Hacker Chronicles 2 (Alt)/The_Hacker_Chronicles_Volume_II-CD2.iso/cud5/cud504e.txt

Internet Message Format | 1995-01-03 | 12.8 KB

Date: 16 Jan 93 24:01:51 PST
From: Edward Cavazos <[e-mail]>
Subject: File 5--Transcript of Secret Service Press Conference in Lubbock

((MODERATORS' NOTE: In December, the U.S. Secret Service raided a dorm
room at Texas Tech U. in Lubbock Texas (see CuD #4.67, file 2 for the
story). We thank all those involved for making available the following
transcript of the incident)).


For those of you who may be interested in following this case, I have
received a transcription of the press conference held by the Secret
Service after the bus in Lubbock.

This is a case (one of the first to my knowledge) of the new federal
felony copyright legislation being used to shut down a BBS.  Trust me:
the facts are nowhere near the way they are represented in this press
conference..but that shouldn't surprise us, should it?

<thanks to Tom Adams for sending me this transcript, and granting
republication permission for his work>

++++++++++++++

    This is a transcript of a press conference held on December
15th at Secret Service offices in Lubbock, Texas. It was held by Agent
David Freriks and is regarding the actions of the Secret Service at
Texas Tech University on December 14 1992. The press conference was
transcribed and attended by Tom Adams (AKA K}, SysOp of Kaptain's
Korner BBS 806-762-5536, WWIVnet 1@8607) Publisher of CONNECT LUBBOCK
BBS Newsletter.

+++++++++++++++++

FRERIKS: Ok...yesterday December 14th, 1992, in cooperation with and
working with the Texas Tech University police department and Academic
Computing Services, the Secret Service and the University Police
executed two search warrants for computer fraud and pirated bulletin
board computers. One was on campus and one was off. This person off
campus was a former student who had been, in the past, interviewed and
disciplinary handled by the University for doing the same thing. No
charges have been filed There will be a Federal Grand Jury in January,
we are anticipating this case will be presented to them at that time.
The former student was expelled from the University for misusing the
VAX system on campus. The case essentially was misuse of those VAX
accounts or the Academic Computing Services accounts. The students are
advised when they open these accounts what the rules and regulations
are and Margaret Simon (director of Texas Tech's news and publications
department) will cite those here in a minute.  We will go ahead and
show you the stuff, at least one of them, and they are all three
essentially the same. We have not set all three of them up, we've got
one up and running so you guys can get an idea of what we're looking
at. The one on campus was what we consider a pirate bulletin board,
and a fairly sophisticated one. The one off campus was primarily, as
were all of them, dealing in proprietary and copyrighted software,
games, programs.  Prior to this case this time, the former student
admitted to at least $6000 worth of stuff that he got himself and
that's probably not even close to the dollar amount that we are
looking at now. We're just now beginning to amass the dollar amount.
We're anticipating a substantial loss to the manufacturer. Questions?

REPORTER: Exactly what does it mean.. a pirate bulletin board? I'm not
familiar with that.

FRERIKS: Well a pirate bulletin board is an electronic bulletin board
that passes software, electronic games, computer games and programs,
and pass them back and forth without consent of the manufacturer and
sometimes they charge sometimes they don't normally there is no charge
it's just you give me something I'll give you something, back and
forth and the people end up with some tremendous computer programs out
there without paying for them.

REPORTER: So they're getting copies of these copyrighted disks

FRERIKS: Right.

REPORTER: For a substantial smaller price for the normally pay.

FRERIKS: Or no price at all, just to swap for another equally as good
program that someone else may have bought. The problems is they put
them up on these electronic bulletin boards and anybody that can get
into the bulletin board can get them back so you may have you know a
thousand people getting this particular type program without paying
for it.

REPORTER: Can you explain to us how the investigation got started?

REPORTER2: Yeah, how did you guys get alerted..

FRERIKS: Ok, the initial investigation began back in May when the,
what they call CERT, C-E-R-T, it's the Computer Emergency Response
Team from Carnegie Mellon Institute in Pittsburgh. That is a industry
sponsored group of computer experts that monitor numerous computer
systems, Internet and other things throughout the country. They
noticed some very highly  unusual activity on Internet which is one of
the computer systems you can access through VAX. Internet, they called
the University among others several universities. They called Tech,
and Academic Computing Services started checking and find out this guy
was filling up disks, just this one operator was filling up a disk
which is ..(asking another agent) oh how big would one of those disks
be about a million? I don't know?

OTHER AGENT: They're gigabytes.

FRERIKS: Gigabyte disks were full, and the other students on campus
couldn't do their own research that the VAX, the system was intended
to be used for. And so they started checking into who was doing it and
who's account code was being used and it just worked down from there
and this former student was using one of the ..(asking Margaret Simon)
what kind of association did you say it was or organization, campus
organization, I mean just a campus organization?

SIMON: Campus organization

FRERIKS: They were using one of the campus organization's and I won't
tell you which one , one of their sub accounts off one of there VAX
account.

REPORTER: Margaret a question to you, what do you guys, do you have
any disciplinary action for these students?

SIMON: Well the Texas Tech University has a policy that all of our
computers are periodically and unannounced audited for security and
any time there's a violation of the security of Texas Tech's computers
then if a student is involved he's subject to University disciplinary
action, but also he's subject to our turning over and referring any
evidence for the case to a enforcement or an investigative agency
outside of the University such as we have done in this case so we will
proceed with disciplinary action in line with any law enforcement
action outside the University that

REPORTER: So what's it look like for them?

SIMON: I can't say at this time.

REPORTER: But they could face up to expulsion from the University?

SIMON: Any students involved could face expulsion from the University
yes.

REPORTER: That is I guess the worst scenario then, expulsion.


SIMON: Permanent expulsion, expulsion for certain period of years and
that would be determined by the University Disciplinary Committee.

REPORTER: And when will they be deciding on this, will they wait until

SIMON: It is my understanding since students are..since the university
goes on holiday next week and students are finished with this semester
this week the Disciplinary Committee would not meet again until the
middle of January in the spring semester.

FRERIKS: Why don't you cite the pamphlet.

SIMON: Yea I wanted to note...

FRERIKS: Cause each one of these kids had this pamphlet with them
yesterday.

SIMON: Every student who takes a computer course at Texas Tech or uses
the computers in the library or in any way has access to University
computing facilities or property is given this policy statement, "Laws
Polices and Computer use." Every instructor of computer science at
Texas tech discusses this booklet with his students so that the
students of Texas Tech University know that it is a violation of
University policy, of state and federal law to pirate copyrighted
software and they also know that they are responsible for anything
that goes on in there individual computer account, and they read this
book and in most classes they sign a document saying that they have
read this book and understand it so we are attempting to educate
students to what Federal and state law is and certainly to what
University policy is concerning computer fraud

REPORTER: Do like entering freshmen, I mean do you have to take a
computer course in order to get one of these pamphlets or ...let's say
I'm a entering freshman, and I have a computer I bring it into my dorm
room I'm not gonna get this pamphlet?

FRERIKS: You will if you want a VAX account.

REPORTER: Oh I see.

SIMON: In the vax accounts which are assigned though the APLC, the
learning center in the library. If you went in and signed up for an
account you would be given this booklet.

REPORTER: What is the benefit for this VAX account, I'm not familiar
with that.

SIMON: If you wanted access to the University's mainframe computer. If
you only used your computer in your room to do term papers and to
print them out then you wouldn't be on the VAX system using University
computing property in order to pirate software or to get on to a
network.

REPORTER: So legally they can patch into the University system through
VAX?

SIMON: Through opening an account.

REPORTER: OK

SIMON: And each of you can get a copy of this by the way or if you
don't have time to stop by the office i'll fax you a copy.

REPORTER: So basically these kids had an account, were using the
mainframe to pirate other software through an electronic bulletin
board?

SIMON: Yes

FRERIKS: Um hm. This is a major nation wide, world wide problem from
an industry point of view with tremendous losses in funds tremendous
losses of money. the VAX account at the University is a way to get
into numerous other research accounts or Internet which is the ...you
get onto Internet you can talk to anybody else who is on Internet
anywhere in the world which these kids were talking to Belgium, and
israel and Australia and they can do that just by this, thus avoiding
long distance phone calls. But most of the people on Internet I mean
on the VAX are there legitimately for research purposes they can go to
Mayo and get a file if they're a med student and they also get one of
these pamphlets if they get, like the Department of Engineering gives
out an account number just for that semester,the professor would give
it out so you can use the VAX well they also get one of those
pamphlets that explains what the rules are and the instructor spends a
good bit of time the first couple of classes going over computer
etiquette, computer rules.

REPORTER: Is this trail going to lead to any other schools out here in
Texas?

FRERIKS: Well there's several others that they were talking to but we
don't have any comment, nationwide,  we don't have any comment on say
A&M.

REPORTER: Would this be where the headquarters would have been of the
operation?

FRERIKS: No, no.

REPORTER: Just merely one of the outlying areas?

FRERIKS: This is just one of the fingers, the ends of one of the
fingers out here.

REPORTER: How long did your investigation been going on until this
occurred yesterday?

FRERIKS: Well as we started in May for us it essentially ended in July
when the kid when we interviewed him the first time. University police
processed him he was expelled from school and we thought that ya know
give the kid a break.

REPORTER: Can you comment where the main operation is?

FRERIKS: No, no. There's so many of them. It's not like there's one He
could be a mastermind, you could be a mastermind, he could electronic
bulletin board, you're with the electronic bulletin boards here in
town?

ME: I'm with CONNECT LUBBOCK, I write a monthly newsletter...I'm just
here to get information..

FRERIKS: If you really have any details on what a bulletin board is
he'd be the guy who really could explain it to you.

REPORTER: How many people were arrested?

FRERIKS: Nobody was arrested.

REPORTER: Nobody.

FRERIKS: There were three individuals interviewed but we did not file
any charges.

REPORTER: Do you expect to?

FRERIKS: There will be a Grand jury in January, Federal Grand Jury.

REPORTER: What type of punishment do they face on the Federal level?

FRERIKS: I believe it's a ten year, a ten year felony for the computer
fraud, there's a copyright violation, infringements there's several
numerous violations involved here but essentially a ten year felony.

REPORTER: Is that per offence?

FRERIKS: Per offence.

REPORTER: Would each piece of software be considered an offence?

FRERIKS: Probably not but that's a US Attorn decision, and when we go
into the next room you'll see a hell of a lot of stuff and it's kind of
small so why don't we just go in one at a time.

Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253