Hacker Chronicles 1/HACKER1.ISO/cud2/cud217g.txt

Text File | 1992-09-26 | 11KB | 240 lines

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                  >C O M P U T E R   U N D E R G R O U N D<
                                >D I G E S T<
              ***  Volume 2, Issue #2.17 (December 16, 1990)   **
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From: Various
Subject: The CU in the News
Date:  15 December, 1990

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***  CuD #2.17: File 7 of 7: The CU in the News                  ***
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From: someplace![e-mail]
Subject: Well, did anything happen?
Date: Wed, 12 Dec 90 02:59:59 -0500

Or was it a case of hysterical or malicious rumor mongering?

COMPUTER JOCKEYS THREATEN PHONE WAR
SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS (SJ) - Friday, November 16, 1990
By: Associated Press
Edition: Stock Final  Section: Front  Page: 16A

Telephone  companies  are  taking  precautions  today  against  a  possible
disruption of service somewhere in the country by computer vandals breaking
into the phone network.

Non-specific  threats had been made to invade the massive computers that
control  the  telephone  network,  but  not  to attack physical facilities,
industry sources said.

Sources  who spoke on condition of anonymity said the threats apparently
were  in  connection  with a sentencing scheduled in Atlanta this afternoon
for  three  members  of  a computer group called the Legion of Doom who had
broken into BellSouth Corp. computers.

Franklin  E.  Darden Jr. and Robert J. Riggs pleaded guilty earlier this
year  in  federal court to one conspiracy count each. Adam E. Grant pleaded
guilty to possessing 15 or more access devices with intent to defraud.

'Everyone is on alert'

"We  have  not  been  able  to  assess the validity of the threats, but we
certainly  take  any  threats  seriously,  and  we've  taken precautions to
minimize the risk of intrusion," BellSouth spokesman Bill McCloskey said.

"We  are  aware of the purported threat to try and disrupt at least part of
the  nationwide  network,"  said  Herb Linnen, a spokesman for American
Telephone  and  Telegraph Co. "Our corporate security organization has sent
word  around  the  country  to make sure everyone is on alert in the coming
days."

Linnen  said the purported threat was not against any single company. He
said  the  rumor  of  the  attempted  disruption was discussed at a regular
meeting Wednesday of technical executives of a number of phone companies.

"We  have  no  idea  how  widespread  the  threat might be, but it's our
understanding  that  the  group  may  be  national,"  said Peter Goodale, a
spokesman for Nynex Corp., parent of the New England Telephone and New York
Telephone  companies.  "We've  taken  the  appropriate security measures to
ensure the integrity of our network."

Copied 911 program

FBI  and  Defense  Department officials said they were unaware of any such
threat.

Federal  prosecutors  in  Chicago  last year charged that members of the
Legion  of  Doom  had used their computers in February 1989 to tap into the
911 system of Atlanta-based BellSouth and copy the program.

The  information  then  was  published  in  an  electronic newsletter in
Chicago for hackers, but the 911 network was not disrupted.

Charges against the Chicago publisher were dropped in July.

Copyright 1990, San Jose Mercury News

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From: elroy!grian![e-mail](Alex Pournelle)
Subject: Esquire Hacking Article
Date: Wed, 5 Dec 90 09:55:23 GMT

In the December Esquire magazine (with Michelle Pfeiffer on the cover),
there is an article on "hacking" (system-cracking or password-stealing,
really): "Terminal Delinquents", pp. 174ff, by Jack Hitt and Paul Tough,
under the "Outlaws" banner.  And it deserves some comments.

I plan a rather lengthier commentary on this article, to be sent to the
magazine, but thought it appropriate to tell the hacking community how they
are portrayed.  Certainly, all readers of cu-digest would do well to pick
it up.

The article is written about a small group of New York-based juvenile
hackers (their term) who break into the Nynex billing and phone
add/move/change system--to play around, look around, and just fiddle.  A
little time is spent on the background of phone phreaking (Draper
discovering Cap'n Crunch whistles, blue boxes), essentially none on the
history of actual hacking.

The actions of these teenage trespassers are taken at face value; the only
fact-checking appears to be one call for comment to the Nynex security
office (they had no comment).  Even when they are shown the "White House
PROF system" (perhaps they meant PROFS?), they make no effort at
independent corroboration.

I find it even more disturbing that no editor at Esquire even suggested
some fact-checking.

The authors have not, to my eye, even done basic research like reading The
Cuckoo's Egg.  They talk about "The Internet Virus", not worm; their long
treatise on "social-engineering of passwords" (getting people to tell
them to you, or guessing them) only implicitly and offhandedly mentions the
knife-edge balance between access and security.  There is a lot of
computer-as-electronic-phlogiston talk, some more successful than others.
There is much scare talk about how any dam' fool can get your credit
history from TRW.  There's no direct discussion of how random
system-breakins might endanger lives.

There is essentially no talk about the morality, guidance or beliefs of the
hackers--are we to presume that some Big Brother of government or school is
supposed to teach the good and bad of computers?  Or is this just a
scary-but-true-to-life story about how any pimply-faced bag of teenage
hormones with a modem can change your credit rating forever?

I think the latter.

In short, the piece is maddeningly obtuse in a magazine with a circulation
of over 800,000.  It is long on anecdote and very short on fact.  It is a
disservice to anyone who calls him/her/itself a hacker.  The magazine
deserves to be told this.

      Sincerely,
Alex Pournelle

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From:        [e-mail]
Subject: Virus Planters from Eastern Europe?
Date:        27 Nov 90  17:22:04 gmt

         FEARS OF COMPUTER VIRUS ATTACK FROM EASTERN EUROPE GROW.
  From: The Independent, Sat 24.11.90, By Susan Watts, Science reporter.

The computer industry in Britain is being warned against an influx of
malicious viruses from eastern Europe.

Governments and companies there use computers less widely than those in the
West. The range of applications is limited and so programmers have time to
write these destructive programs.

Bryan Clough, a computer consultant based in Hove, East Sussex, returned
last week from Bulgaria with 100 viruses unknown in the West.

"People have been writing these as a form of protest against the
authorities.  Some are very good indeed...I am terrified of running them on
my machine but until I do I will have no idea of what they are capable of",
he says.  Mr Clough predicts a wave of virus attacks on Britain, launched
mainly through electronic message systems known as Bulletin boards. One
bulletin board in Birmingham already believes it has been hit by Bulgarian
viruses.  These programs  can corrupt or destroy data stored on a
computer's hard disk.  Jim Bates, who dismantles viruses for Scotland
Yard's Computer Crime Unit,says "I'm having a hell of a job keeping up with
the viruses coming through already.  The problem is that we can only screen
for viruses that we know about".

He warns the computer industry against rogue software from eastern Europe,
Bulgaria and Russia are thought to harbour the most virulent viruses.  The
small but legitimate software industry in Bulgaria complains that
programming is one of the few skills that the industry can exploit. Recent
concern is killing off even this slim chance of gaining hard currency from
overseas.

Part of the problem is that the authorities  do not believe in copyright or
patent protection for software. "Programmers are used to ripping off
software" Mr Clough says, "so that they are expert at hacking into each
others systems and planting viruses."

He found at least 30 people producing viruses in Bulgaria. Most are known
to the police who can do little to stop them since the country has no laws
against computer crime. Even in Britain which introduced legislation
against hacking this summer, virus writers can be arrested only if they
enter a computer system without authority or cause damage once inside.

Scotland Yard's anti-virus team can extradite foreign programmers who flout
this law, if Britain has an extradition treaty with the country concerned.
One of the most worrying of the virus-writers calls himself the "Dark
Avenger".  He has written a number of malicious programs, and Mr Clough
believes he intends to plant these in Britain shortly. Virus detectives are
dismantling one such program called "Nomenklatura", thought to have been
written by this man.

Security experts in Britain fear programmers in the Soviet Union may soon
follow Bulgaria's lead. The Soviet Union has no copyright laws, and some
sections of the software industry are already using viruses as a way to
punish those who steal programs. One such virus displays the message
"Lovechild in "Lovechild:in reward for stealing software" on the screen.

Less than two years ago there were only 20 or so virus programs around, now
there are hundreds. In Bulgaria a new virus appears once a week, Mr Clough
says.

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