| .oO Phrack 49 Oo. | |
| Volume Seven, Issue Forty-Nine | |
| 16 of 16 | |
| PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN | |
| PWN PWN | |
| PWN Phrack World News PWN | |
| PWN PWN | |
| PWN Issue 49 PWN | |
| PWN PWN | |
| PWN Compiled by DisordeR PWN | |
| PWN PWN | |
| PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN | |
| Phrack World News #49 -- Index | |
| 01. CIA attacked, pulls plug on Internet site | |
| 02. Letter From Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) on Encryption | |
| 03. Java Black Widows - Sun Declares War | |
| 04. Jacking in from the "Smoked Filled Room" Port | |
| 05. Panix Attack | |
| 06. Massive Usenet Cancels | |
| 07. Mitnick Faces 25 More Federal Counts of Computer Hacking | |
| 08. Hacker is freed but he's banned from computers | |
| 09. Computer Hacker Severely Beaten after Criticizing Prison Conditions | |
| Target of Campaign by U.S. Secret Service | |
| 10. Bernie S. Released! | |
| 11. <The Squidge Busted> | |
| 12. School Hires Student to Hack Into Computers | |
| 13. Paranoia and Brit Hackers Fuel Infowar Craze in Spy Agencies | |
| 14. Hackers Find Cheap Scotland Yard Phone Connection | |
| 15. U.S. Official Warns OF "Electronic Pearl Harbor" | |
| 16. Suit Challenges State's Restraint of the Internet Via AP | |
| 17. U.S. Government Plans Computer Emergency Response Team | |
| 18. Hackers $50K challenge to break Net security system | |
| 19. Criminal cult begins PGP crack attempt | |
| 20. Hackers Bombard Internet | |
| 21. Crypto Mission Creep | |
| 22. Hacker posts nudes on court's Web pages | |
| 23. Hacking Into Piracy | |
| 24. Revealing Intel's Secrets | |
| 25. Internet Boom Puts Home PCs At Risk Of Hackers | |
| 26. Computer hacker Mitnick pleads innocent | |
| 27. Hackers Destroy Evidence of Gulf War Chemical/Biological Weapons | |
| 28. Criminals Slip Through The Net | |
| [=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=] | |
| title: CIA attacked, pulls plug on Internet site | |
| author: unknown | |
| source: Reuter | |
| WASHINGTON (Reuter) - The Central Intelligence Agency, that bastion of | |
| spy technology and computer wizardry, pulled the plug on its World | |
| Wide Web site on the Internet Thursday after a hacker broke in and | |
| replaced it with a crude parody. | |
| CIA officials said their vandalized homepage -- altered to read | |
| "Welcome to the Central Stupidity Agency" -- was in no way linked to | |
| any mainframe computers containing classified national security | |
| information. | |
| [* Excuse me for a minute while my erection goes down. *] | |
| The site was tampered with Wednesday evening and the CIA closed it | |
| Thursday morning while a task force looked into the security breach, | |
| CIA spokeswoman Jane Heishman said. Part of the hacker's text read | |
| "Stop Lying." | |
| "It's definitely a hacker" who pierced the system's security, she | |
| said. "The agency has formed a task force to look into what happend | |
| and how to prevent it." | |
| [* No shit?! It was a hacker that did that? *] | |
| The CIA web site (http://www.odci.gov/cia) showcases unclassified | |
| information including spy agency press releases, officials' speeches, | |
| historical rundowns and the CIA's World Fact Book, a standard | |
| reference work. | |
| The cyber-attack matched one that forced the Justice Department to | |
| close its Web site last month after hackers inserted a swastika and | |
| picture of Adolph Hitler. The penetration of the CIA homepage | |
| highlighted the vulnerability of Internet sites designed to attract | |
| the public and drove home the need for multiple layers of security. | |
| "You want people to visit, you want them to interact, but you don't | |
| want them to leave anything behind," said Jon Englund of the | |
| Information Technology Association of America, a trade group of | |
| leading software and telecommunications firms. | |
| [=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=] | |
| From: Senator_Leahy@LEAHY.SENATE.GOV | |
| Date: Thu, 02 May 96 12:04:07 EST | |
| -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- | |
| LETTER FROM SENATOR PATRICK LEAHY (D-VT) ON ENCRYPTION | |
| May 2, 1996 | |
| Dear Friends: | |
| Today, a bipartisan group of Senators has joined me in supporting | |
| legislation to encourage the development and use of strong, | |
| privacy-enhancing technologies for the Internet by rolling back | |
| the out-dated restrictions on the export of strong cryptography. | |
| In an effort to demonstrate one of the more practical uses of | |
| encryption technology (and so that you all know this message | |
| actually came from me), I have signed this message using a | |
| digital signature generated by the popular encryption program | |
| PGP. I am proud to be the first member of Congress to utilize | |
| encryption and digital signatures to post a message to the | |
| Internet. | |
| [* The first?! We're doomed!! *] | |
| As a fellow Internet user, I care deeply about protecting | |
| individual privacy and encouraging the development of the Net as | |
| a secure and trusted communications medium. I do not need to | |
| tell you that current export restrictions only allow American | |
| companies to export primarily weak encryption technology. The | |
| current strength of encryption the U.S. government will allow out | |
| of the country is so weak that, according to a January 1996 study | |
| conducted by world-renowned cryptographers, a pedestrian hacker | |
| can crack the codes in a matter of hours! A foreign intelligence | |
| agency can crack the current 40-bit codes in seconds. | |
| [* That should read "As a fellow Internet user ..who doesn't read | |
| his own mail... *] | |
| Perhaps more importantly, the increasing use of the Internet and | |
| similar interactive communications technologies by Americans to | |
| obtain critical medical services, to conduct business, to be | |
| entertained and communicate with their friends, raises special | |
| concerns about the privacy and confidentiality of those | |
| communications. I have long been concerned about these issues, | |
| and have worked over the past decade to protect privacy and | |
| security for our wire and electronic communications. Encryption | |
| technology provides an effective way to ensure that only the | |
| people we choose can read our communications. | |
| I have read horror stories sent to me over the Internet about how | |
| human rights groups in the Balkans have had their computers | |
| confiscated during raids by security police seeking to find out | |
| the identities of people who have complained about abuses. | |
| Thanks to PGP, the encrypted files were undecipherable by the | |
| police and the names of the people who entrusted their lives to | |
| the human rights groups were safe. | |
| The new bill, called the "Promotion of Commerce On-Line in the | |
| Digital Era (PRO-CODE) Act of 1996," would: | |
| o bar any government-mandated use of any particular | |
| encryption system, including key escrow systems and affirm | |
| the right of American citizens to use whatever form of | |
| encryption they choose domestically; | |
| [* Thank you for permission to do that.. even though it is legal already *] | |
| o loosen export restrictions on encryption products so | |
| that American companies are able to export any generally | |
| available or mass market encryption products without | |
| obtaining government approval; and | |
| [* Loosen? Why not abolish? *] | |
| o limit the authority of the federal government to set | |
| standards for encryption products used by businesses and | |
| individuals, particularly standards which result in products | |
| with limited key lengths and key escrow. | |
| This is the second encryption bill I have introduced with Senator | |
| Burns and other congressional colleagues this year. Both bills | |
| call for an overhaul of this country's export restrictions on | |
| encryption, and, if enacted, would quickly result in the | |
| widespread availability of strong, privacy protecting | |
| technologies. Both bills also prohibit a government-mandated key | |
| escrow encryption system. While PRO-CODE would limit the | |
| authority of the Commerce Department to set encryption standards | |
| for use by private individuals and businesses, the first bill we | |
| introduced, called the "Encrypted Communications Privacy Act", | |
| S.1587, would set up stringent procedures for law enforcement to | |
| follow to obtain decoding keys or decryption assistance to read | |
| the plaintext of encrypted communications obtained under court | |
| order or other lawful process. | |
| It is clear that the current policy towards encryption exports is | |
| hopelessly outdated, and fails to account for the real needs of | |
| individuals and businesses in the global marketplace. Encryption | |
| expert Matt Blaze, in a recent letter to me, noted that current | |
| U.S. regulations governing the use and export of encryption are | |
| having a "deleterious effect ... on our country's ability to | |
| develop a reliable and trustworthy information infrastructure." | |
| The time is right for Congress to take steps to put our national | |
| encryption policy on the right course. | |
| I am looking forward to hearing from you on this important issue. | |
| Throughout the course of the recent debate on the Communications | |
| Decency Act, the input from Internet users was very valuable to | |
| me and some of my Senate colleagues. | |
| You can find out more about the issue at my World Wide Web home | |
| page (http://www.leahy.senate.gov/) and at the Encryption Policy | |
| Resource Page (http://www.crypto.com/). Over the coming months, I | |
| look forward to the help of the Net community in convincing other | |
| Members of Congress and the Administration of the need to reform | |
| our nation's cryptography policy. | |
| Sincerely, | |
| Patrick Leahy | |
| United States Senator | |
| [=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=] | |
| title: JAVA BLACK WIDOWS - SUN DECLARES WAR | |
| author: unknown | |
| from: staff@hpp.com | |
| Sun Microsystems' has declared war on Black Widow Java | |
| applets on the Web. This is the message from Sun in response | |
| to an extensive Online Business Consultant (OBC/May 96) | |
| investigation into Java security. | |
| OBC's investigation and report was prompted after renowned | |
| academics, scientists and hackers announced Java applets | |
| downloaded from the WWW presented grave security risks for | |
| users. Java Black Widow applets are hostile, malicious traps set | |
| by cyberthugs out to snare surfing prey, using Java as their technology. | |
| OBC received a deluge of letters asking for facts after OBC | |
| announced a group of scientists from Princeton University, Drew | |
| Dean, Edward Felten and Dan Wallach, published a paper declaring | |
| "The Java system in its current form cannot easily be made secure." | |
| The paper can be retrieved at | |
| http://www.cs.princeton.edu/sip/pub/secure96.html. | |
| Further probing by OBC found that innocent surfers on the Web who | |
| download Java applets into Netscape's Navigator and Sun's | |
| HotJava browser, risk having "hostile" applets interfere with their | |
| computers (consuming RAM and CPU cycles). It was also discovered | |
| applets could connect to a third party on the Internet and, without the | |
| PC owner's knowledge, upload sensitive information from the user's | |
| computer. Even the most sophisticated firewalls can be penetrated . . . | |
| "because the attack is launched from behind the firewall," said the | |
| Princeton scientists. | |
| One reader said, "I had no idea that it was possible to stumble on | |
| Web sites that could launch an attack on a browser." Another said, | |
| "If this is allowed to get out of hand it will drive people away from the | |
| Web. Sun must allay fears." | |
| [* Faster connections if people are driven from the web.. hmm... :) *] | |
| The response to the Home Page Press hostile applet survey led to the | |
| analogy of Black Widow; that the Web was a dangerous place where | |
| "black widows" lurked to snare innocent surfers. As a result the | |
| Princeton group and OBC recommended users should "switch off" | |
| Java support in their Netscape Navigator browsers. OBC felt that Sun | |
| and Netscape had still to come clean on the security issues. But | |
| according to Netscape's Product Manager, Platform, Steve Thomas, | |
| "Netscape wishes to make it clear that all known security problems with | |
| the Navigator Java and JavaScript environment are fixed in Navigator | |
| version 2.02." | |
| However, to date, Netscape has not answered OBC's direct questions | |
| regarding a patch for its earlier versions of Navigator that supported | |
| Java . . . the equivalent of a product recall in the 3D world. Netscape | |
| admits that flaws in its browsers from version 2.00 upwards were | |
| related to the Java security problems, but these browsers are still in use | |
| and can be bought from stores such as CompUSA and Cosco. A floor | |
| manager at CompUSA, who asked not to be named, said "its news to | |
| him that we are selling defective software. The Navigator walks off our | |
| floor at $34 a pop." | |
| OBC advised Netscape the defective software was still selling at | |
| software outlets around the world and asked Netscape what action was | |
| going to be taken in this regard. Netscape has come under fire recently | |
| for its policy of not releasing patches to software defects; but rather | |
| forcing users to download new versions. Users report this task to be a | |
| huge waste of time and resources because each download consists of | |
| several Mbytes. As such defective Navigators don't get patched. | |
| OBC also interviewed Sun's JavaSoft security guru, Ms. Marianne Mueller, | |
| who said "we are taking security very seriously and working on it very | |
| hard." Mueller said the tenet that Java had to be re-written from scratch or | |
| scrapped "is an oversimplification of the challenge of running executable | |
| content safely on the web. Security is hard and subtle, and trying to build | |
| a secure "sandbox" [paradigm] for running untrusted downloaded applets | |
| on the web is hard." | |
| Ms. Mueller says Sun, together with their JavaSoft (Sun's Java division) | |
| partners, have proposed a "sandbox model" for security in which "we | |
| define a set of policies that restrict what applets can and cannot do---these | |
| are the boundaries of the sandbox. We implement boundary checks---when | |
| an applet tries to cross the boundary, we check whether or not it's allowed | |
| to. If it's allowed to, then the applet is allowed on its way. If not, the | |
| system throws a security exception. | |
| "The 'deciding whether or not to allow the boundary to be crossed' is the | |
| research area that I believe the Princeton people are working on," said | |
| Mueller. "One way to allow applets additional flexibility is if the applet | |
| is signed (for example, has a digital signature so that the identity of the | |
| applet's distributor can be verified via a Certificate Authority) then allow | |
| the applet more flexibility. | |
| "There are two approaches: One approach is to let the signed applet | |
| do anything. A second approach is to do something more complex and | |
| more subtle, and only allow the applet particular specified capabilities. | |
| Expressing and granting capabilities can be done in a variety of ways. | |
| "Denial of service is traditionally considered one of the hardest security | |
| problems, from a practical point of view. As [Java's creator] James | |
| Gosling says, it's hard to tell the difference between an MPEG | |
| decompressor and a hostile applet that consumes too many resources! | |
| But recognizing the difficulty of the problem is not the same as 'passing | |
| the buck.' We are working on ways to better monitor and control the | |
| use (or abuse) of resources by Java classes. We could try to enforce | |
| some resource limits, for example. These are things we are investigating. | |
| "In addition, we could put mechanisms in place so that user interface | |
| people (like people who do Web browsers) could add 'applet monitors' | |
| so that browser users could at least see what is running in their browser, | |
| and kill off stray applets. This kind of user interface friendliness (letting | |
| a user kill of an applet) is only useful if the applet hasn't already grabbed | |
| all the resources, of course." | |
| The experts don't believe that the problem of black widows and hostile | |
| applets is going to go away in a hurry. In fact it may get worse. The | |
| hackers believe that when Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 3.00 with | |
| support for Java, Visual Basic scripting and the added power of its | |
| ActiveX technology, the security problem will become worse. | |
| "There is opportunity for abuse, and it will become an enormous | |
| problem," said Stephen Cobb, Director of Special Projects for the | |
| National Computer Security Association (NCSA). "For example, OLE | |
| technology from Microsoft [ActiveX] has even deeper access to a | |
| computer than Java does." | |
| JavaSoft's security guru Mueller agreed on the abuse issue: "It's going | |
| to be a process of education for people to understand the difference | |
| between a rude applet, and a serious security bug, and a theoretical | |
| security bug, and an inconsequential security-related bug. In the case of | |
| hostile applets, people will learn about nasty/rude applet pages, and | |
| those pages won't be visited. I understand that new users of the Web | |
| often feel they don't know where they're going when they point and click, | |
| but people do get a good feel for how it works, pretty quickly, and I | |
| actually think most users of the Web can deal with the knowledge that | |
| not every page on the web is necessarily one they'd want to visit. | |
| Security on the web in some sense isn't all that different from security | |
| in ordinary life. At some level, common sense does come into play. | |
| "Many people feel that Java is a good tool for building more secure | |
| applications. I like to say that Java raises the bar for security on the | |
| Internet. We're trying to do something that is not necessarily easy, but | |
| that doesn't mean it isn't worth trying to do. In fact it may be worth | |
| trying to do because it isn't easy. People are interested in seeing the | |
| software industry evolve towards more robust software---that's the | |
| feedback I get from folks on the Net." | |
| # # # | |
| The report above may be reprinted with credit provided as follows: | |
| Home Page Press, Inc., http://www.hpp.com and Online Business ConsultantOE | |
| Please refer to the HPP Web site for additional information about Java and | |
| OBC. | |
| [=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=] | |
| title: Jacking in from the "Smoked Filled Room" Port | |
| author: "Brock N. Meeks" <brock@well.com> | |
| source: CyberWire Dispatch // September // Copyright (c) 1996 // | |
| Washington, DC -- Federal provisions funding the digital telephony bill | |
| and roving wiretaps, surgically removed earlier this year from an | |
| anti-terrorism bill, have quietly been wedged into a $600 billion | |
| omnibus spending bill. | |
| The bill creates a Justice Department "telecommunications carrier | |
| compliance fund" to pay for the provisions called for in the digital | |
| telephony bill, formally known as the Communications Assistance in Law | |
| Enforcement Act (CALEA). In reality, this is a slush fund. | |
| Congress originally budgeted $500 million for CALEA, far short of the | |
| billions actually needed to build in instant wiretap capabilities into | |
| America's telephone, cable, cellular and PCS networks. This bill now | |
| approves a slush fund of pooled dollars from the budgets of "any agency" | |
| with "law enforcement, national security or intelligence | |
| responsibilities." That means the FBI, CIA, NSA and DEA, among others, | |
| will now have a vested interest in how the majority of your | |
| communications are tapped. | |
| The spending bill also provides for "multipoint wiretaps." This is the | |
| tricked up code phase for what amounts to roving wiretaps. Where the | |
| FBI can only tap one phone at a time in conjunction with an | |
| investigation, it now wants the ability to "follow" a conversation from | |
| phone to phone; meaning that if your neighbor is under investigation and | |
| happens to use your phone for some reason, your phone gets tapped. It | |
| also means that the FBI can tap public pay phones... think about that | |
| next time you call 1-800-COLLECT. | |
| In addition, all the public and congressional accountability provisions | |
| for how CALEA money was spent, which were in the original House version | |
| (H.R. 3814), got torpedoed in the Senate Appropriations Committee. | |
| Provisions stripped out by the Senate: | |
| -- GONE: Money isn't to be spent unless an implementation plan is sent | |
| to each member of the Judiciary Committee and Appropriations committees. | |
| -- GONE: Requirement that the FBI provide public details of how its new | |
| wiretap plan exceeds or differs from current capabilities. | |
| -- GONE: Report on the "actual and maximum number of simultaneous | |
| surveillance/intercepts" the FBI expects. The FBI ran into a fire storm | |
| earlier this year when it botched its long overdue report that said it | |
| wanted the capability to tap one out of every 100 phones | |
| *simultaneously*. Now, thanks to this funding bill, rather than having | |
| to defend that request, it doesn't have to say shit. | |
| -- GONE: Complete estimate of the full costs of deploying and | |
| developing the digital wiretapping plan. | |
| -- GONE: An annual report to Congress "specifically detailing" how all | |
| taxpayer money -- YOUR money -- is spent to carry out these new wiretap | |
| provisions. | |
| "No matter what side you come down on this (digital wiretapping) issue, | |
| the stakes for democracy are that we need to have public accountability," | |
| said Jerry Berman, executive director of the Center for Democracy and | |
| Technology. | |
| Although it appeared that no one in congress had the balls to take on | |
| the issue, one stalwart has stepped forward, Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.). He | |
| has succeeded in getting some of the accountability provisions back into | |
| the bill, according to a Barr staffer. But the fight couldn't have been | |
| an easy one. The FBI has worked congress relentlessly in an effort to | |
| skirt the original reporting and implementation requirements as outlined | |
| in CALEA. Further, Barr isn't exactly on the FBI's Christmas card list. | |
| Last year it was primarily Barr who scotched the funding for CALEA | |
| during the 104th Congress' first session. | |
| But Barr has won again. He has, with backing from the Senate, succeeded | |
| in *putting back* the requirement that the FBI must justify all CALEA | |
| expenditures to the Judiciary Committee. Further, the implementation | |
| plan, "though somewhat modified" will "still have some punch," Barr's | |
| staffer assured me. That includes making the FBI report on its | |
| expected capacities and capabilities for digital wiretapping. In other | |
| words, the FBI won't be able to "cook the books" on the wiretap figures | |
| in secret. Barr also was successful in making the Justice Department | |
| submit an annual report detailing its CALEA spending to Congress. | |
| However, the funding for digital wiretaps remains. Stuffing the funding | |
| measures into a huge omnibus spending bill almost certainly assures its | |
| passage. Congress is twitchy now, anxious to leave. They are chomping | |
| at the bit, sensing the end of the 104th Congress' tortured run as the | |
| legislative calender is due to run out sometime early next week. Then | |
| they will all literally race from Capitol Hill at the final gavel, | |
| heading for the parking lot, jumping in their cars like stock car | |
| drivers as they make a made dash for National Airport to return to their | |
| home districts in an effort to campaign for another term in the loopy | |
| world of national politics. | |
| Congress is "going to try to sneak this (spending bill) through the back | |
| door in the middle of the night," says Leslie Hagan, legislative | |
| director for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. She | |
| calls this a "worst case scenario" that is "particularly dangerous" | |
| because the "deliberative legislative process is short-ciricutied." | |
| Such matters as wiretapping deserve to be aired in the full sunlight of | |
| congressional hearings, not stuffed into an 11th hour spending bill. | |
| This is legislative cowardice. Sadly, it will most likely succeed. | |
| And through this all, the Net sits mute. | |
| Unlike a few months ago, on the shameful day the Net cried "wolf" over | |
| these same provisions, mindlessly flooding congressional switchboards | |
| and any Email box within keyboard reach, despite the fact that the | |
| funding provisions had been already been stripped from the | |
| anti-terrorism bill, there has been no hue-and-cry about these most | |
| recent moves. | |
| Yes, some groups, such as the ACLU, EPIC and the Center for Democracy | |
| and Technology have been working the congressional back channels, | |
| buzzing around the frenzied legislators like crazed gnats. | |
| But why haven't we heard about all this before now? Why has this bill | |
| come down to the wire without the now expected flurry of "alerts" | |
| "bulletins" and other assorted red-flag waving by our esteemed Net | |
| guardians? Barr's had his ass hanging in the wind, fighting FBI | |
| Director Louis "Teflon" Freeh; he could have used some political cover | |
| from the cyberspace community. Yet, if he'd gone to that digital well, | |
| he'd have found only the echo of his own voice. | |
| And while the efforts of Rep. Barr are encouraging, it's anything from a | |
| done deal. "As long as the door is cracked... there is room for | |
| mischief," said Barr's staffer. Meaning, until the bill is reported | |
| and voted on, some snapperhead congressman could fuck up the process yet | |
| again. | |
| We all caught a bit of a reprieve here, but I wouldn't sleep well. This | |
| community still has a lot to learn about the Washington boneyard. | |
| Personally, I'm a little tired of getting beat up at every turn. Muscle | |
| up, folks, the fight doesn't get any easier. | |
| Meeks out... | |
| Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> contributed to this report. | |
| [=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=] | |
| title: Panix Attack | |
| author: Joshua Quittner | |
| source: Time Magazine - September 30, 1996 Volume 148, No. 16 | |
| It was Friday night, and Alexis Rosen was about to leave work when one | |
| of his computers sent him a piece of E-mail. If this had been the | |
| movies, the message would have been presaged by something | |
| dramatic--the woo-ga sound of a submarine diving into combat, say. But | |
| of course it wasn't. This was a line of dry text automatically | |
| generated by one of the machines that guard his network. It said | |
| simply, "The mail servers are down." The alert told Rosen that his | |
| 6,000 clients were now unable to receive E-mail. | |
| Rosen, 30, is a cool customer, not the type to go into cardiac arrest | |
| when his mail server crashes. He is the co-founder of Panix, the | |
| oldest and best-known Internet service provider in Manhattan. Years | |
| before the Net became a cereal-box buzz word, Rosen would let people | |
| connect to Panix free, or for only a few dollars a month, just | |
| because--well, because that was the culture of the time. Rosen has | |
| handled plenty of mail outages, so on this occasion he simply rolled | |
| up his sleeves and set to work, fingers clacking out a flamenco on the | |
| keyboard, looking for the cause of the glitch. What he uncovered sent | |
| a chill down his spine--and has rippled across the Net ever since, | |
| like a rumor of doom. Someone, or something, was sending at the rate | |
| of 210 a second the one kind of message his computer was obliged to | |
| answer. As long as the siege continued--and it went on for | |
| weeks--Rosen had to work day and night to keep from being overwhelmed | |
| by a cascade of incoming garbage. | |
| It was the dread "syn flood," a relatively simple but utterly | |
| effective means for shutting down an Internet service provider--or, | |
| for that matter, anyone else on the Net. After Panix went public with | |
| its story two weeks ago, dozens of online services and companies | |
| acknowledged being hit by similar "denial of service" attacks. As of | |
| late last week, seven companies were still under furious assault. | |
| None of the victims have anything in common, leading investigators to | |
| suspect that the attacks may stem from the same source: a pair of | |
| how-to articles that appeared two months ago in 2600 and Phrack, two | |
| journals that cater to neophyte hackers. Phrack's article was written | |
| by a 23-year-old editor known as daemon9. He also crafted the code for | |
| an easy-to-run, menu-driven, syn-flood program, suitable for use by | |
| any "kewl dewd" with access to the Internet. "Someone had to do it," | |
| wrote daemon9. | |
| [* WooWoo! Go Route! *] | |
| That gets to the core of what may be the Net's biggest problem these | |
| days: too many powerful software tools in the hands of people who | |
| aren't smart enough to build their own--or to use them wisely. Real | |
| hackers may be clever and prankish, but their first rule is to do no | |
| serious harm. Whoever is clobbering independent operators like Panix | |
| has as much to do with hacking as celebrity stalkers have to do with | |
| cinematography. Another of the victims was the Voters | |
| Telecommunications Watch, a nonprofit group that promotes free speech | |
| online. "Going after them was like going after the little old lady who | |
| helps people in the neighborhood and bashing her with a lead pipe," | |
| says Rosen. | |
| [* Gee. Is that to say that if you can't write your own operating system | |
| that you shouldn't have it or that it is a big problem? If so, poor | |
| Microsoft... *] | |
| Rosen was eventually able to repulse the attack; now he'd like to | |
| confront his attacker. Since some of these Netwits don't seem to know | |
| enough to wipe off their digital fingerprints, he may get his wish. | |
| [* Wow, they did it for two weeks without getting caught. Two weeks of | |
| 24/7 abuse toward this ISP, and now he thinks he can track them down? *] | |
| [=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=] | |
| title: none | |
| author: Rory J. O'Connor | |
| source: Knight-Ridder Newspapers | |
| WASHINGTON -- Vandals swept through the Internet last weekend, wiping | |
| clean dozens of public bulletin boards used by groups of Jews, Muslims, | |
| feminists and homosexuals, among others. | |
| In one of the most widespread attacks on the international computer | |
| network, the programs automatically erased copies of more than 27,000 | |
| messages from thousands of servers, before operators stopped the | |
| damage. | |
| The identity of those responsible for launching the apparent hate | |
| attacks -- some of the programs were titled "fagcancel" and "kikecancel" | |
| -- is unknown. | |
| The incident further illustrates the shaky security foundation of the | |
| Internet, which has mushroomed from academic research tool to | |
| international communications medium in just three years. | |
| And it raised the ire of many Internet users furious at the ease with | |
| which a user can erase someone else's words from worldwide discussion | |
| groups, known as Usenet newsgroups, in a matter of hours. | |
| "There's nothing you can do as an individual user to prevent someone | |
| from canceling your message," said John Gilmore, a computer security | |
| expert in San Francisco. "We need something added to Usenet's software | |
| that would only allow a cancellation from the originator." | |
| [* Which can then be forged just like fakemail... *] | |
| The incident follows closely three other well-publicized Internet | |
| attacks. | |
| In two cases, hackers altered the World Wide Web home pages of the | |
| Justice Department and the CIA, apparently as political protests. In | |
| the third, a hacker overloaded the computers of an Internet service | |
| provider called Panix with hordes of phony requests for a connection, | |
| thus denying use of the service to legitimate users. | |
| The latest attacks -- called cancelbots -- were launched sometime over | |
| the weekend from a variety of Internet service providers, including | |
| UUNet Technologies in Fairfax, Va., and Netcom Inc. in San Jose, | |
| Calif. One attack was launched from a tiny provider in Tulsa, Okla., | |
| called Cottage Software, according to its owner, William Brunton. | |
| "The offending user has been terminated and the information has been | |
| turned over to the proper (federal) authorities," Brunton said in a | |
| telephone interview Wednesday. "It's now in their hands." | |
| Legal experts said it's unclear if the attacks constitute a crime | |
| under federal laws such as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. | |
| "It's really a difficult issue," said David Sobel, legal counsel of | |
| the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. "Can you | |
| assign value to a newsgroup posting? Because most of the computer | |
| crime statutes assume you're ripping off something of value." | |
| [* Hello? Several statutes don't assume that at all. You can be | |
| charged with HAVING information and not using it. *] | |
| A spokesman for the FBI in Washington said he was unaware of any | |
| federal investigation of the incident, although it is the agency's | |
| policy not to comment on investigations. | |
| While some of the deleted messages have been restored on certain | |
| servers, where operators have retrieved them from backup copies of | |
| their disks, users of other servers where the messages haven't been | |
| restored will never be able to read them. | |
| The fact that a user can stamp out the words of someone else is an | |
| artifact of the original design of the Internet, begun as a Department | |
| of Defense project in 1969. | |
| The Internet consists of tens of thousands of computers, called | |
| servers, that act as repositories for public messages, private | |
| electronic mail and World Wide Web home pages. Servers throughout the | |
| world are interconnected through telephone lines so they can exchange | |
| information and route messages to the individual users, or clients, of | |
| a given server. | |
| Each server stores a copy of the constantly changing contents of | |
| newsgroups, which function as giant electronic bulletin boards | |
| dedicated to particular subjects. There are thousands of them, | |
| covering everything from particle physics to soap operas. | |
| Any Internet user is free to post a contribution to nearly any | |
| newsgroup, and the posting is rapidly copied from one server to | |
| another, so the contents of a newsgroup are identical on every server. | |
| Almost the only form of control over postings, including their | |
| content, is voluntary adherence to informal behavior rules known as | |
| "netiquette." | |
| The idea of cancelbots originated when the Internet and its newsgroups | |
| were almost exclusively the domain of university and government | |
| scientists and researchers. Their purpose was to allow individuals to | |
| rescind messages they later discovered to contain an error. The action | |
| took the form of an automatic program, itself in the form of a | |
| message, because it would be impossible for an individual to find and | |
| delete every copy of the posting on every Internet server. | |
| But the Usenet software running on servers doesn't verify that the | |
| cancel message actually comes from the person who created the original | |
| posting. All a malicious user need do is replace their actual e-mail | |
| address with that of someone else to fool Usenet into deleting a | |
| message. That counterfeiting is as simple as changing an option in the | |
| browser software most people use to connect to the Internet. | |
| "It's pretty easy. There's no authentication in the Usenet. So anybody | |
| can pretend to be anybody else," Gilmore said. | |
| It takes only slightly more sophistication to create a program that | |
| searches newsgroups for certain keywords, and then issues a cancelbot | |
| for any message that contains them. That is how the weekend attack | |
| took place. | |
| The use of counterfeit cancelbots is not new. The Church of | |
| Scientology, embroiled in a legal dispute with former members, last | |
| year launched cancelbots against the newsgroup postings of the | |
| members. Attorneys for the church claimed the postings violated | |
| copyright laws, because they contained the text of Scientology | |
| teachings normally available only to longtime members who have paid | |
| thousands of dollars. | |
| Net users have also turned false cancelbots against those who violate | |
| a basic rule of netiquette by "spamming" newsgroups -- that is, | |
| posting a message to hundreds or even thousands of newsgroups, usually | |
| commercial in nature and unrelated to the newsgroup topic. | |
| "This technology has been used for both good and evil," Gilmore said. | |
| But an individual launching a wholesale cancelbot attack on postings | |
| because of content is considered a serious violation of netiquette -- | |
| although one about which there is little recourse at the moment. | |
| "For everybody who takes the trouble and time to participate on the | |
| Internet in some way, I think it is not acceptable for somebody else | |
| to undo those efforts," Sobel said. "But what are the alternatives? | |
| Not to pursue this means of communications? Unintended uses and | |
| malicious uses seem to be inevitable." | |
| What's needed, some say, is a fundamental change in the Internet that | |
| forces individual users to "sign" their postings in such a way that | |
| everyone has a unique identity that can't be forged. | |
| [* And how about for the technically challenged who can't figure | |
| out the point-and-drool America Online software? *] | |
| "The fatal flaw is that newsgroups were set up at a time when | |
| everybody knew everybody using the system, and you could weed out | |
| anybody who did this," Brunton said. "This points out that flaw in the | |
| system, and that there are unreasonable people out there who will | |
| exploit it." | |
| [=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=] | |
| title: Mitnick Faces 25 More Federal Counts of Computer Hacking | |
| source: nando.net - Los Angeles Daily News | |
| LOS ANGELES (Sep 27, 1996 02:06 a.m. EDT) -- A computer hacker who | |
| used his digital prowess to outrun FBI agents for three years has been | |
| indicted on charges that he stole millions of dollars in software | |
| through the Internet. | |
| The 25-count federal indictment against Kevin Mitnick is the biggest | |
| development in the sensational case since the self-taught computer | |
| whiz was arrested in February 1995 in North Carolina. | |
| The 33-year-old son of a waitress from suburban Los Angeles has been | |
| held in custody in Los Angeles ever since. | |
| With Thursday's indictment, federal prosecutors made good on their vow | |
| to hold Mitnick accountable for what they say was a string of hacking | |
| crimes that pushed him to the top of the FBI's most-wanted list. | |
| "These are incredibly substantial charges. They involve conducts | |
| spanning two and a half years. They involve a systematic scheme to | |
| steal proprietary software from a range of victims," Assistant U.S. | |
| Attorney David Schindler said in an interview. | |
| Mitnick's longtime friend, Lewis De Payne, 36, also was indicted | |
| Thursday on charges that he helped steal the software between June | |
| 1992 and February 1995 -- while Mitnick was on the run from the FBI. | |
| "I would say it is an absurd fiction," said De Payne's attorney, | |
| Richard Sherman. "I don't think the government is going to be able to | |
| prove its case." | |
| De Payne will surrender today to authorities in Los Angeles, Sherman | |
| said. | |
| Friends and relatives of Mitnick have defended his hacking, saying he | |
| did it for the intellectual challenge and to pull pranks -- but never | |
| for profit. | |
| Los Angeles' top federal prosecutor sees it differently. | |
| "Computer and Internet crime represents a major threat, with | |
| sophisticated criminals able to wreak havoc around the world," U.S. | |
| Attorney Nora M. Manella said in a written statement. | |
| The indictment charges Mitnick and De Payne with having impersonated | |
| officials from companies and using "hacking" programs to enter company | |
| computers. Schindler said the software involved the operation of | |
| cellular telephones and computer operating systems. | |
| Their alleged victims include the University of Southern California, | |
| Novell, Sun Microsystems and Motorola, Schindler said. | |
| [=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=] | |
| title: Hacker is freed but he's banned from computers | |
| author: Brandon Bailey (Mercury News Staff Writer) | |
| Convicted hacker Kevin Poulsen is out of prison after five years, but | |
| he still can't touch a computer. | |
| Facing a court order to pay more than $57,000 in restitution for | |
| rigging a series of radio station call-in contests, Poulsen has | |
| complained that authorities won't let him use his only marketable | |
| skill -- programming. | |
| Instead, Poulsen said, he's doomed to work for minimum wage at a | |
| low-tech job for the next three years. Since his June release from | |
| prison -- after serving more time behind bars than any other | |
| U.S. hacker -- the only work he's found is canvassing door to door for | |
| a liberal political action group. | |
| It's a big change for the 30-year-old Poulsen, once among the most | |
| notorious hackers on the West Coast. A former employee at SRI | |
| International in Menlo Park, he was featured on television's | |
| "America's Most Wanted" while living underground in Los Angeles as a | |
| federal fugitive from 1989 to 1991. | |
| Before authorities caught him, Poulsen burglarized telephone company | |
| offices, electronically snooped through records of law enforcement | |
| wiretaps and jammed radio station phone lines in a scheme to win cash, | |
| sports cars and a trip to Hawaii. | |
| Poulsen now lives with his sister in the Los Angeles area, where he | |
| grew up in the 1970s and '80s. But he must remain under official | |
| supervision for three more years. And it galls him that authorities | |
| won't trust him with a keyboard or a mouse. | |
| U.S. District Judge Manuel Real has forbidden Poulsen to have any | |
| access to a computer without his probation officer's approval. | |
| That's a crippling restriction in a society so reliant on computer | |
| technology, Poulsen complained in a telephone interview after a | |
| hearing last week in which the judge denied Poulsen's request to | |
| modify his terms of probation. | |
| To comply with those rules, Poulsen said, his parents had to put their | |
| home computer in storage when he stayed with them. He can't use an | |
| electronic card catalog at the public library. And he relies on | |
| friends to maintain his World Wide Web site. He even asked his | |
| probation officer whether it was OK to drive because most cars contain | |
| microchips. | |
| Living under government supervision apparently hasn't dampened the | |
| acerbic wit Poulsen displayed over the years. | |
| Prankster humor | |
| When authorities were tracking him, they found he'd kept photographs | |
| of himself, taken while burglarizing phone company offices, and that | |
| he'd created bogus identities in the names of favorite comic book | |
| characters. | |
| Today, you can click on Poulsen's web page (http://www.catalog.com/kevin) | |
| and read his account of his troubles with the law. Until it was | |
| revised Friday, you could click on the highlighted words "my probation | |
| officer" -- and see the scary red face of Satan. | |
| But though he's still chafing at authority, Poulsen insists he's ready | |
| to be a law-abiding citizen. | |
| "The important thing to me," he said, "is just not wasting the next | |
| three years of my life." He said he's submitted nearly 70 job | |
| applications but has found work only with the political group, which | |
| he declined to identify. | |
| Poulsen, who earned his high school diploma behind bars, said he wants | |
| to get a college degree. But authorities vetoed his plans to study | |
| computer science while working part-time because they want him to put | |
| first priority on earning money for restitution. | |
| Poulsen's federal probation officer, Marc Stein, said office policy | |
| prevents him from commenting on the case. Poulsen's court-appointed | |
| attorney, Michael Brennan, also declined comment. | |
| Differing view | |
| But Assistant U.S. Attorney David Schindler partly disputed Poulsen's | |
| account. | |
| "Nobody wants to see Mr. Poulsen fail," said Schindler, who has | |
| prosecuted both Poulsen and Kevin Mitnick, another young man from the | |
| San Fernando Valley whose interest in computers and telephones became | |
| a passion that led to federal charges. | |
| Schindler said Stein is simply being prudent: "It would be irresponsible | |
| for the probation office to permit him to have unfettered access to | |
| computers." | |
| Legal experts say there's precedent for restricting a hacker's access | |
| to computers, just as paroled felons may be ordered not to possess | |
| burglary tools or firearms. Still, some say it's going too far. | |
| "There are so many benign things one can do with a computer," said | |
| Charles Marson, a former attorney for the American Civil Liberties | |
| Union who handles high-tech cases in private practice. "If it were a | |
| typewriter and he pulled some scam with it or wrote a threatening | |
| note, would you condition his probation on not using a typewriter?" | |
| But Carey Heckman, co-director of the Law and Technology Policy Center | |
| at Stanford University, suggested another analogy: "Would you want to | |
| put an arsonist to work in a match factory?" | |
| Friends defend Poulsen. | |
| Over the years, Poulsen's friends and defense lawyers have argued that | |
| prosecutors exaggerated the threat he posed, either because law | |
| officers didn't understand the technology he was using or because his | |
| actions seemed to flaunt authority. | |
| Hacking is "sort of a youthful rebellion thing," Poulsen says | |
| now. "I'm far too old to get back into that stuff." | |
| But others who've followed Poulsen's career note that he had earlier | |
| chances to reform. | |
| He was first busted for hacking into university and government | |
| computers as a teen-ager. While an older accomplice went to jail, | |
| Poulsen was offered a job working with computers at SRI, the private | |
| think tank that does consulting for the Defense Department and other | |
| clients. | |
| There, Poulsen embarked on a double life: A legitimate programmer by | |
| day, he began breaking into Pacific Bell offices and hacking into | |
| phone company computers at night. | |
| When he learned FBI agents were on his trail, he used his skills to | |
| track their moves. | |
| Before going underground in 1989, he also obtained records of secret | |
| wiretaps from unrelated investigations. Though Poulsen said he never | |
| tipped off the targets, authorities said they had to take steps to | |
| ensure those cases weren't compromised. | |
| According to Schindler, the probation office will consider Poulsen's | |
| requests to use computers "on a case-by-case basis." | |
| [=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=] | |
| [* Blurb on Bernie's release follows this article. *] | |
| title: Computer Hacker Severely Beaten after Criticizing Prison Conditions | |
| Target of Campaign by U.S. Secret Service | |
| A convicted hacker, in prison for nothing more than possession of | |
| electronic parts easily obtainable at any Radio Shack, has been | |
| savagely beaten after being transferred to a maximum security prison | |
| as punishment for speaking out publicly about prison conditions. | |
| Ed Cummings, recently published in Wired and Internet Underground, as | |
| well as a correspondent for WBAI-FM in New York and 2600 Magazine, | |
| has been the focus of an increasingly ugly campaign of harrassment | |
| and terror from the authorities. At the time of this writing, Cummings | |
| is locked in the infectious diseases ward at Lehigh County prison in | |
| Allentown, Pennsylvania, unable to obtain the proper medical treatment | |
| for the severe injuries he has suffered. | |
| The Ed Cummings case has been widely publicized in the computer hacker | |
| community over the past 18 months. In March of 1995, in what can only | |
| be described as a bizarre application of justice, Cummings (whose pen | |
| name is "Bernie S.") was targetted and imprisoned by the United States | |
| Secret Service for mere possession of technology that could be used to | |
| make free phone calls. Although the prosecution agreed there was no | |
| unauthorized access, no victims, no fraud, and no costs associated with | |
| the case, Cummings was imprisoned under a little known attachment to the | |
| Digital Telephony bill allowing individuals to be charged in this fashion. | |
| Cummings was portrayed by the Secret Service as a potential terrorist | |
| because of some of the books found in his library. | |
| A year and a half later, Cummings is still in prison, despite the | |
| fact that he became eligible for parole three months ago. But things have | |
| now taken a sudden violent turn for the worse. As apparent retribution for | |
| Cummings' continued outspokenness against the daily harrassment and | |
| numerous injustices that he has faced, he was transferred on Friday | |
| to Lehigh County Prison, a dangerous maximum security facility. Being | |
| placed in this facility was in direct opposition to his sentencing | |
| order. The reason given by the prison: "protective custody". | |
| A day later, Cummings was nearly killed by a dangerous inmate for not | |
| getting off the phone fast enough. By the time the prison guards stopped | |
| the attack, Cummings had been kicked in the face so many times that he | |
| lost his front teeth and had his jaw shattered. His arm, which he tried | |
| to use to shield his face, was also severely injured. It is expected that | |
| his mouth will be wired shut for up to three months. Effectively, | |
| Cummings has now been silenced at last. | |
| >From the start of this ordeal, Cummings has always maintained his | |
| composure and confidence that one day the injustice of his | |
| imprisonment will be realized. He was a weekly contributor to a | |
| radio talk show in New York where he not only updated listeners on | |
| his experiences, but answered their questions about technology. | |
| People from as far away as Bosnia and China wrote to him, having | |
| heard about his story over the Internet. | |
| Now we are left to piece these events together and to find those | |
| responsible for what are now criminal actions against him. We are | |
| demanding answers to these questions: Why was Cummings transferred | |
| for no apparent reason from a minimum security facility to a very | |
| dangerous prison? Why has he been removed from the hospital immediately | |
| after surgery and placed in the infectious diseases ward of the very | |
| same prison, receiving barely any desperately needed medical | |
| attention? Why was virtually every moment of Cummings' prison stay a | |
| continuous episode of harrassment, where he was severely punished for | |
| such crimes as receiving a fax (without his knowledge) or having too | |
| much reading material? Why did the Secret Service do everything in | |
| their power to ruin Ed Cummings' life? | |
| Had these events occurred elsewhere in the world, we would be quick | |
| to condemn them as barbaric and obscene. The fact that such things are | |
| taking place in our own back yards should not blind us to the fact that | |
| they are just as unacceptable. | |
| Lehigh County Prison will be the site of several protest actions as will | |
| the Philadelphia office of the United States Secret Service. For more | |
| information on this, email protest@2600.com or call our office at | |
| (516) 751-2600. | |
| 9/4/96 | |
| [=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=] | |
| title: Bernie S. Released! | |
| As of Friday, September 13th, Bernie S. was released from prison on | |
| an unprecedented furlough. He will have to report to probation and | |
| he still has major medical problems as a result of his extended tour | |
| of the Pennsylvania prison system. But the important thing is that | |
| he is out and that this horrible ordeal has finally begun to end. | |
| We thank all of you who took an interest in this case. We believe | |
| it was your support and the pressure you put on the authorities that | |
| finally made things change. Thanks again and never forget the power | |
| you have. | |
| emmanuel@2600.com | |
| www.2600.com | |
| [=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=] | |
| title: <The Squidge Busted> | |
| ENGLAND: | |
| The Squidge was arrested at his home yesterday under the Computer Misuse | |
| Act. A long standing member of the US group the *Guild, Squidge was silent | |
| today after being released but it appears no formal charges will be made | |
| until further interviews have taken place. | |
| Included in the arrest were the confiscation of his computer equipment | |
| including two Linux boxes and a Sun Sparc. A number of items described as | |
| 'telecommunications devices' were also seized as evidence. | |
| Following the rumours of ColdFire's recent re-arrest for cellular fraud | |
| this could mean a new crackdown on hacking and phreaking by the UK | |
| authorities. If this is true, it could spell the end for a particularly | |
| open period in h/p history when notable figures have been willing to | |
| appear more in public. | |
| We will attempt to release more information as it becomes available. | |
| (not posted by Squidge) | |
| -- | |
| Brought to you by The NeXus..... | |
| [* Good luck goes out to Squidge.. we are hoping for the best. *] | |
| [=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=] | |
| title: School Hires Student to Hack Into Computers | |
| source: The Sun Herald - 22 August 1996 | |
| Palisades Park, NJ - When in trouble, call an expert. | |
| Students at Palisades Park's high school needed their | |
| transcripts to send off to colleges. But they were in the computer | |
| and no one who knew the password could be reached. So the school | |
| hired a 16-year-old hacker to break in. | |
| "They found this student who apparently was a whiz, and, | |
| apparently, was able to go in and unlock the password," School Board | |
| attorney Joseph R. Mariniello said. | |
| Superintendent George Fasciano was forced to explain to the | |
| School Board on Monday the $875 bill for the services of Matthew | |
| Fielder. | |
| [* He should have charged more :) *] | |
| [=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=] | |
| title: Paranoia and Brit Hackers Fuel Infowar Craze in Spy Agencies | |
| author: unknown | |
| source: Crypt Newsletter 38 | |
| Electronic doom will soon be visited on U.S. computer networks by | |
| information warriors, hackers, pannational groups of computer-wielding | |
| religious extremists, possible agents of Libya and Iran, international | |
| thugs and money-mad Internet savvy thieves. | |
| John Deutch, director of Central Intelligence, testified to the | |
| truth of the matter, so it must be graven in stone. In a long statement | |
| composed in the august tone of the Cold Warrior, Deutch said to the | |
| Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on June 25, "My greatest | |
| concern is that hackers, terrorist organizations, or other nations might | |
| use information warfare techniques" to disrupt the national | |
| infrastructure. | |
| "Virtually any 'bad actor' can acquire the hardware and software | |
| needed to attack some of our critical information-based infrastructures. | |
| Hacker tools are readily available on the Internet, and hackers | |
| themselves are a source of expertise for any nation or foreign | |
| terrorist organization that is interested in developing an information | |
| warfare capability. In fact, hackers, with or without their full | |
| knowledge, may be supplying advice and expertise to rogue states such | |
| as Iran and Libya." | |
| In one sentence, the head of the CIA cast hackers -- from those more | |
| expert than Kevin Mitnick to AOLHell-wielding idiots calling an America | |
| On-Line overseas account -- as pawns of perennial international bogeymen, | |
| Libya and Iran. | |
| Scrutiny of the evidence that led to this conclusion was not possible | |
| since it was classified, according to Deutch. | |
| " . . . we have [classified] evidence that a number of countries | |
| around the world are developing the doctrine, strategies, and tools | |
| to conduct information attacks," said Deutch. | |
| Catching glimpses of shadowy enemies at every turn, Deutch | |
| characterized them as operating from the deep cover of classified | |
| programs in pariah states. Truck bombs aimed at the telephone | |
| company, electronic assaults by "paid hackers" are likely to | |
| be part of the arsenal of anyone from the Lebanese Hezbollah | |
| to "nameless . . . cells of international terrorists such as those | |
| who attacked the World Trade Center." | |
| Quite interestingly, a Minority Staff Report entitled "Security and | |
| Cyberspace" and presented to the subcommittee around the same time as | |
| Deutch's statement, presented a different picture. In its attempt to | |
| raise the alarm over hacker assaults on the U.S., it inadvertently | |
| portrayed the intelligence community responsible for appraising the | |
| threat as hidebound stumblebums, Cold Warriors resistant to change and | |
| ignorant or indifferent to the technology of computer networks and their | |
| misuse. | |
| Written by Congressional staff investigators Dan Gelber and Jim Christy, | |
| the report quotes an unnamed member of the intelligence community likening | |
| threat assessment in the area to "a toddler soccer game, where everyone | |
| just runs around trying to kick the ball somewhere." Further, assessment | |
| of the threat posed by information warriors was "not presently a priority | |
| of our nation's intelligence and enforcement communities." | |
| The report becomes more comical with briefings from intelligence | |
| agencies said to be claiming that the threat of hackers and information | |
| warfare is "substantial" but completely unable to provide a concrete | |
| assessment of the threat because few or no personnel were working on | |
| the subject under investigation. "One agency assembled [ten] individuals | |
| for the Staff briefing, but ultimately admitted that only one person was | |
| actually working 'full time' on intelligence collection and threat | |
| analysis," write Gelber and Christy. | |
| The CIA is one example. | |
| "Central Intelligence Agency . . . staffs an 'Information Warfare | |
| Center'; however, at the time of [the] briefing, barely a handful | |
| of persons were dedicated to collection and on [sic] defensive | |
| information warfare," comment the authors. | |
| " . . . at no time was any agency able to present a national threat | |
| assessment of the risk posed to our information infrastructure," they | |
| continue. Briefings on the subject, if any and at any level of | |
| classification, "consisted of extremely limited anecdotal information." | |
| Oh no, John, say it ain't so! | |
| The minority report continues to paint a picture of intelligence agencies | |
| that have glommed onto the magic words "information warfare" and | |
| "hackers" as mystical totems, grafting the subjects onto "pre-existing" | |
| offices or new "working groups." However, the operations are based only | |
| on labels. "Very little prioritization" has been done, there are | |
| few analysts working on the subjects in question. | |
| Another "very senior intelligence officer for science and technology" | |
| is quoted claiming "it will probably take the intelligence community | |
| years to break the traditional paradigms, and re-focus resources" | |
| in the area. | |
| Restated, intelligence director Deutch pronounced in June there was | |
| classified evidence that hackers are in league with Libya and Iran and | |
| that countries around the world are plotting plots to attack the U.S. | |
| through information warfare. But the classified data is and was, at best, | |
| anecdotal gossip -- hearsay, bullshit -- assembled by perhaps a handful of | |
| individuals working haphazardly inside the labyrinth of the intelligence | |
| community. There is no real threat assessment to back up the Deutch | |
| claims. Can anyone say _bomber gap_? | |
| The lack of solid evidence for any of the claims made by the intelligence | |
| community has created an unusual stage on which two British hackers, | |
| Datastream Cowboy and Kuji, were made the dog and pony in a ridiculous | |
| show to demonstrate the threat of information warfare to members of | |
| Congress. Because of a break-in at an Air Force facility in Rome, NY, | |
| in 1994, booth hackers were made the stars of two Government Accounting | |
| Office reports on network intrusions in the Department of Defense earlier | |
| this year. The comings and goings of Datastream Cowboy also constitute the | |
| meat of Gelber and Christy's minority staff report from the Subcommittee on | |
| Investigations. | |
| Before delving into it in detail, it's interesting to read what a | |
| British newspaper published about Datastream Cowboy, a sixteen year-old, | |
| about a year before he was made the poster boy for information | |
| warfare and international hacking conspiracies in front of Congress. | |
| In a brief article, blessedly so in contrast to the reams of propaganda | |
| published on the incident for Congress, the July 5 1995 edition of The | |
| Independent wrote, "[Datastream Cowboy] appeared before Bow Street | |
| magistrates yesterday charged with unlawfully gaining access to a series | |
| of American defense computers. Richard Pryce, who was 16 at the time of | |
| the alleged offences, is accused of accessing key US Air Force systems | |
| and a network owned by Lockheed, the missile and aircraft manufacturers." | |
| Pryce, a resident of a northwest suburb of London did not enter a plea | |
| on any of 12 charges levied against him under the British | |
| Computer Misuse Act. He was arrested on May 12, 1994, by New Scotland | |
| Yard as a result of work by the U.S. Air Force Office of Special | |
| Investigations. The Times of London reported when police came for | |
| Pryce, they found him at his PC on the third floor of his family's house. | |
| Knowing he was about to be arrested, he "curled up on the floor and cried." | |
| In Gelber and Christy's staff report, the tracking of Pryce, and to a | |
| lesser extent a collaborator called Kuji -- real name Mathew Bevan, is | |
| retold as an eight page appendix entitled "The Case Study: Rome | |
| Laboratory, Griffiss Air Force Base, NY Intrusion." | |
| Pryce's entry into Air Force computers was noticed on March 28, 1994, | |
| when personnel discovered a sniffer program he had installed on one | |
| of the Air Force systems in Rome. The Defense Information System | |
| Agency (DISA) was notified. DISA subsequently called the Air | |
| Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) at the Air Force | |
| Information Warfare Center in San Antonio, Texas. AFOSI then | |
| sent a team to Rome to appraise the break-in, secure the system and | |
| trace those responsible. During the process, the AFOSI team discovered | |
| Datastream Cowboy had entered the Rome Air Force computers for the | |
| first time on March 25, according to the report. Passwords had been | |
| compromised, electronic mail read and deleted and unclassified | |
| "battlefield simulation" data copied off the facility. The | |
| Rome network was also used as a staging area for penetration of other | |
| systems on the Internet. | |
| AFOSI investigators initially traced the break-in back one step to | |
| the New York City provider, Mindvox. According to the Congressional | |
| report, this put the NYC provider under suspicion because "newspaper | |
| articles" said Mindvox's computer security was furnished by two "former | |
| Legion of Doom members." "The Legion of Doom is a loose-knit computer | |
| hacker group which had several members convicted for intrusions into | |
| corporate telephone switches in 1990 and 1991," wrote Gelber and Christy. | |
| AFOSI then got permission to begin monitoring -- the equivalent of | |
| wiretapping -- all communications on the Air Force network. Limited | |
| observation of other Internet providers being used during the break-in | |
| was conducted from the Rome facilities. Monitoring told the investigators | |
| the handles of hackers involved in the Rome break-in were Datastream | |
| Cowboy and Kuji. | |
| Since the monitoring was of limited value in determining the whereabouts | |
| of Datastream Cowboy and Kuji, AFOSI resorted to "their human intelligence | |
| network of informants, i.e., stool pigeons, that 'surf the Internet.' | |
| Gossip from one AFOSI 'Net stoolie uncovered that Datastream Cowboy was from | |
| Britain. The anonymous source said he had e-mail correspondence with | |
| Datastream Cowboy in which the hacker said he was a 16-year old living in | |
| England who enjoyed penetrating ".MIL" systems. Datastream Cowboy also | |
| apparently ran a bulletin board system and gave the telephone number to the | |
| AFOSI source. | |
| The Air Force team contacted New Scotland Yard and the British law | |
| enforcement agency identified the residence, the home of Richard | |
| Pryce, which corresponded to Datastream Cowboy's system phone number. | |
| English authorities began observing Pryce's phone calls and noticed | |
| he was making fraudulent use of British Telecom. In addition, | |
| whenever intrusions at the Air Force network in Rome occurred, Pryce's | |
| number was seen to be making illegal calls out of Britain. | |
| Pryce travelled everywhere on the Internet, going through South America, | |
| multiple countries in Europe and Mexico, occasionally entering the Rome | |
| network. From Air Force computers, he would enter systems at Jet | |
| Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and the Goddard Space | |
| Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Since Pryce was capturing the logins | |
| and passwords of the Air Force networks in Rome, he was then able to | |
| get into the home systems of Rome network users, defense contractors | |
| like Lockheed. | |
| By mid-April of 1994 the Air Force was monitoring other systems being | |
| used by the British hackers. On the 14th of the month, Kuji logged on | |
| to the Goddard Space Center from a system in Latvia and copied data | |
| from it to the Baltic country. According to Gelber's report, the | |
| AFOSI investigators assumed the worst, that it was a sign that someone | |
| in an eastern European country was making a grab for sensitive | |
| information. They broke the connection but not before Kuji had | |
| copied files off the Goddard system. As it turned out, the Latvian | |
| computer was just another system the British hackers were using as | |
| a stepping stone; Pryce had also used it to cover his tracks when | |
| penetrating networks at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, via | |
| an intermediate system in Seattle, cyberspace.com. | |
| The next day, Kuji was again observed trying to probe various | |
| systems at NATO in Brussels and The Hague as well as Wright-Patterson. | |
| On the 19th, Pryce successfully returned to NATO systems in The | |
| Hague through Mindvox. The point Gelber and Christy seem to be trying | |
| to make is that Kuji, a 21-year old, was coaching Pryce during some | |
| of his attacks on various systems. | |
| By this point, New Scotland Yard had a search warrant for Pryce | |
| with the plan being to swoop down on him the next time he accessed | |
| the Air Force network in Rome. | |
| In April, Pryce penetrated a system on the Korean peninsula and copied | |
| material off a facility called the Korean Atomic Research Institute | |
| to an Air Force computer in Rome. At the time, the investigators had | |
| no idea whether the system was in North or South Korea. The impression | |
| created is one of hysteria and confusion at Rome. There was fear that the | |
| system, if in North Korea, would trigger an international incident, with | |
| the hack interpreted as an "aggressive act of war." The system turned | |
| out to be in South Korea. | |
| During the Korean break-in, New Scotland Yard could have intervened and | |
| arrested Pryce. However, for unknown reasons, the agency did not. Those | |
| with good memories may recall mainstream news reports concerning Pryce's | |
| hack, which was cast as an entry into sensitive North Korean networks. | |
| It's worth noting that while the story was portrayed as the work of | |
| an anonymous hacker, both the U.S. government and New Scotland Yard knew | |
| who the perpetrator was. Further, according to Gelber's report English | |
| authorities already had a search warrant for Pryce's house. | |
| Finally, on May 12 British authorities pounced. Pryce was arrested | |
| and his residence searched. He crumbled, according to the Times of | |
| London, and began to cry. Gelber and Christy write that Pryce promptly | |
| admitted to the Air Force break-ins as well as others. Pryce | |
| confessed he had copied a large program that used artificial intelligence | |
| to construct theoretical Air Orders of Battle from an Air Force computer | |
| to Mindvox and left it there because of its great size, 3-4 megabytes. | |
| Pryce paid for his Internet service with a fraudulent credit card number. | |
| At the time, the investigators were unable to find out the name and | |
| whereabouts of Kuji. A lead to an Australian underground bulletin board | |
| system failed to pan out. | |
| On June 23 of this year, Reuters reported that Kuji -- 21-year-old Mathew | |
| Bevan -- a computer technician, had been arrested and charged in | |
| connection with the 1994 Air Force break-ins in Rome. | |
| Rocker Tom Petty sang that even the losers get lucky some time. He | |
| wasn't thinking of British computer hackers but no better words could be | |
| used to describe the two Englishmen and a two year old chain of events that | |
| led to fame as international computer terrorists in front of Congress | |
| at the beginning of the summer of 1996. | |
| Lacking much evidence for the case of conspiratorial computer-waged | |
| campaigns of terror and chaos against the U.S., the makers of Congressional | |
| reports resorted to telling the same story over and over, three | |
| times in the space of the hearings on the subject. One envisions U.S. | |
| Congressmen too stupid or apathetic to complain, "Hey, didn't we get that | |
| yesterday, and the day before?" Pryce and Bevan appeared in "Security in | |
| Cyberspace" and twice in Government Accounting Office reports AIMD-96-84 | |
| and T-AIMD96-92. Jim Christy, the co-author of "Security in Cyberspace" | |
| and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations' source for the Pryce | |
| case supplied the same tale for Jack Brock, author of the GAO reports. | |
| Brock writes, ". . . Air Force officials told us that at least one of | |
| the hackers may have been working for a foreign country interested in | |
| obtaining military research data or areas in which the Air Force was | |
| conducting advanced research." It was, apparently, more wishful | |
| thinking. | |
| Notes: | |
| The FAS Web site also features an easy to use search engine which can | |
| be used to pull up the Congressional testimony on hackers and | |
| network intrusion. These example key words are effective: "Jim | |
| Christy," "Datastream Cowboy". | |
| [=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=] | |
| title: Hackers Find Cheap Scotland Yard Phone Connection | |
| source: Reuters/Variety | |
| Monday August 5 12:01 AM EDT | |
| LONDON (Reuter) - Computer hackers broke into a security system at | |
| Scotland Yard, London's metropolitan police headquarters, to make | |
| international calls at police expense, police said Sunday. | |
| A police spokesman would not confirm a report in the Times newspaper | |
| that the calls totaled one million pounds ($1.5 million). He said | |
| the main computer network remained secure. | |
| "There is no question of any police information being accessed," the | |
| spokesman said. "This was an incident which was investigated by our | |
| fraud squad and by AT&T investigators in the U.S." | |
| AT&T Corp investigators were involved because most of the calls were | |
| to the United States, the Times said. | |
| According to The Times, the hackers made use of a system called PBX | |
| call forwarding that lets employees to make business calls from home | |
| at their employer's expense. | |
| [=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=] | |
| title: U.S. Official Warns OF "Electronic Pearl Harbor" | |
| source: BNA Daily Report - 17 Jul 96 | |
| Deputy U.S. Attorney General Jamie Gorelick told a Senate | |
| subcommittee last week that the possibility of "an electronic Pearl | |
| Harbor" is a very real danger for the U.S. She noted in her | |
| testimony that the U.S. information infrastructure is a hybrid | |
| public/private network, and warned that electronic attacks "can | |
| disable or disrupt the provision of services just as readily as -- | |
| if not more than -- a well-placed bomb." On July 15 the Clinton | |
| Administration called for a President's Commission on Critical | |
| Infrastructure Protection, with the mandate to identify the nature | |
| of threats to U.S. infrastructure, both electronic and physical, and | |
| to work with the private sector in devising a strategy for | |
| protecting this infrastructure. At an earlier hearing, subcommittee | |
| members were told that about 250,000 intrusions into Defense | |
| Department computer systems are attempted each year, with about a | |
| 65% success rate. | |
| [=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=] | |
| title: Suit Challenges State's Restraint of the Internet Via AP | |
| author: Jared Sandberg | |
| source: The Wall Street Journal | |
| Can the state of Georgia hold sway over the global Internet? | |
| A federal lawsuit filed against the state Tuesday by the American | |
| Civil Liberties Union should eventually answer that question. The | |
| suit, filed in federal district court in Georgia, challenges a new | |
| Georgia law that makes it illegal in some instances to communicate | |
| anonymously on the Internet and to use trademarks and logos without | |
| permission. | |
| The ACLU, joined by 13 plaintiffs including an array of public- | |
| interest groups, contends that the Georgia law is "unconstitutionally | |
| vague" and that its restraints on using corporate logos and trade | |
| names are "impermissibly chilling constitutionally protected | |
| expression." The plaintiffs also argue that the Georgia law, which | |
| imposes a penalty of up to 12 months in jail and $1,000 in fines, | |
| illegally tries to impose state restrictions on interstate commerce, a | |
| right reserved for Congress. | |
| The legal challenge is one of the first major assaults on state laws | |
| that seek to rein in the Internet, despite its global reach and | |
| audience. Since the beginning of 1995, 11 state legislatures have | |
| passed Internet statutes and nine others have considered taking | |
| action. | |
| Connecticut passed a law last year that makes it a crime to send an | |
| electronic-mail message "with intent to harass, annoy or alarm another | |
| person" -- despite the Internet's hallowed tradition of "flaming" | |
| users with messages designed to do just that. Virginia enacted a bill | |
| this year making it illegal for a state employee -- including | |
| professors who supposedly have academic freedom on state campuses -- | |
| to use state-owned computers to get access to sexually explicit | |
| material. New York state has tried to resurrect prohibitions on | |
| "indecent material" that were struck down as unconstitutional by a | |
| federal appeals panel ruling on the federal Communications Decency Act | |
| three months ago. | |
| Most Internet laws target child pornographers and stalkers. Opponents | |
| argue the well-intended efforts could nonetheless chill free speech | |
| and the development of electronic commerce. They maintain that the | |
| Internet, which reaches into more than 150 countries, shouldn't be | |
| governed by state laws that could result in hundreds of different, and | |
| often conflicting, regulations. | |
| "We've got to nip this in the bud and have a court declare that states | |
| can't regulate the Internet because it would damage interstate | |
| commerce," says Ann Beeson, staff attorney for the ACLU. "Even though | |
| it's a Georgia statute, it unconstitutionally restricts the ability of | |
| anybody on the Internet to use a pseudonym or to link to a Web page | |
| that contains a trade name or logo. It is unconstitutional on its | |
| face." | |
| Esther Dyson, president of high-tech publisher EDventure Holdings | |
| Inc. and chairwoman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a high-tech | |
| civil liberties organization that is a co-plaintiff in the lawsuit, | |
| calls the Georgia law "brain-damaged and unenforceable" and adds: "How | |
| are they going to stop people from using fake names? Anonymity | |
| shouldn't be a crime. Committing crimes should be a crime." | |
| But Don Parsons, the Republican state representative who sponsored the | |
| Georgia bill, countered that the law is a necessary weapon to combat | |
| fraud, forgery and other on-line misdeeds. The groups that oppose it, | |
| he says, "want to present (the Internet) as something magical, as | |
| something above and beyond political boundaries." It is none of these | |
| things, he adds. | |
| Nor does the Georgia law seek to ban all anonymity, Mr. Parsons says; | |
| instead, it targets people who "fraudulently misrepresent their (Web) | |
| site as that of another organization." Misrepresenting on-line medical | |
| information, for example, could cause serious harm to an unsuspecting | |
| user, he says. | |
| But Mr. Parsons's critics, including a rival state lawmaker, | |
| Rep. Mitchell Kaye, say political reprisal lies behind the new | |
| law. They say Mr. Parsons and his political allies were upset by the | |
| Web site run by Mr. Kaye, which displayed the state seal on its | |
| opening page and provided voting records and sometimes harsh political | |
| commentary. Mr. Kaye asserts that his Web site prompted the new law's | |
| attack on logos and trademarks that are used without explicit | |
| permission. | |
| "We've chosen to regulate free speech in the same manner that | |
| communist China, North Korea, Cuba and Singapore have," Mr. Kaye | |
| says. "Legislators' lack of understanding has turned to fear. It has | |
| given Georgia a black eye and sent a message to the world -- that we | |
| don't understand and are inhospitable to technology." | |
| Mr. Parsons denies that the political Web site was the primary reason | |
| for his sponsorship of the new statute. | |
| The very local dispute underscores the difficulty of trying to | |
| legislate behavior on the Internet. "It creates chaos because I don't | |
| know what rules are going to apply to me," says Lewis Clayton, a | |
| partner at New York law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & | |
| Garrison. "Whose laws are going to govern commercial transactions? You | |
| don't want to have every different state with the ability to regulate | |
| what is national or international commerce." | |
| In the case of the Georgia statute, while its backers say it isn't a | |
| blanket ban of anonymity, opponents fear differing interpretations of | |
| the law could lead to the prosecution of AIDS patients and childabuse | |
| survivors who use anonymity to ensure privacy when they convene on the | |
| Internet. | |
| "Being able to access these resources anonymously really is crucial," | |
| says Jeffery Graham, executive director of the AIDS Survival Project, | |
| an Atlanta service that joined the ACLU in the lawsuit. His group's | |
| members "live in small communities," he says, and if their identities | |
| were known, "they would definitely suffer from stigmas and reprisals." | |
| [=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=] | |
| title: U.S. Government Plans Computer Emergency Response Team | |
| source: Chronicle of Higher Education - 5 Jul 96 | |
| The federal government is planning a centralized emergency response team to | |
| respond to attacks on the U.S. information infrastructure. The Computer | |
| Emergency Response Team at Carnegie Mellon University, which is financed | |
| through the Defense Department, will play a major role in developing the new | |
| interagency group, which will handle security concerns related to the | |
| Internet, the telephone system, electronic banking systems, and the | |
| computerized systems that operate the country's oil pipelines and electrical | |
| power grids. | |
| [=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=] | |
| title: Hackers $50K challenge to break Net security system | |
| source: Online Business Today | |
| World Star Holdings in Winnipeg, Canada is looking for | |
| trouble. If they find it, they're willing to pay $50,000 to the | |
| first person who can break their security system. The | |
| company has issued an open invitation to take the "World | |
| Star Cybertest '96: The Ultimate Internet Security Challenge," | |
| in order to demonstrate the Company's Internet security | |
| system. | |
| Personal email challenges have been sent to high profile | |
| names such as Bill Gates, Ken Rowe at the National Center | |
| for Super Computing, Dr. Paul Penfield, Department of | |
| Computer Science at the M.I.T. School of Engineering and | |
| researchers Drew Dean and Dean Wallach of Princeton | |
| University. | |
| [* Challenging Bill Gates to hack a security system is like | |
| challenging Voyager to a knitting contest. *] | |
| OBT's paid subscription newsletter Online Business | |
| Consultant has recently quoted the Princeton team in several | |
| Java security reports including "Deadly Black Widow On The | |
| Web: Her Name is JAVA," "Java Black Widows---Sun | |
| Declares War," Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid" and "The | |
| Business Assassin." To read these reports go to Home Page | |
| Press http://www.hpp.com and scroll down the front page. | |
| Brian Greenberg, President of World Star said, "I personally | |
| signed, sealed and emailed the invitations and am very | |
| anxious to see some of the individuals respond to the | |
| challenge. I am confident that our system is, at this time, the | |
| most secure in cyberspace." | |
| World Star Holdings, Ltd., is a provider of interactive | |
| "transactable" Internet services and Internet security | |
| technology which Greenberg claims has been proven | |
| impenetrable. The Company launched its online contest | |
| offering more than $50,000 in cash and prizes to the first | |
| person able to break its security system. | |
| According to the test's scenario hackers are enticed into a | |
| virtual bank interior in search of a vault. The challenge is to | |
| unlock it and find a list of prizes with inventory numbers and | |
| a hidden "cyberkey" number. OBT staff used Home Page | |
| Press's Go.Fetch (beta) personal agent software to retrieve the | |
| World Star site and was returned only five pages. | |
| If you're successful, call World Star at 204-943-2256. Get to | |
| it hackers. Bust into World Star at http://205.200.247.10 to | |
| get the cash! | |
| [=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=] | |
| title: Criminal cult begins PGP crack attempt | |
| from: grady@netcom.com (Grady Ward) | |
| The Special Master has informed me that Madame Kobrin has asked | |
| her to retain a PC expert to attempt to "crack" a series of | |
| pgp-encrypted multi-megabyte files that were seized along with | |
| more than a compressed gigabyte of other material from my safety | |
| deposit box. | |
| Ironically, they phoned to ask for assistance in supplying them | |
| with a prototype "crack" program that they could use in iterating | |
| and permuting possibilities. I did supply them a good core | |
| pgpcrack source that can search several tens of thousands of | |
| possible key phrases a seconds; I also suggested that they should | |
| at least be using a P6-200 workstation or better to make the | |
| search more efficient. | |
| The undercurrent is that this fresh hysterical attempt to "get" | |
| something on me coupled with the daily settlement pleas reflects | |
| the hopelessness of the litigation position of the criminal cult. | |
| It looks like the criminal cult has cast the die to ensure that | |
| the RTC vs Ward case is fought out to the bitter end. Which I | |
| modestly predict will be a devastating, humiliating defeat for | |
| them from a pauper pro per. | |
| I have given them a final settlement offer that they can leave or | |
| take. Actually they have a window of opportunity now to drop the | |
| suit since my counterclaims have been dismissed (although Judge | |
| Whyte invited me to re-file a new counterclaim motion on more | |
| legally sufficiant basis). | |
| I think Keith and I have found a successful counter-strategy to | |
| the cult's system of litigation harassment. | |
| Meanwhile, I could use some help from veteran a.r.s'ers. I need | |
| any copy you have of the Cease and Desist letter that you may | |
| have received last year from Eliot Abelson quondam criminal cult | |
| attorney and Eugene Martin Ingram spokespiece. | |
| Physical mail: | |
| Grady Ward | |
| 3449 Martha Ct. | |
| Arcata, CA 95521-4884 | |
| JP's BMPs or fax-images to: | |
| grady@northcoast.com | |
| Thanks. | |
| Grady Ward | |
| Ps. I really do need all of your help and good wishes after all. | |
| Thanks for all of you keeping the net a safe place to insult | |
| kook kults. | |
| [=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=] | |
| title: Hackers Bombard Internet | |
| author: Dinah Zeiger | |
| source: Denver Post | |
| 9/21/96 | |
| Computer hackers have figured out a new way to tie the Internet | |
| in knots - flooding network computers with messages so other users can't | |
| access them. | |
| Late Thursday, the federally funded Computer Emergency Response | |
| Team at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh issued an advisory to | |
| Internet service providers, universities and governments detailing the | |
| nature of the attacks, which have spread to about 15 Internet services | |
| over the past six weeks. Three were reported this week. | |
| Thus far, none of the Colorado-based Internet providers contacted | |
| has been victimized, but all are on alert and preparing defenses. | |
| The worst of it is that there is no rock-solid defense, because | |
| the attacks are launched using the same rules - or protocols- that allow | |
| Internet computers to establish a connection. | |
| The best the Computer Emergency Response Team can do so far is to | |
| suggest modifications that can reduce the likelihood that a site will be | |
| targeted. | |
| In essence, hackers bombard their victim sites with hundreds of | |
| messages from randomly generated, fictitious addresses. The targeted | |
| computers overload when they try to establish a connection with the false | |
| sites. It doesn't damage the network, it just paralyzes it. | |
| The Computer Emergency Response Team traces the attacks to two | |
| underground magazines, 2600 and Phrack, which recently published the code | |
| required to mount the assaults. | |
| [* Uh, wait.. above it said messages.. which sounds more like usenet, | |
| not SYN Floods.. *] | |
| "It's just mischief," said Ted Pinkowitz, president of Denver | |
| based e-central. "They're just doing it to prove that it can be done." | |
| One local Internet service provider, who declined to be identified | |
| because he fears being targeted, said it goes beyond pranks. | |
| "It's malicious," he said. "They're attacking the protocols that | |
| are the most basic glue of the Internet and it will take some subtle work | |
| to fix it. You can't just redesign the thing, because it's basic to the | |
| operation of the entire network." | |
| The response team says tracking the source of an attack is | |
| difficult, but not impossible. | |
| "We have received reports of attack origins being identified," | |
| the advisory says. | |
| [=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=] | |
| title: Crypto Mission Creep | |
| author: Brock N. Meeks | |
| The Justice Department has, for the first time, publicly acknowledged | |
| using the code-breaking technologies of the National Security Agency, to | |
| help with domestic cases, a situation that strains legal boundaries of | |
| the agency. | |
| Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick admitted in July, during an open | |
| hearing of the Senate's Governmental Affairs permanent subcommittee on | |
| investigations, that the Justice Department: "Where, for example, we | |
| are having trouble decrypting information in a computer, and the | |
| expertise lies at the NSA, we have asked for technical assistance under | |
| our control." | |
| That revelation should have been a bombshell. But like an Olympic | |
| diver, the revelation made hardly a ripple. | |
| By law the NSA is allowed to spy on foreign communications without | |
| warrant or congressional oversight. Indeed, it is one of the most | |
| secretive agencies of the U.S. government, whose existence wasn't even | |
| publicly acknowledged until the mid-1960s. However, it is forbidden to | |
| get involved in domestic affairs. | |
| During the hearing Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) asked Gorelick if the President | |
| had the "the constitutional authority to override statutes where the | |
| basic security of the country is at stake?" He then laid out a | |
| scenario: "Let's say a whole part of the country is, in effect, | |
| freezing to death in the middle of the winter [because a power grid has | |
| been destroyed] and you believe it's domestic source, but you can't | |
| trace it, because the FBI doesn't have the capability. What do you do?" | |
| Gorelick replied that: "Well, one thing you could do -- let me say | |
| this, one thing you could do is you could detail resources from the | |
| intelligence community to the law enforcement community. That is, if | |
| it's under -- if it's -- if you're talking about a technological | |
| capability, we have done that." And then she mentioned that the NSA | |
| had been called on to help crack some encrypted data. | |
| But no one caught the significance of Gorelick's' statements. Instead, | |
| the press focused on another proposal she outlined, the creation of what | |
| amounts to a "Manhattan Project" to help thwart the threat of | |
| information warfare. "What we need, then, is the equivalent of the | |
| 'Manhattan Project' for infrastructure protection, a cooperative venture | |
| between the government and private sector to put our best minds together | |
| to come up with workable solutions to one of our most difficult | |
| challenges,'' Gorelick told Congress. Just a day earlier, President | |
| Clinton had signed an executive order creating a blue-ribbon panel, made | |
| up of several agencies, including the Justice Department, the CIA, the | |
| Pentagon and the NSA and representatives of the private sector. | |
| Though the press missed the news that day; the intelligence agency | |
| shivered. When I began investigating Gorelick's statement, all I got | |
| were muffled grumbling. I called an NSA official at home for comments. | |
| "Oh shit," he said, and then silence. "Can you elaborate a bit on that | |
| statement?" I asked, trying to stifle a chuckle. "I think my comment | |
| says it all," he said and abruptly hung up the phone. | |
| Plumbing several sources within the FBI drew little more insight. One | |
| source did acknowledge that the Bureau had used the NSA to crack some | |
| encrypted data "in a handful of instances," but he declined to | |
| elaborate. | |
| Was the Justice Department acting illegally by pulling the NSA into | |
| domestic work? Gorelick was asked by Sen. Nunn if the FBI had the | |
| legal authority to call on the NSA to do code-breaking work. "We have | |
| authority right now to ask for assistance where we think that there | |
| might be a threat to the national security," she replied. But her | |
| answer was "soft." She continued: "If we know for certain that there | |
| is a -- that this is a non-national security criminal threat, the | |
| authority is much more questionable." Questionable, yes, but averted? | |
| No. | |
| If Gorelick's answers seem coy, maybe it's because her public statements | |
| are at odds with one another. A month or so before her congressional | |
| bombshell, she revealed the plans for the information age"Manhattan | |
| Project" in a speech. In a story for Upside magazine, by | |
| old-line investigative reporter Lew Koch, where he broke the story, | |
| Gorelick whines in her speech about law enforcement going through "all | |
| that effort" to obtain warrants to search for evidence only to find a | |
| child pornography had computer files "encrypted with DES" that don't | |
| have a key held in escrow. "Dead end for us," Gorelick says. "Is this | |
| really the type of constraint we want? Unfortunately, this is not an | |
| imaginary scenario. The problem is real." | |
| All the while, Gorelick knew, as she would later admit to Congress, that | |
| the FBI had, in fact, called the NSA to help break codes. | |
| An intelligence industry insider said the NSA involvement is legal. | |
| "What makes it legal probably is that when [the NSA] does that work | |
| they're really subject to all the constraints that law enforcement is | |
| subject to." This source went on to explain that if the FBI used any | |
| evidence obtained from the NSA's code-breaking work to make it's case in | |
| court, the defense attorney could, under oath, ask the NSA to "explain | |
| fully" how it managed to crack the codes. "If I were advising NSA today | |
| I would say, there is a substantial risk that [a defense attorney] is | |
| going to make [the NSA] describe their methods," he said. "Which means | |
| it's very difficult for the NSA to do its best stuff in criminal cases | |
| because of that risk." | |
| Some 20 years ago, Sen. Frank Church, then chairman of the Senate | |
| Intelligence Committee, warned of getting the NSA involved in domestic | |
| affairs, after investigating the agency for illegal acts. He said the | |
| "potential to violate the privacy of Americans is unmatched by any other | |
| intelligence agency." If the resources of the NSA were ever used | |
| domestically, "no American would have any privacy left . . . There would | |
| be no place to hide," he said. "We must see to it that this agency and | |
| all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and | |
| under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That | |
| is an abyss from which there is no return," he said. | |
| And yet, the Clinton Administration has already laid the groundwork for | |
| such "mission creep" to take place, with the forming of this "Manhattan | |
| Project." | |
| But if the Justice Department can tap the NSA at will -- a position of | |
| questionable legality that hasn't been fully aired in public debate -- | |
| why play such hardball on the key escrow encryption issue? | |
| Simple answer: Key escrow is an easier route. As my intelligence | |
| community source pointed out, bringing the NSA into the mix causes | |
| problems when a case goes to court. Better to have them work in the | |
| background, unseen and without oversight, the Administration feels. With | |
| key escrow in place, there are few legal issues to hurdle. | |
| In the meantime, the Justice Department has started the NSA down the | |
| road to crypto mission creep. It could be a road of no return. | |
| Meeks out... | |
| [=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=] | |
| title: Hacker posts nudes on court's Web pages | |
| author: Rob Chepak | |
| source: The Tampa Tribune | |
| TALLAHASSEE - The Internet home of the Florida Supreme Court isn't | |
| the kind of place you'd expect to find nudity. | |
| But that's what happened Wednesday morning when a judge in | |
| Tallahassee found a pornographic photo while he was looking for the latest | |
| legal news. | |
| A computer hacker broke into the high court's cyberhome, placing at | |
| least three pornographic photos and a stream of obscenities on its Web pages. | |
| ``All I looked at was the one picture, then I checked with the | |
| court,'' said a surprised Charles Kahn Jr., a 1st District Court of Appeal | |
| judge. | |
| The altered pages were immediately turned off. The Florida Department | |
| of Law Enforcement is investigating the incident and the U.S. Justice | |
| Department has been contacted. The hacker didn't tamper with any official | |
| records, court officials said. | |
| ``We've got three photos and we're looking for more,'' said Craig | |
| Waters, executive assistant to Chief Justice Gerald Kogan. The culprit | |
| ``could be anyone from someone in the building to the other side of | |
| the world.'' | |
| [* I bet they are looking for more.. *] | |
| The Florida Court's Web site is used to post information about court | |
| opinions, state law and legal aid. Thousands of people, including children, | |
| use the court system's more than 500 Internet pages each month, Waters said. | |
| The court and other state agencies usually keep their most vital | |
| information on separate computers that can't be accessed on the Internet. | |
| Officials aren't sure how the culprit broke in, and FDLE had no | |
| suspects Thursday afternoon. But court officials long have suspected their | |
| Web site could be a target for hackers armed with the computer equipment to | |
| impose photos on the Web. The Florida Supreme Court became the first state | |
| Supreme Court in the nation to create its own Internet pages two years ago. | |
| While the episode sounds like a well-crafted high school prank, | |
| computer hackers are becoming a big problem for government agencies, which | |
| increasingly are finding themselves the victims of criminal tampering on | |
| the Internet. In August, someone placed swastikas and topless pictures of | |
| a TV star on the U.S. | |
| Department of Justice's home page. The Central Intelligence Agency | |
| has been victimized, too. | |
| ``It's certainly a common problem,'' said P.J. Ponder, a lawyer for | |
| the Information Resource Commission, which coordinates the state | |
| government's computer networks. However, there are no statistics on | |
| incidences of tampering with state computers. | |
| The best way for anyone to minimize damage by computer hackers is by | |
| leaving vital information off the Internet, said Douglas Smith, a consultant | |
| for the resource commission. Most state agencies follow that advice, he added. | |
| ``I think you have to weigh the value of security vs. the value of | |
| the information you keep there,'' he said. | |
| Court officials would not reveal details of the sexually explicit | |
| photos Thursday, but Liz Hirst, an FDLE spokeswoman, said none were of | |
| children. | |
| Penalties for computer tampering include a $5,000 fine and five | |
| years in jail, but the punishment is much higher if it involves child | |
| pornography, she said. | |
| Without a clear motive or obvious physical evidence, FDLE | |
| investigators, who also investigate child pornography on the Internet, | |
| hope to retrace the culprit's steps in cyberspace. However, Ponder said | |
| cases of Internet tampering are ``very difficult to solve.'' | |
| Thursday, the state's top legal minds, who are used to handing out | |
| justice, seemed unaccustomed to being cast as victims. | |
| ``No damage was done,'' Kogan said in a statement. ``But this | |
| episode did send a message that there was a flaw in our security that we | |
| now are fixing.'' | |
| [* I tell you (and other agencies) I do security consulting!! Please?! *] | |
| [=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=] | |
| title: Hacking Into Piracy | |
| source: The Telegraph | |
| 22nd October 1996 | |
| Computer crime investigators are using the techniques of their | |
| adversaries to crack down on illegally traded software. Michael | |
| McCormack reports. | |
| The adage "Set a thief to catch a thief" is being updated for the | |
| electronic age as online investigators use hackers' techniques to fight | |
| a thriving trade in counterfeit and pirate software that is reckoned to | |
| cost British program-makers more than 3 billion a year. | |
| "Jason", a computer crime investigator employed by Novell to shut down | |
| bulletin boards that trade pirate copies of its software, leads a | |
| confusing double life. First he spends weeks in his office, surfing the | |
| Internet and wheedling secrets from hackers around Europe; then he | |
| compiles dossiers of evidence on the system operators who deal in Novell | |
| wares, flies to their bases, presents the local police with his reports, | |
| and accompanies them on the inevitable raid. | |
| "Every day I'm on IRC [the Internet's chat lines, where information can | |
| be exchanged quickly and relatively anonymously] looking for tips on new | |
| bulletin boards that might have Novell products on them," he says. | |
| "Our policy has been to go country by country through Europe and try to | |
| take down the biggest boards in each one" | |
| "It tends to be the biggest boards that have our products, and those can | |
| be difficult to get on to. The operators have invested a lot of time and | |
| cash in setting them up and they're sometimes quite careful who they'll | |
| let on. I often start by joining dozens of little boards in the area to | |
| get myself a good reputation, which I can use as a reference to get on | |
| to the big board. | |
| "Our policy has been to go country by country through Europe and try to | |
| take down the biggest boards in each one. That has a chilling effect on | |
| the other operators. They think, 'If he could get caught, I'm doomed.' | |
| Within days of us taking down a big board, Novell products disappear off | |
| the smaller ones." | |
| Once Jason gains entry to a big board, the game begins in earnest: | |
| "Bulletin boards work on the principle that if you want to take | |
| something off, you first have to put something in. Obviously I can't put | |
| in Novell's products, or any other company's; instead, we use a program | |
| we wrote ourselves. It's huge, and it has an impressive front end full | |
| of colour screen indicators and menus. It doesn't actually do anything | |
| but it looks impressive and it lets you start pulling things off the | |
| site." | |
| Once Jason finds company products on a board, he makes a video of | |
| himself logging on and retrieving a copy of the software. | |
| [* Talk about freako bizarre narc fetishes.. *] | |
| Bulletin boards often have restricted areas closed to all but a few | |
| trusted members, and these are where the most illegal products - such as | |
| expensive business or word-processing packages copied from beta releases | |
| or pirate disks - are kept. Penetrating these areas takes a skill | |
| learned from the hackers. "It's called social engineering," says Jason. | |
| "It just means chatting up the operator until he decides to trust you | |
| with the goodies." | |
| Once Jason finds company products on a board, he makes a video of | |
| himself logging on and retrieving a copy of the software. Then it's on | |
| to a plane to go and lodge a complaint with the local police. | |
| He is helped by Simon Swale, a fellow Novell investigator and former | |
| Metropolitan Police detective who uses his experience of international | |
| police procedures and culture to ensure that foreign forces get all the | |
| technical help they need. | |
| In the past six months, Jason's investigations have shut down seven | |
| bulletin boards across Europe, recovering software valued at more than | |
| 500,000. The company reckons the closed boards would have cost it more | |
| than 2.5 million in lost sales over the next year. | |
| Jason has vivid memories of the early-morning raid on the operator's | |
| house. | |
| One of the Jason's biggest successes came earlier this year in Antwerp, | |
| when he guided Belgian police to the Genesis bulletin board, which held | |
| more than 45,000 worth of Novell products and a slew of other pirate | |
| software. Jason has vivid memories of the early-morning raid on the | |
| operator's house: "The first thing he said was, 'I have nothing illegal | |
| on my system.' So I set up my laptop and mobile and dialled into it from | |
| his kitchen. All the police watched as I tapped into my keyboard and | |
| everything popped up on his screen across the room. I went straight | |
| in to the Novell stuff and he said, 'Okay, maybe I have a little'." | |
| The system operator, Jean-Louis Piret, reached a six-figure out-of-court | |
| settlement with Novell. More importantly for the company, its products | |
| have all but disappeared from Belgium's boards in the wake of the raid. | |
| There are, however, many more fish to fry. Jason already has another | |
| three raids lined up for autumn . . . | |
| [=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=] | |
| title: Revealing Intel's Secrets | |
| The Intel's Secrets site may not be around for long if Intel has anything | |
| to say about it. The site provides a look at details, flaws, and programming | |
| tips that the giant chip manufacturer would rather not share with the general | |
| public. One particular page exposes some unflattering clitches of the P6 | |
| chip and a bug in the Intel486 chip. The site even has two separate hit | |
| counters: one for the average visitor, and one that counts the number of | |
| times Intel has stopped by. | |
| [=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=] | |
| title: Internet Boom Puts Home PCs At Risk Of Hackers | |
| author: Nick Nuttall | |
| source: The London Times | |
| 18th October 1996 | |
| Home computers, which carry everything from private banking details to | |
| love letters, are becoming vulnerable to hackers as more households | |
| connect to the Internet. | |
| The boom in electronic services is making the home PC as open to attack | |
| as company and government systems, a survey of hackers has disclosed. | |
| The Internet is also helping hackers to become more skilful as they | |
| exchange tips and computer programs around the globe. | |
| [* Survey of hackers?! Bullshit. *] | |
| A spokesman for Kinross and Render, which carried out the survey for | |
| Computacenter, said: "Breaking into home computers is now increasingly | |
| possible and of great interest to hackers. It may be a famous person's | |
| computer, like Tony Blair's or a sports personality. Equally it could be | |
| yours or my computer carrying personal details which they could use for | |
| blackmailing." | |
| Passwords remain easy to break despite warnings about intrusion. | |
| Companies and individuals frequently use simple name passwords such as | |
| Hill for Damon Hill or Blair for the Labour leader. Hackers also said | |
| that many users had failed to replace the manufacturer's password with | |
| their own. | |
| Hackers often use programs, downloaded from the Internet, which will | |
| automatically generate thousands of likely passwords. These are called | |
| Crackers and have names such as Satan or Death. | |
| [* Satan? Death? Ahhhh! *] | |
| John Perkins, of the National Computing Centre in Manchester, said | |
| yesterday: "The linking of company and now home computers to the | |
| global networks is making an expanding market for the hackers." The | |
| Computacenter survey was based on interviews with more than 130 | |
| hackers, supplemented by interviews over the Internet. The average | |
| hacker is 23, male and a university student. At least one of those | |
| questioned began hacking ten years ago, when he was eight. | |
| [* No offense to anyone out there, but how in the hell could they | |
| validate any claims in a survey like that? And especially with | |
| that amount? *] | |
| Most said it was getting easier, rather than harder, to break in and | |
| many hackers would relish tighter computer security because this would | |
| increase the challenge. Existing laws are held in contempt and almost 80 | |
| per cent said tougher laws and more prosecutions would not be a | |
| deterrent. Eighty-five per cent of those questioned had never been | |
| caught. | |
| Most said the attraction of hacking lay in the challenge, but a hard | |
| core were keen to sabotage computer files and cause chaos, while others | |
| hoped to commit fraud. | |
| [* Excuse me while I vomit. *] | |
| [=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=] | |
| title: Computer hacker Mitnick pleads innocent | |
| September 30, 1996 | |
| LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The notorious computer hacker Kevin Mitnick pleaded | |
| innocent Monday to charges he mounted a multimillion-dollar crime wave | |
| in cyberspace during 2 1/2 years as a fugitive. | |
| Mitnick, 33, held without bail on a fraud conviction, told the judge | |
| not to bother reading the indictment, which includes 25 new counts of | |
| computer and wire fraud, possessing unlawful access devices, damaging | |
| computers and intercepting electronic messages. | |
| "Not guilty," Mitnick said. His indictment, handed up Friday by a | |
| federal grand jury, follows an investigation by a national task force | |
| of FBI, NASA and federal prosecutors with high-tech expertise. | |
| It charges Mitnick with using stolen computer passwords, damaging | |
| University of Southern California computers and stealing software | |
| valued at millions of dollars from technology companies, including | |
| Novell, Motorola, Nokia, Fujitsu and NEC. | |
| ........... | |
| Mitnick pleaded guilty in April to a North Carolina fraud charge of | |
| using 15 stolen phone numbers to dial into computer databases. | |
| Prosecutors then dropped 22 other fraud charges but warned that new | |
| charges could follow. | |
| Mitnick also admitted violating probation for a 1988 conviction in Los | |
| Angeles where he served a year in jail for breaking into computers at | |
| Digital Equipment Corp. At 16, he served six months in a youth center | |
| for stealing computer manuals from a Pacific Bell switching center. | |
| Mitnick also got a new lawyer Monday, Donald C. Randolph, who | |
| represented Charles Keating Jr.'s top aide, Judy J. Wischer, in the | |
| Lincoln Savings swindle. | |
| [=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=] | |
| title: Hackers Destroy Evidence of Gulf War Chemical/Biological Weapons | |
| source: WesNet News | |
| Saturday, Nov. 2, 5:00 p.m. | |
| WASHINGTON DC -- Hackers broke into a Web site (http://insigniausa.com) | |
| containing suppressed evidence of Gulf War chemical and biological weapons | |
| Friday, erasing all files. | |
| "Someone hacked in Friday around 4 p.m. and completely trashed our | |
| machine," said Kenneth Weaver, webmaster of W3 Concepts, Inc. | |
| (http://ns.w3concepts.com) of Poolesville, Maryland (a suburb of Washington | |
| D.C.), which houses the site. | |
| The Web site contained recently-released supressed Department of Defense | |
| documents exposing biological and chemical warfare materials that U.S. | |
| companies allegedly provided to Iraq before the war. | |
| Bruce Klett, publisher, Insignia Publishing said they are now restoring the | |
| files. "We plan to be operational again Saturday evening or Sunday," he | |
| said. "We encourage anyone to copy these files and distribute them." There | |
| are over 300 files, requiring 50 MB of disk space. | |
| The Department of Defense has its own version of these files on its | |
| Gulflink Web site (http://www.dtic.dla.mil/gulflink/). | |
| Insignia plans to publish Gassed In the Gulf, a book on the government's | |
| coverup by former CIA analyst Patrick Eddington, in six to eight weeks, | |
| Klett added. | |
| Hackers also brought down SNETNEWS and IUFO, Internet mailing lists | |
| covering conspiracies and UFOs, on Oct. 25, according to list administrator | |
| Steve Wingate. He plans to move the lists to another Internet service | |
| provider be be back in operation soon. | |
| "We've seen this happen regularly when we get too close to sensitive | |
| subjects," Wingate said. "The election is Tuesday. This is a factor." | |
| He also said a "quiet" helicopter buzzed and illuminated his Marin County | |
| house and car Thursday night for several minutes. | |
| [=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=] | |
| title: Criminals Slip Through The Net | |
| source: The Telegraph, London | |
| 5th November 1996 | |
| Britain is way behind in the fight against computer crime and it's time | |
| to take it seriously, reports Michael McCormack | |
| BRITAIN'S police forces are lagging behind the rest of the world in | |
| combating computer crime, according to one of the country's most | |
| experienced computer investigators - who has just returned to walking | |
| the beat. | |
| Police Constable John Thackray, of the South Yorkshire Police, reached | |
| this grim conclusion after a three-month tour of the world's leading | |
| computer crime units, sponsored by the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust. | |
| All of the five countries he studied, he says, are putting Britain's | |
| efforts against electronic crime to shame. | |
| "The level of education and understanding of computer crime is far more | |
| advanced outside Britain," said Thackray. | |
| "Here, police forces are shying away from even attempting to investigate | |
| computer crimes. You see experienced detectives who lose all interest in | |
| pursuing cases where there are computers involved. | |
| "We know that computer crime, particularly software piracy, is closely | |
| connected with organised crime - they like the high profits and the low | |
| risk - but those connections aren't followed up." | |
| He adds:"We are far behind our own criminals on these matters. We only | |
| catch them when they get complacent and keep using old technology and | |
| old methods. If they simply keep up with current technology, they are so | |
| far ahead they are safe." Thackray was one of the officers responsible | |
| for closing down one of the largest pirate bulletin boards in the | |
| country, estimated to have stolen software worth thousands last year and | |
| has assisted officers from other forces in several similar cases. | |
| Pirates recently named a new offering of bootleg software "Thackray1 and | |
| 2" in his honour. | |
| He has seen how seriously such crimes are taken by police forces abroad: | |
| "In America there are specialist units in every state and a similar | |
| system is being put in place in Australia. There's nothing nearly as | |
| comprehensive in in Britain. | |
| "We have the Computer Crimes Unit at Scotland Yard and a small forensic | |
| team at Greater Manchester, but they're both badly under-resourced and | |
| there's little interest in, or support for, investigating computer | |
| crimes in other forces. | |
| "Our officers must get a better education, to start with, on what | |
| computer crime is, how it works and who is being hurt by it. We need to | |
| bury the impression that this is a victimless crime with no serious | |
| consequences." | |
| Thackray is preparing a report on his impressions of anti-crime | |
| initiatives in other countries and what must be done in Britain to equal | |
| them. "In my view, we need specially detailed officers who are educated | |
| in computer crime issues. | |
| "We also need to become much more pro-active in our approach. It's not | |
| good enough to sit back and wait for the complaints." | |
| But perhaps symptomatic of Britain's efforts is the way Thackray's | |
| valuable experience is being used. He is putting away his laptop and | |
| getting out his boots. | |
| "I'm now being moved back into uniform. The two year experience I have | |
| gained in investigating these matters is not going to be used to its | |
| full potential." | |
| "We pride ourselves on being an effective police service in Britain, and | |
| other countries look up to us. But when it comes to computer crime, we | |
| have to start following their lead." | |
| -EOF | |