems. I also met Mrs. Gail Meyer for the first time in
|
||
person as well.
|
||
|
||
I was swamped with people asking me how they could get Phrack and for the most
|
||
part I referred them to Gordon Meyer and CuD (and the CuD ftp). Just before we
|
||
went to lunch I met Donn Parker and Art Brodsky, an editor from Communications
|
||
Daily. So many interesting people to speak with and so little time. I spent a
|
||
couple hours at the National Gallery of Art with Emmanuel Goldstein, flew back
|
||
to St. Louis, and returned to school.
|
||
|
||
It was definitely an enLightening experience.
|
||
|
||
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
|
||
|
||
A very special thank you goes to Dorothy Denning, a dear friend who made it
|
||
possible for me to attend the conference.
|
||
|
||
:Craig M. Neidorf a/k/a Knight Lightning
|
||
|
||
C483307 @ UMCVMB.MISSOURI.EDU
|
||
C483307 @ UMCVMB.BITNET
|
||
_______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
F R O M T H E W I R E
|
||
|
||
|
||
HEADLINE Thirteen Arrested For Breaking Into University Computer
|
||
Byline: PAT MILTON
|
||
DATE 08/16/90
|
||
SOURCE The Associated Press (ASP)
|
||
Origin: FARMINGDALE, N.Y.
|
||
(Copyright 1990. The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
|
||
|
||
|
||
* FARMINGDALE, N.Y. (AP) _ Thirteen computer hackers ranging in age from 14 to
|
||
32 were charged Thursday with breaking into the mainframe computer at a
|
||
university in Washington state and causing costly damage to the files. One of
|
||
the suspects is a 14-year-old high school student from New York City who is
|
||
also a suspect in last November's break-in of an Air Force computer in the
|
||
Pentagon, according to Senior Investigator Donald Delaney of the New York State
|
||
Police. The student, who used the name "Zod" when he signed onto the computer,
|
||
is charged with breaking into the computer at the City University of Bellevue
|
||
in Washington in May by figuring out the toll-free telephone number that gave
|
||
students and faculty legitimate access to the system.
|
||
|
||
"Zod," who was not identified because he is a minor, maintained control over
|
||
the system by setting up his own program where others could illegally enter the
|
||
system by answering 11 questions he set up.
|
||
|
||
More than 40 hackers across the country are believed to have gained illegal
|
||
access to the system since May, Delaney said. As a result of the break-in,
|
||
university files were altered and deleted, and consultants must be hired to
|
||
reprogram the system, Delaney said. In addition to the arrests, search
|
||
warrants were executed at 17 locations on Thursday where officers confiscated
|
||
$50,000 worth of computers and related equipment. Three more arrests were
|
||
expected. Two of the 13 arrested were from Long Island and the rest were from
|
||
the New York boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan and the Bronx.
|
||
Farmingdale is on Long Island. The 13 were charged with computer tampering,
|
||
computer trespass, unauthorized use of a computer and theft of services. The
|
||
juveniles will be charged with juvenile delinquency.
|
||
|
||
The investigation began two months ago after a technician at the university
|
||
noticed "error message" flashing on the computer screen, indicating someone had
|
||
entered the system illegally. The suspects were traced through subpoenaed
|
||
telephone records. * Many hackers break into private computer systems for the
|
||
pure satisfaction of cracking the code, and also to obtain sometimes costly
|
||
computer programs, Delaney said.
|
||
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
_______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
|
||
HEADLINE US Sprint helps business customers battle PBX fraud
|
||
DATE 09/25/90
|
||
SOURCE BUSINESS WIRE (BWR)
|
||
|
||
|
||
KANSAS CITY, Mo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--US Sprint Wednesday announced its corporate
|
||
security department will help the company's business customers battle PBX
|
||
fraud. After producing significant results in fighting code abuse US Sprint is
|
||
directing their efforts to help their business customers in identifying and
|
||
preventing computer hackers from infiltrating their business customer's owned
|
||
or leased telephone switching equipment. ``Unauthorized use of our
|
||
long-distance service has been greatly reduced through increased detection,
|
||
prevention, investigation and prosecution efforts,'' said Bob Fox, US Sprint
|
||
vice president corporate security.
|
||
|
||
``Now rather than attacking a long-distance carrier's network in * an attempt
|
||
to steal authorization codes, computer hackers are attacking private companies'
|
||
and governmental agencies' Private Branch Exchanges (PBX's). Computer
|
||
hackers break into private telephone switches in an attempt to reoriginate
|
||
long-distance calls, which are then billed to the businesses. Fox says a
|
||
business may not discover its telephone system has been ``hacked'' until their
|
||
long-distance bill is received and then it may be too late. Help is on the way
|
||
however. US Sprint has started a customer support program to help the
|
||
company's business customers to combat the situation. Del Wnorowski, US Sprint
|
||
senior vice president-general counsel said, ``The new program is customers
|
||
about the potential for telecommunications fraud committed through their owned
|
||
or leasesd switching equipment and to assist them in preventing this type of
|
||
illegal activity.'' US Sprint is a unit of United Telecommunications Inc., a
|
||
diversified telecommunications company headquartered in Kansas City.
|
||
|
||
CONTACT:
|
||
US Sprint, Kansas City.
|
||
Phil Hermanson, 816/276-6268
|
||
_______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
|
||
HEADLINE Fax pirates find it easy to intercept documents
|
||
DATE 09/10/90
|
||
SOURCE Toronto Star (TOR)
|
||
Edition: METRO
|
||
Section: BUSINESS TODAY
|
||
Page: B4
|
||
(Copyright The Toronto Star)
|
||
|
||
|
||
--- Fax pirates find it easy to intercept documents ---
|
||
|
||
TOKYO (Special) - Considering that several years ago enthusiastic hackers began
|
||
breaking into computer systems worldwide to steal valuable information, it
|
||
could only have been a matter of time before the same problem surfaced for
|
||
facsimile machines. Now, officials of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public
|
||
Corp. report evidence that this has been happening, not only in their own
|
||
country but around the globe. Apparently, anyone with just a little knowledge
|
||
of electronics can tap fax messages being sent from one of these relatively
|
||
unsophisticated machines to another, with the duplication printed out on the
|
||
pirate's facsimile machine. Both the sender and the receiver of the faxed
|
||
document remain completely unaware that they have been bugged. "I shudder to
|
||
think of some of the business documents which only recently moved over my
|
||
company's fax machines being examined by our competitors," one Tokyo executive
|
||
nervously admits when informed that there has been a proliferation of tapping.
|
||
"You don't think the tax people are doing it too?" he then asks in mock terror.
|
||
|
||
It is certainly a frightening thought. The technique involves making a
|
||
secret connection with the telephone line of the party whose fax messages are
|
||
to be intercepted. That is all too easy to accomplish, according to officials
|
||
of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone. Apart from a few special cases, very little
|
||
has been done to guard against outside tapping. As a result, one of the most
|
||
vulnerable areas - and one most businessmen and women now should begin to feel
|
||
unsure of - is the privacy or security of the facsimile machine. Technical
|
||
attention to this problem is in order.
|
||
|
||
"The idea that somewhere out there is 'Conan the Hacker' who is reading my
|
||
fax correspondence as readily as I do sends chills up my spine," says one
|
||
American businesswoman here. "There could be a lot of trouble for me and up to
|
||
now I didn't even realize it was possible." It is not only possible, but easy.
|
||
Ordinary components available at any electronics store can be used. With these
|
||
in hand, tappers can rig up a connection that sets off a warning signal,
|
||
without the sender or receiver realizing it, whenever a fax message passes
|
||
along the telephone line. Considering the growing volume of highly
|
||
confidential material being sent and received via fax equipment, the resulting
|
||
leaks can be considered highly dangerous to the security of corporate
|
||
information.
|
||
|
||
In Japan alone it is estimated that there are 3.7 million
|
||
machines in operation. Given the nature of these tapping operations, it would
|
||
appear to be extremely difficult for companies to determine whether they are
|
||
suffering serious damage from this process. In addition, it is clear that a
|
||
great many corporations have yet to realize the extent of the threat to their
|
||
privacy. "If more business executives recognized what is going on," suggests
|
||
one Japanese security specialist, "they would move now to halt the opportunity
|
||
for leaks and thus protect their corporations from this type of violation." He
|
||
went on to note that third parties mentioned in fax messages also can be badly
|
||
hurt by these interceptions. Fortunately, manufacturers are producing machines
|
||
capable of preventing hackers from tapping into the system. In some cases,
|
||
newly developed fax machines use code systems to defend information
|
||
transmitted. But these tap-proof facsimile machines are not yet in general
|
||
use. Makers of the new "protected" facsimile machines predict that once the
|
||
business communities around the globe become aware of the threat they will
|
||
promptly place orders for replacements and junk their old equipment as a simple
|
||
matter of damage control. The market could prove extremely large. Those few
|
||
leak-proof fax machines now in operation depend upon scrambling messages, so
|
||
that even if a pirate taps into the telephone line leading to the unit, the
|
||
intercepted message is impossible to read.
|
||
|
||
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, for example, claims that it would require
|
||
a hacker using a large computer more than 200,000 years to crack the codes used
|
||
in its own pirate-proof fax. This ultimately may prove to be something of an
|
||
exaggeration. Although in Japan and many other countries this kind of tapping
|
||
clearly is illegal, it remains nearly impossible to track down electronic
|
||
eavesdroppers. As far as is known, none of these snoopers have been identified
|
||
and dragged into court. Security specialists in Japan claim that there may be
|
||
thousands of fax hackers who get their kicks out of intercepting and reading
|
||
other people's business mail, with few using the information for illegal
|
||
purposes or actively conveying it to third parties.
|
||
_______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
|
||
HEADLINE Inmate behind scams
|
||
Byline: JOHN SEMIEN
|
||
DATE 09/11/90
|
||
SOURCE THE BATON ROUGE SUNDAY ADVOCATE (BATR)
|
||
Section: NEWS
|
||
Page: 1-B
|
||
(Copyright 1989 by Capitol City Press)
|
||
|
||
|
||
There wasn't much inmate Lawrence "Danny" Faires couldn't buy, sell or
|
||
steal with a telephone call from his jail cell in Miami when his million-dollar
|
||
fraud ring ran afoul of the U.S. Secret Service in 1989. That was the year
|
||
Faires used a portable computer with an automatic dialing program to "hack out"
|
||
access codes to the long-distance lines of Telco Communications Inc., a Baton
|
||
Rouge-based phone company. Telco officials were alarmed when they spotted
|
||
1,500 attempts at gaining unauthorized access to the company's long-distance
|
||
service in a single 12-hour period in January 1989.
|
||
|
||
Convinced that an organized fraud scheme was at work, Telco called
|
||
Resident Agent Phil Robertson, who heads the service's Baton Rouge office.
|
||
|
||
"They told me they felt they were being attacked by hackers who had discovered
|
||
their long-distance access lines and who were hacking out personal
|
||
identification numbers belonging to their customers," Robertson said Monday.
|
||
|
||
"You are billed based on your pin (access) number. The computer hacker had
|
||
located several of their 800 numbers and had entered digits hoping it would be
|
||
a valid pin number." Using computer records, Robertson said agents were able to
|
||
isolate 6,000 fraudulent Telco calls that were made during a three-week period
|
||
of January. More than a third of those calls were traced to a cell block in
|
||
the Dade County Interim Detention Center that has been home for Faires for the
|
||
past four years. Faires is awaiting trial in Miami on first-degree murder
|
||
charges. "As it turned out, all of the inmates in this cell block are awaiting
|
||
trial," Robertson said. "One of the inmates, Danny Faires, had a computer in
|
||
his cell attached to a modem, and he turned out to be the hacker."
|
||
|
||
"All he had to do was plug his modem in, let it make the calls and check his
|
||
printout for the numbers that came back good," the agent said. In checking out
|
||
the other bogus Telco calls, agents uncovered a massive credit card scam. A
|
||
federal grand jury in Milwaukee, Wis., linked both scams to Faires and alleged
|
||
associates of the inmate across the country in a Feb. 27 indictment of six
|
||
people on federal wire and access device fraud. Fairies, an unindicted
|
||
co-conspirator in the case, last week said he has spent the past three years
|
||
applying his previous experience as a computer systems analyst and programmer
|
||
to a lap-top, portable computer provided by one of the prison guards. He
|
||
describes the results as "doing business with America" at the expense of large
|
||
credit card and telecommunications companies. Faires said he attacked Telco's
|
||
system by chance after receiving one of the company's access numbers in a group
|
||
of assorted access codes acquired by his associates. "It was just their
|
||
misfortune that we became aware that they had a system there that was easily
|
||
accessible," Faires said in a telephone interview.
|
||
|
||
"I was given their access number, along with Sprint and MCI, I guess
|
||
virtually every company in America we got." Faires said he used the stolen,
|
||
long distance phone time and other stolen credit card numbers to access
|
||
networks with credit information from major department stores and mail order
|
||
businesses. "You come up to the door and the door is locked," he said. "You
|
||
have to buy access. Well, I bought access with credit cards from another
|
||
system. I had access codes that we had hacked. "I could pull your entire
|
||
credit profile up and just pick the credit card numbers that you still had some
|
||
credit in them and how many dollars you had left in your account and I would
|
||
spend that," Faires said. "My justification was, I don't know the creditor and
|
||
he had no knowledge of it so he won't have to pay it." However, Faires said he
|
||
now thinks of the trouble the illegal use of the credit cards has caused his
|
||
victims in their efforts to straighten out damaged credit records. "I remember
|
||
I took a course once that was called computer morality about the moral ethics
|
||
to which we're morally bound," he said. "It's like a locksmith. Even though
|
||
he can open a lock, he's morally bound not to if it's not his lock. I violated
|
||
that."
|
||
|
||
The vulnerability of credit card companies to hackers is the subject of an
|
||
unpublished book that Faires said he has written. Faires said his book
|
||
includes tips on how businesses and others can safeguard access to their
|
||
credit, but added that there may be no way to be completely safe from
|
||
hackers. "It's untitled as yet," he said about the book. "We're leaving that
|
||
open. I'm waiting to see if they electrocute me here, then I'm going to put
|
||
something about "I could buy it all but couldn't pay the electric bill.' "
|
||
[This guy is a real toon -DH]
|
||
|
||
While Faires has not been formally charged in connection with the scheme,
|
||
last week he said he was sure charges will be forthcoming because "there is no
|
||
question about my involvement." The other six alleged conspirators are John
|
||
Carl Berger and George A. Hart Jr. of Milwaukee, Wis.; Charles Robert McFall
|
||
and Victor Reyes of San Antonio, Texas; Steven Michael Skender Jr. of West
|
||
Allis, Wis.; and Angelo Bruno Bregantini of Marshville, N.C. All six men are
|
||
charged with conspiracy to commit access device and wire fraud. Berger,
|
||
Skender, Reyes and Bregantini also are charged separately with multiple counts
|
||
of wire fraud.
|
||
|
||
The indictments are the first criminal charges generated by Operation
|
||
Mongoose, an ongoing Secret Service probe of credit card and long-distance
|
||
telephone access fraud. The charges allege that Faires has had access to a
|
||
telephone since his arrest and imprisonment in Miami in 1986, an allegation
|
||
that has prompted a separate probe by Miami authorities. That phone was used
|
||
to make frequent calls to a building on Brookfield Road in Brookfield, Wis.,
|
||
where another alleged unindicted co-conspirator, Fred Bregantini, operates
|
||
various businesses, according to the indictment. The indictment said Faires
|
||
and Fred Bregantini were "at the hub" of the telephone and credit card scam.
|
||
The two men are accused of collecting credit card numbers and telephone access
|
||
codes from other defendants in the case and using the numbers to purchase
|
||
merchandise, services and "other things of value." Robertson said agents
|
||
believe the members of the ring copied many of these stolen numbers from credit
|
||
card receipts retrieved from the trash cans of various businesses. He said the
|
||
practice, commonly called "dumpster diving," is a widely used method in credit
|
||
card fraud. [`dumpster diving' eh? -DH]
|
||
|
||
While some of the defendants helped make purchases on the stolen cards,
|
||
the indictment alleges that others provided addresses used for the shipment of
|
||
the stolen goods. The goods included gold coins, plane tickets, computer
|
||
equipment, tools and stereo equipment. Robertson said agents are still
|
||
tallying the cost of the scam to Telco and other companies but that the damage
|
||
has already climbed past $1 million. Herbert Howard, president of Telco, on
|
||
Friday said the company lost from $35,000 to $40,000 in revenues from illegal
|
||
calls and in additional expenses for researching Faires' use of access codes.
|
||
"It was really a learning experience for us because this is the first time this
|
||
has happened," Howard said about his 2-year-old company. "I think it's a fear
|
||
of all long-distance companies. It's very fortunate that we caught it as
|
||
quickly as we did."
|
||
_______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
HEADLINE No, I'm not paranoid, but who is No. 1?
|
||
Byline: DENISE CARUSO
|
||
Column: INSIDE SILICON VALLEY
|
||
DATE 08/21/90
|
||
SOURCE SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER (SFEX)
|
||
Edition: FIFTH
|
||
Section: BUSINESS
|
||
Page: D-16
|
||
(Copyright 1989)
|
||
|
||
|
||
THOUGH I didn't plan it that way, this week proved to be a perfect time to
|
||
start renting old episodes of "The Prisoner" - that very dark, very paranoid
|
||
British spy series from the early '60s which foresaw a bleak future in which
|
||
"een-formation" was of paramount importance, no matter whose "side" you were
|
||
on. Every well-paid company representative from every telephone service
|
||
provider in North America earned his or her keep this week, fielding calls from
|
||
blood-thirsty members of the press corps who also wanted "een-formation" about
|
||
whether or not the huge long-distance snafu with AT&T was a "hack" (an illegal
|
||
break-in) or some form of computerized germ warfare.
|
||
|
||
I'm happy that the answer was "no," but of course the event opens a rather
|
||
nasty can of worms: has AT&T's problem tipped off the hacker community that
|
||
the phone network is vulnerable? "That's a very good question," said one
|
||
network engineer I spoke with last week. But, he assured me, his network was
|
||
totally secure and had all kinds of safeguards built in to prevent either
|
||
outside penetration or the introduction of a software virus to the system. I
|
||
hope he's right, but I must admit, I've heard that song before.
|
||
|
||
Here, for example, is an excerpt from an anonymous piece of electronic
|
||
mail I received last week, slightly edited to correct grammatical
|
||
imperfections: "It may be of interest to you to know, if I wanted to have
|
||
"fun," "evil" deeds could be done by remote control, up to and including
|
||
shutting down every ESS (electronic switching station) office in North America.
|
||
|
||
"Less evil and more fun might be to shut down the stock market for a day,
|
||
scramble all transactions, or even send it down in a tail spin! Banks aren't
|
||
immune either. This may sound very darkside, but people must have what is
|
||
needed to fight back if things go bad!" Not disturbing enough? Try this one on
|
||
for size: Back in July of '89, I wrote of a story in the premier issue of the
|
||
magazine Mondo 2000 that detailed how one might set about hacking automatic
|
||
teller machines (ATMs). That story contained everything but the blueprints for
|
||
the device, which the magazine's editors didn't print because they thought it
|
||
would be irresponsible to do so. But now, a student-owned Cornell University
|
||
publication called "Visions Magazine" - for which Carl Sagan is creative
|
||
adviser - has asked the article's author, Morgan Russell, for rights to reprint
|
||
the article in its entirety, including device blueprints.
|
||
|
||
These kinds of stories are disturbing, yet somehow I've always expected
|
||
they would happen, a reaction that's similar to the way I feel when I watch
|
||
"The Prisoner." No. 6, as he's called, cries out at the beginning of every
|
||
episode, "I am not a number! I am a free man!" His will to resist is
|
||
sufficient to fend off the authorities who believe their need for the
|
||
"een-formation" in No. 6's head gives them the right to try to control his
|
||
movements and thoughts, using - of course - only the most impressive
|
||
technology.
|
||
|
||
Of course, the science-fiction fantasy of impressive technology in the
|
||
'60s, when "The Prisoner" was created, was as authoritarian and centralized as
|
||
the governments using it. Not many faceless authorities back then were
|
||
predicting a near-future where all classes of people had access to, could
|
||
afford and knew how to use powerful technology. (I'm sure it would have ruined
|
||
their supper if they had.) Neither did they envision today's growing class of
|
||
technological sophisticates - whether self-taught PC hackers or trained
|
||
computer scientists - who, by virtue of their knowledge, could cripple,
|
||
disable, or otherwise confound the system which spawned them. Have any opinion
|
||
you'd like about the right or wrong of it. Fact is, whether it's the phone
|
||
network or a bank teller machine, the more we rely on technology, the less we
|
||
can rely on technology.
|
||
|
||
Though this fact can make life unpleasant for those of us who are
|
||
victimized by either the machines we trust or the people who know how to fidget
|
||
with them, there is something strangely comforting about knowing that, after
|
||
all, a computer is still only as trustworthy as the humans who run it. Write
|
||
|
||
CONTACT:
|
||
Denise Caruso, Spectra, San Francisco Examiner
|
||
P.O Box 7260
|
||
San Francisco, CA 94120. (Denise
|
||
|
||
MCI Mail (Denise Caruso) - CompuServe (73037,52) - CONNECT (Caruso)
|
||
_______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
HEADLINE US Sprint to Supply Soviet Venture With Switches
|
||
DATE 09/17/90
|
||
SOURCE WALL STREET JOURNAL (WJ)
|
||
|
||
|
||
WASHINGTON -- US Sprint Communications Corp. said it obtained U.S. government
|
||
approval to supply a Soviet joint venture with packet switches that can greatly
|
||
improve telecommunications services between the Soviet Union and other
|
||
countries. The imminent shipment of these switches was announced by William
|
||
Esrey, chairman and chief executive officer of United Telecommunications Inc.,
|
||
shortly after completing a visit to the Soviet Union with Commerce Secretary
|
||
Robert Mosbacher and the chief executives of other U.S. companies. United
|
||
Telecommunications is the parent of US Sprint.
|
||
|
||
The export license that US Sprint expects to obtain as early as this week
|
||
will be the first license for telecommunications equipment granted by the U.S.
|
||
under the new, relaxed regulations for shipping technology to the Soviet Union,
|
||
Esrey said. * The Soviet venture, Telenet USSR, will be owned by a US Sprint
|
||
subsidiary, Sprint International, and the Soviet Ministry of Post and
|
||
Telecommunications and the Larvian Academy of Sciences, a Soviet research
|
||
group. The Commerce Department doesn't discuss details of individual license
|
||
applications, but Mosbacher has publicly supported technology tie-ups between
|
||
the U.S. companies represented in his traveling group and potential Soviet
|
||
partners. US Sprint appears to be leading the race among American
|
||
telecommunications companies to establish solid ties in the Soviet Union. An
|
||
earlier proposal by U S West Inc. to lay down part of an international
|
||
fiber-optic line across the Soviet Union was rejected by U.S. authorities
|
||
because of the advanced nature of the technology.
|
||
|
||
US Sprint's packet switches, however, appear to be within the new
|
||
standards for permissible exports to the Soviet Union. The switches are used
|
||
to route telephone calls and control traffic in voice, facsimile and
|
||
digitalized data transmission. These eight-bit switches are one or two
|
||
generations behind the comparable systems in use in Western countries, but are
|
||
still good enough to sharply improve the ability of Sprint's Soviet customers
|
||
to communicate with other countries, Esrey's aides said. The company declined
|
||
to discuss the value of its investment or to disclose how many switches will be
|
||
sold. US Sprint said its venture will operate through new, dedicated satellite
|
||
lines that will augment the often-congested 32 international lines that
|
||
currently exist for Moscow-based businesses. Esrey said he expects the venture
|
||
to be in operation before the end of this year.
|
||
_______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
HEADLINE BT Tymnet Introduces Additional XLINK Services
|
||
DATE 09/09/90
|
||
SOURCE DOW JONES NEWS WIRE
|
||
|
||
SAN JOSE, Calif. -DJ- BT Tymnet Inc. said XLINK Express, a family of new,
|
||
bundled, port-based, synchronous X.25 (XLINKs) services, is available. The
|
||
XLINK service offers customers lower cost X.25 host access to its TYMNET
|
||
network, the company said in a news release. XLINKs are leased-line private
|
||
access port services for X.25 interfaces at speeds up to 19.2 bits per second
|
||
and supporting up to 64 virtual circuits.
|
||
|
||
XLINK Express includes port access, leased line, modems, software, and free
|
||
data transmission. Prior to XLINK Express, customers requiring a
|
||
9.6-bit-per-second leased line for standard X.25 host connectivity would
|
||
typically pay about $1,500 monthly for their leased line, modems and interface.
|
||
With XLINK, customers can now be charged a monthly rate of $900, the company
|
||
said.
|
||
|
||
BT Tymnet Inc. is a unit of British Telecom plc.
|
||
_______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
HEADLINE Hacker may be taunting the FBI; Whiz suspected of invading U.S. army
|
||
computer
|
||
Credit: PENINSULA TIMES TRIBUNE
|
||
DATE 04/10/90
|
||
SOURCE Montreal Gazette (GAZ)
|
||
Edition: FINAL
|
||
Section: NEWS
|
||
Page: F16
|
||
Origin: PALO ALTO, Calif.
|
||
(Copyright The Gazette)
|
||
|
||
--- Hacker may be taunting the FBI; Whiz suspected of invading
|
||
U.S. army computer ---
|
||
|
||
PALO ALTO, Calif. - The computer prodigy wanted on suspicion of invading a
|
||
U.S. army computer may be taunting FBI agents by defiantly talking to his
|
||
hacker buddies on electronic bulletin boards while he eludes a manhunt,
|
||
authorities said. The mysterious Kevin Poulsen, a former Menlo Park, Calif.,
|
||
resident described by many as a computer genius, is outsmarting the FBI and
|
||
apparently has the savvy to make this game of hide-and-seek a long contest.
|
||
|
||
No, investigators are not getting frustrated, FBI official Duke Diedrich
|
||
said. "It's just a matter of time. We've got our traps and hopefully one day
|
||
we'll be able to get the mouse." Authorities have issued an arrest warrant for
|
||
the former SRI International computer expert. He has been at large since at
|
||
least Jan. 18, when federal officials revealed allegations of a sensational
|
||
computer conspiracy. The FBI says Poulsen, 24, is the mastermind of a complex
|
||
computer and telephone-system invasion that included breaking into an
|
||
unclassified army computer network, snooping on the FBI and eavesdropping on
|
||
the calls of a former girlfriend. FBI agents believe he may be in southern
|
||
California, but because he is apparently still hooked up to a national network
|
||
of hackers, he could be using his friends to hide just about anywhere, Diedrich
|
||
said. Poulsen is adept at manufacturing false identification and knows how to
|
||
use the phone system to cover traces of his calls.
|
||
|
||
Agents believe his hacker talk on electronic bulletin boards is perhaps "a
|
||
way of taunting law enforcement officials," Diedrich said. Poulsen may be back
|
||
to his old tricks, but "he's not hiding with the usual bunch of hackers," said
|
||
John Maxfield, a computer security consultant and former FBI informant.
|
||
|
||
Maxfield, known nationally as a "narc" among young hackers, said he had
|
||
underground sources who said Poulsen was rumored to be living alone in a
|
||
southern California apartment. Poulsen's computer chatter could lead to his
|
||
downfall, Maxfield said. Many hackers are electronic anarchists who would be
|
||
happy to turn in a high-ranking hacker, thereby pushing themselves up the
|
||
status ladder, he said. But Poulsen probably has access to a steady flow of
|
||
cash, so he doesn't have to get a job that might lead to his arrest, Maxfield
|
||
said.
|
||
|
||
With his expertise, Poulsen could easily crack the bank computers that
|
||
validate cash transactions and then credit his own accounts, Maxfield said.
|
||
The FBI isn't desperate, but agents have contacted America's Most Wanted, a
|
||
television show that asks viewers to help authorities find fugitives.
|
||
|
||
Poulsen's mother, Bernadine, said her son called home just after police
|
||
announced there was a warrant for his arrest, but he had not called since.
|
||
During the brief call, "He just apologized for all the stress he was causing
|
||
us." The fugitive's motivation baffles Maxfield.
|
||
|
||
The self-described "hacker tracker" has conducted investigations that have
|
||
led to dozens of arrests, but the Poulsen-contrived conspiracy as alleged by
|
||
the FBI is strange, he said. Most teen-age hackers are thrill seekers, he
|
||
explained. The more dangerous the scam, the bigger the high. But Poulsen is
|
||
24. "Why is he still doing it?" Maxfield asked.
|
||
|
||
Poulsen, alias "Dark Dante" and "Master of Impact," was a member of an
|
||
elite hacker gang called Legion of Doom. [Poulsen was never a member of the
|
||
group -DH]
|
||
|
||
The 25 or so mischievous members are now being arrested one by one, Maxfield
|
||
said. They consider themselves misfits, but smart misfits who are superior to
|
||
the masses of average people who have so labelled them, he said. [Baha,
|
||
Maxfield really cracks me up -DH]
|
||
|
||
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
|
||
|
||
Kevin recently had a 15 minute television debut on NBC's "Unsolved
|
||
Mystries". The program showed renactments of Kevin breaking into CO's and
|
||
walking around his apartment filled with computers and other 'listening'
|
||
devices (as the show called them).
|
||
|
||
I personally got a kick out of the photographs he took of himself holding
|
||
switching equipment after a break-in at a CO.
|
||
_______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
HEADLINE Amtrak Gets Aboard SDN
|
||
Byline: BETH SCHULTZ
|
||
DATE 10/25/90
|
||
SOURCE COMMUNICATIONS WEEK
|
||
Issue: 267
|
||
Section: PN
|
||
Page: 58
|
||
(Copyright 1989 CMP Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.)
|
||
|
||
WASHINGTON - Amtrak, always looking for ways to reduce the amount of government
|
||
funding it takes to keep it on track, has switched its long distance traffic
|
||
onto a virtual private network-taking advantage of an AT&T promotion that saved
|
||
the railroad $250,000. Though Amtrak realized the cost-savings potential of
|
||
AT&T's Software Defined Network (SDN) as early as May 1987, it took until last
|
||
spring for the company to move full-speed ahead with implementation of that
|
||
virtual private network service. "We had led the horse to water, but we
|
||
couldn't make it drink," said Jim West, an AT&T national systems consultant.
|
||
|
||
But in April of this year, AT&T removed the last obstacle in the
|
||
railroad's way, said Amtrak's chief network engineer Matt Brunk. At that time,
|
||
AT&T began running a special promotion that waived the installation fee for
|
||
connecting sites to the SDN. Until then, Amtrak, based here, could only afford
|
||
adding locations piecemeal.
|
||
|
||
Plagued by network abuse, Amtrak began tracking the potential of SDN as a
|
||
means of solving that problem as soon as AT&T announced its SDN rates in
|
||
December 1986. Describing the severity of its toll-fraud problem, Brunk told
|
||
of a seven-day stint in 1985 during which hackers tallied $185,000 in
|
||
unauthorized charges. By the end of that year, toll fraud on Amtrak's network
|
||
reached in excess of $1 million.
|
||
|
||
Before the days of the virtual private network, the only way to clean up
|
||
this abuse was through a toll-free "800" service configuration and PBX remote
|
||
access, which Amtrak implemented at the end of 1985. "We changed the policy
|
||
and procedures for all users, limiting the capabilities of remotaccess," Brunk
|
||
said.
|
||
|
||
But Amtrak needed to further patrol its network, and after studying AT&T's
|
||
SDN, as well as competitive offerings, the railroad ordered in May 1987 the
|
||
first portion of what would this year become a 300-site SDN. The initial order
|
||
included AT&T Accunet T1.5 circuits for just two stations, one in Chicago and
|
||
one here. Used to replace the 800 service, these 1.544-megabit-per-second
|
||
direct connections were used to "provide secure remote access to on-net numbers
|
||
for numerous users," Brunk said.
|
||
|
||
Equally important, Amtrak also signed up for the Network Remote Access
|
||
Fraud Control feature, which gives it a single point of control over the
|
||
network. "What Amtrak ordered then was not really a network, because it was
|
||
feature-specific," said AT&T national account manager Sharon Juergens.
|
||
|
||
The company has not billed back or dropped any toll fraud since it began
|
||
using the SDN remote access feature, Brunk said. "Anyone with PBX
|
||
remote-access capability and :heavy! volume not using SDN as a vehicle is
|
||
doing their company a disservice."
|
||
|
||
Originally a beta-test site for the SDN's security-report feature, Amtrak
|
||
has since come to rely heavily on that option, too. With the exception of some
|
||
group codes, a warning is sent if spending on any user code exceeds $60 per
|
||
month. "We begin investigating immediately," Brunk said. "We are now
|
||
proactive, instead of reactive."
|
||
|
||
Today, 40 Amtrak locations have switched-access connections to the SDN;
|
||
260 sites are linked through dedicated means, whether through voice-grade
|
||
analog circuits or high-speed T1s. "The users' traffic is discounted, on a
|
||
single billing statement, and in effect, :the SDN! links them to the company.
|
||
This is our corporate communications glue," Brunk said. "But this is only the
|
||
beginning. Not only have we provided a service, but also we have provided a
|
||
bright future. We have set ourselves up for competitive gain." Spending
|
||
Stabilized And the company has stabilized telecommunications expenditures. In
|
||
1985, Amtrak spent $26 million on telecom equipment and services. Four years
|
||
later, Brunk estimated the railroad will spend just $1 million more. He said
|
||
contributing factors to this will be the SDN, upgrading from outdated analog
|
||
PBXs to digital PBXs and replacing some PBX installations with local
|
||
Bell-provided centrex service. Network savings resulting from reduced
|
||
call-setup time alone, Brunk added, will reach $74,000 this year.
|
||
|
||
"In a nutshell, we have improved transmission quality, network management
|
||
and maintenance, and reduced costs," Brunk said. "The users have gained a
|
||
single authorization code accessing multiple applications, improved quality and
|
||
support."
|
||
|
||
Cost savings aside, Amtrak also took into consideration applications
|
||
available off the SDN. "At the time, of what was available, we really liked
|
||
everything about SDN," Brunk said.
|
||
|
||
The Amtrak network is supported by the dedicated access trunk testing
|
||
system. This system lets Amtrak test access lines, thus aiding the company in
|
||
activating and deactivating authorization codes. And Amtrak is testing the
|
||
AT&T Alliance dedicated teleconferencing service.
|
||
|
||
With the teleconferencing service, Amtrak can reduce internal travel
|
||
expenditures: Users can access the system remotely via an 800 number, or on
|
||
demand. Amtrak operators can connect teleconferencing calls at any time. "The
|
||
quality is fantastic, but the cost is even better because it's all connected to
|
||
the SDN," said Brunk.
|
||
|
||
_______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
|
||
KL ^*^ KL ^*^ KL ^*^ KL ^*^ KL
|
||
|
||
K N I G H T L I N E
|
||
|
||
Issue 01/Part II of III
|
||
|
||
17th of November, 1990
|
||
|
||
Written, compiled,
|
||
|
||
and edited by Doc Holiday
|
||
|
||
KL ^*^ KL ^*^ KL ^*^ KL ^*^ KL
|
||
|
||
---
|
||
F R O M T H E W I R E
|
||
_______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
HEADLINE ADAPTING DIGITAL SWITCH -- Fujitsu To Expand In U.S.
|
||
Byline: ROBERT POE
|
||
DATE 11/15/90
|
||
SOURCE COMMUNICATIONSWEEK (CWK)
|
||
Issue: 322
|
||
Section: PUBLIC NETWORKING
|
||
Page: 33
|
||
(Copyright 1990 CMP Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.)
|
||
|
||
RALEIGH, N.C.-Fujitsu Ltd. is boosting efforts to adapt its digital exchange
|
||
to the U.S. network, in anticipation of the $40 billion public switch
|
||
changeout expected in the United States over the next 10 to 15 years.
|
||
|
||
Fujitsu plans to increase the number of U.S. staff members in charge of
|
||
selling and engineering the Fetex-150 switch to 600 by 1994 from the current
|
||
100, officials at the Tokyo-based company said.
|
||
|
||
The increase will shift development of sophisticated switch features from Japan
|
||
to the United States, said one observer familiar with Fujitsu Network Switching
|
||
of America Inc., based here.
|
||
|
||
FILLING U.S. NEEDS
|
||
|
||
Most of the current staff there is working on testing the performance and
|
||
network conformance of software developed in Japan, the observer said. With
|
||
the expansion, the subsidiary will be responsible for developing functions and
|
||
capabilities required by U.S. customers.
|
||
|
||
The Fetex-150 is Fujitsu's export-model exchange switch, with more than 8.8
|
||
million lines installed or on order in 17 countries. None have been sold in
|
||
the United States, but the recently announced plans confirm longstanding
|
||
speculation that the Japanese manufacturer is planning a major push into the
|
||
U.S.
|
||
|
||
When Fujitsu won a major switch tender in Singapore last autumn, competitors
|
||
complained it was selling the equipment at cost to win a prestigious contract
|
||
that would serve as a stepping-stone to the United States.
|
||
|
||
WOOING THE BELLS
|
||
|
||
Fujitsu said its switch has passed Phase 1 and Phase 2 evaluations by Bell
|
||
Communications Research Inc., Livingston, N.J., the research arm of the seven
|
||
U.S. regional Bell companies. Although the Bellcore certification is
|
||
considered essential to selling to the Bells-which account for about 75 percent
|
||
of U.S. telephone lines-it may not be enough for the company to break into a
|
||
market dominated by AT&T and Nashville, Tenn.-based Northern Telecom Inc.
|
||
|
||
Those two manufacturers have more than 90 percent of the U.S. market. A share
|
||
like that, coupled with Bell company inertia in changing to new suppliers,
|
||
leaves foreign public switch manufacturers largely out in the cold, analysts
|
||
said.
|
||
|
||
The U.S. subsidiaries of Siemens AG, L.M. Ericsson Telephone Co., NEC Corp.
|
||
and GEC Plessey Telecommunications Ltd. have found the U.S. market tough to
|
||
crack, though each has had limited success and is further along than Fujitsu.
|
||
|
||
`INHERENT CONSERVATISM'
|
||
|
||
"There's an inherent conservatism on the part of their {U.S.} customer base,"
|
||
said Robert Rosenberg, director of analytical services at The Eastern
|
||
Management Group, Parsippany, N.J. "These are huge companies with billions of
|
||
dollars invested in their current equipment.
|
||
|
||
"Even if Fujitsu comes up with a switch that has all the bells and whistles
|
||
that an engineer could ever want, if all the support systems have to be rebuilt
|
||
in order to fit that switch into the network, his manager won't let him install
|
||
it," Rosenberg said.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
_______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
|
||
Telephone Services: A Growing Form Of "Foreign Aid"
|
||
|
||
Keith Bradsher, {The New York Times}, Sunday, October 21, 1990
|
||
(Business section, page 5)
|
||
|
||
Americans who make international telephone calls are paying extra to
|
||
subsidize foreign countries' postal rates, local phone service, even
|
||
schools and armies.
|
||
|
||
These subsidies are included in quarterly payments that American
|
||
telephone companies must make to their counterparts overseas, most of
|
||
these are state-owned monopolies. The net payments, totaling $2.4
|
||
billion last year, form one of the fastest-growing pieces of the
|
||
American trade deficit, and prompted the Federal communications
|
||
Commission this summer to begin an effort that could push down the
|
||
price that consumers pay for an international phone call by up to 50
|
||
percent within three years.
|
||
|
||
The imbalance is a largely unforeseen side effect of the growth of
|
||
competition in the American long-distance industry during the 1980's.
|
||
The competition drove down outbound rates from the United States,
|
||
while overseas monopolies kept their rates high.
|
||
|
||
The result is that business and families spread among countries try
|
||
to make sure that calls originate in the United States. Outbound
|
||
calls from the United States now outnumber inbound calls by 1.7-to-1,
|
||
in minutes -- meaning American phone companies have to pay fees for
|
||
the surplus calls. The F.C.C. is concerned that foreign companies are
|
||
demanding much more money than is justified, given the steeply falling
|
||
costs of providing service, and proposes to limit unilaterally the
|
||
payments American carriers make.
|
||
|
||
Central and South American countries filed formal protests against
|
||
the F.C.C.'s plan on October 12. Although developed countries like
|
||
Britain and Japan account for more than half of United States
|
||
international telephone traffic, some of the largest imbalances in
|
||
traffic are with developing countries, which spend the foreign
|
||
exchange on everything from school systems to weapons. The deficit
|
||
with Columbia, for example, soared to $71 million last year.
|
||
|
||
International charges are based on formulas assigning per-minute
|
||
costs of receiving and overseas call and routing it within the home
|
||
country. But while actual costs have dropped in recent years, the
|
||
formulas have been very slow to adjust, if they are adjusted at all.
|
||
For example, while few international calls require operators, the
|
||
formulas are still based on such expenses.
|
||
|
||
Furthermore, the investment required for each telephone line in an
|
||
undersea cable or aboard a satellite has plummeted with technological
|
||
advances. A trans-Pacific cable with 600,000 lines, announced last
|
||
Wednesday and scheduled to go into service in 1996, could cost less
|
||
than $1,000 per line.
|
||
|
||
Yet the phone company formulas keep charges high. Germany's Deutsche
|
||
Bundespost, for example, currently collects 87 cents a minute from
|
||
American carriers, which actually lose money on some of the off-peak
|
||
rates they offer American consumers.
|
||
|
||
MORE CALLS FROM THE U.S. ARE GENERATING A GROWING TRADE DEFICIT
|
||
|
||
U.S. telephone companies charge less for 1980 0.3 (billions of
|
||
overseas calls than foreign companies 1981 0.5 U.S. dollars)
|
||
charge for calls the United States. So 1982 0.7
|
||
more international calls originate in the 1983 1.0
|
||
United States. But the U.S. companies pay 1984 1.2
|
||
high fees to their foreign counterparts for 1985 1.1
|
||
handling those extra calls, and the deficit 1986 1.4
|
||
has ballooned in the last decade. 1987 1.7
|
||
1988 2.0
|
||
1989 2.4 (estimate)
|
||
(Source: F.C.C.)
|
||
|
||
THE LONG DISTANCE USAGE IMBALANCE
|
||
|
||
Outgoing and incoming U.S. telephone traffic, in 1988, the latest year
|
||
for which figures are available, in percent.
|
||
|
||
Whom are we calling? Who's calling us?
|
||
Total outgoing traffic: Total incoming traffic:
|
||
5,325 million minutes 3,155 million minutes
|
||
|
||
Other: 47.9% Other: 32.9%
|
||
Canada: 20.2% Canada: 35.2%
|
||
Britain: 9.1% Britain: 12.6%
|
||
Mexico: 8.8% Mexico: 6.2%
|
||
W. Germany: 6.9% W. Germany: 5.4%
|
||
Japan: 4.4% Japan: 4.3%
|
||
France: 2.7% France: 3.4%
|
||
|
||
(Source: International Institute of Communications)
|
||
|
||
COMPARING COSTS: Price range of five-minute international calls between
|
||
the U.S. and other nations. Figures do not include volume discounts.
|
||
|
||
Country From U.S.* To U.S.
|
||
|
||
Britain $2.95 to $5.20 $4.63 to $6.58
|
||
Canada (NYC to $0.90 to $2.25 $1.35 to $2.26
|
||
Montreal)
|
||
France $3.10 to $5.95 $4.72 to $7.73
|
||
Japan $4.00 to $8.01 $4.67 to $8.34
|
||
Mexico (NYC to $4.50 to $7.41 $4.24 to $6.36
|
||
Mexico City)
|
||
West Germany $3.10 to $6.13 $10.22
|
||
|
||
* For lowest rates, callers pay a monthly $3 fee.
|
||
(Source: A.T.&T.)
|
||
|
||
WHERE THE DEFICIT FALLS: Leading nations with which the United States
|
||
has a trade deficit in telephone services, in 1989, in millions of
|
||
dollars.
|
||
|
||
Mexico: $534
|
||
W. Germany: 167
|
||
Philippines: 115
|
||
South Korea: 112
|
||
Japan: 79
|
||
Dominican Republic: 75
|
||
Columbia: 71
|
||
Italy: 70 (Source: F.C.C.)
|
||
Israel: 57
|
||
Britain: 46
|
||
|
||
THE RUSH TOWARD LOWER COSTS: The cost per telephone line for laying
|
||
each of the eight telephone cables that now span the Atlantic Ocean,
|
||
from the one in 1956, which held 48 lines, to the planned 1992 cable
|
||
which is expected to carry 80,000 lines. In current dollars.
|
||
|
||
1956 $557,000
|
||
1959 436,000
|
||
1963 289,000
|
||
1965 365,000
|
||
1970 49,000
|
||
1976 25,000
|
||
1983 23,000 (Source, F.C.C.)
|
||
1988 9,000
|
||
1992 5,400 (estimate)
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
_______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
A few notes from Jim Warren in regards to the CFP conference:
|
||
|
||
|
||
Greetings,
|
||
Some key issues are now settled, with some minor remain for resolution.
|
||
|
||
CONFERENCE DATES, LOCATION & MAXIMUM SIZE
|
||
|
||
We have finally completed site selection and contracted for the Conference
|
||
facility. Please mark your calendars and spread the word:
|
||
|
||
First Conference on Computers, Freedom & Privacy
|
||
March 25-28,1991, Monday-Thursday
|
||
SFO Marriott, Burlingame, California
|
||
(just south of San Francisco International Airport;
|
||
on the San Francisco Peninsula, about 20 minutes from "The City")
|
||
maximum attendance: 600
|
||
|
||
PLEASE NOTE NAME CHANGE
|
||
|
||
We have found *ample* issues for a very robust Conference, limited only to
|
||
computer-related issues of responsible freedom and privacy. After questions
|
||
regarding satellite surveillance, genetic engineering, photo traffic radar,
|
||
wireless phone bugs, etc., we decided to modify the Conference title for
|
||
greater accuracy. We have changed it from "Technology, Freedom & Privacy" to
|
||
"Computers, Freedom & Privacy."
|
||
|
||
ONE MORE NIT TO PICK
|
||
|
||
Until recently, our draft title has included, "First International Conference".
|
||
|
||
We most definitely are planning for international participation, especially
|
||
expecting presentations from EEC and Canadian privacy and access agencies.
|
||
These will soon have significant impacts on trans-border dataflow and inter-
|
||
national business communications.
|
||
|
||
However, we were just told that some agencies require multi-month clearance
|
||
procedures for staff attending any event with "International" in its title.
|
||
|
||
**Your input on this and the minor issue of whether to include "International"
|
||
in our Conference title would be appreciated.**
|
||
|
||
ATTRIBUTION (BLAME)
|
||
|
||
We are building the first bridge connecting the major, highly diverse villages
|
||
of our new electronic frontier. Such construction involves some degree of
|
||
exploration and learning.
|
||
|
||
These title-changes are a result of that learning process. Please attribute
|
||
all responsibility for the fluctuating Conference title to me, personally. I
|
||
am the one who proposed the first title; I am the one who has changed it to
|
||
enhance accuracy and avoid conflict.
|
||
|
||
Of course, the title will be settled and finalized (with your kind assistance)
|
||
before the Conference is formally announced and publicity statements issued --
|
||
soon!
|
||
|
||
Thanking you for your interest and continued assistance, I remain, Sincerely,
|
||
|
||
--Jim Warren, CFP Conf Chair
|
||
jwarren@well.ca.sf.us
|
||
|
||
_______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
[Reprented from TELECOM digest. --DH]
|
||
|
||
|
||
FROM: Patrick Townson <telecom@eecs.nwu.edu>
|
||
SUBJECT: Illinois Bell Shows Real CLASS
|
||
|
||
For several months now, Illinois Bell has been hawking CLASS. Brochures
|
||
in the mail with our bills and newspaper advertisements have told us about the
|
||
wonderful new services soon to be offered.
|
||
|
||
It was just a question, they said, of waiting until your central office had
|
||
been converted. The new features being offered are:
|
||
|
||
*66 Auto Call Back: Call back the last number which called you. No
|
||
need to know the number.
|
||
|
||
*69 Repeat Dial: If the number you dialed was busy, punching
|
||
this will keep trying the number for up to
|
||
30 minutes, and advise you when it can connect.
|
||
|
||
*60 Call Screening Enter:
|
||
# plus number to be screened out plus #
|
||
* plus number to be re-admitted plus *
|
||
# plus 01 plus # to add the number of the
|
||
last call you received, whether or not
|
||
you know the number.
|
||
1 To play a list of the numbers being screened.
|
||
0 For a helpful recording of options, etc.
|
||
|
||
Distinctive Ringing Up to ten numbers can be programmed in. When a
|
||
call is received from one of these numbers, your
|
||
phone will give a special ring to advise you.
|
||
|
||
Multi-Ring Service Two additional numbers can be associated with
|
||
your number. When someone dials one of these
|
||
two numbers, your phone will give a special ring.
|
||
|
||
With both Distinctive Ringing and Multi-Ring Service, if you have Call Waiting,
|
||
the Call Waiting tones will be different from the norm also, so that you can
|
||
tell what is happening. With Multi-Ring Service, you can have it programmed so
|
||
the supplementary numbers associated with your main number are forwarded when
|
||
it is forwarded, or do not observe forwarding, and 'ring through' despite what
|
||
the main number is doing.
|
||
|
||
Alternate Answer Can be programmed so that after 3-7 rings,
|
||
the unanswered call will be automatically sent
|
||
to another line *WITHIN YOUR CENTRAL OFFICE*.
|
||
|
||
If the number assigned as an alternate is
|
||
itself busy or forwarded OUTSIDE YOUR OFFICE
|
||
then Alternate Answer will not forward the
|
||
call and continue to ring unanswered.
|
||
|
||
Transfer on Busy/ This is just another name for 'hunt'. The
|
||
No Answer difference is that hunt is free; Transfer on
|
||
Busy/NA costs a couple bucks per month. Like
|
||
Alternate Answer, it must forward only to a
|
||
number on the same switch. Unlike hunt, it
|
||
will work on NA as well. Unlike Alternate
|
||
Answer, it works on busy as well.
|
||
|
||
Caller*ID will be available 'eventually' they say.
|
||
|
||
Now my story begins:
|
||
|
||
From early this summer to the present, I've waited patiently for CLASS to
|
||
be available in Chicago-Rogers Park. Finally a date was announced: October 15
|
||
the above features would be available. In mid-September, I spoke with a rep in
|
||
the Irving-Kildare Business Office. She assured me *all* the above features
|
||
would be available on October 15. My bill is cut on the 13th of each month,
|
||
and knowing the nightmare of reading a bill which has had changes made in
|
||
mid-month (page after page of pro-rata entries for credits on the old service,
|
||
item by item; pro-rata entries for the new service going in, etc) it made sense
|
||
to implement changes on the billing date, to keep the statement simple.
|
||
|
||
She couldn't write the order for the service to start October 13, since
|
||
CLASS was not officially available until the fifteenth. Well, okay, so its
|
||
either wait until November 13 or go ahead and start in mid-month, worrying
|
||
about reading the bill once it actually arrives.
|
||
|
||
I've been ambivilent about CLASS since it is not compatible with my
|
||
present service 'Starline', but after much thought -- and since all
|
||
installation and order-writing on Custom Calling features is free now through
|
||
December 31! -- I decided to try out the new stuff.
|
||
|
||
She took the order Wednesday afternoon and quoted 'sometime Thursday' for
|
||
the work to be done. In fact it was done -- or mostly done -- by mid-afternoon
|
||
Thursday. But I should have known better. I should have remembered my
|
||
experience with Starline three years ago, when it took a technician in the
|
||
central office *one week* to get it all in and working correctly. Still, I
|
||
took IBT's word for it.
|
||
|
||
I got home about 5:30 PM Thursday. *You know* I sat down right away at
|
||
the phone to begin testing the new features! :) The lines were to be equipped
|
||
as follows:
|
||
|
||
Line 1: Call Waiting Line 2: Call Forwarding
|
||
Three Way Calling Speed Dial 8
|
||
Call Forwarding Busy Repeat Dialing *69
|
||
Speed Dial 8
|
||
Auto Call Back *66 (second line used mostly by modem;
|
||
Busy Repeat Dialing *69 so Call Waiting undesirable)
|
||
Call Screening *60
|
||
Alternate Answer (supposed to be programmed to Voice Mail;
|
||
another CO; another area code <20>708<30>;
|
||
even another telco <20>Centel<65>).
|
||
|
||
Busy Repeat Dialing did not work on the second line (not installed) and
|
||
Alternate Answer worked (but not as I understood it would) on the first line.
|
||
Plus, I had forgotten how to add 'last call received' to the screening feature.
|
||
|
||
It is 5:45 ... business office open another fifteen minutes ... good! I
|
||
call 1-800-244-4444 which is IBT's idea of a new way to handle calls to the
|
||
business office. Everyone in the state of Illinois calls it, and the calls go
|
||
wherever someone is free. Before, we could call the business office in our
|
||
neighborhood direct ... no longer.
|
||
|
||
I call; I go on hold; I wait on hold five minutes. Finally a rep comes on
|
||
the line, a young fellow who probably Meant Well ...
|
||
|
||
After getting the preliminary information to look up my account, we begin
|
||
our conversation:
|
||
|
||
Me: You see from the order the new features put on today?
|
||
Him: Yes, which ones are you asking about?
|
||
Me: A couple questions. Explain how to add the last call received to
|
||
your call screening.
|
||
Him: Call screening? Well, that's not available in your area yet. You
|
||
see, it will be a few months before we offer it.
|
||
Me: Wait a minute! It was quoted to me two days ago, and it is on
|
||
the order you are reading now is it not?
|
||
<20>I read him the order number to confirm we had the same one.<2E>
|
||
|
||
Him: Yes, it is on here, but it won't work. No matter what was written
|
||
up. Really, I have to apologize for whoever would have taken your
|
||
order and written it there.
|
||
|
||
Me: Hold on, hold on! It *is* installed, and it *is* working! I want
|
||
to know how to work it.
|
||
|
||
Him: No it is not installed. The only features we can offer you at
|
||
at this time are Busy Redial and Auto Callback. Would you like me
|
||
to put in an order for those?
|
||
|
||
Me: Let's talk to the supervisor instead.
|
||
|
||
Him: (in a huff) Gladly sir.
|
||
|
||
Supervisor comes on line and repeats what was said by the rep: Call
|
||
Screening is not available at this time in Chicago-Rogers Park.
|
||
|
||
At this point I am furious ...
|
||
|
||
Me: Let me speak to the rep who took this order (I quoted her by
|
||
name.)
|
||
|
||
Supervisor: I never heard of her. She might be in some other office.
|
||
|
||
Me: (suspicious) Say, is this Irving-Kildare?
|
||
|
||
Supervisor: No! Of course not! I am in Springfield, IL.
|
||
|
||
Me: Suppose you give me the name of the manager at Irving-Kildare
|
||
then, and I will call there tomorrow. (By now it was 6 PM; the
|
||
supervisor was getting figity and nervous wanting to go home.)
|
||
|
||
Supervisor: Here! Call this number tomorrow and ask for the manager of
|
||
that office, 1-800-244-4444.
|
||
|
||
Me: Baloney! Give me the manager's direct number!
|
||
|
||
Supervisor: Well okay, 312-xxx-xxxx, and ask for Ms. XXXX.
|
||
|
||
Me: (suspicious again) She is the manager there?
|
||
|
||
Supervisor: Yes, she will get you straightened out. Goodbye!
|
||
|
||
Comes Friday morning, I am on the phone a few minutes before 9 AM, at the
|
||
suggested direct number. Ms. XXXX reviewed the entire order and got the Busy
|
||
Repeat Dial feature added to line two ... but she insisted the original rep
|
||
was 'wrong for telling you call screening was available ..' and the obligatory
|
||
apology for 'one of my people who mislead you'. I patiently explained to her
|
||
also that in fact call screening was installed and was working.
|
||
|
||
Manager: Oh really? Are you sure?
|
||
|
||
Me: I am positive. Would you do me a favor? Call the foreman and have
|
||
him call me back.
|
||
|
||
Manager: Well, someone will call you later.
|
||
|
||
Later that day, a rep called to say that yes indeed, I was correct. It
|
||
seems they had not been told call screening was now available in my office. I
|
||
told her that was odd, considering the rep who first took the order knew all
|
||
about it.
|
||
|
||
I asked when the Alternate Answer 'would be fixed' (bear in mind I thought
|
||
it would work outside the CO, which it would not, which is why it kept ringing
|
||
through to me instead of forwarding.)
|
||
|
||
She thought maybe the foreman could figure that out.
|
||
|
||
Maybe an hour later, a techician did call me to say he was rather
|
||
surprised that call screening was working on my line. He gave a complete and
|
||
concise explanation of how Alternate Answer and Transfer on Busy/No Answer was
|
||
to work. He offered to have it removed from my line since it would be of no
|
||
value to me as configured.
|
||
|
||
One question he could not answer: How do you add the last call received
|
||
to call screening? He could find the answer nowhere, but said he would see to
|
||
it I got 'the instruction booklet' in the mail soon, so maybe I could figure it
|
||
out myself.
|
||
|
||
I got busy with other things, and put the question aside ... until early
|
||
Saturday morning when I got one of my periodic crank calls from the same number
|
||
which has plagued me for a couple months now with ring, then hangup calls on an
|
||
irregular basis.
|
||
|
||
For the fun of it, I punched *69, and told the sassy little girl who
|
||
answered the phone to quit fooling around. She was, to say the least,
|
||
surprised and startled by my call back. I don't think I will hear from her
|
||
again. :)
|
||
|
||
But I decided to ask again how to add such a number to call screening,
|
||
so I called Repair Service.
|
||
|
||
The Repair Service clerk pulled me up on the tube *including the work
|
||
order from two days earlier* and like everyone else said:
|
||
|
||
Repair: You don't have Call Screening on your line. That is not
|
||
available yet in your area. We are adding new offices daily,
|
||
blah, blah.
|
||
|
||
I *couldn't believe* what I was hearing ... I told her I did, and she
|
||
insisted I did not ... despite the order, despite what the computer said.
|
||
Finally it was on to her supervisor, but as it turned out, her supervisor was
|
||
the foreman on duty for the weekend. Like the others, he began with apologies
|
||
for how I 'had been misinformed' ... no call screening was available.
|
||
|
||
Me: Tell ya what. You say no, and I say yes. You're on the test
|
||
board, no? I'll hang up. You go on my line, dial *60, listen to
|
||
the recording you hear, then call me back. I will wait here. Take
|
||
your time. When you call back, you can apologize.
|
||
|
||
Foreman: Well, I'm not on the test board, I'm in my office on my own
|
||
phone.
|
||
|
||
Me: So go to the test board, or pick me up in there wherever it is
|
||
handy and use my line. Make a few calls. Add some numbers to the
|
||
call screening; then call me back with egg on your face, okay?
|
||
|
||
Foreman: Are you saying call screening is on your line and you have
|
||
used it?
|
||
|
||
Me: I have used it. Today. A few minutes ago I played with it.
|
||
|
||
Foreman: I'll call you back.
|
||
|
||
(Fifteen minutes later) ...
|
||
|
||
|
||
Foreman: Mr. Townson! Umm ... I have been with this company for 23
|
||
years. I'll get to the point: I have egg on my face. Not mine
|
||
really, but the company has the egg on the face. You are correct;
|
||
your line has call screening.
|
||
|
||
Me: 23 years you say? Are you a member of the Pioneers?
|
||
|
||
Foreman: (surprised) Why, uh, yes I am.
|
||
|
||
Me: Fine organization isn't it ...
|
||
|
||
Foreman: Yes, it certainly is. You know of them?
|
||
|
||
Me: I've heard a few things.
|
||
|
||
Foreman: Look, let me tell you something. I did not know -- nor *did
|
||
anyone in this office know* that call screening was now available. We
|
||
were told it was coming, that's all.
|
||
|
||
Me: You mean no one knew it was already in place?
|
||
|
||
Foreman: No, apparently not ... I think you are the only customer in
|
||
the Rogers Park office who has it at this time. Because the
|
||
assumption was it was not yet installed, the reps were told not to
|
||
take orders for it ... I do not know how your order slipped through.
|
||
|
||
Me: Will you be telling others?
|
||
|
||
Foreman: I have already made some calls, and yes, others will be told
|
||
about this on Monday.
|
||
|
||
Me: Well, you know the *81 feature to turn call screening on and off
|
||
is still not working.
|
||
|
||
Foreman: I'm not surprised. After all, none of it is supposed to be
|
||
working right now. You seem to know something about this business,
|
||
Mr. Townson.
|
||
|
||
Me: I guess I've picked up a few things along the way.
|
||
|
||
We then chatted about the Transfer on Busy/No Answer feature. I asked
|
||
why, if my cell phone on 312-415-xxxx had the ability to transfer calls out of
|
||
the CO and be programmed/turned on and off from the phone itself, my wire line
|
||
could not. 312-415 is out of Chicago-Congress ... he thought it might have to
|
||
do with that office having some different generics than Rogers Park ... but he
|
||
could not give a satisfactory answer.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Patrick Townson
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
_______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
|
||
The following article appeared in the U-M Computing Center News
|
||
(October 25, 1990, V 5, No 18, Pg 10)
|
||
|
||
[This article was also reprinted in TELECOM digest -DH]
|
||
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
|
||
|
||
NSFNET DEMONSTRATES INTERCONTINENTAL ISO TRANSMISSION
|
||
|
||
[Editor's note: The following article is reprinted, with modifications,
|
||
from the September 1990 issue of the Link Letter (Vol 3, No 4),
|
||
published by the Merit/NSFNET backbone project]
|
||
|
||
At the end of September, partners in the National Science Foundation Network
|
||
(NSFNET) announced a succesful demonstration of intercontinental data
|
||
transmission using the International Standards Organization Conectionless
|
||
Network Protocol (ISO CLNP). The international exchange of ISO CLNP packets
|
||
was demonstrated betweeen end systems at the NSFNET Network Operations Center
|
||
in Ann Arbor and in Bonn, West Germany, using the NSFNET backbone
|
||
infrastructure and the European Academic Supercomputer Initiative (EASInet)
|
||
backbone.
|
||
|
||
The prototype OSI implementation is intended to provide wide area connectivity
|
||
between OSI networks, including networks using the DECNet Phase V protocols.
|
||
|
||
The new software was integrated into the NSFNET's "packet switching" (data
|
||
transmission) nodes by David Katz and Susan Hares of the Merit Computer
|
||
Network, with support from IBM's software developement departments in Milford,
|
||
CT and Yorktown Heights, NY.
|
||
|
||
NSFNET is the first federally supported computer network to acheive
|
||
international ISO CLNP transmission on an operating network, according to
|
||
Merit's Hans-Werner Braun, Principle Investigator for the NSFNET Project.
|
||
|
||
The Prototype ISO implementation is being designed to coexist with NSFNET's
|
||
operational Internet Protocol (IP) network, and is a significant step towards
|
||
offering ISO services on the NSFNET backbone. Eric Aupperle, President of
|
||
Merit and acting director of ITD Network Systems, says that "the demonstration
|
||
shows that we're capable of transporting ISO traffic. Now we're working to
|
||
deploy this experimental service as fast as possible."
|
||
|
||
An implementation of CLNP was first demonstrated by Merit/NSFNET staff at the
|
||
InterOp '89 conference. That implementation of CLNP was originally developed
|
||
as part of the ARGO project at the University of Wisconsin, Madision, with the
|
||
support of the IBM Corporation.
|
||
|
||
by Ken Horning
|
||
DTD Network Systems.
|
||
_______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
|
||
{Middlesex News}, Framingham, Mass., 11/2/90
|
||
|
||
Prodigy Pulls Plug on Electronic Mail Service For Some
|
||
|
||
By Adam Gaffin
|
||
|
||
NEWS STAFF WRITER
|
||
|
||
Users of a national computer network vow to continue a protest against
|
||
censorship and a new charge for electronic mail even though the company kicked
|
||
them off-line this week.
|
||
|
||
Brian Ek, spokesman for the network, Prodigy, said the "handful" of users had
|
||
begun harassing other users and advertisers on the service and that some had
|
||
even created programs "to flood members' 'mailboxes' with (thousands of)
|
||
repeated and increasingly strident harangues," he said.
|
||
|
||
But leaders of the protest say they sent only polite letters -- approved by the
|
||
company's legal department -- using techniques taught by the company itself.
|
||
Up to nine of them had their accounts pulled hips week.
|
||
|
||
Protests began in September when the company said it would cut unlimited
|
||
electronic mail from its monthly fee -- which includes such services as on-line
|
||
airline reservations, weather and games -- and would charge 25 cents for every
|
||
message above a monthly quota of 30. Ek says the design of the Prodigy network
|
||
makes "e-mail" very expensive and that few users send more than 30 messages a
|
||
month.
|
||
|
||
But Penny Hay, the only organizer of the "Cooperative Defense Committee" whose
|
||
account was not shut this week, said she and others are upset with Prodigy's
|
||
"bait and switch" tactics: The company continues to promote "free" electronic
|
||
mail as a major feature. She said Prodigy itself had spurred use of e-mail by
|
||
encouraging subscribers to set up private e-mail ``lists'' rather than use
|
||
public forums and that the charges will especially hurt families, because the
|
||
quota is per household, not person.
|
||
|
||
Ek said relatively few members protested the rate chqange. Gary Arlen, who
|
||
publishes a newsletter about on-line services, called the controversy "a
|
||
tempest in a teapot."
|
||
|
||
Hay, however, said the group now has the backing of nearly 19,000 Prodigy users
|
||
-- the ones advertisers would want to see on-line because they are the most
|
||
active ones on the system and so more likely to see their ads.
|
||
|
||
The group is also upset with the way the company screens messages meant for
|
||
public conferences. Other services allow users to see "postings"
|
||
immediately.
|
||
|
||
"They are infamous for this unpredicible and unfathomable censorship," Hay
|
||
said.
|
||
|
||
"We feel what we are doing is not censoring because what we are essentially
|
||
doing is electronic publishing," Ek said, comparing the public messages to
|
||
letters to the editor of a family newspaper.
|
||
|
||
Neil Harris, marketing director at the competing GEnie service, said many
|
||
people would feel intimidated knowing that what they write is being screened.
|
||
He said GEnie only rarely has to deleted messages. And he said GEnie has
|
||
picked up several thousand new customers from among disgruntled Prodigy users.
|
||
|
||
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
|
||
|
||
"Conversations with Fred," {Middlesex News}, Framingham, 11/6/90.
|
||
|
||
The story is bizarre but true, swears Herb Rothman. Seems Prodigy, the network
|
||
run as a joint venture by Sears and IBM, wouldn't let somebody post a message
|
||
in a coin-collecting forum that he was looking for a particular Roosevelt dime
|
||
for his collection. Upset, the man called "member services." The
|
||
representative told him the message violated a Prodigy rule against mentioning
|
||
another user in a public message. "What user?" the man asked. "Roosevelt
|
||
Dime," the rep replied. "That's not a person!" the man said. "Yes he is,
|
||
he's a halfback for the Chicago Bears," the rep shot back.
|
||
|
||
Rothman is one of those alleged compu-terrorists Prodigy claims is harassing
|
||
other users and companies that advertise on the service by sending out
|
||
thousands upon thousands of increasingly hostile messages in protest of a
|
||
Prodigy plan to begin charging users who send more than 30 e-mail messages a
|
||
month. Rothman and the others say they sent very polite messages to people
|
||
(Penny Hay of Los Angeles says her messages were even approved by the Prodigy
|
||
legal department) telling them about the new fees and urging them to protest.
|
||
|
||
What's really happening is that Prodigy is proving its complete arrogance and
|
||
total lack of understanding of the dynamics of on-line communication. They
|
||
just don't get it. People are NOT going to spend nearly $130 a year just to
|
||
see the weather in Oregon or order trips to Hawaii.
|
||
|
||
Even the computerphobes Prodigy wants to attract quickly learn the real value
|
||
of the service is in finding new friends and holding intelligent "discussions"
|
||
with others across the country.
|
||
|
||
But Prodigy blithely goes on censoring everything meant for public consumption,
|
||
unlike other nationwide services (or even bulletin-board systems run out of
|
||
some teenager's bedroom). Rothman's story is not the only one about capricious
|
||
or just plain stupid censoring. Dog fanciers can't use the word ``bitch'' when
|
||
talking about their pets, yet the service recently ran an advice column all
|
||
about oral sex. One user who complained when a message commenting on the use
|
||
of the term "queen bitch" on "L.A. Law" was not allowed on was told that
|
||
"queen b***h" would be acceptable, because adults would know what it meant
|
||
but the kiddies would be saved.
|
||
|
||
So when the supposed technology illiterates Prodigy thinks make up its user
|
||
base managed to get around this through the creation of private mail "lists"
|
||
(and, in fact, many did so at the urging of Prodigy itself!), Prodigy started
|
||
complaining of "e-mail hogs," quietly announced plans to levy charges for more
|
||
than a minute number of e-mail messages each month and finally, simply canceled
|
||
the accounts of those who protested the loudest!
|
||
|
||
And now we are watching history in the making, with the nation's first
|
||
nationwide protest movement organized almost entirely by electronic mail (now
|
||
don't tell Prodigy this, but all those people they kicked off quickly got back
|
||
onto the system -- Prodogy allows up to six users per household account, and
|
||
friends simply loaned their empty slots to the protest leaders).
|
||
|
||
It's truly amazing how little faith Prodigy has in the ability of users to
|
||
behave themselves. Other systems have "sysops" to keep things in line, but
|
||
rarely do they have to pull messages. Plus, Prodigy is just being plain dumb.
|
||
Rothman now has a mailing list of about 1,500. That means every time he sends
|
||
out one of his newsletters on collectibles, he sends 1,500 e-mail messages,
|
||
which, yes, costs more for Prodigy to send over long-distance lines and store
|
||
in its central computers. But if they realized their users are generally
|
||
mature, rather than treating them as 4-year-olds, Rothman could post just one
|
||
message in a public area, that everybody could see.
|
||
|
||
Is this any way to run an on-line system? Does Prodigy really want to drive
|
||
away the people most inclined to use the service -- and see all those ads that
|
||
pop up at the bottom of the screen? Prodigy may soon have to do some
|
||
accounting to the folks at IBM and Sears, who by most accounts have already
|
||
poured at least $750 million into "this thing."
|
||
|
||
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - -
|
||
With your computer and modem, you can reach Fred the Middlesex News
|
||
Computer anytime, day or night, at (508) 872-8461. Set your parameters
|
||
to 8-1-N and up to 2400 baud.
|
||
|
||
_______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
|
||
HEADLINE Cops Say Hacker, 17, `Stole' Phone Service
|
||
Byline: By Joshua Quittner
|
||
DATE 10/31/90
|
||
SOURCE Newsday (NDAY)
|
||
Edition: NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
|
||
Section: NEWS
|
||
Page: 02
|
||
(Copyright Newsday Inc., 1990)
|
||
|
||
State Police arrested a 17-year-old computer hacker at his terminal yesterday
|
||
afternoon, and charged the Bethpage High School student with using his computer
|
||
to run up more than $1 million worth of long-distance telephone calls on credit
|
||
card numbers he deciphered.
|
||
|
||
State Police Senior Investigator Donald Delaney, who supervised the
|
||
investigation and arrest of John Farrell, of 83 S. Third St., said that the
|
||
case was among the first to rely on new technology developed by
|
||
telecommunications engineers to track long-distance telephone-service abusers.
|
||
|
||
Investigators believe that as early as December, 1989, Farrell was using his
|
||
computer and a homemade electronic device, known as a black box, to
|
||
sequentially dial telephone numbers, which double as credit card numbers. By
|
||
automatically calling the numbers in sequence, Farrell hoped to trigger a
|
||
signal indicating a valid credit card number.
|
||
|
||
However, AT&T, which recently developed software to detect such sequential
|
||
dialing, alerted Delaney's office in September of Farrell's alleged attempts.
|
||
In July, investigators surreptitiously placed a "pen register" - a device that
|
||
records all numbers dialed from a particular phone line - on Farrell's
|
||
telephone, Delaney said.
|
||
|
||
State Police and U.S. Secret Service agents - the federal agency has been
|
||
taking an active part in computer crimes and investigates credit card fraud -
|
||
staked out Farrell's house yesterday afternoon. Shortly after 3 p.m., when the
|
||
youth arrived home from school, technicians monitoring his telephone line
|
||
signaled the police that he had already turned on his computer and was using an
|
||
illegal credit card number to access an electronic bulletin board in Illinois,
|
||
police said. Officers, armed with a search warrant, then entered the house and
|
||
arrested Farrell.
|
||
|
||
Delaney said Farrell found over 100 long-distance credit card numbers, from
|
||
four long-distance carriers, and posted them on rogue electronic bulletins
|
||
boards in Virginia, Chicago, Denmark and France. Although he allegedly made
|
||
most of the illegal calls, other hackers also used the numbers. The majority
|
||
of the calls - more than $600,000 worth - were billed to four corporate card
|
||
numbers, said Delaney, who added that the phone company is responsible for such
|
||
losses. Farrell was arrested and charged with six felonies, including grand
|
||
larceny, computer trespass and criminal possession of stolen property. The
|
||
charges carry a maximum penalty of four years in prison. He was released into
|
||
the custody of his parents last night. Neither Farrell nor his parents could
|
||
be reached for comment yesterday. Farrell was associated with a group of
|
||
hackers who called themselves Paradox, Delaney said.
|
||
|
||
_______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
|
||
HEADLINE Menacing calls started out as prank, says participant
|
||
Byline: Katharine Webster and Graciella Sevilla
|
||
Credit: Staff Writer
|
||
Notes: Editions vary : Head varies
|
||
DATE 10/28/90
|
||
SOURCE The San Diego Union and Tribune (SDU)
|
||
Pub: UNION
|
||
Edition: 1,2,3,4,5,6
|
||
Section: LOCAL
|
||
Page: B-1
|
||
(Copyright 1990)
|
||
|
||
A three-year campaign of telephoned threats and ethnic slurs directed against
|
||
the Jewish owner of a National City pawn shop started out as a "stupid prank"
|
||
that grew to include more than 100 people, according to one of the young men
|
||
who participated in the harassment. "Little did I know when I started this
|
||
three years ago, that it would escalate into my brother calling (David Vogel)
|
||
10 times a day," said Gary Richard Danko, 21, of Chula Vista, who cooperated
|
||
with the FBI investigation that resulted in the indictment Wednesday of his
|
||
older brother and two other men on civil rights charges.
|
||
|
||
Michael Dennis Danko, 23, and Brett Alan Pankauski, 22, both of Chula Vista,
|
||
and Jeffrey Alan Myrick, 21, of Paradise Hills in San Diego, pleaded not guilty
|
||
in U.S. District Court yesterday to a six-count indictment charging them with
|
||
wire fraud and felony conspiracy to violate the civil rights of David Vogel, a
|
||
66-year-old Jewish immigrant who escaped the Holocaust.
|
||
|
||
Pankauski was released on $10,000 bail and admonished to avoid all contact with
|
||
Vogel. But Danko and Myrick were held without bail pending an Oct. 4
|
||
detention hearing after federal prosecutor Michael McAuliffe convinced
|
||
Magistrate Irma Gonzalez that they posed substantial flight risks.
|
||
|
||
On Wednesday, Gary Danko and a friend, Robert John Byrd, 21, also of Chula
|
||
Vista, pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of conspiring to violate Vogel's
|
||
civil rights, according to a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office. The
|
||
two friends, who met while working at a 7-Eleven, were released and agreed to
|
||
testify at the trial of the remaining three defendants.
|
||
|
||
Though the arrests climaxed a five-month investigation involving the FBI, U.S.
|
||
attorney's office and the Department of Justice, Gary Danko said yesterday that
|
||
the menacing phone calls to numbers picked "at random" from the telephone book
|
||
began years ago.
|
||
|
||
The group of friends, most of whom have known each other since elementary
|
||
school, all used to make crank phone calls, Danko said, even to each other.
|
||
They also experimented with breaking codes for answering machines and changing
|
||
the outgoing message to something profane.
|
||
|
||
While he said he stopped making the calls to Vogel a couple of years ago, his
|
||
brother and others "took it out to a degree to torment the guy."
|
||
|
||
"I feel bad that it turned out this way," Danko said. "I wish there was some
|
||
way I could make it up to David (Vogel)."
|
||
|
||
"I know how he feels," Danko added. "Ever since I've had my own phone line
|
||
I've had harassing phone calls between 2 and 6 in the morning to the point
|
||
where I've changed my phone number three times." Danko denied that he, his
|
||
brother, or any of the other defendants in the case were racists or that they
|
||
had targeted Vogel for any particular reason. He said that the defendants made
|
||
crank calls to many people, and that the anti-Jewish nature of the calls to
|
||
Vogel was probably based on a "lucky guess" that he was Jewish.
|
||
|
||
According to the indictment, Michael Danko, Myrick, and Pankauski made phone
|
||
calls in which they referred to Nazi concentration camps and Hitler, while
|
||
threatening to harm Vogel and his pawn-shop business.
|
||
|
||
Vogel said he began receiving the phone calls -- which included racial slurs
|
||
and taunts about his wife -- in 1987. Sometimes he received up to 12 calls a
|
||
day, creating a "personal hell." Earlier this year, he finally hired a private
|
||
investigator, who then turned the case over to the FBI.
|
||
|
||
"It caused suffering for us like the concentration camps did for my family,"
|
||
Vogel said. "It was horrible."
|
||
|
||
Another relative of Gary and Michael Danko, who asked not to be identified,
|
||
said he thought the calls to Vogel continued only "because they got a reaction
|
||
out of him -- he screamed and yelled at them." But he said Vogel was probably
|
||
not the only Jew targeted in the phone calls.
|
||
|
||
The relative agreed with FBI agents, who described these incidents as isolated
|
||
and not connected with organized racist groups such as the Skinheads.
|
||
|
||
Instead, he said, the brothers thought they were doing "something funny." He
|
||
said he thought they still didn't realize they were doing something wrong, even
|
||
though he had "yelled and screamed at them" to stop.
|
||
|
||
Gary Danko is a computer "hacker" who works at a computer store, he said.
|
||
Michael Danko was unemployed.
|
||
|
||
FBI agents began investigating the calls in May, when they placed a tape
|
||
recorder on Vogel's phone. It only took a few moments before the first hate
|
||
call came in.
|
||
|
||
Agents traced the calls to a number of phone booths and then began putting
|
||
together the wire-fraud case.
|
||
|
||
In addition to the civil rights violations, the indictment alleges that the
|
||
three defendants conspired to obtain unauthorized AT&T long-distance access
|
||
codes to make long-distance phone calls without paying for them.
|
||
|
||
If convicted of the civil rights and wire-fraud charges, the defendants could
|
||
face up to 15 years in prison and $500,000 in fines. In addition, they face
|
||
various additional charges of illegally obtaining and using the restricted
|
||
long-distance access codes.
|
||
|
||
Yesterday, Vogel angrily rejected the notion that these callers were less than
|
||
serious in their intentions.
|
||
|
||
"They're full of baloney. They don't know what they are talking about," he
|
||
said.
|
||
|
||
_______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
HEADLINE SHORT-CIRCUITING DATA CRIMINALS
|
||
STEPS CAN BE TAKEN TO DETECT AND PREVENT COMPUTER SECURITY BREACHES,
|
||
BUT BUSINESSES HESITATE TO PROSECUTE
|
||
Byline: Mary J. Pitzer Daily News Staff Writer
|
||
Notes: MONDAY BUSINESS: COVER STORY THE PRICE OF COMPUTER
|
||
CRIME. Second of two parts
|
||
DATE 10/22/90
|
||
SOURCE LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS (LAD)
|
||
Edition: Valley
|
||
Section: BUSINESS
|
||
Page: B1
|
||
(Copyright 1990)
|
||
|
||
Along with other telecommunications companies, Pacific Bell is a favorite
|
||
target for computer crime.
|
||
|
||
"We're a victim," said Darrell Santos, senior investigator at Pacific Bell.
|
||
"We have people hacking us and trying to get into our billables. It seems like
|
||
a whole lot of people are trying to get into the telecommunications network."
|
||
|
||
But the company is fighting back. About seven employees in its investigative
|
||
unit work with different law enforcement agencies to track down criminals, many
|
||
of whom use the phone lines to commit computer crimes.
|
||
|
||
In cooperation with authorities Pacific Bell investigators collect evidence,
|
||
trace calls, interview suspects and testify in court. They even do their own
|
||
hacking to figure out what some of their chief adversaries are up to.
|
||
|
||
"We take a (telephone) prefix and hack the daylights out of it. We hack our
|
||
own numbers," Santos said. "Hey, if we can do it, think of what those brain
|
||
childs are doing."
|
||
|
||
Few companies are nearly so aggressive. For the most part computer crime is a
|
||
growing business that remains relatively unchecked. State and federal laws
|
||
against computer crime are in place, but few cases are prosecuted. Most
|
||
incidents go unreported, consultants say.
|
||
|
||
"We advise our clients not to talk about losses and security because just
|
||
talking about them in public is a breach," said Donn Parker, a senior managment
|
||
consultant at SRI International in Palo Alto. "Mostly companies handle
|
||
incidents privately or swallow the loss."
|
||
|
||
Most problematic is that few companies have tight enough security to protect
|
||
themselves.
|
||
|
||
"On a scale of one to 10, the majority of companies are at about a two," said
|
||
Jim Harrigan, senior security consultant at LeeMah Datacom Security Corp.,
|
||
which sells computer security products.
|
||
|
||
Current laws are strong enough to convict computer criminals, security experts
|
||
say. But they have been little used and sentences are rarely stiff, especially
|
||
because so many violators are juveniles.
|
||
|
||
Fewer than 250 computer crime cases have been prosecuted nationally, according
|
||
to Kenneth Rosenblatt, head of the Santa Clara County district attorney's high
|
||
technology unit. Rosenblatt co-authored California's recent computer crime
|
||
law, which creates new penalties such as confiscation of computer equipment.
|
||
|
||
Under a strengthened federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Cornell University
|
||
graduate student Robert T. Morris Jr. was convicted of unleashing a computer
|
||
virus in Internet, a large computer network tying universities and government
|
||
facilities. Though the virus was not intended to destroy programs, it infected
|
||
thousands of computers and cost between $100,000 and $10 million to combat,
|
||
according to author and hacking expert Cliff Stoll.
|
||
|
||
Morris was sentenced to three years probation and a $10,000 fine.
|
||
|
||
A major problem in policing computer crime is that investigators are
|
||
understaffed and undertrained, Rosenblatt said. While Los Angeles and other
|
||
police departments have computer crime units, most are not geared for it, he
|
||
said. And violent crimes take precedence.
|
||
|
||
Rosenblatt would like to see greater regional cooperation and coordination
|
||
among local law enforcement agencies.
|
||
|
||
Because investigators are understaffed, they must depend on their victims to
|
||
gather enough evidence to convict the culprits. And that can be fraught with
|
||
difficulties, Kenneth Weaver, criminal investigator in the San Diego district
|
||
attorney's office, said at a recent security conference in Newport Beach.
|
||
|
||
In one case a company's computer system crashed and its programs were erased 30
|
||
days after an employee left the firm. With six months of backup tapes, the
|
||
company was able to document what had happened. The District Attorney's office
|
||
asked to estimate how much money had been lost.
|
||
|
||
The total came to $3,850, well below the $5,000 in damages needed for a felony
|
||
case, Weaver said. And then the information was delayed 14 months. It needed
|
||
to be reported in 12 months for the D.A. to go forward with the case.
|
||
|
||
"We were prevented from prosecuting," Weaver said. In California, 71 percent
|
||
of the cases result in convictions once arrests are made, according to the
|
||
National Center for Computer Crime Data.
|
||
|
||
But when prosecutors do make a case, there can be more trouble. Some prominent
|
||
people in the computer industry have complained that a 2-year investigation by
|
||
the U.S. Secret Service infringed on civil rights.
|
||
|
||
The investigation, code-named Operation Sun Devil, was started to snare members
|
||
of the Legion of Doom, an elite hacker group. The Secret Service suspected
|
||
that they had broken into BellSouth Corp.'s telephone network and planted
|
||
destructive programs that could have knocked out emergency and customer phone
|
||
service across several states. Last spring, hacker dens in 13 cities were
|
||
raided. Two suspects have been charged with computer crimes, and more arrests
|
||
are expected.
|
||
|
||
But a group called EFF, formed in July by Lotus Development Corp. founder
|
||
Mitchell D. Kapor and Apple Computer Inc. co-founder Stephen Wozniak, has
|
||
objected to the crackdown as overzealous.
|
||
|
||
"The excesses of Operation Sun Devil are only the beginning of what threatens
|
||
to become a long, difficult, and philosophically obscure struggle between
|
||
institutional control and individual liberty," Kapor wrote in a paper with
|
||
computer expert and Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow.
|
||
|
||
So far, the foundation has granted $275,000 to Computer Professionals for
|
||
Social Responsibility to expand its ongoing work on civil liberties protections
|
||
for computer users.
|
||
|
||
The foundation also is offering legal assistance to computer users who may have
|
||
had their rights infringed. For example, it provided legal support to Craig
|
||
Neidorf, publisher of an online hacking "magazine." Neidorf had been charged
|
||
with felony wire fraud and interstate transportation of stolen property for
|
||
publishing BellSouth network information.
|
||
|
||
Neidorf said he was not aware the information was stolen. EFF claimed that
|
||
Neidorf's right to free speech had been violated. The government dropped its
|
||
case after EFF representatives found that the apparently stolen information was
|
||
publicly available.
|
||
|
||
Companies that want to prosecute computer crime face other dilemmas.
|
||
|
||
"The decision to bring in public authorities is not always the best," said
|
||
Susan Nycum, an attorney at Baker & McKenzie in Palo Alto.
|
||
|
||
In a criminal case, the company loses control over what information is made
|
||
public in the trial. But companies can pursue civil remedies that enable them
|
||
to keep a lower profile. Suing for theft of trade secret, for example, would
|
||
be one avenue, Weaver said.
|
||
|
||
Many companies are reluctant to beef up security even if they know the risks
|
||
from computer crime. First, they worry that making access to computers more
|
||
difficult would lower productivity. There also is concern that their technical
|
||
people, who are in high demand, might leave for other jobs if security becomes
|
||
too cumbersome.
|
||
|
||
Expense is another factor. Serious security measures at a large installation
|
||
can cost an average of $100,000, though a smaller company can be helped for
|
||
about $10,000, said Trevor Gee, partner at consulting company Deloitte and
|
||
Touche.
|
||
|
||
"They hear all the rumors, but unless you illustrate very specific savings,
|
||
they are reluctant," Gee said.
|
||
|
||
Proving cost savings is difficult unless the company already has been hit by
|
||
computer crime. But those victims, some of whom have suffered losses in the
|
||
millions, are usually security experts' best customers, consultants say.
|
||
|
||
Much of the vulnerability to computer crime comes simply from lax security.
|
||
Access is not restricted. Doors are not locked. Passwords are easily guessed,
|
||
seldom changed and shared with several workers. And even these basic security
|
||
measures are easy to put off.
|
||
|
||
"You hear a lot of, `We haven't gotten around to changing the password because.
|
||
. .," Roy Alzua, telecommunications security program manager at Rockwell
|
||
International, told the security conference.
|
||
|
||
So what should companies do to plug the gaping security holes in their
|
||
organizations?
|
||
|
||
Consultants say that top management first has to make a commitment that
|
||
everyone in the operation takes seriously.
|
||
|
||
"I've seen companies waste several hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars
|
||
because management was not behind the program," Deloitte & Touche's Gee said.
|
||
"As a result, MIS (management information systems) professionals have a tough
|
||
time" pressing for more security.
|
||
|
||
Once top executives are convinced that there is a need for tighter security,
|
||
they must establish policies and procedures, consultants say. Gee suggests
|
||
that in addition to training programs, reminders should be posted. Such issues
|
||
as whether employees are allowed to use computers for personal projects should
|
||
be tackled.
|
||
|
||
Management also should decide what systems and information need to be secured.
|
||
|
||
"They need to zero in on the information they are really concerned about," said
|
||
Gregory Therkalsen, national director of information security services for
|
||
consultants Ernst & Young. "About 95 percent of the information in the average
|
||
company nobody cares about."
|
||
|
||
Before tackling complicated security systems, companies should pay attention to
|
||
the basics.
|
||
|
||
"Lock a door. It's as easy as that," Alzua said.
|
||
|
||
Companies should make sure that the passwords that come with their computers
|
||
are changed. And then employees should not use common words or names that are
|
||
easy to guess. Using a combination of numbers and letters, although difficult
|
||
to remember, is more secure.
|
||
|
||
Another basic measure is to have a system that automatically checks the
|
||
authorization of someone who dials into the company's computers from the
|
||
outside.
|
||
|
||
Then, companies should develop an electronic audit trail so that they know who
|
||
is using the system and when. And companies should always take the time to
|
||
make backups of their computer files and store them in a place safe from fire
|
||
and flood.
|
||
|
||
A wide variety of software is available to help companies protect themselves.
|
||
Some automatically encode information entered into the system. Others detect
|
||
viruses.
|
||
|
||
For a more sophisticated approach, LeeMah Datacom has a system that blocks a
|
||
computer tone from the telephone line until the correct access code is entered.
|
||
The company has held contests challenging hackers to break into its system. No
|
||
one has, the company said.
|
||
|
||
SRI is developing a system that would monitor computer activity around the
|
||
clock with the supervision of a security guard. SRI is implementing the system
|
||
for the FBI and plans to make it a commercial product.
|
||
|
||
No company would want to have a perfectly secure system, consultants say. That
|
||
would mean shutting out most employees and staying off networks that can make
|
||
operations more efficient.
|
||
|
||
While still balancing the need for openess, however, there is much that can be
|
||
done to prevent computer crime. And although there is no perfect solution,
|
||
companies don't need to stand by waiting to become the next victim.
|
||
|
||
_______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
|
||
HEADLINE BELL CANADA'S NEW LOOK TELEPHONE NUMBERS PUZZLE SOME CUSTOMERS
|
||
DATE 09/26/90
|
||
SOURCE CANADA NEWS-WIRE (CNW)
|
||
Contact: For further information, contact: Irene Colella (416)
|
||
581-4266; Geoff Matthews, Bell Canada (416) 581-4205. CO: Bell Canada
|
||
SS: IN: TLS
|
||
Origin: TORONTO
|
||
Language: ENGLISH; E
|
||
Day of Week: Wed
|
||
Time: 09:56 (Eastern Time)
|
||
(Copyright Canada News-Wire)
|
||
RE CN
|
||
--- BELL CANADA'S NEW LOOK TELEPHONE NUMBERS PUZZLE SOME
|
||
CUSTOMERS ---
|
||
|
||
TORONTO - Bell Canada's new look telephone numbers in Southern Ontario are
|
||
causing puzzlement among some customers in the 416 area code.
|
||
|
||
In late 1988 Bell found itself running short of telephone numbers in the Golden
|
||
Horseshoe because of rapid business and residential growth as well as the
|
||
increasing popularity of cellular telephones, fax machines and new services
|
||
like Ident-A-Call.
|
||
|
||
To accommodate continuing growth, the company had to come up with a means of
|
||
creating new number combinations. The solution was found by assigning local
|
||
exchanges made up of combinations which had previously been reserved as area
|
||
codes elsewhere in North America.
|
||
|
||
Until March of this year the three numbers (known as a central office code)
|
||
which begin a telephone number never had a zero or a one as the second digit.
|
||
Anything from two through nine could appear in that position, but combinations
|
||
with zero or one were used only as area codes. But with more than four million
|
||
telephone numbers in use throughout the Golden Horseshoe Bell was simply
|
||
running out of the traditional central office code combinations. By creating
|
||
new central office codes such as 502, 513, 602 and 612, the company has access
|
||
to up to one million new telephone numbers.
|
||
|
||
Some customers, however, have found the new numbers a little confusing. When
|
||
the new numbers were introduced last March, Bell mounted an extensive
|
||
advertising campaign telling customers throughout the 416 area code to dial 1
|
||
plus 416 or 0 plus 416 for all long distance calls within the area code in
|
||
order to ensure calls to these numbers could be completed.
|
||
|
||
Bell spokesman Geoff Matthews says that while the ad campaign was extremely
|
||
effective in changing dialing habits, a number of customers are scratching
|
||
their heads when they first see the new telephone numbers.
|
||
|
||
``In some cases we are finding that business customers have not programmed
|
||
their telephone equipment to permit dialing the new numbers,'' Matthews said,
|
||
``but some people think it is simply a mistake when they see a telephone number
|
||
beginning with 612 for example. Most are satisfied once they have received an
|
||
explanation.''
|
||
|
||
Creating the million new telephone numbers should see Bell Canada through
|
||
several years, Matthews said, after which a new area code will be introduced.
|
||
|
||
The 416 area code is the first in Canada to reach capacity. A number of U.S.
|
||
cities have faced a similar situation, Matthews said, and have introduced
|
||
similar number plans.
|
||
|
||
Bell Canada, the largest Canadian telecommunications operating company, markets
|
||
a full range of state-of-the-art products and services more than seven million
|
||
business and residence customers in Ontario, Quebec and part of the Northwest
|
||
Territories.
|
||
|
||
Bell Canada is a member of Telecom Canada -- an association of Canada's major
|
||
telecommunications companies.
|
||
|
||
|
||
For further information, contact: Irene Colella (416) 581-4266; Geoff
|
||
Matthews, Bell Canada (416) 581-4205.
|
||
|
||
_______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
|
||
HEADLINE Keeping The PBX Secure
|
||
Byline: Bruce Caldwell
|
||
DATE 10/15/90
|
||
Issue: 291
|
||
Section: TRENDS
|
||
Page: 25
|
||
(Copyright 1990 CMP Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.)
|
||
|
||
Preventing toll fraud through the corporate PBX can be as simple, albeit
|
||
inconvenient, as expanding access codes from four digits to 14. "When we had
|
||
nine-digit codes, we got hurt bad," says Bob Fox of US Sprint Communications
|
||
Co., referring to the phone company's credit card numbers. "But when we moved
|
||
to 14-digit codes and vigorous prosecution, our abuse dropped off the table."
|
||
|
||
At most companies, the authorization code for remote access, used by employees
|
||
to place calls through the corporate PBX while away from the office, is only
|
||
four digits. Many companies are "hung up on the four-digit authorization
|
||
code," says Fox, mainly because it's easier for the executives to remember.
|
||
But all it takes a hacker to crack open a four-digit code is about 20 minutes.
|
||
|
||
To help their customers cope with PBX abuse, MCI Communications Corp. has
|
||
prepared a tip sheet describing preventative measures (see accompanying chart).
|
||
PBX fraud may display itself in a particular pattern: The initial stage will
|
||
show a dramatic increase in 950-outbound and 800-outbound services, which allow
|
||
a surreptitious user to "cover his tracks" by jumping from one carrier to
|
||
another-a technique known as "looping." In time, knowledge of the unsecured
|
||
system may become widespread, resulting in heavy use of services connected with
|
||
normal telecommunications traffic.
|
||
|
||
Customers are advised to audit systems for unusual usage and to change codes on
|
||
a regular basis. Steady tones used as prompts to input access codes should be
|
||
avoided, because that is what hacker-programmed computers look for. Instead,
|
||
MCI advises use of a voice recording or no prompt at all, and recommends
|
||
automatic termination of a call or routing it to a switchboard operator
|
||
whenever an invalid code is entered.
|
||
|
||
An obvious source of help is often overlooked. Explains Jim Snyder, an
|
||
attorney in MCI's office of corporate systems integrity, "The first thing we
|
||
tell customers is to contact their PBX vendor to find out what kind of
|
||
safeguards can be built into the PBX."
|
||
|
||
_______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
|
||
HEADLINE WATCH YOUR PBX
|
||
Column: Database
|
||
DATE 04/02/90
|
||
SOURCE COMMUNICATIONSWEEK (CWK)
|
||
Issue: 294
|
||
Section: PRN
|
||
Page: 24
|
||
(Copyright 1990 CMP Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.)
|
||
|
||
Many managers of voice systems would be "horrified" if they realized the low
|
||
levels of security found in their PBXs, according to Gail Thackeray, an
|
||
assistant attorney general for the state of Arizona. Thackeray made her
|
||
comments to a group of financial users at a computer virus clinic held by the
|
||
Data Processing Management Association's Financial Industries chapter.
|
||
Thackeray, who investigates computer crimes, said that PBXs often are used by
|
||
network criminals to make free long distance phone calls at the expense of the
|
||
companies that own the PBXs. "PBX owners are often unaware that if $500,000
|
||
worth of fraud comes from your PBX, the local carrier is not going to absorb
|
||
that loss," she said.
|
||
|
||
The PBX also is often the first source of break-in by computer hackers, who use
|
||
the free phone service to get into a user's data system, she said. "PBXs are
|
||
the prime method for international toll fraud and hackers attacking and hiding
|
||
behind your corporate identity," Thackeray said.
|
||
|
||
Richard Lefkon, Citicorp's network planner and president of DPMA's financial
|
||
industries chapter, said users are more likely to take steps toward protecting
|
||
a PBX than a network of microcomputers. "A PBX is expensive, so if you add 15
|
||
to 20 percent to protect it, it's a justifiable expenditure," Lefkon said. "If
|
||
you have a PC which costs a couple of thousand dollars, unless you think you're
|
||
special, you are going to think twice before investing several hundred dollars
|
||
per PC to protect them."
|
||
|
||
_______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
|
||
KL ^*^ KL ^*^ KL ^*^ KL ^*^ KL
|
||
|
||
K N I G H T L I N E
|
||
|
||
Issue 03/Part III of III
|
||
|
||
17th of November, 1990
|
||
|
||
Written, compiled,
|
||
|
||
and edited by Doc Holiday
|
||
|
||
KL ^*^ KL ^*^ KL ^*^ KL ^*^ KL
|
||
|
||
---
|
||
|
||
What is this? Information Society's new album is called "HACK"? Just
|
||
what do these guys know about hacking? How did they come up with the album
|
||
title? Why are they taking such an interest in the Computer Underground?
|
||
|
||
Knightline got the chance to ask Kurt Valaquen of InSoc about the new
|
||
album and his involvement with the CU.
|
||
|
||
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
|
||
|
||
RINGing New York .. .
|
||
|
||
KV: Hello
|
||
Me: Kurt?
|
||
KV: Yes, Doc ?
|
||
Me: Yea, you ready for the interview?
|
||
KV: Sure, shoot.
|
||
Me: Okay, this is DH with Phrack Classic--
|
||
TC: This is the Conflict
|
||
PH: And this is Pain Hertz
|
||
KV: I uh, hope you ask me what my hacker handle is..
|
||
Me: Ok, what's your handle?
|
||
KV: Because I believe that I have one of the coolest hacker's handles that I've
|
||
ever heard.
|
||
TC: uhh
|
||
Me: What is it?
|
||
KV: TRAPPED VECTOR.
|
||
Me: "Trapped Vector" ?
|
||
KV: yep
|
||
Me: How did you come up with that?
|
||
KV: What? You don't recognize it ?
|
||
Me: haha
|
||
KV: What.. . and you guys call yourselves hackers?
|
||
Me: ah
|
||
KV: My god. . you guys must be so young that you've never had to deal with
|
||
assembly language.
|
||
Me: Who would want to-- It was a sarcastic question..
|
||
Me: Now, Kurt..
|
||
KV: Trapped Vector is a term from deep deep down in the functioning's of a CPU.
|
||
Me: Right.
|
||
Me: Uh, uh What kind of involvement, if any, have you had in the
|
||
telecommunications field?
|
||
KV: In telecommunications what?
|
||
Me: In the telecommunications field.
|
||
KV: Uhh.. I majored in computer science at the University of Minnesota.. . Just
|
||
long enough to get interested and not long enough to get a degree.
|
||
Me: ah. So you didn't graduate?
|
||
KV: No. After my 5th year I finally gave up and went to Vienna.
|
||
Me: Uhh. Let's get into the new album .. uh now, what was the inspiration for
|
||
involving the "hacking" theme in your new album?
|
||
KV: Umm, well, it's not like we were inspired to do it -- and we sat around all
|
||
day and said "Hey, let's like put this hacker's moltese into it." -- it's
|
||
more like we just left all that stuff out on our first album because we
|
||
were trying to .. uh.. to not make any waves, since it was our first album.
|
||
And now were cocky and think we can do whatever we want. So we just did
|
||
whatever we wanted. And whenever we do whatever we want, some of that
|
||
stuff inevitably creeps in because .. were into it.
|
||
Me: uhh.. have you been following all of the recent hacking busts that have
|
||
plagued the country this year .. ?
|
||
KV: Hacking "buzz" that has plaged.. .
|
||
Me: BUSTS.. yea hacking busts..
|
||
KV: Oh, I haven't been following it, but I've been hearing a little bit about
|
||
it from my friends..
|
||
Me: Yea, because your album comming out titled "HACK" really does tie in
|
||
with this time period of hackers getting alot of press..
|
||
KV: Yea
|
||
Me: And I just thought that could have been one of the inspirations.. .
|
||
KV: Well, actually, believe it or not, we don't really know what it means to
|
||
title an album "HACK". We have a list of about nine different
|
||
interpretations that we thought we could leave open and anyone else could
|
||
decide which is the real one and strangley (Gruhm) the computer hacker
|
||
concept is pretty far down on our list. The first one we always think of
|
||
is uh.. the hack versus .. uh.. respected professional-- meaning-- like,
|
||
you know, their just hack, he's just a hack writer.. .
|
||
Me: Right.
|
||
KV: Their just hack musicians-- because uh, I guess we wanted to be
|
||
self-deprecating in a sarcastic and easily marketable way.
|
||
Me: Yea..
|
||
Me: What about your personal involvement in the Computer Underground? Is there
|
||
one? With hackers?
|
||
KV: Well, umm.. if I were not being a "pop tart" (which is our personal lingo
|
||
for rock star) I would probably be trying to make my money off of
|
||
programming.
|
||
Me: Aaah!
|
||
KV: Ummm, however.. that's not the case.. I am trying to be a "pop tart" so my
|
||
involvement is more limited that I would like it to be. I mean I do all my
|
||
work on IBM.. When I'm composing..
|
||
Me: Hm, Kurt, what are your thoughts and attitudes toward hackers and hacking?
|
||
KV: Umm, this is my thoughts and attitudes towards it: I am somebody who --
|
||
always. . always -- like when I had that telephone job, I just was, I
|
||
hardly did any work. I just spent the whole time trying to come up with
|
||
tricky things to do you know. Like I'd screw up other people's phone calls
|
||
and stuff and so like I'm way into it. And I understand why people want to
|
||
do it. BUT, I always kinda, knew that I just .. . shouldn't. Just because
|
||
it's stupid.. It was childish. And, I just wish that hackers could come up
|
||
with something better to do than get things without paying for them.
|
||
PH: Like something more productive?
|
||
KV: Yea, like .. uh.. umm, crash some sort of umm, killing organization's
|
||
computer system.
|
||
Me: Have you always had these thoughts or..just because of your popularity?
|
||
KV: Umm, I've had this attitude as I got older, because .. um, I'm just
|
||
becomming really bored with people devoting all this intelligence and
|
||
motivation into like avoiding paying their phone bill.
|
||
TC: Well, actually, that's getting away from the hacker as such. Because alot
|
||
of hackers are really into systems more than their into .. you know, toll
|
||
fraud.
|
||
KV: Well I sure hope so..
|
||
TC: Yea, I mean..
|
||
KV: My Idea of great hacking is gathering information that other people are
|
||
wronmgfully trying to withhold.
|
||
TC: Right.
|
||
KV: But, most hacking to me seems to be petty ways of getting things without
|
||
paying for them.. and that is just silly.
|
||
Me: That is the "90's hackers" Kurt.
|
||
PH: Yea, it's moving that way alot..
|
||
Me: It's in that direction.
|
||
Me: Tell us about the telephone job you mentioned?
|
||
KV: Well, I worked at a market research place. You all know what that is-- you
|
||
call up and say, "Hello, my name is Kurt and Im calling for marketing
|
||
incentives incorporated, and we are conducting a survey in your area
|
||
tonight... about toothpaste!"
|
||
PH: Hah
|
||
TC: ahha
|
||
Me: Bahaha
|
||
KV: "And I would like to know if I could ask you a few questions?" .. "What! I
|
||
don't wanna buy no toothpaste!" .. "No we were just going to ask a few
|
||
questions.." -- Ewwwwph..
|
||
KV: Like... you would try to come up with ways to not make the phone calls
|
||
because it was so painful to do.
|
||
TC: heh
|
||
KV: The best thing was when I umm. . this was a time when I didn't know much
|
||
about telephones.. or how they really worked.. umm. . but I managed to run
|
||
a little thing-- wires with alligator clips --uhh, from the phone that I
|
||
was at to the central switcher. And uhh, whenever I like got up to goto
|
||
the bathroom, or something, I'd go in there, and by connecting and shorting
|
||
the two wires out I'd break up someone's phone call.
|
||
PH: ha
|
||
KV: You know, but after a while, I thought to myself, WHY? I wish I could have
|
||
pulled something more creative like umm.. . installing a uhh.. a pitch
|
||
transposer on the outgoing signals, so that the people on the other end of
|
||
the phone would hear, "AND NOW, I WOULD LIKE TO ASK YOU: HOW DO YOU FEEL
|
||
ABOUT COLEGATE?"
|
||
Me: Bahaha
|
||
TC: ahha
|
||
PH: heh!
|
||
KV: That would have been funny-- aha.
|
||
KV: But, I never did that..
|
||
Me: Hmm, Do you know any other bands that are involved or interested in the
|
||
computer underground?
|
||
KV: No, I don't know that there are any-- most uh musicians are either
|
||
anti-tech or if they are into tech they arnt into it enough-- or they arn't
|
||
into it for it's own sake. Like, like hackers.
|
||
Me: Did you guys have any problems with the title of your new album?
|
||
KV: Like what do you mean?
|
||
Me: Well, do you find that most of your fans think you guys are into the
|
||
"hacking scene" because of the title?
|
||
KV: They can think of it anyway they want-- it a bunch of different meanings.
|
||
KV: Like uh, one member of the band thinks of it refering to him being a cook
|
||
and he likes to cut up meat.
|
||
Me: Hah
|
||
TC: heh
|
||
TC: What about like on the 12" with the "BlueBox 2600" mix and the
|
||
"Phone Phreakers" mix?
|
||
KV: What about it?
|
||
TC: Yea.. uh
|
||
KV: And the Virtual Reality mix?
|
||
TC: Yea, has that uh.. have you heard anything about that?
|
||
KV: Umm, no people in large just don't notice. I mean when your a hacker, I
|
||
mean you kind of forget how little people know. But it's unbelieveable how
|
||
much people don't know. And I'm sure one person in a thousand thinks that
|
||
those are anything other than, "Oh another wacky mix name!"
|
||
Me: Baha
|
||
KV: Most mix names are just inside jokes-- so most people don't bother trying
|
||
to understand them.
|
||
TC: Right.
|
||
KV: Umm, basically the only thing that has happened is that people have umm..
|
||
really responded to the concept of uhh.. us trying to tie into computer
|
||
hacking-- way more than we were really trying to. We just wanted it to be
|
||
a reference. And the people around us are kinda pushing us into it being a
|
||
theme. Were not really prepared for that. Because, while were into it, of
|
||
the three of us, Im the only one who can hold down a conversation about
|
||
tech. And even I have to move over and admit that I am not ane expert
|
||
hacker. I just dont know enough. Like.. Uh.. I know what an FAT is, but
|
||
I wouldn't know how to rewrite it.
|
||
TC: Well, that's another thing. Do you make a distinction between hacker as
|
||
someone who breaks into computers or a hacker who is an intense system
|
||
programmer?
|
||
KV: Do I make that distinction?
|
||
TC: Yea.
|
||
KV: Umm.. No.. Im not involved enough in the hacker world to make that
|
||
distinction.
|
||
Me: Do you have anything you want to say to the computer underground?
|
||
KV: Umm.. .yes let me think. . "Roller-skating is not a crime".
|
||
TC: Hah
|
||
PH: ah!
|
||
KV: You know that I live on skates don't you?
|
||
PH: Well on the album cover your wearing skates.. next to that car ... with
|
||
your..
|
||
KV: My teledestruction gear!
|
||
KV: And, I have to add a grain of salt to the phrase "Hackers of the world
|
||
unite" thats on our album cover..
|
||
PH: Right.
|
||
KV: We didn't actually intend it to be a huge banner.. it was suppose to be a
|
||
tiny little comment on the side.. and our label misunderstood our
|
||
intentions for that. We didn't think it was quite good enough to have it
|
||
be a huge .. in such huge print.
|
||
Me: Hmm
|
||
KV: Not a grain of salt.. A tounge and a cheek.
|
||
TC: hehe
|
||
<SILENCE>
|
||
Me: Well, I guess thats about it.. Do you have anything you wanna sum up with?
|
||
KV: Umm..
|
||
<SILENCE>
|
||
Me: Uh, Kurt, do you have an Email address somewhere?
|
||
KV: AH, well, Im embarrassed to say it but only on Prodigy.
|
||
TC: HAH
|
||
Me: Bahah!
|
||
PH: Heh
|
||
Me: Okay.. Well, if that's it..
|
||
KV: Wait. I do know something I can sum up with..
|
||
KV: Please.. In the case of our album try to overcome your instinct of hacker
|
||
tendancies and buy an original disk rather than just waiting for a copy..
|
||
KV: Ok?
|
||
Me: Hah
|
||
KV: We need the money.
|
||
|
||
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
|
||
|
||
[The following is a press release for InSoc's new LP. --DH]
|
||
|
||
INFORMATION
|
||
SOCIETY
|
||
|
||
|
||
"Hackers have no regard for conventional wisdom. We have no regard for
|
||
musical conventions..."
|
||
|
||
-- Paul Robb
|
||
|
||
|
||
"Hack has multiple meanings, some of them self-deprecating. You can't
|
||
take any of this too seriously or you've missed the point. It's about
|
||
a playful use of technology, about breaking codes. It's a post-modern
|
||
aesthetic that comes through in our music..."
|
||
|
||
-- James Cassidy
|
||
|
||
|
||
"After having devised, erased and blotted out many other names, we
|
||
finally decided to call our album _Hack_ -- a name that, in our
|
||
opinion, is lofty, sonorous and significant. It explains that we had
|
||
been only ordinary hacks before we had been raised to our present status
|
||
as first of all hacks in the world..."
|
||
|
||
-- Kurt Valaquen
|
||
|
||
|
||
There you have it...as complete a definition of the vision of _Hack_ as
|
||
you're likely to get short of actually listening to Information
|
||
Society's superb new album of the same name. And if, after reading the
|
||
trio's treatises on the term, you suddenly have a clear understanding of
|
||
what the meaning behind _Hack_ really is, then something's gone wrong.
|
||
_Hack_ is more than the definition. It's a way of life. With its own
|
||
soundtrack.
|
||
|
||
"We're musical hackers of the first order," continues InSoc's Paul Robb.
|
||
"What we do is similiar to computer hackers breaking into sophisticated
|
||
systems to wreak havoc."
|
||
|
||
"Our music is really different from other progressive styles," adds
|
||
James Cassidy. "It's funnier and scarier...a mix of pure pop and sub-
|
||
versive stuff underneath the surface."
|
||
|
||
TOMMY BOY MUSIC, INC. 1747 1ST AV. NY, NY 10128 (212) 722-2211
|
||
|
||
_______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
N E W S * B O L T S
|
||
|
||
{A - G}
|
||
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
|
||
A> Four direct telephone circuits linking Seoul to Moscow were set to open
|
||
at midnight last night. South Korea's Communication Ministry said telephone
|
||
calls between South Korea and the Soviet Union have jumped from four calls in
|
||
all of 1987 to some 5,000 a month this year.
|
||
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
|
||
B> In the latest issue of IEEE Spectrum (November, 1990), on pages
|
||
117-119, there's an interesting article entitled "The Great Blue Box Phone
|
||
Frauds", subtitled "Until the phone company separated signaling information
|
||
from the voice signal, long-distance calls could be made without charge by
|
||
anyone who could whistle at 2600 hertz."
|
||
|
||
It even has the illustration from the June 1972 "Ramparts" magazine, showing
|
||
how to constuct a "black box" to prevent the calling party from being billed
|
||
for the call.
|
||
|
||
There's also a list of about five or six other references at the end
|
||
of the article which sound interesting.
|
||
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
|
||
C> Registering for AT&T Mail on-line: make a modem call to 1 800 624 5123
|
||
(2400, 1200, or 300 baud, 8 bit, no parity); give one (or more) <CR>'s; and at
|
||
the login prompt, type REGISTER followed by another <CR>. The system will walk
|
||
you through its on-line registration procedure. Have a creditcard number or
|
||
EFT number handy. You can back out at any time with a ^C (<cntrl>-C) and a
|
||
QUIT.
|
||
|
||
A couple further AT&T Mail features:
|
||
|
||
"Mail Talk" permits retrieval of messages w/o a terminal from any DTMF phone --
|
||
text messages get "spoken" by a synthesized voice; and there are "Autoanswer"
|
||
and "Autoresponse" options permitting fairly flexible automatic response to
|
||
either all or selected incoming messages.
|
||
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
|
||
D> Detroit, Michigan time 313-472-1212. May soon be replaced with
|
||
a 900 number that charges.
|
||
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
|
||
E> In Australia, the hacker known as Phoenix was charged with Defrauding
|
||
the Commonwealth, Conspiracy to Commit Treason, and Conspiracy to Commit
|
||
Murder. The United States has sent representatives from the Federal Bureau of
|
||
Investigation (FBI) and the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) overseas to
|
||
help investigate the situation and aid in prosecution of Phoenix. In the
|
||
meantime, the "eccentric" Phoenix is maintaining ties to hacker friends in the
|
||
USA by use of the Internet.
|
||
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
|
||
F> Bellcore reports that we have only 9 unused area codes. The current
|
||
system of generating the codes was supposed to last 100-200 years. Not to
|
||
worry, a representative at the Bell organization says a new plan is already in
|
||
the works. The new system consists of replacing the 2nd digit (either 0 or 1)
|
||
with a number between 2 and 9. Bellcore says the new plan should last 200 more
|
||
years. Hm.
|
||
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
|
||
G> A new BBS has been set up for a communication flow between hackers,
|
||
fed, and journalists. 713.242.6853 Instant validation for all. The BBS is
|
||
called FACE to FACE.
|
||
|
||
Distributed in Europe by:
|
||
|
||
Info Addict +46-498-22113 located just outside the coast of Sweden.
|
||
----> Largest Gfile Collection In Europe <----
|
||
Yet a new creature has risen to the mideastern sun....
|
||
|
||
|