The Hacker's Encyclopedia 1998/hackers_encyclopedia.iso/zines/n_z/pirate5.008

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***  Pirate Magazine Issue I - 5 / File 8 of 11 ***
***  Jolnet Involvement, Part 2                 ***
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Here's some more info on JOLNET and the issues involved send from a
contributor who subscribes to TELECOM DIGEST, where the LoD busts
seem to have stimulated some interest.

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Date: 27 Feb 90 08:33:51 GMT
Sender: [e-mail]
Organization: TELECOM Digest
Lines: 24
Approved: [e-mail]
X-Submissions-To: [e-mail]
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 131, Message 4 of 8

 From what I have noted with respect to Jolnet, there was a serious
crime committed there -- by the FBI.  If they busted a system with email
on it, the Electronic Communication Privacy Act comes into play.
Everyone who had email dated less than 180 days old on the system is
entitled to sue each of the people involve in the seizure for at least
$1000 plus legal fees and court cost.  Unless, of course, the FBI did
it by the book, and got warrants to interfere with the email of all
who had accounts on the systems.

If they did, there are strict limits on how long they have to inform
the users.  A case of this type has been filed (just under the two
year limit) in Los Angeles Federal Court.  I have hard copy, will try
to get it typed in and see about posting it.

Incidentally, the entire text of the ECPA is on Portal.  The section
you want to look at is 2701-2707.  Keith Henson

[e-mail]

[Moderator's Note: From what I have heard, there were serious crimes
committed there alright.... and the feds had their papers in order.
I'm rather sure they will observe the law.   PT]

----------------------------------------------------------------------

>From: Chip Rosenthal <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: AT&T Sourcecode: Poison!
Date: 3 Mar 90 00:00:00 GMT
Organization: Unicom Systems Development, Austin (yay!)

[Moderator's Note: Original date of 2/25 changed to prevent premature
expiration.  PT]

You've got a lot of nerve, Patrick.

[e-mail] (TELECOM Moderator) writes:

>We're told by a deep-throat type that AT&T is on the war path about
>their software [...] Like jolnet, netsys went down abruptly, with
>*everything* confiscated [...] Now comes news that attcdc [sic], formerly
>known as killer went off line in a hurry.....

Yessir, after all your complaints about that about anonymous Legion of
Doom message, this is a really crummy thing to post.  Based upon
unattributed conversations, you imply that Len Rose and Charlie Boykin
were involved in wrongdoing which lead to the shutdown of their
systems.

I don't know Len personally, but have had uucp connections with him in
the past.  Charlie, on the other hand, I do know personally.  He is
very well regarded in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, and was voted "1989
DFW Administrator of the Year" by the DFW lunch-bunch...errr....DFW
Association of Unix System Administrators.

You have cast some crummy aspersions towards these guys.  Since I know
them, I will wait for the facts to come in.  Others who don't know
them could very well jump to conclusions on the basis of this posting.

Was this message really called for?

Chip Rosenthal                            |  Yes, you're a happy man and you're
[e-mail]                |  a lucky man, but are you a smart
Unicom Systems Development, 512-482-8260  |  man?  -David Bromberg

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Feb 90 21:38:39 EST
>From: Mike Riddle <[e-mail]>
Subject: Jolnet Seizure
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Organization: DRBBS Technical BBS, Omaha, Ne. 402-896-3537

Has anyone tried a novel legal approach to the case of equipment
seizure as "evidence"?  As I remember the Electronic Communications
Privacy Act, it contains specific procedures for authorities to obtain
copies/listings of data on a system (which system may have been used
for illegal purposes, but whose operator is not at the moment
charged).  From this I think a creative attorney could construct an
argument that the national policy was not to seize equipment, merely
to obtain all the information contained therein.  After all, it's the
data that caused any harm.

Also, the Federal Rules of Evidence, and most state rules, provide
that computer generated copies are "originals" for evidentiary
purposes.

I hope that someone close enough to the scene can keep us informed
about what is happening on this one.

{standard disclaimer goes here--don't pay any attention to me!}

------------------------------

>From: [e-mail]
Subject: Article Regarding JOLNET/e911/LoD/Phrack

The following is an article I received five days ago which contains, to my
knowledge, information as yet unpublished in comp.dcom.telecom regarding the
ongoing JOLNET/e911/LoD discussion.  It was printed in a weekly magazine
with a publishing date of Feb. 27 but other than that I have no exact idea
of when the events mentioned herein took place.

 - Ben Rooney

 MISSOURI STUDENT PLEADS INNOCENT IN 911 SYSTEM INTRUSION CASE

 Craig Neidorf, a 19-year-old University of Missouri student, has
pleaded not guilty to federal allegations that he invaded the 911
emergency phone network for 9 states.

 As reported earlier, he was indicted this month along with Robert J.
Riggs, 20, of Decatur, Ga.  Both are charged with interstate
transportation of stolen property, wire fraud, and violations of the
federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986.

 Prosecutors contend the two used computers to enter the 911 system of
Atlanta's Bell South, then copied the program that controls and
maintains the system.  The stolen material later allegedly was
published on a computer bulletin board system operating in the Chicago
suburb of Lockport.  Authorities contend Neidorf edited the data for
an electronic publication known as "Phrack."

 According to Associated Press writer Sarah Nordgren, in a recent
hearing on the case Assistant U.S. Attorney William Cook was granted a
motion to prevent the 911 program from becoming part of the public
record during the trial.  U.S. District Judge Nicholas Bua set April
16 for a trial.

 The 911 system in question controls emergency calls to police, fire,
ambulance and emergency services in cities in Alabama, Mississippi,
Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina, South
Carolina and Florida.

                ---------------------------------------
          Article from "A Networker's Journal" by Charles Bowen.
                    Info-Mat Magazine (Vol. 6, No. 2)

[Moderator's Note: {Info-Mat Magazine}, by the way, is the excellent
electronic journal distributed on many BBS machines throughout the
United States who are fortunate enough to be accepted as part of the
magazine's distribution network.  I personally wish it was distributed
on Usenet as well: it is well written and very informative.   PT]

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 3 Mar 90 19:34:54 CST
>From: TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
Subject: A Conversation With Rich Andrews


After the first articles appeared here relating to the seizure of
Jolnet, and the indictment of some people for their part in the theft
of '911 software', I got various messages from other folks in
response. Some were published, while others were just personal
correspondence to me. One from Chip Rosenthal was held over, and is
included in this special issue today.

One writer, whose comments were attributed to 'Deep Throat' spent some
time on two occassions on the phone, in a conference call between
himself, David Tamkin and myself.

What was lacking in the several messages which appeared over the past
week were comments from Rich Andrews, system administrator of Jolnet.
I got one note from someone in Canada who said Andrews wanted to speak
with me, and giving a phone number where I could call Andrews at his
place of employment.

I put in a call there, with David Tamkin on the other line and had a
long discussion with Andrews, who was aware of David being on the line
with me.  I asked Andrews if he had any sort of net access available
to him at all -- even a terminal and modem, plus an account on some
site which could forward his mail to telecom. You see, I thought, and
still think it is extremely important to include Rich Andrews in any
discussion here.

He assured me he did have an account on a Chicago area machine, and
that a reply would be forthcoming within hours. I had a second
conversation with him the next morning, but without David on the line.
He again told me he would have a response to the several articles
written in the Digest ready and in the email 'very soon'.  This was on
Wednesday morning, and we estimated his message would be here sometime
later in the day -- certainly by midnight or so, when I am typically
working up an issue of the Digest.

Midnight came and went with no message. None showed up Thursday or
Friday.  I deliberatly withheld saying anything further in the hopes
his reply would be here to include at the same time. I guess at this
point we have to go on without him.

When David Tamkin and I talked to him the first time, on Tuesday
evening this past week, the first thing Andrews said to us, after the
usual opening greetings and chitchat was,

 "I've been cooperating with them for over a year now. I assume you
know that."

We asked him to define 'them'.  His response was that 'them' was the
United States Secret Service, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
He said this without us even asking him if he was doing so.

We asked him to tell us about the raid on his home early in February.
He said the agents showed up that Saturday afternoon with a warrant,
and took everything away as 'evidence' to be used in a criminal
prosecution.

ME> "If you have been working and cooperating with them for this long,
why did they take your stuff?"

RA> "They wanted to be sure it would be safe, and that nothing would be
destroyed."

ME> "But if you wanted to simply keep files safe, you could have taken
Jolnet off line for a few weeks/months by unplugging the modems from
the phone jacks, no? Then, plugged in a line when you wanted to call
or have a trusted person call you."

RA> "They thought it was better to take it all with them. It was mostly
for appearance sake. They are not charging me with anything."

ME> "Seems like a funny way to treat a cooperative citizen, at least
one who is not in some deep mess himself."

He admitted to us that several crackers had accounts on Jolnet, with
his knowledge and consent, and that it was all part of the investigation
going on ... the investigation he was cooperating in.

Here is how he told the tale of the '911 software':

The software showed up on his system one day, almost two years ago. It
came to him from netsys, where Len Rose was the sysadmin. According to
Andrews, when he saw this file, and realized what it was, he knew the
thing to do was to 'get it to the proper authorities as soon as
possible', so he chose to do that by transferring it to the machine
then known as killer, a/k/a attctc, where Charlie Boykin was the
sysadmin.

Andrews said he sent it to Boykin with a request that Boykin pass it
along to the proper people at AT&T.

ME> "After you passed it along to Boykin, did you then destroy the
file and get it off your site?"

RA> "Well, no... I kept a copy also."

ME> "Did Charlie Boykin pass it along to AT&T as you had requested?"

RA> "I assume he did."

But then, said Andrews, a funny thing happened several months later.
The folks at AT&T, instead of being grateful for the return of their
software came back to Andrews to (in his words) 'ask for it again.'
Somehow, they either never got it the first time; got it but suspected
there were still copies of it out; or were just plain confused.

So he was contacted by the feds about a year ago, and it was at that
point he decided it was in his best interest to cooperate with any
investigation going on.

Andrews pointed out that the '911 software' was really just ".... a
small part of what this is all about..."  He said there was other
proprietary information going around that should not be circulating.
He said also the feds were particularly concerned by the large number
of break-ins on computers which had occurred in the past year or so.
He said there have been literally "....thousands of attempts to break
into sites in the past year....", and part of his cooperation with the
authorities at this time dealt with information on that part of it.

We asked him about killer/attctc:

ME> "You knew of course that killer went off line very abruptly about
a week ago. What caused that? It happened a week or so after the feds
raided you that Saturday."

RA> "Well the official reason given by AT&T was lack of funds, but you
know how that goes...."

Now you'd think, wouldn't you, that if it was a funding problem -- if
you can imagine AT&T not having the loose change in its corporate
pocket it took to provide electrical power and phone lines to attctc
(Charlie got no salary for running it) -- that at least an orderly
transition would have taken place; i.e. an announcement to the net; an
opportunity to distribute new maps for mail and news distribution,
etc; and some forthcoming shut down date -- let's say March 1, or
April 1, or the end of the fiscal year, or something....

But oh, no...  crash boom, one day it is up, the next day it is gone.

ME> "What do you know about the temporary suspension of killer some
time ago? What was that all about?"

RA> "It was a security thing. AT&T Security was investigating Charlie
and some of the users then."

Andrews referred to the previous shutdown of killer as 'a real blunder
by AT&T', but it is unclear to me why he feels that way.

We concluded our conversation by Andrews noting that "there is a lot
happening out there right now."

He said the [Phrack] magazine distribution, via netsys, attctc and
jolnet was under close review. "One way to get them (crackers) is by
shutting down the sites they use to distribute stuff..."

And now, dear reader, you know everything I know on the subject. Well,
almost everything, anyway....

 From other sources we know that Len Rose of netsys was in deep
trouble with the law *before* this latest scandal.  How deep? Like he
was ready to leave the country and go to the other side of the world
maybe?  Like he was in his car driving on the expressway when they
pulled him over, stopped the car and placed him under arrest?  Deep
enough? This latest thing simply compounded his legal problems.


Patrick Townson

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