Computer underground Digest Sun Jun 23, 1996 Volume 8 : Issue 48 ISSN 1004-042X Editor: Jim Thomas (cudigest@sun.soci.niu.edu) News Editor: Gordon Meyer (gmeyer@sun.soci.niu.edu) Archivist: Brendan Kehoe Shadow Master: Stanton McCandlish Field Agent Extraordinaire: David Smith Shadow-Archivists: Dan Carosone / Paul Southworth Ralph Sims / Jyrki Kuoppala Ian Dickinson Cu Digest Homepage: http://www.soci.niu.edu/~cudigest CONTENTS, #8.48 (Sun, Jun 23, 1996) File 1--GAO hacker report: selling wind File 2--"Don't Shoot the Senator" (EYE reprint) File 3--Cyber Gangs File 4--Hacking news File 5--ACLU Cyber-Liberties Update: 6/5/96 File 6--Re: British investigation into "cyber terrorists" File 7--Child Molester Database on the web File 8--Reno calls for new Federal agency to oversee crypto File 9--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 7 Apr, 1996) CuD ADMINISTRATIVE, EDITORIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION ApPEARS IN THE CONCLUDING FILE AT THE END OF EACH ISSUE. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 16:34:12 -0500 (CDT) From: Crypt Newsletter Subject: File 1--GAO hacker report: selling wind "It is a great art to know how to sell wind." -- Baltasar Gracian The beginning of Summer has delivered a box load of public announcements on the growing horror of ill-defined hacker menace. Ever since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. government has been madly casting about for new enemies to take the place of the old bogeymen in the Politburo. At various times Third World nations have been suggested. However, U.S. citizens are uninterested in thugs from Somalia or Balkan butchers. They are loutish, messy, and lacking in ICBM fields, B-52s or other obvious means of projecting power or violence beyond their territories. Terrorist groups domestic and international have been sought, too. Unfortunately, the Japanese cult of nerve gas manufacturers has proven unstable as have the U.S. militias. The militias also have had the gall to hole up in isolated farm houses while surrounded by regiments of FBI agents. The pictures at ten fail to move the populace to panic, instead provoking laughter and ridicule or the vague suspicion that government employees are overdoing it. However, bands of hackers have proven far more durable and roadworthy. This is because they are being cleverly sold as capable of raping and pillaging the archdukes of capitalism simply by pushing a few buttons from the refuge of a faraway land or county. It is the closest anyone has been able to come to the symbolism of ICBMs and computerized launch codes. Hackers are good at making mechanisms, too. Small boxes utilized for the purposes of defrauding everyone's nemeses, the telephone companies, are now metamorphosing into bigger boxes. The recent issue of FORBES ASAP featured a number of menacingly posed fellows on its cover who consented to be avuncular bogeymen for a roundtable of editors. They spoke of weaponry like remote mass automatic garage door openers, HAM and short wave radio snoopers which allow one to eavesdrop on and speak through fast food restaurant drive-up speakerphones or those small walkie-talkie systems sold as baby monitors in catalogs like THE SHARPER IMAGE. Electronic death ray projectors called HERF guns were discussed. No one seems to have actually seen a HERF death ray but few people ever got to see a real ICBM or a shell loaded with sarin, either, so the point Crypt Newsletter attempts to make is probably moot. The Senate subcommittee on investigations was also hard at work this month publicizing a 63-page Government Accounting Office report entitled "Information Security: Computer Attacks at Department of Defense Pose Increasing Risks" on the threatening world of computer saboteurs and hacks on DoD networks. But the Government Accounting Office's report (GAO/AIMD-96-84) promised a lot more than it delivered. Disappointingly, Crypt noted it proved to be an extremely general discussion of hackers leavened with a lot of unsupported conjecture. A look at it convinced Crypt that anyone wishing to know anything real about computer hacking incidents would be better served by going to a good bookstore and purchasing copies of "The Hacker Crackdown," "The Cuckoo's Egg" and "Firewalls and Internet Security." Long segments of the GAO treatise also retold -- much less effectively -- news stories that have appeared in the media in the last five years. For no apparent reason other than to provide "what-if's," the GAO republished the tale of a scary Rand Corporation information warfare gaming exercise reported in a August 21, 1995 cover story for TIME magazine. It read as fiction. The GAO paper also anonymized and failed to properly cite the perfectly precise and specific story of Bill Cheswick and Steve Bellovin's tangle with the Dutch hacker "Berferd" in 1991 (and published in their book, "Firewalls and Internet Security.") In the report, much is also made of a two year old incident at the Air Force Material Command facility in Rome, New York. Although the republic was not harmed, GAO and the military assessed the difficulties caused by the hack to have set the Department of Defense back $500,000. Jack Brock, the congressional General Accounting Office's point man on its hacker report, said in related congressional testimony: "Terrorists and other adversaries now have the ability to launch untraceable attacks from anywhere in the world. They could infect critical systems with sophisticated computer viruses, potentially causing them to malfunction." Yes, and it is easy to imagine that this statement would come as a very bitter surprise to Christopher Pile, a real British hacker who cast his SMEG viruses into the computer underground. Of course, he turned out to be far from "untraceable" and is now serving a year and a half jail sentence on charges having to do with his comings and goings in cyberspace. The GAO reports DoD computers "may" have been the target of assaults in the last year. Later on in the text, it is cited that there were 559 "officially reported" incidents in 1995. Very little meaning can be extracted from these figures since no real methodology on their derivation is presented. For example, would 250,000 assaults include Crypt Newsletter using telnet to bring up a network address reprinted in a nonfiction book on UFO's and finding that it was PENTAGON-AI.ARMY.MIL, a restricted site? A recent Washington Post article on the GAO/hacker/DoD congressional hearings also mentioned other reports which have built scenarios for effect. To wit: although FAA traffic control computers are safe because they are old, complicated and rickety, it is theoretically possible that future replacements would prove to be playgrounds for malicious but invisible hackers. The metaphor of the popular movie was also used to make a point: In "The Net" a hacker changes the medical records of the Secretary of Defense at the Bethesda Naval Center. Readers are asked to think of this as real. Work published by the Computer Security Institute projects the hacker menace onto US corporates, too. Forty two percent of 428 respondents to a poll insist they've been hacked within the past year. The respondents are invisible. Always shielded by layers of confidentiality and anonymity we do not grant victims of sex offenders, corporate victims are said to speak of computer evil-doers. Science Applications International Corp., a giant think tank and Pentagon contractor pulls out of Congressional hearings on criminal hacking. "We have non-disclosure agreements with our clients and we were not given clear and absolute assurances that under questioning we wouldn't be expected to violate those nondisclosure agreements," said a mouthpiece for the organization. Many, many foreign countries -- "more than 120" -- appeared to have hackers whom at one time or another try their hands on Department of Defense systems, Mr. Brock said. According to the news, he added the National Security Agency knew which countries these were but this was classified information. Secret. None of your business even though you paid for it. Invisible. Crypt phoned Mr. Brock in an effort to shed more light on the data in his report but he said he couldn't discuss anything about it with anyone, particularly over the telephone. Mr. Brock said the NSA had presented the data to him but had sworn him not to talk of it. Crypt felt sorry for questioning Mr. Brock because his style made it clear he was a little bit frightened of the mandarins at the NSA. One received the distinct impression that Mr. Brock felt that even if the simple words "hacker" or "computer virus" were mentioned on an open line too many times a bad thing might happen. It was like the reading of a horror novel by H. P. Lovecraft. If the wrong word were invoked an unspeakable creature might be summoned from the Arkham of Ft. Meade, one that could mutate the careless utterer of it into a many tentacled fish-frog. In seriousness, perhaps a bad thing could occur. A career could be smudged over something as simple as candor in a three minute phone chat. Mr. Brock also said a number of odd things. He said that there had been information presented by the NSA of varying sensitivity and there had been no decision on how it should be classified. So no blanket classification had been made but still no one could speak of it. "I'm not a good source," said Mr. Brock. Then he repeated it: "I am not a good source." What? But if not the GAO investigator, then who? Of course, the answer is a circular argument. The NSA was the final source -- that's who. Well, Crypt Newsletter readers no longer believe the standard bromides delivered by intelligence agencies. They know that excessive classification or gag orders are an indication of someone wishing to hide data that qualifies the publicized announcement, to disguise plagiarism from open sources, or cover up incompetence and outright fraud. Wrestling with invisibles, or symbols, was always what the Cold War was about. No one except an obscure lunatic named T. K. Jones in the Reagan administration really thought that either U.S. generals or their Soviet counterparts would call down the wrath of 10,000 nuclear warheads. Yet the symbol of the nuclear-tipped missile remained the stone tablet of the religion of geopolitics, a totem that could be successfully shaken at newspapers, Congressional meetings and international summits. Hackers are a totem of great power, too. For a short period of time, Kevin Mitnick became the 1995 equivalent of Muammar Ghaddafi, at least in newspapers and on TV. Unknowable and unknown, his image - that of a menacing-looking cypher in thick glasses - was an appropriately fearful symbol to some. When the Mitnick-Ghaddafi turned out to be normal looking months later, no one cared anyway. Tsutomu Shimomura, like US F-111s, had already been dispatched to banish the Mitnick-Ghaddafi to the trashpits of Gehenna -- in this case city jails in North Carolina and Los Angeles. Shimomura, it turned out, appeared to have missed the real target but the F-111s sent to mail the Ghaddafi menace C.O.D. to Allah missed, too, and media history has been kind to both affairs. The Mitnick-Ghaddafi, said those with the loudest voices, at one point in the dim past might have been able to start World War III by diddling computers in Cheyenne Mountain. They were confused by Hollywood and appeared to believe that a teen movie called "Wargames" actually featured the Mitnick-Ghaddafi. Since the Mitnick-Ghaddafi had neither a press agent or a constant address he was certainly hard to find and not in much of a position to clarify matters. This worked against him and for the forgers of symbols and the tellers of tales. If Mitnick had possessed the wit to walk into a TV studio the day after his face showed up on the front page of The New York Times or to spend $500 dollars for a couple of news releases on the PR Newswire, his career as a religious totem used to scare and thrill the citizenry would have been over long before media momentum and book sales transformed him into a myth. From virus writers to Internet marauders the average computer d0od who fancies himself a successful hacker has never understood the mechanisms of media symbolism. Invariably, the hacker can always be lured into exaggerating his impact upon the republic by appropriate blandishments from reporters in the mainstream media. In need of a malevolent sounding man to portray as a dangerous computer-master weirdo? Place a query on the Internet and the editorial phone will ring off the hook. From the perspective of the hacker this seems like an attractive deal. He gets to tweak the nose of suits, make Congressmen scurry about at the behest of the NSA and cause the neighbors to keep the cat in at night. Power! Celebrity! The euphoria lasts until the inevitable story is published and a couple hundred thousand people read it. The reality of this leaves the interviewed computer jockey feeling nervous and cheated. He has been cast as a hideous but banal carnivorous ogre, not a cool clove cigarette-smoking anti-hero. If a photo is published it will invariably be the one that was the product of an atrocious camera angle, the one that made him look like a creepy slug or Doctor Octopus. Locals may be sufficiently frightened by this image to consider mustering a party to slay the ogre. Instead of getting on the cover of People, it has become time to lay low at the job, to change one's phone number or to ask the parents to fund a sojourn at an anonymous state university. The hacker so treated finds his life transformed as if by a philosopher's stone. But instead of being transmuted from lead into gold, the media has cruelly turned him into just a different isotope of lead -- that of the pariah. Malicious hackers are a fact of life. Some of them break into systems or write viruses that spread around the world. Some of them get away with a lot. But the lesson to be learned is not that they can smash the republic or loot corporate treasure. Rather the lessons are the stories of Kevin Mitnick, James Gentile, Chris Pile, Kevin Poulsen, Phiber Optik or whomever is the newest flavor of the week in the myth business. One can count on, at the least, family embarrassment and the inability to conduct one's future affairs in private or, at worst, a criminal record based, in part, on wind and an image that becomes a radical millstone in conservative times. Notes: The quote from Scientific Applications was taken from a story in the June 6 issue of the Washington Post: "U.S., Private Computers Vulnerable to Attacks by Hackers, Study Says" by Elizabeth Corcoran. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 23 Jun 1993 22:51:01 EDT From: CuD Moderators Subject: File 2--"Don't Shoot the Senator" (EYE reprint) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ eye WEEKLY May 30, 1996 Toronto's arts newspaper .....free every Thursday ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ EYENET EYENET DON'T SHOOT THE SENATOR by K.K . CAMPBELL Last week, the police were hot on the trail of the net.inspired Watermelon Bombers of Edmonton. "A reign of exploding fruit terror!" Well, the terror never stops online. Now a kid has been arrested for "terrorism" in California because he posted a suggestion to Usenet that a California senator who supports hunting mountain lions for fun should himself be declared open season for hunting. On March 6, a 19-year-old college student in El Paso, Texas, Jose Eduardo Saavedra (zuma@primenet.com), contributed a post in a Usenet thread about hunting mountain lions: "Let's hunt Sen. Tim Leslie for sport ... I think it would be great to see this slimeball, asshole, conservative moron hunted down and skinned and mounted for our viewing pleasure. "I would rather see every right-wing nut like scumface Leslie destroyed in the name of political sport, than lose one mountain lion whose only fault is having to live in a state with a fucked up jerk like this shit-faced republican and his supporters." It seems making the hunting of mountain lions legal is a hot issue in California. Leslie supports such hunting. Saavedra is apparently an animal-rights/anti-hunter activist, and so proposed hunting the senator instead. And he sent that proposal to newsgroups talk.environment, sci.environment, talk.politics.animals, rec.pets, ca.politics, rec.pets.cats, rec.animals.wildlife, rec.food.veg and alt.save-The-Earth. On March 13, Saavedra reappeared in the ca.general (general shit about California) newsgroup saying a California reporter had seen a copy of his original post and was just wondering if he really wanted people to kill the senator. Saavedra clarified his position: "I recently was contacted by a reporter for a northern California newspaper wanting to know if I really meant what I said about hunting Tim Leslie. Since it appears that the post has frightened some people -- let me offer some clarification," and he ends his post with this statement: "Would I hunt down Tim or anyone else -- no. Would I support such an action -- no. Would I be happy if some nut actually did such a thing? YES, just like a German Jew would have celebrated the death of Hitler. So -- If California would pass a law allowing the hunting of hunters -- then, and only then, would I go out, buy a gun, and become a hunter." On the morning of May 8, Saavedra was arrested on a no-bail warrant based on felony charges alleging that he made "terrorist threats and threatened a public official," according to Sgt. Don Marshall of the El Paso County Sheriff's office. The student was taken into custody in El Paso County Jail on a "Fugitive from Justice" warrant issued by the Sacramento district attorney's office. On May 10, the Sacramento Bee ran a story headlined "Internet Threat to Leslie Brings Arrest." It quoted Leslie: "I hope the message to the public is that it is not legal to abuse the Internet." The paper noted that Saavedra refused to waive extradition, so California would have to execute a governor's warrant to drag him there for trial. On May 11, the San Francisco Examiner ran an AP story titled "Net threat is traced to student." Free speech activists everywhere couldn't believe it was true at first, it was so ludicrous. But it was true, so they began analyzing Saavedra's posts with a legal eye. On the fight-censorship list, Jay Holovacs (holovacs@ios.com) noted: "This statement is so obviously sarcastic that I don't think any reasonable person reading it would actually believe he is planning to kill Leslie. If however, after this statement was made, someone took pot shots at Leslie, then it would be basis for investigation." EFF counsel Mike Godwin (mnemonic@well.com) made the comment that what Saavedra was doing was not very different from other "protected" political speech, like wearing a T-shirt emblazoned "Fuck The Draft." Leslie, meanwhile, told the press he was "relieved" an arrest had been made -- whew! He says Saavedra's case raises "big new issues" about the net. The senator also says it's a "very serious matter" to "threaten or intimidate or extort others in a public forum like this." OK, class -- having read the senator's observations, do you think he is a regular user of Usenet? Ann Beeson (beeson@nyc.pipeline.com), from the ACLU's National Office, says the ACLU of Northern California has agreed to take Saavedra's case. "The ACLU attorneys in North California are strategizing with Saavedra's attorney, a public defender in Texas," she says. The Sacramento DA's office says cops located Saavedra through information from the student's Internet provider, Arizona's Primenet. Beeson and the ACLU understand these kinds of cases are far bigger than just one student angry about the slaughter of mountain lions, or an asshole sitting in the U.S. senate. It's about the entire structure of the Internet and how quickly Internet service providers will pull down their pants when the cops come calling. How ready is your own ISP to just hand over access to all your email when John Law appears at their door asking for "cooperation" against whatever they are labelling you: terrorist/child pornographer/anarchist/drug dealer, etc.? "In addition to the obvious infringement on Saavedra's free speech rights, we are curious to learn just how much info PrimeNet of Arizona turned over to law enforcement to enable the arrest," Beeson says. "There may be a privacy issue here as well." California Senator Tim Leslie's office can be reached at (916) 445- 5788. Timmy... get yer gun... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Retransmit freely in cyberspace Author holds standard copyright http://www.eye.net Mailing list available eyeNET archive --------------> http://www.eye.net/News/Eyenet eye@eye.net "...Break the Gutenberg Lock..." 416-971-8421 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 06:15:35 -0400 (EDT) From: NOAH Subject: File 3--Cyber Gangs From--Rogue Agent ::: City of London Surrenders To Cyber Gangs Copyright 1996 Nando.net Copyright 1996 Times of London (Jun 2, 1996 00:06 a.m. EDT) -- City of London financial institutions have paid huge sums to international gangs of sophisticated "cyber terrorists" who have amassed up to 400 million pounds worldwide by threatening to wipe out computer systems. Banks, broking firms and investment houses in America have also secretly paid ransom to prevent costly computer meltdown and a collapse in confidence among their customers, according to sources in Whitehall and Washington. A Sunday Times Insight investigation has established that British and American agencies are examining more than 40 "attacks" on financial institutions in London and New York since 1993. Victims have paid up to 13 million pounds a time after the blackmailers demonstrated their ability to bring trading to a halt using advanced "information warfare" techniques learnt from the military. European and American police forces have set up special units to tackle the cyber criminals, who, Ministry of Defence sources believe, have netted between 200 and 400 million pounds globally over the past three years. But law enforcement agencies complain that senior financiers have closed ranks and are hindering inquiries. Scotland Yard is now taking part in a Europe-wide initiative to catch the cyber criminals and has appointed a senior detective from its computer crime unit to take part in an operation codenamed Lathe Gambit. Such is the secrecy that few details about the inquiry have emerged. In America, the FBI has set up three separate units to investigate computer extortion. The NSA believes there are four cyber gangs and has evidence that at least one is based in Russia. The agency is now examining four examples of blackmail said to have occurred in London: - -- January 6, 1993: Trading halted at a broking house after blackmail threat and computer crash. Ransom of 10 million pounds paid to account in Zurich. - -- January 14, 1993: a blue-chip bank paid 12.5 million pounds after blackmail threats. - -- January 29, 1993: a broking house paid 10 million pounds in ransom after similar threats. - -- March 17, 1995: a defence firm paid 10 million pounds in ransom. In all four incidents, the gangs made threats to senior directors and demonstrated that they had the capacity to crash a computer system. Each victim conceded to the blackmailers' demands within hours and transferred the money to offshore bank accounts, from which it was removed by the gangs within minutes. ............... ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 06:20:44 -0400 (EDT) From: NOAH Subject: File 4--Hacking news (Some Headers and Sigs removed) -Noah ----------------------- From--Rogue Agent ::: Shedding light on a 'darkside hacker' By Chris Nerney 05/06/96 A magazine publisher says he has repeatedly invaded her computer system and tampered with her phones - a three-year campaign of harassment she estimates has cost her $1 million. A systems administrator for an Internet service provider (ISP) in Massachusetts alleges he knocked out an entire server and posted anti-Semitic messages through the service. Workers at the Boston Herald say he threatened to sabotage the newspaper's computer system after stories were printed about him. His name is u4ea. He calls himself a 'darkside hacker.' And no one knows his real identity. He may be anonymous, but u4ea is not unique. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of hackers easily capable of breaking into systems while eluding detection. Copyright 1995 Network World, Inc. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 20:14:08 GMT Subject: File 5--ACLU Cyber-Liberties Update: 6/5/96 From: beeson@nyc.pipeline.com (Ann Beeson) ---------------------------------------------------------------- June 5, 1996 ACLU CYBER-LIBERTIES UPDATE An e-zine on cyber-liberties cases and controversies at the state and federal level. ---------------------------------------------------------------- * Feds in Texas Execute Another Overbroad Computer Seizure in Search for Child Porn Peddlars on AOL The feds in Texas are at it again. In their zeal to find child porn peddlers on the Net, they seized the entire computer system of Paul Jones, a local computer expert in Allison, Texas. The basis for the warrant: the testimony of a former convicted sex offender, Jimmy Donaldson, arrested for the same offense, who told the feds that Jones had access to his e-mail password and was really the one who transmitted the porn. Rather than searching and seizing illicit files, the feds seized Jones' entire computer. The analogy is government seizure of an entire file cabinet full of perfectly legal documents in a search for one file of illegal pictures -- which is clearly an overbroad seizure under the Fourth Amendment. With their computer gone, Jones and his wife were immediately deprived of equipment needed for their livelihood. His wife works at home for the Yellow Pages, designing ads on the computer. The feds appear to have learned little from recent court rulings on the Fourth Amendment limits of warrants authorizing computer searches and seizures in cases involving online technology. In _Steve Jackson Games v. US_, 816 F. Supp. 432 (W.D. Texas 1993), aff'd, 36 F.3d 457 (5th Cir. 1994), the Fifth Circuit affirmed an award of damages under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act when agents seized an entire computer bulletin board system and other equipment in the search for evidence of a hacker conspiracy. Rather than seek "disclosure" of the content of certain communications relevant to the law enforcement inquiry, the Secret Service wrongly obtained "seizure of all information and the authority to review and read all electronic communications." Id. at 443. In _Religious Technology Center v. Netcom On-Line Communication Services, Inc._, 1995 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16184 (Sept. 22, 1995), a federal judge in California ruled that the Church of Scientology had executed an overbroad seizure in a copyright infringement action. The application for the writ of seizure contained no specific criteria to narrow the seizure to the allegedly infringing material, thus giving the Church's computer experts the authority "to search through [the defendant's] possessions and computer files using their discretion in deciding what to seize." Id. at 92. So far, law enforcement have yet to reveal *any* evidence of illegal files on Jones' system, although they found several on Donaldson's computer. The agents have not yet returned the computer system or any of the files, and Jones faces a criminal trial this summer based on charges of trafficking in child porn. For general information about the ACLU, write to info@aclu.org. For more information about civil liberties, visit the ACLU Freedom Network at http://www.aclu.org, or the ACLU Constitutional Hall on America Online at keyword ACLU. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 9 Jun 1996 21:48:36 -0400 (EDT) From: "Declan B. McCullagh" Subject: File 6--Re: British investigation into "cyber terrorists" Class III InfoWar Part 2 Report from Europe FEEL FREE TO DISTRIBUTE WIDELY I am ostensibly on vacation with my wife and two children ages 11 & 5 : Here we are in Venice, Italy but I can't ignore what seems to be going on in England. American media does not appear to be following it. So here's what is happening. Headline of June 9, 1996 Sunday Times in London reads: "Secret Inquiry into Cyber Terror." This is a follow-up of last Sundays story about alleged extortion attacks against British financial institutions using Trojan Horses and /or HERF Guns. According to today's article, the British government is holding secret investigations into the "attacks" for more than two years involving the Dept. of Trade and Industry (DTI), government communications headquarters (GCHQ), the Brits NSA, The Defence Research Agency (DRA), and the Bank of England. On June 8, the DTI issued a public statement which included : "We are very interested in the allegations of extortion directed at City of London institutions which were brought to our attention in 1994. We responded then by involving many government organizations ... so far we have not been presented with any hard evidence from victims. We would urge those threatened to come forward." DTI Director of Technical Affairs, David Hendon wrote a letter in May 1995 saying they took the extortion issue "Extremely seriously." The Times' reporter's say they have seen some of the evidence that was submitted to DTI and GCHQ which includes a chart on 46 of the attacks. According to the article DRA Senior Director, Professor David Parks, his agency is " especially interested in the "weaponry" deployed by the cyber terrorists." The Tmes continued : "The agency (DRA) believes high intensity radio frequency "HIRF" guns may have been used to black out trading positions in City finance houses. The weapon disables a computer by firing elctromagnetic radiation at it and is a "Black Programme" at the Defence Ministry, one of the highest security classification levels." In Dec. Of 1995, the DRA and Parks approached a company who specializes in information warfare and asked them to "arrange a demonstration of a portable HIRF weapon in Germany." The article further states that details on the HIRF systems and their use in the City of London have been compiled by a British computer magazine and are being passed onto government officials. ***** I have spoken to more than fifty media in the last week about this story: The comments range from "suspicious" of the British reports, "sounds psy -fi", "alarming", "scary" and the like. Even though I am on vacation (Ha!) I called a few of my expert friends for a sanity check and here is what we have to say. * The alleged software attacks mentioned in last weeks article are more likely the weapon than HERF/HIRF attacks that todays' article focuses on. * "Given the kind of systems they use and their connectivity, I can figure a hundred ways to do what the article say" one of my experts stated. * As for the HERF/HIRF we have worked out a number of models for a number for the attacks scenarios mentioned, but we have a targeting problem. A free-space (air) based attacked would create a wide dispersion pattern and likely have effected other organizations not just those specifically under attack. * A ground plane attack might cause the alleged results but requires more physical access to the facility. A few thoughts of the potential motivations: * Were the alleged attacks meant as a malicious Denial of Service (DNS) attack or as a profit scheme? * Were trading volumes and the stock prices of the alleged victims effected during the times in question? * Was internal profit taking an ulterior motive ? * I have to keep in mind if we give these stories credence, that over 50% of computer crimes involve insiders. According to my British friends, the Sunday Times is preparing even more on this story which will appear next Sunday - when I will be in London to get it back to you within minutes. So, the kids are fine. "Thanks for asking." My life is almost relaxed, and we are now headed into the Alps for a leisurely 8 hr drive and will spend the night at the Jungfrau. "Damn, it's raining. It will have to be beer and sauerkraut." In the meantime, contact betty@infowar.com at Interpact for comments and interviews. Back at your later! Winn Schwartau ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Jun 1996 12:58:38 -0500 (CDT) From: David Smith Subject: File 7--Child Molester Database on the web Great World Internet Services has set up a "child molester" database where Internet users can add records about people who are child molesters. The ISP's philosophy is listed below. There is also a separate disclaimer that information will be purged after 120 years, and that Great World Internet Services does not verify any of the data. There is a procedure for those who wish to dispute being entered into a database. There are expansion plans, too : deadbeat dads, crooked cops, elected official crimes, known drug dealers, etc. The site can be found at http://www.greatworld.com/public > Too many times in our twisted society, criminals are treated as > victims and victims are treated as inhuman and ignored. When our > President, our (In)Justice System, and our legislative bodies fail to > provide us with proper protection, then we as citizens must unite in > order to protect ourselves. The time for passivity has ended and the > time for proactive intervention is upon us. > > Therefore, as a parent and a citizen, I have made available a database > where child molesters can be listed. The difference between this > database and the databases of certain states (such as California) are > that this database is totally free. (There is no ridiculous $10 fee.) > Also, anyone can look up information. In California, the state feels > that persons need to be able to prove a need for the information > before the information may be released. By golly, I believe that the > welfare of our children is right enough to know who these victimizers > are and that this information should be made available to everyone in > order to protect our families from joining the growing roster of > victims. > > Also, this database doesn't require that those listed first be > convicted. If you are a victim and have been abused, then it doesn't > require a court of law to validate what you already know. The same > applies if you are a parent or a close relative and you have first > hand knowledge that someone committed the crime. The idea behind this > database is to make people aware of the criminals so that we can > protect our families before it is too late. > > Most states do not list cases involving incest or victimization by a > relative or sibling. Feel free to list the victimizers here. If they > did it once, they are likely to do it again. Once a victimizer's own > children have grown up, they often turn to the children of others. > > There are advocates of these vicious heartless tyrant criminals who > say that once a person who has served their time, they should be left > alone. Buddy, I have one thing to say to you. Don't let the proverbial > door slap you in the tail on your way off this page. > > When a criminal victimizes a child, the child is emotionally scarred > for life. Nightmares often last throughout the person's entire > lfetime. Many times the person is unable to function effectively in a > relationship. No one is unable to ever take away what has been done. I > personally believe that their should only be one sentence for child > molestation--death. In my opinion, no child molester has EVER served > his time as long as he still lives. > > This database will help to remind the people in communities throughout > America that certain people are dangerous and should be watched. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message for Child Molesters: Before you molest your next victim, think > twice. Perhaps your name will be plastered here for all of the world > to see. Your mother, your father, your brothers and sisters, friends, > the world--will know what kind of a living monster you really are. > [Internet Link Exchange] > > Member of the Internet Link Exchange > > This site designed, managed, and hosted by Great World Internet > Services ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 08:29:12 -0400 (EDT) From: "Declan B. McCullagh" Subject: File 8--Reno calls for new Federal agency to oversee crypto Deputy Atty General Jamie Gorelick earlier this year called for controls and a new "Manhattan Project" to deal with the Net: http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/dl?num=2733 Now her boss -- Gorelick is second-in-command at Justice -- is going even further. -Declan --- From--tmpeters@calvanet.calvacom.fr (TM Peters) Compuserve Online Today Daily Edition, 15 June 1996: Attorney General Janet Reno is advancing a plan to establish a new agency overseeing all digital encryption, saying that would make it tougher for criminals and terrorists to use the Internet to carry out crimes. Speaking to the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco, Reno said her plan would require people to register with the new agency the secret codes -- or "keys" -- they use to encrypt messages online. Reporting on this speech, Sandra Ann Harris of United Press International adds, "Federal authorities could then obtain the information they need to decipher the encryptions using a court order and secretly monitor electronic communication on the Internet the same way wiretaps are used to monitor telephone conversations of suspected criminals." Reno added, "We look only to make existing law apply to new technology," adding new computer programs designed to crack the new complicated encryptions take too long to be useful to law enforcement. "Some of our most important prosecutions have depended on wire taps." She also said registration of keys might end up being a worldwide requirement, since the Internet is used increasingly for international communication, commerce, and criminal enterprise. Reno told the group that effectively regulting electronic encryption will depend on fiding a blance between protecting privacy interests while stopping criminals from cashing in on the new technology. "If we do our job right citizens will enjoy the Information Age without being victimized" by high technology, Reno said. United Press International Charles Bowen ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 22:51:01 CST From: CuD Moderators Subject: File 9--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 7 Apr, 1996) Cu-Digest is a weekly electronic journal/newsletter. Subscriptions are available at no cost electronically. CuD is available as a Usenet newsgroup: comp.society.cu-digest Or, to subscribe, send post with this in the "Subject:: line: SUBSCRIBE CU-DIGEST Send the message to: cu-digest-request@weber.ucsd.edu DO NOT SEND SUBSCRIPTIONS TO THE MODERATORS. 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