Top Secret 11/Top Secret 11.adf/pages/aboutshi/aboutshi

Text File | 1990-10-29 | 11KB | 217 lines

³¼SAFE HEX INTERNATIONAL¼³

³¼THE COMPUTERS GREENPEACE¼³

¹
Our  organisation  "Safe Hex International", SHI, is a grass roots movement
which  started  in  1990 with Amiga computers. Today we are an organisation
with around 250 members who are all more or less involved in our work.

We  now  have  20 virus centres around the world which have free phone help
lines,  and  where anyone can get the latest Public Domain virus killers on
disk. These disks have been translated into the relevant languages with all
imaginable  instructions.  Even  inexperienced users can immediately under-
stand what to do.

The  price of these disks is around $4 US, including disk and postage, i.e.
a  price  anyone  can  afford. These disks are updated 12 times a year, and
contain  programs which are generally better than the best commercial virus
killers!

Our  organisation or our "movement", I should say, does not have the formal
structure one normally associates with clubs, associations and the like. We
are a non-profit making organisation with has a very particular aim, we try
to  make  active efforts which, in many ways, resemble those of Greenpeace.
The resemblance to Greenpeace is not just coincidental. Greenpeace works in
the biological environment. The only difference with us, is that we work in
the data environment.


DATA POLLUTION
I  am  often  asked  the  question " What should I do if I want to be 100 %
secure? Which virus killers should I use, and what should I do?" Unfortuna-
tely I have to disappoint people because the answer is: "If you want to be
100 % secure, then don't buy a computer"!

The  situation  is that one can never be 100% secure, especially today with
all  the  computer viruses which flourish around the world. This insecurity
is actually much worse than the actual damage one suffers if one's computer
is attacked by a virus.

Socrates,  the  great  classical Greek philosopher, asked his enemies to be
compassionate for he said: "Kill me, or let me live, but make up your minds
up  soon,  I  can't  live  with  this insecurity." The hemlock which he was
forced to drink put an end to his insecurity, as we know.

Socrates  touched  a  point here which we can all recognise in this day and
age,  what  with our modern data installations: Insecurity and impotence. I
reckon  that  having  to  live with the continual threat from hacking or an
attack  by  computer  viruses  is far worse than the actual damage which is
being  done. Unfortunately we have to live with this insecurity. One cannot
go back in time.

Is  there a real threat to our data environment? Our work at SHI concentra-
tes  on  computer  viruses.  We  work  against  hacking  and other forms of
destruction  or misuse of data. But, in our opinion, the greatest danger to
our data environment is the explosive increase in new computer viruses. The
number of new computer viruses is currently increasing four-fold every year.
If  we just look a few years ahead, the number of viruses around will reach
monstrous  proportions.  As far as PC viruses are concerned, where we today
have around 1000 viruses, this will increase to more than 25,000 in 1996 if
development continues at the same rate.

What  is  even  worse  is that the virus types are getting so advanced that
many  experts  today anticipate that we maybe will have to give up, or find
such  involved  procedures  for  finding viruses that the efficiency of our
machines  will be severely curtailed. One possible solution to the majority
of  the  problems is to maybe alter the hardware so that a program does not
get the chance to lie resident in the computer's memory.

It  is  of course, just as apparent as with our biological environment that
one  cannot  alter the actual conditions from one day to the next. But here
and  now  we  can  maybe  alter  the conditions for the generations to come
through  information,  legislation  and  the  like,  so  that the damage is
limited.

Data  security  is expensive but necessary. Outsiders often find it hard to
understand  our  problems over data security. What actually does it mean if
the  data  environment  is polluted by hackers and viruses? Maybe it can be
explained  when I state that, even now, these problems cost an awful lot of
money.  Of  course  it can't be counted in dollars and cents, or pounds and
pence,  but  a  qualified  guess  is  that it costs data installation users
between  US$  10  billion  and US$ 20 billion annually. That sounds like an
astronomical sum to many ears, but corresponds to a cost of between US$ 100
and  US$  200 for each individual user, when assessed against the more than
120 billion computers which are sold today.

Some  people  will  maintain  that users who only have their computers as a
hobby  do  not  have  expenses  of this size. But, with hand on heart, your
leisure  time  is also worth money too, isn't it? I would reckon my leisure
time to be worth the same as my work time.

But, besides the time itself which is used for virus control and back-up of
programs,  most users have to obtain special software for virus control and
back-up, in all a sum of maybe US$ 50 to US$ 500 annually.

Paradoxically,  the  actual  damage  caused by virus and hacking costs much
less  than  the  preventive  measures.  Personally, I think that the damage
costs  users less than US$ 1 billion annually, but this is of course just a
calculated guess based on my experience from referrals from a large numbers
of users.


WHAT CAN ONE DO?
We  at Safe Hex International are so stubborn that we will no longer accept
a  "polluted"  data environment. The beginning of our organisation was when
we began to collect computer viruses.

We  sent  them to various clever programmers around the world who then made
virus  killers.  Since then, our project has torn ahead so fast that we can
hardly  keep  up with the progress. Here are just a few of the new develop-
ments:

We  write articles for those magazines which do not publish enough informa-
tion  on  data  security.  For  example, several American magazines are two
years out of date on this matter.

We provide background material for the magazines so that their articles are
more up to date.

We have made contact with radio and TV, eg, our first programme on our work
on  data  security       and was transmitted by Danish local radio, and the
national TV channel, TV2.

We  have  established a "Virus Test Centre" where all viruses are tested on
all the virus killers and reports of these tests are published.

We  have the world's largest collection of Amiga viruses. These viruses are
sent to us by our members.

We  have an "ideas bank" where programmers in our group can get information
and ideas for smart new virus test methods.

We  are  in the process of constructing a standard program which can recog-
nise all Amiga viruses when it is used as a sub-program of other programs.

We  are  in the process of making a special virus program which can automa-
tically control viruses on "Bulletin Boards". These boards are probably the
source  of  80%  of  the  virus  spread  we have today. It is therefor very
important that something is done here.

We  are  contacting  software  suppliers to get them to use "safety disks".
That  is,  disks which are 100% secure against virus infection because they
cannot  be  written on. Before long all the Danish libraries which lend out
software  will  have these disks. More and more of our large software supp-
liers  eg  "Word  Perfect"  and IBM have also gone over to the use of these
"Safety Disks".


3 DATA SECURITY PRIZES IN 1992
Our  work  at  Safe Hex International has been recognised by the public. In
early  1992 "SHI" was presented with awards 3 times for our worldwide virus
work:

The  first award was presented on February 29th by the Danish computer trade
organization (i. e. the PC organizations). The prize was given at the Danish
"Dataforening's", (Data-society's) annual safety conference at the SAS Hotel
Scandinavian.

The  second  award  was  presented on March 21st at the annual Amiga Expo in
Copenhagen, Denmark.

The third award was presented on May 1st by AmiCon in Stockholm, Sweden, and
was given for our worldwide virus work too and of couse we are very, pleased
that our work has been recognised and appreciated.


NEW ASSIGNMENTS
New  devilishly  thought  out computer viruses will always be a threat, re-
gardless  of  whatever ingenious combatting plans one can design to prevent
data loss. One cannot stop this development, whether through legislation or
by  utilising  virus  killers  or the like. SHI has set up a "Reward Fund",
currently  at  US$  3000. This money will be paid as a reward to people who
tell  us  the  name  and  address  of the person/people who have made these
viruses. We hope in this way to do without a number of viruses, now that it
is  suddenly  dangerous  for the virus makers to boast to their friends. We
have already had the first notification!

Legislation in the data area has been very neglected and is totally happen-
stance  in many countries. SHI therefore applied to the European Parliament
in  Autumn  1991 to get a motion passed on the harmonisation and tightening
up  of our laws on data security. Several countries in the EC have today no
legislation  at  all in this area. On 12th January 1992, our bill was dealt
with  in the European Parliament, with support from several members, inclu-
ding  the  Danish EMP's Christian Rovsing and Freddy Blak. A committee will
now  be  set  up  where  SHI  can be influential and, finally, a law can be
expected  to  be  passed  during  the  next  12 months. We think that it is
reasonable  that we get unified rules in the EC. As known, computer viruses
do not recognise national borders.

We  are  considering  reporting  the Danish telephone company, KTAS, to the
police for having tapped a telephone line for a long period without a legal
warrant, involving a case against one of Denmark's largest bulletin boards.
We consider it an aggravating circumstance that KTAS' barrister has said to
the court: "We have been doing this for 30 years without a warrant".

Recently  a  large  German  magazine publishing company was reported to the
German  police.  They  organised  a  competition  amongst their readers for
someone who could make the "best" computer virus. We believe it is criminal
to  encourage people to do things which are against the law. An aggravating
circumstance  is  that  the  magazine  in question had even printed a short
description  as to how to make viruses. We are shocked about, and of course
condemn, this sort of behaviour.

We  are very dependent upon people supporting our work. I hope particularly
that  the  media  will  support  us  because you don't get far, these days,
without public relations. We started up as an Amiga organisation but I hope
that  we  can  begin this year to set up the first PC virus centre. We have
already obtained the hardware for it.



                                              YOURS SINCERELY

                       ERIK L0VENDAHL S0RENSEN
                                           SAFE HEX  INTERNATIONAL