Megarom/Megarom Macintosh CD Software (Quantum Leap)(1992).iso/TEXT/Sysop's Nightmare

Text File | 1991-01-03 | 19KB | 319 lines

 > BBS TERRORIST CPU/STR Spotlight?   The extremes a creep will go to....
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                                                  PROFILE OF A SICKIE
                                                  ===================

 by Dana P. Jacobson


      For over a year, three of Greater Boston's Atari bulletin boards have
 been pestered by a 'known' user  who has  been flooding  the message bases
 with  obscenities,  threats,  and  fake  names.  For  most  of us who call
 bulletin boards; and especially those of us who run one, this is not "too"
 unusual.   This case is a little more unusual however, because the user is
 extremely persistent in his endeavors.  Most remote users of these systems
 have learned to, at least, try and ignore this person. The SysOps of these
 boards (myself included) have worn out fingers hitting  the delete  key on
 his messages  and fake  accounts.   This user  has been  deleted from just
 about every legitimate BBS in the area, and his hatred  for this happening
 to him  grows.   Until recently,  he has been resigned to the fact that he
 has to log on  to boards  under assumed  names to  keep active.   Then, he
 decided to  get revenge  on those  of us  who originated his mass deletion
 from the area boards.  As he put it, we were heading  a conspiracy  to ban
 him from  all boards.   Well,  I have to admit, we were spreading the word
 about him wherever we saw his name.  Conspiracy, no.  There's an unwritten
 bond  between  SysOps  to  help  each  other  protect the integrity of our
 boards, so this was a natural occurrence among us.

      This "pest" finally got fed up with what was happening to him (HE got
 fed  up  -  what  about  us?)  and  decided to retaliate.  One of the last
 bulletin boards to delete this guy's account was  BCS/Atari, run  by Harry
 Steele.  It was Harry's contention that if you left the guy alone, he'd go
 away.  Well, as  per normal,  this user  didn't go  away and  continued to
 leave  abusive  messages  on  the  BBS.   Users were complaining more than
 usual, so Harry reluctantly deleted the account.  I happened  to be online
 (BCS/Atari has  2 lines) when the person logged on after being deleted. He
 re- registered and Harry engaged him in Chat.  Having WizOp access (we run
 MichTron BBS),  I was  able to  "spy" on  the chat discussion and find out
 what this user was up to.  Without going into  detail, the  essence of the
 "discussion"  ended  with  this  user  threatening to do something to make
 Harry sorry for deleting him.  A few  hours later,  the three  major Atari
 boards in the area were crashed, and the majority of files were deleted!

      The  next  day,  there  was  a  message on another local BBS, from an
 individual calling himself the  "Bbs  Vigllante".    In  that  message, he
 stated what he had done, and why.  He then went on to state that until his
 "demands" were met (to  be aired  later), that  this trashing  would occur
 again.   Needless to say, the three respective WizOps were speechless, and
 hurried to restore their boards.  The phones were busy that day  trying to
 reconstruct the  events of  the night  before.  Let me try and reconstruct
 the background leading up to this heinous destruction,  starting back over
 a year ago.

      I belong  to the  South Shore Atari Group (SSAG), since its "revival"
 just over two years ago.  Kevin Champagne, owner of the newly opened Atari
 store, Computer  Cache, talked  to former SSAG members and offered to host
 the meetings.  The members took him up on it, and SSAG was reformed.   The
 old group  had its  own BBS,  and Kevin offered the new group a discounted
 copy of MichTron BBS. The group bought it, and were back online as well as
 meeting  regularly  again.    Since  the  SysOp  of  the former SSAG board
 allegedly had a "tainted"  past,  some  of  the  members  of  the Steering
 Committee wanted  access to the new BBS to "keep tabs" on it.  Well, after
 a few months of access, we  lost it.  The SysOp  felt "restricted"  in his
 running the  BBS, and  wanted to  do it  his way  without any "watchdogs".
 Heated discussions went on for  a  couple  of  months,  and  the committee
 requested that  the BBS software be returned.  Meanwhile, on of the ST SIG
 SysOps was our "friend, the pest", who at that time, was a  typical active
 and regularly-contributing user on the boards.

      To  make   the  connections  between  this  user  and  the  "soon-to-
 be-defunct" SSAG board, we learned that this SysOp managed to  make a copy
 of  the  board's  userlog,  containing  among other info, the passwords of
 every user!  I was given this info much later, by the  person who  ran the
 BBS,  after  the  SSAG  BBS  was  down,  and tensions diminished among the
 parties involved. By the way, the BBS went down shortly after, and some of
 those who  ran that board quit the group.  Now that this SysOp didn't have
 a BBS  to "hang-out",  he began  to frequent  the other  Atari boards more
 often.   On occasion,  he'd log on under aliases, starting message threads
 that were  anti-SSAG  because  of  our  involvement  in  that  board going
 offline. Also,  this past  summer, Computer Cache closed its doors, adding
 more fuel to this user's anger - he now had no access to a nearby computer
 store; and he also blamed SSAG for the store's demise.

      Now  his  activity  on  the  local  boards was increasing, and he had
 numerous phony accounts which we kept deleting.  He also was using some of
 the former-SSAG board's accounts, to keep his anonymity.  As we learned of
 these accounts, we deleted them. When  he called  under his  real name, we
 cautioned him  to act  responsibly to retain his access.  We warned him on
 numerous occasions, we restricted hIs time-limit, and finally  deleted his
 "good"  account.  None  of  this  kept him from calling and continuing his
 abuse of SSAG and the closing  of the  store. His  tirades grew.   When he
 lost  one  account,  he'd  create  another.  He  called  other  boards and
 continued his tirade there.  One by one,  he lost  most of  his legitimate
 accounts, and many phony ones - still no end in sight, even now.

      The old  SSAG board was back on-line, under a different name now; and
 had no connection to the usergroup.  Our  frustrated  user  became  a user
 there again,  but was  not made  a SysOp again.  The board went down a few
 months ago for personal reasons, and  our user  was again  blaming that on
 SSAG.    Just  a  short  while  ago, that board was back again, supposedly
 running on a pirated version of FoRem BBS.  I have no idea if there is any
 validity to  this, and  the "source"  of this information was, you guessed
 it, our "pal". The reason he told us, supposedly, was that the BBS was now
 a pirate  board. Now,  since Computer Cache was closed, and there were "no
 good" stores nearby, he  resorted to  piracy to  obtain new  software.  He
 "snitched" on  his local  source because  he even  got himself dumped from
 there!  He even called the author of FoRem to turn the board in (I thought
 there was  "honor among thieves!"). Now this guy is really furious. He now
 has to call long-distance pirate boards to obtain his software!   Again, I
 only know  what this  user has  left in  messages about  the alleged local
 pirate board. I have talked voice with the  person allegedly  running that
 board, and he says no, not that he'd admit to running one, but he added he
 wasn't even up.  I can't verify that information.

      Now, our pest is running out  of local  sources for  anything, public
 domain or  pirated.  He's left my bulletin board alone for awhile, and has
 resorted to calling the last three  boards that  he had  legitimate access
 to.    His  comments,  threats,  etc.  have  not  stopped however.  He has
 continued to get even with those who have been conspiring against him, for
 giving him such a bad time (is this guy for real?).

      On  the  evening  of  December  30th,  I  happened  to  log on to the
 BCS/Atari BBS while our "friend" was online.  Having the access to  do so,
 and being  the curious  type, I  went to  check up  on what  he was doing.
 Thanks to Tim Purves,  author of  the MichTron  BBS, I  was able  to use a
 "screen-display" command  which enabled  me to  actually "see" what he was
 doing.  He  was  engaged  in  Chat  with  the  SysOp,  and  I  watched the
 conversation progress.  The SysOp (Harry Steele) was telling the user that
 users were finally fed up with  this guy's  antics on  the board,  and his
 access  was  about  to  be  taken  away,  again,  only for good.  The user
 complained that he was being wrongly  treated, and  pressure by  the other
 users should  not be used against him.  Well, since the board is backed by
 the BCS, Harry was obligated to listen to  its members.   Our  user didn't
 want  to  listen  to  reason.    Personally, I don't think he's capable of
 reason!  The discussion went on for  a  bit  more,  and  finally  the user
 threatened to get even, to make "us" pay for how we were treating him.

      About 8:00  am the next morning (an ungodly hour for me on a Saturday
 morning!), I got a phone call from Harry.  He  told me  to go  check on my
 BBS (Toad  Hall EBBS).   I  turned the  monitor on, and was faced with the
 ST's desktop instead of the usual BBS's "call- waiting" screen.  The first
 thing I thought to myself as I tried to wake up was that there was a power
 outage in the area that night, and Toad Hall got "hit".   When I "clicked"
 on the  BBS run  program, I  got that  dreaded message to check the drive.
 Something was seriously wrong.   I  got back  on the  phone and discovered
 that not  only was my BBS down, but so was BCS/Atari and Harbour Light BBS
 (the former in-house BBS of Computer Cache, now run elsewhere).

      I asked Harry what happened, and he informed me that around 3:00 that
 morning, his  wife was  awakened by the BBS's hard drive making an unusual
 amount of noise so she went to investigate.  She turned on the monitor and
 saw "me"  deleting files  from the  hard drive!   She knew "something" was
 wrong, so she hit the reset  button to  the ST.   Apparently,  someone had
 systematically deleted files from all three boards in the "darkness of the
 night.

      The BCS/Atari board was fortunate that Mrs. Steele was awakened.  The
 damage to  that board  was limited  to one of two hard drives connected to
 the BBS.  The culprit was "stopped" before he got to the second hard drive
 which wasn't  backed-up at all.  The affected drive was recently backed up
 a few days before the "attack".  Harbour Light was  also fortunate.   That
 MichTron board  is running  on an  IBM-clone, and  the internal set-up was
 different from the Atari-run boards.  The "terrorist" didn't know,  or was
 unaware of  how or where to look to find all the files.  So, little damage
 was done, and back-ups of the system files and the affected downloads were
 relatively current  as well.   Toad  Hall was hit the hardest.  Just about
 every file on the 48-meg hard drive was deleted.  All that remained were a
 few hard  drive utility  files, and  a few  other worthless ones.  To make
 matters worse, the most current back-up of the system files  and downloads
 were in  an area of the hard drive which had a lot of available space, not
 on floppies.  The most recent floppy back-up was from  late-August, almost
 4-month's old!

      Well, all  three boards  were restored and back on-line by the end of
 the day.  Once things were as back  to "normal"  as possible,  we tried to
 piece together  how this  was accomplished, and who did it.  The "who" was
 fairly obvious from the start.    After  seeing  the  messages  on various
 boards  in  the  area  from  the "Bbs Vigllante" (his spelling, not mine!)
 stating what was done, why, and  further threats,  we knew  there was only
 one suspect: our disgruntled user.  But how?

      Well, we  knew that  he had  the old  SSAG userfile.   Now all of the
 affected SysOps had been  users on  that board  before the  usergroup took
 back the software, almost a year ago.  All of us had changed our passwords
 to be sure that  the  one  we  used  on  the  SSAG  board  wasn't repeated
 elsewhere.   Or did  we?  Apparently, one of the SysOps did not change his
 passwords (to keep from embarrassing that person, I won't reveal  who, but
 it wasn't  me!). Our  Bbs Vigllante finally used his purloined userfile to
 call various boards, looking for one where that same user had high access.
 From there, he got WizOp access to all three boards, using one password to
 gain others.  Once  that access  was his,  the systematic  deletion of the
 boards was  simple.   After seeing  the additional threatening messages on
 other boards, two of us immediately downgraded all users with SysOp-access
 or higher,  knowing that  the Vigllante  had copies of all three userlogs.
 One system didn't do  so  immediately,  and  subsequently  was  uploaded a
 pirate file  which was  downloaded twice  before discovering  it.  We were
 more concerned with getting the boards  back to  normal than  checking out
 uploads.  The file was subsequently deleted, and users on all three boards
 were told to change their passwords  or  expect  that  the  possibility of
 their accounts to be misused was inevitable.

     To this  day, not all users have done so, so there is still a password
 abuse on all three  boards.    We're  currently  considering  deleting the
 entire  userlist  and  starting  from  scratch.    This would be a drastic
 measure, and we're considering others.  Our first  concern was  to protect
 our boards  from similar  "terrorism" and  finding a way to bring the "Bbs
 Vigllante" to justice and end this abuse.

      We  voice-validated  all  high-access  password  changes.    Those we
 couldn't contact  are still  "demoted" until  we do  so.   Some of us have
 taken further precautions  and  enhanced  our  password  menus  to include
 secondary (or more) passwords.  We've also tried to point out to, not only
 our users, but on other boards as well,  that passwords  should be changed
 regularly on every board a user calls; and not to use the same password on
 other boards.  We learned what could happen, the hard way.

      Meanwhile, the threats have continued.    I've  included  a  bunch of
 these messages  captured in my term program's buffer for proof, should the
 opportunity be made available  to use  them against  the vigllante.   He's
 also  resorted  to  "BBS  extortion",  making demands on the three trashed
 boards AND the SSAG.  Briefly, these demands include: WizOp  access on all
 three  boards,  a  public  apology  for  the  way HE's been treated, and a
 monthly column in the SSAG  Newsletter  (non-edited)!    If  these demands
 aren't met,  then we  will be leaving ourselves open to similar, or worse,
 attacks.



                          Dana P. Jacobson
                          WizOp - Toad Hall EBBS
                          Boston, MA
                          617-567-8642





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 > BBS GRIEF  CPU/STR Spotlight?  Boston Computer Society gets involved...
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                FROM THE MIDDLESEX NEWS, FRAMINGHAM, 1/9/89
                ===========================================


 A hacker, apparently using a year-old  list of  passwords, has  managed to
 crash three Atari-based computer bulletin-board systems in the Boston area
 and is now threatening to do the same to a fourth.

 Calling himself the ``BBS Vigilante,'' the hacker has,  over the  past two
 weeks, gained  phone access to the internal operating systems of the three
 systems, one of them run by  the Boston  Computer Society.  He has deleted
 hundreds of files, including scores of messages and programs left by users
 and even the software that runs the boards themselves.

 Harry Steele, who runs the Boston  Computer Society  Atari board  from his
 Medford home,  said the  hacker, using  the purloined  password of another
 system operator, cracked into his system early on Dec. 30. But around 3:15
 a.m., he  said, his  wife was  awakened because  "she heard the hard drive
 going cuckoo."   She  turned on  the monitor,  saw what  was happening and
 promptly shut the machine, he said, adding he was especially lucky because
 the hacker was deleting files on a disk drive he had backed up just  a few
 days before  - rather   than a second drive that had about 400 programs he
 had never backed up.  Still, Steele said it took  him eight  or nine hours
 to  fully  restore  the  roughly  20  megabytes of software the hacker did
 delete.

 Toad Hall, an East Boston system,  was not  so lucky.  Although the system
 operator there had backed up his files, he had done it on a section of his
 disk drive that the  "Vigilante"  managed  to  delete.    Steele  said the
 sysops strongly  suspect the culprit is a teen-ager once involved in a BBS
 and club run by a now-defunct software store. As an active member,  he was
 able to  gain access  to that  BBSs' password list, of which he apparently
 made a copy.

 When the store closed about a  year ago,  Steele said,  he turned vicious,
 calling up  Atari-based boards and leaving nasty messages for users. Faced
 with complaints from other users, the  system operators  kicked him  off -
 something they  had to  do several  times because he was using a number of
 assumed names.

 What the board operators did not realize, Steele  said, was  that the list
 the kid  had included  some names and passwords of either system operators
 or "co-sysops,"  people who  maintain conferences  on the  systems and who
 generally  can  gain  entry  into  the system's internal programs over the
 phone lines.

 In December, he threatened to take the systems  down. Then,  after he did,
 he left messages threatening to do it again.  Steele said that if need be,
 he and the other operators can  simply  shut  their  systems  down, delete
 their  password  files  and  then  not  give  anyone access until they are
 contacted by telephone to ensure they  are 'real.'   One  board, which the
 hacker has  threatened to  crash, now  requires all  users to send in a $1
 check with their name  and telephone  number on  the back  before they are
 given more than three minutes worth of access.

 Steel also  said the  problem, beyond  dealing with this kid, is that many
 people use the same password  on  all  the  systems  they  log  onto, even
 though most  systems ask  them not  to. If  the sysops or co-sysops on the
 list had used different passwords on each system,  the hacker  might never
 have been able to gain access, he said.

          Fred, the Middlesex News Computer, eagerly awaits your call. With
          a computer and modem, you can call him,  any time,  day or night,
          at; [phone].