The Hacker's Encyclopedia 1998/hackers_encyclopedia.iso/zines/n_z/pirate5.010

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***  Pirate Magazine Issue I - 5 / File 10 of 11***
***  Hacker Chases Hacker Chasers               ***
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From: RISKS-FORUM Digest  Wednesday 21 March 1990   Volume 9 : Issue 77

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Date: 21 Mar 90 10:30:41
From: John Markoff via PGN (excerpted) <[e-mail]>
Subject: Internet Intruders

SELF-PROCLAIMED `HACKER' SENDS MESSAGE TO CRITICS
By JOHN MARKOFF, c.1990 N.Y. Times News Service

   A man identifying himself as the intruder who illegally penetrated part of a
nationwide computer linkup said Tuesday that he had done so to taunt computer
security specialists who have denounced activities like his.  His assertion
came in a telephone call to The New York Times on Tuesday afternoon.  The man
identified himself only as an Australian named Dave, and his account could not
be confirmed.  But he offered a multitude of details about various electronic
break-ins in recent months that were corroborated by several targets of the
intruder.  He said he was calling from outside the United States, but that
could not be verified.

   Federal investigators have said that in recent months the intruder has
illegally entered computers at dozens of institutions in a nationwide network,
the Internet.  Once inside the computers, they said, the intruder stole lists
of the passwords that allow users to enter the system and then erased files to
conceal himself.   [...]

   Investigators in the new Internet case said the federal authorities in
Chicago were close to finding the intruder and several associates.  The U.S.
attorney's office in Chicago refused to confirm that assertion.  The
investigators said that in some cases the intruder might have used a program
that scanned the network for computers that were vulnerable.

   In his telephone call to The Times on Tuesday, the man said he had broad
access to U.S. computer systems because of security flaws in those machines.
As a self-proclaimed computer hacker, he said, he decided to break in to the
computer security experts' systems as a challenge.  Among the targets of the
recent attacks were Clifford Stoll, a computer system manager at the
Smithsonian Astronomical Observatory at Harvard University, and Eugene
Spafford, a computer scientist who specializes in computer security issues at
Purdue University.  The caller said he was upset by Stoll's portrayal of
intruders in a new book, ``The Cuckoo's Egg.''  ``I was angry at his
description of a lot of people,'' the caller said.  ``He was going on about how
he hates all hackers, and he gave pretty much of a one-sided view of who
hackers are.''

   Several days ago the intruder illegally entered a computer Stoll manages at
Harvard University and changed a standard welcome message to read: ``Have Cliff
read his mail. The cuckoo has egg on his face. Anonymous.''  The caller
explained in detail his techniques for illegally entering computer systems.  He
gave information about Stoll's and Spafford's computer systems that matched
details they were familiar with.

   And he described a break-in at an external computer that links different
networks at Digital Equipment Corp.  A spokeswoman for the company confirmed
that a machine had been entered in the manner the caller described.  But the
caller was not able to penetrate more secure Digital computers, she said.

   The caller said he had intended to tease the security experts but not to
damage the systems he entered.  ``It used to be the security guys chase the
hackers,'' he said. ``Now it's the hackers chase the security people.''

   Several managers of computer systems that were entered said that no
significant harm had been done but that the invader had wasted the time of
system administrators, who were forced to drop their normal duties to deal with
the breaches in security.

   Ordinary users were also inconvenienced, the managers said, because their
computers had to be temporarily removed from the system for security reasons.

   Investigators familiar with the break-ins said the intruder had entered
systems by using several well-known security flaws that have been widely
distributed in computerized mailing lists
circulated among systems managers.

   Stoll, who from 1986 to 1988 tracked a group of West Germans breaking into
U.S. corporate, university and nonclassified military computers, said the
intruders had not proved any point.  ``It's sad that people have these
gunslinger ethics,'' he said.  ``It shows how easy it is to break into even a
modestly secure system.''  Spafford, who has also written <garbled>, but added
that nothing significant had been compromised.  [...]

   As a result of the break-ins, the Smithsonian Astronomical disconnected its
computers from the Internet, a network that connects severs around the world.

   Among the institutions believed to have been penetrated by the intruder are
the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Harvard, Digital Equipment, Livermore
Laboratories, Boston University and the University of Texas.

   Tuesday, the caller asserted that he had successfully entered dozens of
different computers by copying the password files to his machine and then
running a special program to decode the files.  That program was originally
written as a computer security experiment by a California-based computer
scientist and then distributed to other scientists.  [... reference to the
following CERT message...]

   Asked Tuesday whether he would continue his illegal activities, the caller
said he might lay low for a while.  ``It's getting a bit hot,'' he said, ``and
we went a bit berserk in the past week.''


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