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585 lines
30 KiB
Text
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PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN
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PWN PWN
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PWN Phrack World News PWN
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PWN PWN
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PWN Issue XXXVII / Part One of Four PWN
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PWN PWN
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PWN Compiled by Dispater & Spirit Walker PWN
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PWN PWN
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PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN
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Federal Seizure Of "Hacker" Equipment December 16, 1991
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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By Barbara E. McMullen & John F. McMullen (Newsbytes)
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"New York's MOD Hackers Get Raided!"
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NEW YORK CITY -- Newsbytes has learned that a joint Unites States Secret
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Service / Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) team has executed search
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warrants at the homes of so-called "hackers" at various locations across the
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country and seized computer equipment.
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It is Newsbytes information that warrants were executed on Friday, December 6th
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in various places including New York City, Pennsylvania, and the state of
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Washington. According to informed sources, the warrants were executed pursuant
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to investigations of violations of Title 18 of the federal statutes, sections
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1029 (Access Device Fraud), 1030 (Computer Fraud and Abuse Act), 1343 (Wire
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Fraud), and 2511 (Wiretapping).
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Law enforcement officials contacted by Newsbytes, while acknowledging the
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warrant execution, refused to comment on what was called "an on-going
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investigation." One source told Newsbytes that the affidavits underlying the
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search warrants have been sealed due to the on-going nature of the
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investigation."
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He added "There was obviously enough in the affidavits to convince judges that
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there was probable cause that evidence of a crime would be found if the search
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warrants were issued."
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The source also said that he would expect a statement to be issued by the
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Secret Service/FBI team "somewhere after the first of the year."
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_______________________________________________________________________________
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Two Cornell Students Arrested for Spreading Computer Virus February 27, 1992
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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By Lee A Daniels (New York Times News Service)
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Special Thanks: Risks Digest
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Two Cornell University undergraduates were arrested Monday night and charged
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with developing and spreading a computer virus that disrupted computers as far
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away as California and Japan, Cornell officials said. M. Stewart Lynn, vice
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president for information technologies at the university in Ithaca, N.Y.,
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identified the students as David Blumenthal and Mark Pilgrim. Lynn said that
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both Blumenthal, who is in the engineering program, and Pilgrim, in the college
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of arts and sciences, were 19-year-old sophomores. They were arrested on the
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evening of February 24 by Cornell and Ithaca police officers. Lynn said the
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students were arraigned in Ithaca City Court on charges of second-degree
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computer tampering, a misdemeanor, and taken to the county jail. Lynn said
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authorities believed that the two were responsible for a computer virus planted
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in three Macintosh games on February 14.
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He identified the games as Obnoxious Tetris, Tetricycle and Ten Tile Puzzle.
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The virus may have first appeared in a Stanford University public computer
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archive and spread from there through computer users who loaded the games into
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their own computers.
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Lynn said officials at Cornell and elsewhere became aware of the virus last
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week and quickly developed what he described as "disinfectant" software to
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eradicate it. He said officials traced the virus to Cornell last week, but he
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would not specify how that was done or what led officials to the two students.
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Lynn said he did not yet know how much damage the virus had caused. "At
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Cornell we absolutely deplore this kind of behavior," he said.
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Note: References to the Robert Morris, Jr. virus incident at Cornell deleted.
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Associated Press reported that both defendants are being held in the
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Tompkins County Jail on $10,000 bail.
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_______________________________________________________________________________
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Man Admits to NASA Hacking November 26, 1991
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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By John C Ensslin (Rocky Mountain News)(Page 6)
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Also see Phrack 34, File 11
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Special Thanks: The Public
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A self-taught computer hacker with a high school education admitted Monday to
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breaking into a sensitive NASA computer system -- in less time than it takes
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the Broncos to play a football game.
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Richard G. Wittman Jr., 24, told Denver U.S. District Judge Sherman Finesilver
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that it took him about "1 1/2 to 2 hours" on a personal computer using
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telephone lines in his apartment to tap into the space agency's restricted
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files.
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Wittman pleaded guilty Monday to one felony count of altering information
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-- a password -- inside a federal computer. In exchange for the plea, federal
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prosecutors dropped six similar counts in indictments handed up in September.
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The Northglenn High School graduate told the judge he hadn't had much schooling
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in computers. Most of what he knew about computers he learned from books.
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And most of those books, he said, are in a federal warehouse, seized after FBI
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agents searched his Westminster apartment last year.
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"Do you think you could teach these two lawyers about computers?" Finesilver
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asked, referring to Wittman's public defender and the prosecutor. "Probably,"
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Wittman replied.
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Wittman not only broke into 118 NASA systems, he also reviewed files and
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electronic mail of other users, said assistant U.S. attorney Gregory C. Graf.
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It took NASA investigators nearly 300 hours to track Wittman an another 100
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hours to rewrite the software, Graf said.
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Wittman faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. But Graf said
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the government will seek a much lighter penalty when Wittman is sentenced in
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Jan. 13.
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Both sides have agreed on repayment of $1,100 in collect calls placed to the
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other computer system. But they differ on whether Wittman should be held
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responsible for the cost of new software.
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_______________________________________________________________________________
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Hacker Pleads Guilty December 5, 1991
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Special Thanks: Iron Eagle
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"A 24-year-old Denver hacker who admitted breaking into a sensitive NASA
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computer system pleaded guilty to a felony count of altering information.
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In exchange for the plea Monday, federal prosecutors dropped six similar counts
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against Richard G. Wittman Jr., who faced up to five years in prison and a
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$250,000 fine. Authorities said the government will seek a much lighter
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penalty when Wittman is sentenced January 13.
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Both sides have agreed on repayment of $1,100 in collect calls he placed to the
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computer system, but they differ on whether Wittman should be held responsible
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for the cost of new software.
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Wittman told U.S. District Judge Sherman Finesilver that it took him about two
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hours on a personal computer in his apartment to tap into the space agency's
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restricted files. It took NASA investigators nearly 300 hours to track Wittman
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and an additional 100 hours to rewrite the software to prevent a recurrence,
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prosecutors said."
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_______________________________________________________________________________
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Recent Novell Software Contains A Hidden Virus December 20, 1991
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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By John Markoff (New York Times)
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The nation's largest supplier of office-network software for personal computers
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has sent a letter to approximately 3,800 customers warning that it
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inadvertently allowed a software virus to invade copies of a disk shipped
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earlier this month.
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The letter, sent on Wednesday to customers of Novell Inc., a Provo, Utah,
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software publisher, said the diskette, which was mailed on December 11, had
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been accidentally infected with a virus known by computer experts as "Stoned
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111."
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A company official said yesterday that Novell had received a number of reports
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>from customers that the virus had invaded their systems, although there had
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been no reports of damage.
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But a California-based computer virus expert said that the potential for damage
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was significant and that the virus on the Novell diskette frequently disabled
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computers that it infected.
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MASSIVE POTENTIAL LIABILITIES
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"If this was to get into an organization and spread to 1,500 to 2,000 machines,
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you are looking at millions of dollars of cleanup costs," said John McAfee,
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president of McAfee & Associates, a Santa Clara, Calif. antivirus consulting
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firm. "It doesn't matter that only a few are infected," he said. "You can't
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tell. You have to take the network down and there are massive potential
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liabilities." Mr. McAfee said he had received several dozen calls from Novell
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users, some of whom were outraged.
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The Novell incident is the second such case this month. On December 6, Konami
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Inc., a software game manufacturer based in Buffalo Grove, 111.wrote customers
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that disks of its Spacewrecked game had also become infected with an earlier
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version of the Stoned virus. The company said in the letter that it had
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identified the virus before a large volume of disks had been shipped to
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dealers.
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SOURCE OF VIRUS UNKNOWN
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Novell officials said that after the company began getting calls earlier this
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week, they traced the source of the infection to a particular part of their
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manufacturing process. But the officials said they had not been able to
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determine how the virus had infected their software initially.
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Novell's customers include some of nation's largest corporations. The
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software, called Netware, controls office networks ranging from just two or
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three machines to a thousand systems.
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"Viruses are a challenge for the marketplace," said John Edwards, director of
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marketing for Netware systems at Novell. "But we'll keep up our vigilance. He
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said the virus had attacked a disk that contained a help encyclopedia that the
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company had distributed to its customers.
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SERVERS SAID TO BE UNAFFECTED
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Computer viruses are small programs that are passed from computer to computer
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by secretly attaching themselves to data files that are then copied either by
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diskette or via a computer network. The programs can be written to perform
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malicious tasks after infecting a new computer, or do no more than copy
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themselves from machine to machine.
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In its letter to customers the company said that the Stoned 111 virus would not
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spread over computer networks to infect the file servers that are the
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foundation of networks. File servers are special computers with large disks
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that store and distribute data to a network of desktop computers.
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The Stoned 111 virus works by attaching itself to a special area on a floppy
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diskette and then copying itself into the computer's memory to infect other
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diskettes.
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But Mr. McAfee said the program also copied itself to the hard disk of a
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computer where it could occasionally disable a system. In this case it is
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possible to lose data if the virus writes information over the area where a
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special directory is stored.
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Mr. McAfee said that the Stoned 111 virus had first been reported in Europe
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just three months ago. The new virus is representative of a class of programs
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known as "stealth" viruses, because they mask their location and are difficult
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to identify. Mr. McAfee speculated that this was why the program had escaped
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detection by the company.
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STEPS TOWARD DETECTION
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Novell has been moving toward adding new technology to its software to make it
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more difficult for viruses to invade it, Mr. Edwards said. Recently, the
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company licensed special digital-signature software that makes it difficult for
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viruses to spread undetected. Novell plans to add this new technology to the
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next major release of its software, due out at the end of 1992.
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In the past, courts have generally not held companies liable for damages in
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cases where a third party is responsible, said Susan Nycum, a Palo Alto,
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California, lawyer who is an expert on computer issues. "If they have been
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prudent it wouldn't be fair to hold them liable," she said. "But ultimately it
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may be a question for a jury."
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_______________________________________________________________________________
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Working Assets Long Distance! January 1992
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Taken from an advertisement in Mother Jones
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(Not pictured is a photo of a college student giving "the finger" to someone
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and a caption that reads 'Twenty years later, we've given people a better way
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to put this finger to use.')
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The advertisement reads as follows:
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- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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Sit-ins. Protest marches, Flower power. Times have changed but the need for
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grass roots involvement hasn't.
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Introducing "Working Assets Long Distance." The ONLY phone company that is
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as committed to social and political change as you are. Every time you use
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your finger to make a long distance call, one percent of the bill goes to
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non-profit action groups at no cost to you. Hard-hitting advocacy groups like
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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, GREENPEACE, PLANNED PARENTHOOD, FEDERATION OF AMERICA,
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THE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION, and many others.
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We're more than a phone company that gives money to good causes. Our intent
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is to make your individual voice heard. That's why we offer *FREE CALLS* to
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corporate and political leaders. And well-argued letters at a fraction of
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the cost of a mail-gram. So you can demand a halt to clear-cutting our
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ancient forests or let Senators know how you feel about important issues like
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reproductive rights. It's that simple. Your phone becomes a tool for
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democracy and you don't give up a thing. You see, Working Assets comes with
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the exact same service as the major long distance carriers. Convenient
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dial 1 calling 24-hour operation and fiber optic sound quality. All this at
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rates lower that AT&T's basic rates. And signing up couldn't be simpler.
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Just give us a call at 1-800-788-8588 ext 114 or fill out the coupon today.
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We'll hook you up right away without any intrusion or interruption. So you
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can help change the world without lifting a finger. Ok, maybe one finger.
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_______________________________________________________________________________
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Computer Virus Used in Gulf War January 12, 1991
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Taken from The Boston Globe (Page 12)
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Special Thanks: Tone Surfer
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Several weeks before the start of the Gulf War, US intelligence agents inserted
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a computer virus into a network of Iraqi computers tied to that country's air
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defense system, a news magazine reports. US News and World Report said the
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virus was designed by the supersecret National Security Agency at Fort Meade,
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Maryland, and was intended to disable a mainframe computer.
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The report, citing two unidentified senior US officials, said the virus
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appeared to have worked, but it gave no details. It said the operation may
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have been irrelevant, though, since the allies' overwhelming air superiority
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would have ensured the same results of rendering the air defense radars and
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missiles ineffective. The secret operation began when American intelligence
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agents identified a French made computer printer that was to be smuggled from
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Amman, Jordan, to a military facility in Baghdad.
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The agents in Amman replaced a computer chip in the printer with another
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micro-chip that contained the virus in its electronic circuits. By attacking
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the Iraqi computer through the printer, the virus was able to avoid detection
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by normal electronic security procedures, the report said. "Once the virus was
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in the system, the US officials explained, each time an Iraqi technician opened
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a "window" on his computer screen to access information, the contents of the
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screen simply vanished," US News reported.
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The report is part of a book, based on 12 months of research by US News
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reporters, called "Triumph without Victory: The Unreported History of the
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Persian Gulf War," to be published next month.
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_______________________________________________________________________________
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Indictments of "Information Brokers" January 1992
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Taken from The Privacy Journal
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The unholy alliance between "information brokers" and government bureaucrats
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who provide personal information has been uncovered in the grand jury
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indictments of 18 persons in 14 states.
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United States Attorney Michael Chertoff in Newark, New Jersey, and his
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counterpart in Tampa, Florida, accused eight "information brokers" (or
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"information gatekeepers" or "super bureaus") of bribing two Social Security
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Administration employees to provide confidential earnings and employee
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information stored in federal computer files. The brokers, who fill in the
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cracks not occupied by national credit bureaus and who also track the
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whereabouts of persons, would sell the information to their clients --
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retailers, lawyers, detectives, insurance companies, and others.
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Ned Flemming, president of Super Bureau Inc. of Montery, California, was
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indicted on 32 counts for coaxing a Social Security supervisor in New Jersey
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named Joseph Lynch (who was not charged) to provide confidential personal
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information for a fee. Fleming's daughter, Susan, was charged also, as were
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Victor Fought, operator of Locate Unlimited in Mesa, Arizona; George T.
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Theodore, owner of Tracers Worldwide Services in Corpus Christi, Texas;
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Richard Stone, owner of Interstate Information Services in Port Jefferson, New
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York; and Michael Hawes, former owner of International Criminal Investigative
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Agency (ICIA) in Port Angeles, Washington, for participating in the same
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conspiracy. Another broker, Joseph Norman Dillon Ross, who operates a firm
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under his name in Pauma Valley, California also accepted the personal data,
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according to Chertoff, but was not charged. Richard Stone was further indicted
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for corrupting a Social Security claims clerk in Melrose Park, Illinois. Also
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charged were Allen Schweitzer and his wife Petra, who operate Security Group
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Group in Sumner, Washington.
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The government employees also stole personal information from the FBI's
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National Crime Information Center (NCIC), which stores data on arrests and
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missing persons.
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Fleming told Privacy Journal that he had never met Lynch. Stone refused to
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comment. Tracers Worldwide, ICIA, and Locate Unlimited are not listed in
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telephone information, although all three companies are required by the Fair
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Credit Reporting Act to permit the subjects of their files to have disclosure
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of such information to them.
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The 18-month long investigation culminating in the December 18 indictments and
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arrests is only the first phase, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Jose Sierra. "We
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don't think it stops there."
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For the past three years, the Big Three credit bureaus have continued to sell
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credit information regularly to information brokers, even after complaints that
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some of them violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act in disclosing credit
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information for impermissible purposes. Trans Union's president, Albert
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Flitcraft, told Congress in 1989 that is was not possible for a major credit
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bureau to protect consumer information sold to brokers. John Baker, Equifax
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senior vice-president, said at the time that the Big Three would "put together
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our best thinking" to see if safeguards could be developed. By 1991, Oscar
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Marquis, vice-president of Trans Union, was asking Congress for solutions, but
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Baker presented Equifax's new guidelines and checklist for doing business with
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the brokers. None of the Big Three has been willing to cease doing business
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with the cloudy merchants of recycled credit reports -- and of purloined Social
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Security and FBI information.
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- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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Meanwhile, at the Internal Revenue Service...
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Two weeks after he blew the cover off the information brokers, U.S. Attorney
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Michael Chertoff in New Jersey indicted a retired chief of the Internal Revenue
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Service Criminal Investigation Division for selling personal information to a
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California private investigative firm in his last week on the job in 1988.
|
||
|
|
||
|
For a $300 payment, according to the indictment, the IRS executive, Robert G.
|
||
|
Roche, promised to procure non-public marital records from vital records
|
||
|
offices. Using false pretenses, he ordered one of his subordinates to get the
|
||
|
information, on government time. The aide got the records in one instance only
|
||
|
after writing out an IRS summons and in another instance after producing a
|
||
|
letter on IRS stationary saying the information was needed for "official
|
||
|
investigative matters." Roche, according to the U.S. Attorney, accepted
|
||
|
payment from the California investigative firm of Saranow, Wells, & Emirhanian,
|
||
|
part of a larger network called Financial Investigative Services Group.
|
||
|
|
||
|
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
|
||
|
|
||
|
The Privacy Journal is an independent monthly on privacy in the computer age.
|
||
|
They can be reached at:
|
||
|
|
||
|
Privacy Journal
|
||
|
P.O Box 28577
|
||
|
Providence, Rhode Island 02908
|
||
|
(401)274-7861
|
||
|
_______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
|
||
|
SSA, FBI Database Violations Prompt Security Evaluations January 13, 1992
|
||
|
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|
||
|
By Kevin M. Baerson (Federal Computer Week)(Pages 1, 41)
|
||
|
|
||
|
Indictments recently handed down against insiders who bought and sold
|
||
|
confidential information held in Federal Bureau of Investigation and Social
|
||
|
Security Administration computers have prompted agency officials to evaluate
|
||
|
how well the government secures its databases.
|
||
|
|
||
|
"I see this as positive more than negative," said David Nemecek, section chief
|
||
|
for the FBI's National Crime Information Center (NCIC), which contains data on
|
||
|
thousands of people suspected and convicted of crimes. "Am I happy it
|
||
|
happened? No. But it led us to discovering that this was happening and it
|
||
|
sends a message that if people try it, they will get caught."
|
||
|
|
||
|
But Renny DiPentima, assistant commissioner of SSA's Office of System Design
|
||
|
and Development, said he did not view the indictments as a positive
|
||
|
development.
|
||
|
|
||
|
"It's not a victory," DiPentima said. "Even if we catch them, it's a loss. My
|
||
|
victory is when I never have a call that someone has abused their position."
|
||
|
|
||
|
The "information broker" bust was the culmination of an 18-month investigation
|
||
|
by the Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general's office in
|
||
|
Atlanta. Officials said it was the largest case ever prosecuted involving the
|
||
|
theft of federal computer data. More indictments could be forthcoming, they
|
||
|
said.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Special agents from the FBI joined the inquiry and in the end nabbed 18 people
|
||
|
>from 10 states, including one former and two current SSA employees. Others
|
||
|
indicted were a Chicago police officer, an employee of the Fulton County
|
||
|
Sheriff's Office in Georgia, and several private investigators.
|
||
|
|
||
|
The indictments alleged that the investigators paid for confidential data,
|
||
|
including criminal records and earnings histories, that was lifted from the
|
||
|
databases by people who exploited their access to the records.
|
||
|
|
||
|
"The FBI cannot manage every person in the United States," Nemecek said. "We
|
||
|
have all kinds of protection to prevent this from happening. We keep logs of
|
||
|
who uses the systems and for what, security training programs and routine
|
||
|
audits of inquiries."
|
||
|
|
||
|
"But the people who committed the violations had access to the system, and
|
||
|
there's only one way to deal with that: aggressive prosecution of people who do
|
||
|
this. And the FBI is actively pursuing these individuals."
|
||
|
|
||
|
DiPentima's problem is equally delicate. His agency performs 15 million
|
||
|
electronic transactions per day -- 500 per second -- and monitoring the rights
|
||
|
and wrongs of those people is a daunting task.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Currently, every employee who uses the network is assigned a password and
|
||
|
personal identification number, which change frequently. Depending on the
|
||
|
nature of the employee's job, the PIN grants him access to certain types of
|
||
|
information.
|
||
|
|
||
|
If the employee tries to access a menu in the system that he has not been
|
||
|
authorized to enter, or makes more than one error in entering his PIN number,
|
||
|
he is locked off the system. Once that happens, only a security office from
|
||
|
one of SSA's 10 regional offices can reinstate the employee.
|
||
|
|
||
|
An SSA section chief and six analysts, working from the agency's data center
|
||
|
headquarters outside Baltimore, also search routinely for transactional
|
||
|
aberrations such as employees who have made an unusual number of transactions
|
||
|
on a certain account.
|
||
|
|
||
|
The FBI also has a number of security precautions in place. FBI personnel
|
||
|
conduct random audits of searches, and Nemecek said sweeping state and local
|
||
|
audits of the system are performed biannually. Furthermore, if the FBI
|
||
|
desires, it easily can track an access request back to the terminal and user it
|
||
|
came from.
|
||
|
|
||
|
DiPentima said that in the wake of the indictments, he is considering new
|
||
|
policies to clamp down on abusers.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Nemecek said that as the FBI continues upgrading the NCIC database, the center
|
||
|
might automate further its auditing of state and local agencies to detect
|
||
|
patterns and trends of use the way SSA does.
|
||
|
|
||
|
But despite efforts to tighten the screws on network security, both men realize
|
||
|
that in cases of federal and municipal employees who exploit authorized access,
|
||
|
technology and policies can only go so far in affecting human nature.
|
||
|
_______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
|
||
|
Free University Suffers Damage. February 24, 1992
|
||
|
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|
||
|
By The Dude (of Holland)
|
||
|
|
||
|
An investigation by the Amsterdam police, in cooperation with an anti-fraud
|
||
|
team of the CRI (sort of like the FBI), and the geographical science department
|
||
|
of the Free University has led to the arrests of two hackers. The two had
|
||
|
succeeded to break into the department's computer system and caused damage of
|
||
|
over 100,000 Dutch Guilders.
|
||
|
|
||
|
In a press conference, held by the research teams last Friday, it was stated
|
||
|
that the duo, a 25-year old computer-science engineer R.J.N. from Nuenen
|
||
|
[aka Fidelio] and a 21-year old student computer-science H.H.H.W. from Roermond
|
||
|
[aka Wave], were the first "hackers" to be arrested in the Netherlands. In
|
||
|
several other countries this has already happened before.
|
||
|
|
||
|
The arrested hackers made a complete confession. Since November 1991, they
|
||
|
have entered the University's computer between 30 and 40 times. The system
|
||
|
was known as "bronto." From this system the hackers were able to gain access
|
||
|
to other systems, thus travelling to systems in the US, Scandinavia, Spain and
|
||
|
Italy.
|
||
|
|
||
|
According to the leader of the computer-crime team of the Amsterdam police,
|
||
|
D. Komen, the two cracked codes of the VU-system to get in. They got their
|
||
|
hands on so-called "passwords" of officially registered users, which allowed
|
||
|
them to use the system at no cost. They were also able to get the "highest of
|
||
|
rights" within the computer system "bronto."
|
||
|
|
||
|
A total of four houses were searched, and several PC's, printouts and a large
|
||
|
quantity of diskettes was seized. The duo was taken to the DA and imprisoned.
|
||
|
Because "hacking" is not a criminal offense in the Netherlands, the suspects
|
||
|
are officially accused of falsification of records, destruction of property,
|
||
|
and fraud.
|
||
|
|
||
|
This year the government expects to enact legislation that will make hacking a
|
||
|
criminal offense, according to P.Slort of the CRI.
|
||
|
|
||
|
The hacker-duo stated that they undertook their illegal activities because of
|
||
|
fanatic "hobbyism." "It's a kick to see how far you can go", says Mr. Slort of
|
||
|
the CRI. The two said they did not know that their data journeys had caused
|
||
|
enormous damages. The police do not see them as real criminals, either since
|
||
|
the pair did not earn money from their activities.
|
||
|
_______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
|
||
|
Computer Engineer Gets Death Sentence February 9, 1992
|
||
|
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|
||
|
Special Thanks: Ninja Master
|
||
|
|
||
|
Richard Farley was cool to the end, taking a sip of water and smoothing his
|
||
|
jacket before leaving the courtroom where he was sentenced to die for killing
|
||
|
seven people in a rage over unrequited love.
|
||
|
|
||
|
"I'm not somebody who is demonstrative or prone to shedding tears", Farley said
|
||
|
Friday before apologizing for the slayings. "I do feel sorry for the
|
||
|
victims....I'm not a perfect human being. I'm good. I'm evil."
|
||
|
|
||
|
Farley was convicted in October of the 1988 slayings at ESL Inc., a Sunnyvale
|
||
|
defense contractor. Jurrors on November 1st recommended the death penalty for
|
||
|
the computer engineer, who prosecutors said planned the rampage to get the
|
||
|
attention of a former co-worker who rejected him.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Superior Court Judge Joseph Biafore Jr. called Farley a vicious killer who had
|
||
|
"complete disregard for human life."
|
||
|
|
||
|
"The defendant...killed with the attention to prove to the object of his
|
||
|
unrequited love that he wasn't a wimp anymore," Biafore said.
|
||
|
|
||
|
During the trial, prosecutors detailed Farley's 3 1/2-year obsessive pursuit of
|
||
|
Laura Black. He sent her more than 100 letters, followed her day and night,
|
||
|
left gifts on her desk, and rifled through confidential personnel files to
|
||
|
glean tidbits about her life.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Despite her repeated rejections, Farley persisted and was fired in 1987 for
|
||
|
harassing her. A year later, he returned to ESL.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Black, 30, was shot in the shoulder during the rampage, but survived to testify
|
||
|
against Farley. She said that about a week before the slayings, she had
|
||
|
received a court order to keep him away.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Farley, 43, admitted the killings but pleaded not guilty, saying he never
|
||
|
planned to kill but only wished to get Black's attention or commit suicide in
|
||
|
front of her for rejecting him.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Farley's attorney, Gregory Paraskou, argued that Farley's judgement was clouded
|
||
|
by his obsession with Black and that he was not violent before the slayings and
|
||
|
likely would not kill again.
|
||
|
|
||
|
But Asst. Dist. Atty. Charles Constantinides said Farley spent years preparing
|
||
|
for the murder by taking target practice and buying weapons, including the
|
||
|
firearms and 98 pounds of ammunition he used at ESL.
|
||
|
|
||
|
The judge rejected the defense's request for a modified sentence of life in
|
||
|
prison and a request for a new trial. Under California law, Farley's death
|
||
|
sentence will be automatically sent to the state Supreme Court for review.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Among those in the courtroom were family members of some of the victims,
|
||
|
including four who addressed the judge.
|
||
|
|