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| Reports of "Raid" on 2600 Washington Meeting November 9, 1992 | |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| by Barbara E. McMullen & John F. McMullen (Newsbytes) | |
| WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The publisher of a well-known hacker magazine claims a | |
| recent meeting attended by those interested in the issues his magazine raises | |
| was disrupted by threats of arrest by security and Arlington, Virginia police | |
| officers. | |
| Eric Corley, also known as "Emmanuel Goldstein," editor and publisher of "2600 | |
| Magazine: The Hacker Quarterly," told Newsbytes that the meeting was held | |
| November 6th at the Pentagon City Mall outside Washington, DC was disrupted and | |
| material was confiscated in the raid. | |
| 2600 Magazine promotes monthly meetings of hackers, press, and other interested | |
| parties throughout the country. The meetings are held in public locations on | |
| the first Friday evening of the month and the groups often contact each other | |
| by telephone during the meetings. | |
| Corley told Newsbytes that meetings were held that evening in New York, | |
| Washington, Philadelphia, Cambridge, St. Louis, Chicago, Los Angeles and San | |
| Francisco. Corley said, "While I am sure that meetings have been observed by | |
| law enforcement agencies, this is the only time that we have been harassed. It | |
| is definitely a freedom of speech issue." | |
| According to Craig Neidorf, who was present at the meeting and was distributing | |
| applications for membership in Computer Professionals For Social Responsibility | |
| (CPSR), "I saw the security officers focusing on us. Then they started to come | |
| toward us from a number of directions under what seemed to be the direction of | |
| a person with a walkie-talkie on a balcony. When they approached, I left the | |
| group and observed the security personnel encircling the group of about 30 | |
| gatherers. The group was mainly composed of high school and college students. | |
| The guards demanded to search the knapsacks and bags of the gatherers. They | |
| confiscated material, including CPSR applications, a copy of Mondo 2000 (a | |
| magazine), and other material." | |
| He adds that the guards also confiscated film "from a person trying to take | |
| pictures of the guards. When a hacker called "HackRat" attempted to copy down | |
| the names of the guards, they took his pencil and paper." | |
| Neidorf continued, "I left to go outside and rejoined the group when they were | |
| ejected from the mall. The guards continued challenging the group and told | |
| them that they would be arrested if they returned. When one of the people | |
| began to take pictures of the guards, the apparent supervisor became excited | |
| and threatening but did not confiscate the film." | |
| Neidorf also said, "I think that the raid was planned. They hit right about | |
| 6:00 and they identified our group as "hackers" and said that they knew that | |
| this group met every month." | |
| Neidorf's story was supported by a Washington "hacker" called "Inhuman," who | |
| told Newsbytes, "I arrived at the meeting late and saw the group being detained | |
| by the guards. I walked along with the group as they were being ushered out | |
| and when I asked a person who seemed to be in authority his name, he pointed at | |
| a badge with his name written in script on it. I couldn't make out the name | |
| and, when I mentioned that to the person, he said 'If you can't read it, too | |
| bad.' I did read his name, 'C. Thomas,' from another badge." | |
| Inhuman also told Newsbytes that he was told by a number of people that the | |
| guards said that they were "acting on behalf of the Secret Service." He added, | |
| "I was also told that there were two police officers from the Arlington County | |
| Police present but I did not see them." | |
| Another attendee, Doug Luce, reports, "I also got to the DC meeting very late; | |
| 7:45 or so. It seemed like a coordinated harassment episode, not geared toward | |
| busting anyone, but designed to get people riled up, and maybe not come back to | |
| the mall." | |
| Luce adds that he overheard a conversation between someone who had brought a | |
| keyboard to sell. The person, he said, was harassed by security forces, one of | |
| whom said, "You aren't selling anything in my mall without a vendors permit!" | |
| Possible Secret Service involvement was supported by a 19 year-old college | |
| student known as the "Lithium Bandit," who told Newsbytes, "I got to the mall | |
| about 6:15 and saw the group being detained by approximately 5 Arlington County | |
| police and 5 security guards. When I walked over to see what was going on, a | |
| security guard asked me for an ID and I refused to show it, saying that I was | |
| about to leave. The guard said that I couldn't leave and told me that I had to | |
| see a police officer. When I did, the officer demanded ID and, when I once | |
| again refused, he informed me that I could be detained for up to 10 hours for | |
| refusing to produce identification. I gave in and produced my school ID which | |
| the police gave to the security people who copied down my name and social | |
| security number." | |
| Lithium Bandit continued, "When I asked the police what was behind this action, | |
| I was told that they couldn't answer but that 'the Secret Service is involved | |
| and we are within our rights doing this." | |
| The boy says he and others later went to the Arlington police station to get | |
| more information and were told only that there was a report of the use of a | |
| stolen credit card and two officers were sent to investigate. "They later | |
| admitted that it was 5 (officers). While I was detained, I heard no mention of | |
| a credit card and there was no one arrested." | |
| Marc Rotenberg, director of CPSR's Washington office, told Newsbytes, "I have | |
| really no details on the incident yet, but I am very concerned about the | |
| reports. Confiscation of CPSR applications, if true, is outrageous. I will | |
| find out more facts on Monday." | |
| Newsbytes was told by the Pentagon City Mall office that any information | |
| concerning the action would have to come from the director of security, Al | |
| Johnson, who was not available until Monday. The Arlington Country Police | |
| referred Newsbytes to a "press briefing recording" which had not been updated | |
| since the morning before the incident. | |
| Corley told Newsbytes, "There have been no reports of misbehavior by any of | |
| these people. They were obviously singled out because they were hackers. It's | |
| as if they were being singled out as an ethnic group. I admire the way the | |
| group responded -- in a courteous fashion. But it is inexcusable that it | |
| happened. I will be at the next Washington meeting to insure that it doesn't | |
| happen again." | |
| The manager of one of New York state's largest malls provided background | |
| information to Newsbytes on the rights of malls to police those on mall | |
| property, saying, "The primary purpose of a mall is to sell. The interior of | |
| the mall is private property and is subject to the regulations of the mall. | |
| The only requirement is that the regulations be enforced in an even-handed | |
| manner. I do not allow political activities in my mall so I could not make an | |
| exception for Democrats. We do allow community groups to meet but they must | |
| request space at least two weeks before the meeting and must have proper | |
| insurance. Our regulations also say that groups of more than 4 may not | |
| congregate in the mall." | |
| The spokeswoman added that mall security can ask for identification from those | |
| who violate regulations and that they may be barred from the mall for a period | |
| of 6 months. | |
| She added, "Some people feel that mall atriums and food courts are public | |
| space. They are not and the industry is united on this. If the malls were to | |
| receive tax benefits for the common space and public service in snow removal | |
| and the like, it could possibly be a public area but malls are taxed on the | |
| entire space and are totally private property, subject to their own | |
| regulations. If a group of 20 or more congregated in my mall, they would be | |
| asked to leave." | |
| - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - | |
| Confusion About Secret Service Role In 2600 Washington Raid November 7, 1992 | |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| by Barbara E. McMullen & John F. McMullen (Newsbytes) | |
| WASHINGTON, D.C.-- In the aftermath of an action on Friday, November 6th by | |
| members of the Pentagon City Mall Police and police from Arlington County, | |
| Virginia in which those attending a 2600 meeting at the mall were ordered from | |
| the premises, conflicting stories continue to appear. | |
| Attendees at the meeting have contended to Newsbytes that members of the mall | |
| police told them that they were "acting on behalf of the Secret Service." They | |
| also maintain that the mall police confiscated material from knapsacks and took | |
| film from someone attempting to photograph the action and a list of the names | |
| of security officers that one attendee was attempting to compile. | |
| Al Johnson, chief of security for the mall, denied these allegations to | |
| Newsbytes, saying "No one said that we were acting on behalf of the Secret | |
| Service. We were merely enforcing our regulations. While the group was not | |
| disruptive, it had pulled tables together and was having a meeting in our food | |
| court area. The food court is for people eating and is not for meetings. We | |
| therefore asked the people to leave." | |
| Johnson denied that security personnel took away any film or lists and further | |
| said "We did not confiscate any material. The group refused to own up to who | |
| owned material on the tables and in the vicinity so we collected it as lost | |
| material. If it turns out that anything did belong to any of those people, | |
| they are welcome to come in and, after making proper identification, take the | |
| material." | |
| In a conversation early on November 9th, Robert Rasor, Secret Service agent-in- | |
| charge of computer crime investigations, told Newsbytes that having mall | |
| security forces represent the Secret Service is not something that was done | |
| and, that to his knowledge, the Secret Service had no involvement with any | |
| Pentagon City mall actions on the previous Friday. | |
| A Newsbytes call to the Arlington County police was returned by a Detective | |
| Nuneville who said that her instructions were to refer all questions concerning | |
| the matter to agent David Adams of the Secret Service. She told Newsbytes that | |
| Adams would be providing all information concerning the involvement of both the | |
| Arlington Police and the Secret Service in the incident. | |
| Adams told Newsbytes "The mall police were not acting as agents for the Secret | |
| Service. Beyond that, I can not confirm or deny that there is an ongoing | |
| investigation." | |
| Adams also told Newsbytes that "While I cannot speak for the Arlington police, | |
| I understand that their involvement was due to an incident unrelated to the | |
| investigation." | |
| Marc Rotenberg, director of the Washington office of Computer Professionals for | |
| Social Responsibility (CPSR), told Newsbytes "CPSR has reason to believe that | |
| the detention of people at the Pentagon City Mall last Friday was undertaken at | |
| the behest of the Secret Service, which is a federal agency. If that is the | |
| case, then there was an illegal search of people at the mall. There was no | |
| warrant and no indication of probable illegal activity. This raises | |
| constitutional issues. We have undertaken the filing of a Freedom of | |
| Information Act (FOIA) request to determine the scope, involvement and purpose | |
| of the Secret Service in this action." | |
| 2600 meetings are held on the evening of the first Friday of each month in | |
| public places and malls in New York City, Washington, Philadelphia, Cambridge, | |
| St. Louis, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. They are promoted by 2600 | |
| Magazine: The Hacker Quarterly and are attended by a variety of persons | |
| interested in telecommunications and so-called "hacker issues". The New York | |
| meeting, the oldest of its kind, is regularly attended by Eric Corley a/k/a | |
| Emmanuel Goldstein, editor and publisher of 2600, hackers, journalists, | |
| corporate communications professionals and other interested parties. It is | |
| known to have been the subject of surveillance at various times by law | |
| enforcement agencies conducting investigations into allegations of computer | |
| crime. | |
| Corley told Newsbytes "While I'm sure that meetings have been observed by law | |
| enforcement agencies, this is the only time that we have been harassed. It's | |
| definitely a freedom of speech issue." Corley also that he plans to be at the | |
| December meeting in Washington "to insure that it doesn't happen again." | |
| - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - | |
| Conflicting Stories In 2600 Raid; CRSR Files FOIA November 11, 1992 | |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| by Barbara E. McMullen & John F. McMullen (Newsbytes) | |
| WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In the on-going investigation of possible Secret Service | |
| involvement in the Friday, November 6th ejection of attendees at a "2600 | |
| meeting" from the premises of the Pentagon City Mall, diametrically opposed | |
| statements have come from the same source. | |
| Al Johnson, chief of security for the Pentagon City Mall told Newsbytes on | |
| Monday, November 9th "No one said that we were acting on behalf of the Secret | |
| Service. We were merely enforcing our regulations. While the group was not | |
| disruptive, it had pulled tables together and was having a meeting in our food | |
| court area. The food court is for people eating and is not for meetings. We | |
| therefore asked the people to leave." | |
| On the same day, Johnson was quoted was quoted in a Communications Daily | |
| article by Brock Meeks as saying "As far as I'm concerned, we're out of this. | |
| The Secret Service, the FBI, they're the ones that ramrodded this whole thing." | |
| Newsbytes contacted Meeks to discuss the discrepancies in the stories and were | |
| informed that the conversation with Johnson had been taped and was available | |
| for review. The Newsbytes reporter listened to the tape (and reviewed a | |
| transcript). On the tape, Johnson was clearly heard to make the statement | |
| quoted by Meeks. | |
| He also said "maybe you outta call the Secret Service, they're handling this | |
| whole thing. We, we were just here", and, in response to a Meeks question | |
| about a Secret Service contact, "Ah.. you know, I don't have a contact person. | |
| These people were working on their own, undercover, we never got any names, but | |
| they definitely, we saw identification, they were here." | |
| Newsbytes contacted Johnson again on the morning of Wednesday, November 11 and | |
| asked him once again whether there was any Secret Service involvement in the | |
| action. Johnson said "No, I told you that they were not involved." When it was | |
| mentioned that there was a story in Communications Daily, quoting him to the | |
| contrary, Johnson said "I never told Meeks that. There was no Secret Service | |
| involvement" | |
| Informed of the possible existence of a tape quoting him to the contrary. | |
| Johnson said "Meeks taped me? He can't do that. I'll show him that I'm not | |
| fooling around. I'll have him arrested." | |
| Johnson also said "He asked me if the Secret Service was involved; I just told | |
| him that, if he thought they were, he should call them and ask them." | |
| Then Johnson again told Newsbytes that the incident was "just a mall problem. | |
| There were too many people congregating." | |
| [NOTE: Newsbytes stands by its accurate reporting of Johnson's statements. It | |
| also affirms that the story by Meeks accurately reflects the material taped | |
| during his interview] | |
| In a related matter, Marc Rotenberg, director of the Washington office of | |
| Computer Professionals For Social Responsibility (CPSR) has announced that CPSR | |
| has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Secret Service | |
| asking for information concerning Secret Service involvement in the incident. | |
| Rotenberg told Newsbytes that the Secret Service has 10 days to respond to the | |
| request. He also said that CPSR "is exploring other legal options in this | |
| matter." | |
| The Secret Service, in earlier conversations with Newsbytes, has denied that | |
| the mall security was working on its behalf. | |
| In the incident itself, a group attending the informal meeting was disbanded | |
| and, according to attendees, had property confiscated. They also contend that | |
| security guards took film from someone photographing the confiscation as well | |
| as a list that someone was making of the guard's names. In his November 9th | |
| conversation with Newsbytes, Johnson denied that security personnel took away | |
| any film or lists and further said "We did not confiscate any material. The | |
| group refused to own up to who owned material on the tables and in the vicinity | |
| so we collected it as lost material. If it turns out that anything did belong | |
| to any of those people, they are welcome to come in and, after making proper | |
| identification, take the material." | |
| 2600 meetings are promoted by 2600 Magazine: The Hacker Quarterly and are held | |
| on the evening of the first Friday of each month in public places and malls in | |
| New York City, Washington, Philadelphia, Cambridge, St. Louis, Chicago, Los | |
| Angeles and San Francisco. They are regularly attended by a variety of persons | |
| interested in telecommunications and so-called "hacker issues". | |
| _______________________________________________________________________________ | |
| Secret Service Grabs Computers In College Raid December 17, 1992 | |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| by Joe Abernathy (The Houston Chronicle)(Page A37) | |
| The Secret Service has raided a dorm room at Texas Tech University, seizing the | |
| computers of two Houston-area students who allegedly used an international | |
| computer network to steal computer software. | |
| Agents refused to release the names of the two area men and a third man, a | |
| former Tech student from Austin, who were not arrested in the late-morning raid | |
| Monday at the university in Lubbock. Their cases will be presented to a grand | |
| jury in January. | |
| The three, in their early 20s, are expected to be charged with computer crime, | |
| interstate transport of stolen property and copyright infringements. | |
| "The university detected it," said Agent R. David Freriks of the Secret Service | |
| office in Dallas, which handled the case. He said Texas Tech computer system | |
| operators noticed personal credit information mixed in with the software | |
| mysteriously filling up their data storage devices. | |
| The former student admitted pirating at least $6,000 worth of games and | |
| programs this summer, Freriks said. | |
| The raid is the first to fall under a much broader felony definition of | |
| computer software piracy that could affect many Americans. | |
| Agents allege the three used the Internet computer network, which connects up | |
| to 15 million people in more than 40 nations, to make contacts with whom they | |
| could trade pirated software. The software was transferred over the network, | |
| into Texas Tech's computers and eventually into their personal computers. | |
| The Software Publishers Association, a software industry group chartered to | |
| fight piracy, contends the industry lost $1.2 billion in sales in 1991 to | |
| pirates. | |
| Although these figures are widely questioned for their accuracy, piracy is | |
| widespread among Houston's 450-plus computer bulletin boards, and even more so | |
| on the global Internet. | |
| "There are a lot of underground sites on the Internet run by university system | |
| administrators, and they have tons of pirated software available to download -- | |
| gigabytes of software," said Scott Chasin, a former computer hacker who is now | |
| a computer security consultant. | |
| Freriks said the investigation falls under a revision of the copyright laws | |
| that allows felony charges to be brought against anyone who trades more than 10 | |
| pieces of copyrighted software -- a threshold that would cover many millions of | |
| Americans who may trade copies of computer programs with their friends. | |
| "The ink is barely dry on the amendment, and you've already got law enforcement | |
| in there, guns blazing, because somebody's got a dozen copies of stolen | |
| software," said Marc Rotenberg, director of Computer Professionals for Social | |
| Responsibility, in Washington. | |
| "That was a bad provision when it was passed, and was considered bad for | |
| precisely this reason, giving a justification for over-reaching by law | |
| enforcement." | |
| Freriks said the raid also involved one of the first uses of an expanded right | |
| to confiscate computers used in crime. | |
| "Our biggest complaint has been that you catch 'em and slap 'em on the wrist, | |
| and then give the smoking gun back," he said. | |
| "So they've changed the law so that we now have forfeiture authority." | |
| The Secret Service already has been under fire for what is seen by civil | |
| libertarians as an overly casual use of such authority, which many believe has | |
| mutated from an investigative tool into a de facto punishment without adequate | |
| court supervision. | |
| _______________________________________________________________________________ | |
| Hacker Taps Into Freeway Call Box -- 11,733 Times October 23, 1992 | |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| by Jeffrey A. Perlman (Los Angeles Times)(Page A3) | |
| SANTA ANA, CA -- An enterprising hacker reached out and touched someone 11,733 | |
| times in August -- from a freeway emergency call box in Orange County. | |
| A computer that monitors the county's emergency call boxes attributed 25,875 | |
| minutes of calls to the mysterious caller who telephoned people in countries | |
| across the globe, according to a staff report prepared for the Orange County | |
| Transportation Authority. | |
| "This is well over the average of roughly 10 calls per call box," the report | |
| noted. | |
| About 1,150 bright yellow call boxes have been placed along Orange County's | |
| freeways to connect stranded motorists to the California Highway Patrol. But | |
| the caller charged all his calls to a single box on the shoulder of the Orange | |
| (57) Freeway. | |
| The hacker apparently matched the individual electronic serial number for the | |
| call box to its telephone number. It took an investigation by the transit | |
| authority, and three cellular communications firms to unravel the mystery, the | |
| report stated. | |
| Officials with the transit authority's emergency call box program were not | |
| available to comment on the cost of the phone calls or to say how they would be | |
| paid. | |
| But the report assured that "action has been taken to correct this problem. It | |
| should be noted that this is the first incident of this type in the five-year | |
| history of the program." | |
| - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - | |
| Ring May Be Responsible For Freeway Call Box Scam October 24, 1992 | |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| by Jodi Wilgoren (Los Angeles Times)(Page B4) | |
| "Officials Believe A Hacker Sold Information to Others; | |
| LA Cellular Will Pay For The Excess Calls." | |
| COSTA MESA, CA -- As soon as he saw the August bill for Orange County's freeway | |
| call boxes, analyst Dana McClure guessed something was awry. | |
| There are typically about 12,000 calls a month from the 1,150 yellow boxes that | |
| dot the county's freeways. But in August, there were nearly that many | |
| registered to a single box on the Orange Freeway a half-mile north of Lambert | |
| Road in Brea. | |
| "This one stood out, like 'Whoa!'" said McClure, who analyzes the monthly | |
| computer billing tapes for the Orange County Transportation Authority. "It | |
| kicked out as an error because the number of minutes was so far over what it is | |
| supposed to be." | |
| With help from experts at LA Cellular, which provides the telephone service for | |
| the boxes, and GTE Cellular, which maintains the phones, McClure and OCTA | |
| officials determined that the calls -- 11,733 of them totaling 25,875 minutes | |
| for a charge of about $1,600 -- were made because the hacker learned the code | |
| and telephone number for the call boxes. | |
| Because of the number of calls in just one month's time, officials believe | |
| there are many culprits, perhaps a ring of people who bought the numbers from | |
| the person who cracked the system. | |
| You'd have to talk day and night for 17 or 18 days to do that; it'd be | |
| fantastic to be able to make that many calls," said Lee Johnson of GTE | |
| Cellular. | |
| As with all cases in which customers prove they did not make the calls on their | |
| bills, LA Cellular will pick up the tab, company spokeswoman Gail Pomerantz | |
| said. Despite the amount of time involved, the bill was only $1,600, according | |
| to OCTA spokeswoman Elaine Beno, because the county gets a special emergency | |
| service rate for the call box lines. | |
| The OCTA will not spend time and money investigating who made the calls; | |
| however, it has adjusted the system to prevent further fraud. Jim Goode of LA | |
| Cellular said such abuses are rare among cellular subscribers, and that such | |
| have never before been tracked to freeway call boxes. | |
| The call boxes contain solar cellular phones programmed to dial directly to the | |
| California Highway Patrol or a to a GTE Cellular maintenance line. The calls | |
| on the August bill included 800 numbers and 411 information calls and hundreds | |
| of calls to financial firms in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. That calls | |
| were placed to these outside lines indicates that the intruders made the | |
| connections from another cellular phone rather than from the call box itself. | |
| Each cellular phone is assigned a seven-digit Mobile Identification Number that | |
| functions like a phone number, and a 10- or 11-digit Electronic Service Number | |
| unique to that particular phone (similar to the vehicle identification number | |
| assigned every automobile). By reprogramming another cellular phone with the | |
| MIN and ESN of the call box phone, a hacker could charge all sorts of calls to | |
| the OCTA. | |
| "That's not legally allowable, and it's not an easy thing to do," McClure said, | |
| explaining that the numbers are kept secret and that reprogramming a cellular | |
| phone could wreck it. "Most people don't know how to do that, but there are | |
| some." | |
| Everyone involved with the call box system is confident that the problem has | |
| been solved, but officials are mum as to how they blocked potential cellular | |
| banditry. | |
| "I don't think we can tell you what we did to fix it because we don't want it | |
| to happen again," Beno said with a laugh. | |
| _______________________________________________________________________________ | |
| FBI Probes Possible Boeing Computer Hacker November 6, 1992 | |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| Taken from Reuters | |
| SEATTLE -- Federal authorities said Friday they were investigating the | |
| possibility that a hacker had breached security and invaded a Unix-based | |
| computer system at the aerospace giant Boeing Co. | |
| The Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed the probe after a Seattle radio | |
| station reported it received a facsimile of a Boeing memorandum warning | |
| employees the security of one of its computer networks may have been violated. | |
| The memo, which had been sent from inside Boeing, said passwords may have been | |
| compromised, a reporter for the KIRO station told Reuters. | |
| KIRO declined to release a copy of the memorandum or to further identify its | |
| source. | |
| The memorandum said the problem involved computers using Unix, the open-ended | |
| operating system used often in engineering work. | |
| Sherry Nebel, a spokeswoman at Boeing's corporate headquarters, declined | |
| comment on the memorandum or the alleged breach of security and referred all | |
| calls to the FBI. | |
| An FBI spokesman said the agency was in touch with the company and would | |
| discuss with it possible breaches of federal law. | |
| No information was immediately available on what type of computer systems may | |
| have been violated at Boeing, the world's largest commercial aircraft | |
| manufacturer. | |
| The company, in addition, acts as a defense contractor and its business | |
| includes work on the B-2 stealth bomber, NASA's space station and the "Star | |
| Wars" project. | |
| Boeing is a major user of computer technology and runs a computer services | |
| group valued at $1 billion. | |
| Much of the company's engineering work is conducted using computer -aided | |
| design (CAD) capabilities. Boeing currently is pioneering a computerized | |
| technique which uses 2,000 computer terminals to design its new 777 twinjet. | |
| - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - | |
| FBI Expands Boeing Computer Hacker Probe November 9, 1992 | |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| by Samuel Perry (Reuters) | |
| SEATTLE -- Federal authorities expanded their investigation of a computer | |
| hacker or hackers suspected of having invaded a computer system at aerospace | |
| giant and defense contractor Boeing Co. | |
| FBI spokesman Dave Hill said the investigation was expanded after the agency | |
| discovered similar infiltrations of computer records belonging to the U.S. | |
| District Court in Seattle and another government agency. | |
| "We're trying to determine if the same individuals are involved here," he said, | |
| adding more than one suspect may be involved and the purpose of the intrusion | |
| was unclear. | |
| "We don't think this was an espionage case," Hill said, adding federal agents | |
| were looking into violations of U.S. law barring breaking into a computer of | |
| federal interest, but that no government classified data was believed to be | |
| compromised. | |
| "I'm not sure what their motivation is," he told Reuters. | |
| The FBI confirmed the investigation after a Seattle radio station reported it | |
| received a facsimile of a Boeing memorandum warning employees that the security | |
| of one of its computer networks may have been violated. | |
| A news reporter at KIRO Radio, which declined to release the facsimile, said | |
| it was sent by someone within Boeing and that it said many passwords may have | |
| been compromised. | |
| Boeing's corporate headquarters has declined to comment on the matter, | |
| referring all calls to the FBI. | |
| The huge aerospace company, which is the world's largest maker of commercial | |
| jetliners, relies heavily on computer processing to design and manufacture its | |
| products. Its data processing arm operates $1.6 billion of computer equipment. | |
| No information was disclosed on what system at Boeing had been compromised. | |
| But one computer industry official said it could include "applications | |
| involving some competitive situations in the aerospace industry. | |
| The company is a defense contractor or subcontractor on major U.S. military | |
| programs, such as the B-2 stealth bomber, the advanced tactical fighter, | |
| helicopters, the NASA space station and the "Star Wars" missile defense system. | |
| Recently, Boeing has pioneered the unprecedented use of computer-aided design | |
| capabilities in engineering its new 777 twinjet. The design of the 777 is now | |
| mostly complete as Boeing prepares for final assembly beginning next year. | |
| That system, which uses three-dimensional graphics to replace a draftsman's | |
| pencil and paper, includes 2,000 terminals that can tap into data from around | |
| the world. | |
| _______________________________________________________________________________ | |
| Hacker Breaches NOAA Net August 3, 1992 | |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| by Kevin Power (Government Computer News)(Page 10) | |
| As a recent breach of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's | |
| (NOAA) link to the Internet shows, the network not only benefits scientists but | |
| also attracts unwanted attention from hackers. | |
| NOAA officials said an intruder in May accessed the agency's TCP/IP network, | |
| seeking to obtain access to the Internet. The breach occurred on the National | |
| Weather Service headquarters' dial-in communications server in Silver Spring, | |
| Maryland, said Harold Whitt, a senior telecommunications engineer with NOAA. | |
| Cygnus Support, a Palo Alto, California, software company, alerted NOAA | |
| officials to the local area network security breach when Cygnus found that an | |
| outsider had accessed one of its servers from the NOAA modem pool and had | |
| attempted several long-distance phone calls. | |
| NOAA and Cygnus officials concluded that the perpetrator was searching for an | |
| Internet host, possibly to locate a games publisher, Whitt said. Fortunately, | |
| the hacker did no damage to NOAA's data files, he said. | |
| Whitt said intruders using a modem pool to tap into external networks are | |
| always a security concern. But organizations with Internet access seem to be | |
| hacker favorites, he said. "There's a lot of need for Internet security," | |
| Whitt said. | |
| "You have to make sure you monitor the usage of the TCP/IP network and the | |
| administration of the local host. It's a common problem, but in our case we're | |
| more vulnerable because of tremendous Internet access," Whitt said. | |
| Whitt said NOAA's first response was to terminate all dial-in services | |
| temporarily and change all the numbers. | |
| Whitt said he also considered installing a caller-identification device for the | |
| new lines. But the phone companies have limited capabilities to investigate | |
| random incidents, he said. | |
| "It's very difficult to isolate problems at the protocol level," Whitt said. | |
| "We targeted the calls geographically to the Midwest. | |
| "But once you get into the Internet and have an understanding of TCP/IP, you | |
| can just about go anywhere," Whitt said. | |
| NOAA, a Commerce Department agency, has since instituted stronger password | |
| controls and installed a commercial dial-back security system, Defender from | |
| Digital Pathways Inc. of Mountain View, California. | |
| Whitt said the new system requires users to undergo password validation at dial | |
| time and calls back users to synchronize modems and log calls. Despite these | |
| corrective measures, Reed Phillips, Commerce's IRM director, said the NOAA | |
| incident underlies the axiom that networks always should be considered | |
| insecure. | |
| At the recent annual conference of the Federation of Government Information | |
| Processing Councils in New Orleans, Phillips said the government is struggling | |
| to transmit more information electronically and still maintain control over the | |
| data. | |
| Phillips said agencies are plagued by user complacency, a lack of | |
| organizational control, viruses, LAN failures and increasing demands for | |
| electronic commerce. "I'm amazed that there are managers who believe their | |
| electronic-mail systems are secure," Phillps said. "We provide a great deal of | |
| security, but it can be interrupted. | |
| "Security always gets hits hard in the budget. But the good news is vendors | |
| recognize our needs and are coming out with cheaper security tools," Phillips | |
| said. | |
| Phillips said the NOAA attack shows that agencies must safeguard a network's | |
| physical points because LANs present more security problems than centralized | |
| systems. | |
| "The perpetrator can dial in via a modem using the common services provided by | |
| the telephone company, and the perpetrator risks no personal physical harm. By | |
| gaining access to a single system on the network the perpetrator is then able | |
| to propagate his access rights to multiple systems on the network," Phillips | |
| said. | |
| "In many LAN environments a user need only log on the network once and all | |
| subsequent access is assumed to be authorized for the entire LAN. It then | |
| becomes virtually impossible for a network manager or security manager to track | |
| events of a perpetrator," he said. | |
| _______________________________________________________________________________ | |
| Hackers Scan Airwaves For Conversations August 17, 1992 | |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| by Mark Lewyn (The Washington Post)(Page A1) | |
| "Eavesdroppers Tap Into Private Calls." | |
| On the first day of the Soviet coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991, | |
| Vice President Quayle placed a call to Senator John C. Danforth (R-Mo.) and | |
| assessed the tense, unfolding drama. | |
| It turned out not to be a private conversation. | |
| At the time, Quayle was aboard a government jet, flying to Washington from | |
| California. As he passed over Amarillo, Texas his conversation, transmitted | |
| from the plane to Danforth's phone, was picked up by an eavesdropper using | |
| electronic "scanning" gear that searches the airwaves for radio or wireless | |
| telephone transmissions and then locks onto them. | |
| The conversation contained no state secrets -- the vice president observed that | |
| Gorbachev was all but irrelevant and Boris Yeltsin had become the man to watch. | |
| But it remains a prized catch among the many conversations overhead over many | |
| years by one of a steadily growing fraternity of amateur electronics | |
| eavesdroppers who listen in on all sorts of over-the-air transmissions, ranging | |
| from Air Force One communications to cordless car-phone talk. | |
| One such snoop overheard a March 1990 call placed by Peter Lynch, a well-known | |
| mutual fund executive in Boston, discussing his forthcoming resignation, an | |
| event that later startled financial circles. Another electronic listener | |
| overheard the chairman of Popeye's Fried Chicken disclose plans for a 1988 | |
| takeover bid for rival Church's Fried Chicken. | |
| Calls by President Bush and a number of Cabinet officers have been intercepted. | |
| The recordings of car-phone calls made by Virginia Governor L. Douglas Wilder | |
| (D), intercepted by a Virginia Beach restaurant owner and shared with Senator | |
| Charles S. Robb (D-Va.), became a cause ce'le'bre in Virginia politics. | |
| Any uncoded call that travels via airwaves, rather than wire, can be picked up, | |
| thus the possibilities have multiplied steadily with the growth of cellular | |
| phones in cars and cordless phones in homes and offices. About 41 percent of | |
| U.S. households have cordless phones and the number is expected to grow by | |
| nearly 16 million this year, according to the Washington-based Electronics | |
| Industry Association. | |
| There are 7.5 million cellular phone subscribers, a technology that passes | |
| phone calls over the air through a city from one transmission "cell" to the | |
| next. About 1,500 commercial airliners now have air-to-ground phones -- roughly | |
| half the U.S. fleet. | |
| So fast-growing is this new form of electronic hacking that it has its own | |
| magazines, such as Monitoring Times. "The bulk of the people doing this aren't | |
| doing it maliciously," said the magazine's editor, Robert Grove, who said he | |
| has been questioned several times by federal agents, curious about hackers' | |
| monitoring activities. | |
| But some experts fear the potential for mischief. The threat to business from | |
| electronic eavesdropping is "substantial," said Thomas S. Birney III, president | |
| of Cellular Security Group, a Massachusetts-based consulting group. | |
| Air Force One and other military and government aircraft have secure satellite | |
| phone links for sensitive conversations with the ground, but because these are | |
| expensive to use and sometimes not operating, some calls travel over open | |
| frequencies. Specific frequencies, such as those used by the president's | |
| plane, are publicly available and are often listed in "scanners" publications | |
| and computer bulletin boards. | |
| Bush, for example, was accidentally overheard by a newspaper reporter in 1990 | |
| while talking about the buildup prior to the Persian Gulf War with Senator | |
| Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.). The reporter, from the Daily Times in Gloucester, | |
| Massachusetts quickly began taking notes and the next day, quoted Bush in his | |
| story under the headline, "Bush Graces City Airspace." | |
| The vice president's chief of staff, William Kristol, was overheard castigating | |
| one staff aide as a "jerk" for trying to reach him at home. | |
| Some eavesdroppers may be stepping over the legal line, particularly if they | |
| tape record such conversations. | |
| The Electronic Communications Privacy Act prohibits intentional monitoring, | |
| taping or distribution of the content of most electronic, wire or private oral | |
| communications. Cellular phone calls are explicitly protected under this act. | |
| Local laws often also prohibit such activity. However, some lawyers said that | |
| under federal law, it is legal to intercept cordless telephone conversations as | |
| well as conversations on an open radio channel. | |
| The government rarely prosecutes such cases because such eavesdroppers are | |
| difficult to catch. Not only that, it is hard to win convictions against | |
| "listening Toms," lawyers said, because prosecutors must prove the | |
| eavesdropping was intentional. | |
| "Unless they prove intent they are not going to win," said Frank Terranella, | |
| general counsel for the Association of North American Radio Clubs in Clifton, | |
| New Jersey. "It's a very tough prosecution for them." | |
| To help curb eavesdropping, the House has passed a measure sponsored by Rep. | |
| Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the House telecommunications and | |
| finance subcommittee, that would require the Federal Communications Commission | |
| to outlaw any scanner that could receive cellular frequencies. The bill has | |
| been sent to the Senate. | |
| But there are about 10 million scanners in use, industry experts report, and | |
| this year sales of scanners and related equipment such as antennas will top | |
| $100 million. | |
| Dedicated scanners, who collect the phone calls of high-ranking government | |
| officials the way kids collect baseball cards, assemble basements full of | |
| electronic gear. | |
| In one sense, the electronic eavesdroppers are advanced versions of the | |
| ambulance chasers who monitor police and fire calls with simpler scanning | |
| equipment and then race to the scene of blazes and accidents for a close look. | |
| But they also have kinship with the computer hackers who toil at breaking into | |
| complex computer systems and rummaging around other's files and software | |
| programs. | |
| One New England eavesdropper has four scanners, each one connected to its own | |
| computer, with a variety of frequencies programmed. When a conversation | |
| appears on a pre-selected frequency, a computer automatically locks in on the | |
| frequency to capture it. He also keeps a scanner in his car, for entertainment | |
| along the road. | |
| He justifies his avocation with a seemingly tortured logic. "I'm not going out | |
| and stealing these signals," he said. "They're coming into my home, right | |
| through my windows." | |
| _______________________________________________________________________________ | |
| Why Cybercrooks Love Cellular December 21, 1989 | |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| by William G. Flanagan and Brigid McMenamin (Forbes)(Page 189) | |
| Cellular phones provide cybercrooks with golden opportunities for telephone | |
| toll fraud, as many shocked cellular customers are discovering. For example, | |
| one US West Cellular customer in Albuquerque recently received a hefty | |
| telephone bill. | |
| Total: $20,000. | |
| Customers are not held responsible when their phone numbers are ripped off and | |
| misused. But you may be forced to have your cellular phone number changed. | |
| The cellular carriers are the big losers -- to the tune of an estimated $300 | |
| million per year in unauthorized calls. | |
| How do the crooks get the numbers? There are two common methods: cloning and | |
| tumbling. | |
| Each cellular phone has two numbers -- a mobile identification number (MIN) and | |
| an electronic serial number (ESN). Every time you make a call, the chip | |
| transmits both numbers to the local switching office for verification and | |
| billing. | |
| Cloning involves altering the microchip in another cellular phone so that both | |
| the MIN and ESN numbers match those stolen from a bona fide customer. The | |
| altering can be done with a personal computer. The MIN and ESN numbers are | |
| either purchased from insiders or plucked from the airwaves with a legal | |
| device, about the size of a textbook, that can be plugged into a vehicle's | |
| cigarette lighter receptacle. | |
| Cellular companies are starting to watch for suspicious calling patterns. But | |
| the cloning may not be detected until the customer gets his bill. | |
| The second method -- tumbling -- also involves using a personal computer to | |
| alter a microchip in a cellular phone so that its numbers change after every | |
| phone call. Tumbling doesn't require any signal plucking. It takes advantage | |
| of the fact that cellular companies allow "roaming" -- letting you make calls | |
| away from your home area. | |
| When you use a cellular phone far from your home base, it may take too long for | |
| the local switching office to verify your MIN and ESN numbers. So the first | |
| call usually goes through while the verification goes on. If the numbers are | |
| invalid, no more calls will be permitted by that office on that phone. | |
| In 1987 a California hacker figured out how to use his personal computer to | |
| reprogram the chip in a cellular phone. Authorities say one of his pals | |
| started selling altered chips and chipped-up phones. Other hackers figured out | |
| how to make the chips generate new, fake ESN numbers every time the cellular | |
| phone was used, thereby short-circuiting the verification process. By 1991 | |
| chipped-up, tumbling ESN phones were in use all over the U.S. | |
| The cellular carriers hope to scotch the problem of tumbling with instant | |
| verification. But that won't stop the clones. | |
| How do crooks cash in? Drug dealers buy (for up to $ 3,200) or lease (about | |
| $750 per day) cellular phones with altered chips. So do the "call-sell" | |
| crooks, who retail long distance calls to immigrants often for less than phone | |
| companies charge. That's why a victim will get bills for calls all over the | |
| world, but especially to Colombia, Bolivia and other drug-exporting countries. | |