The Hacker's Encyclopedia 1998

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####################################### # # # # # ======== =\ = ====== # # == = \ = = # # == = \ = ====== # # == = \ = = # # == = \= ====== # # # # # # <Tolmes News Service> # # ''''''''''''''''''''' # # # # # # > Written by Dr. Hugo P. Tolmes < # # # # # ####################################### Issue Number: 04 Release Date: November 19, 1987 $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ TITLE: Cellular Technology FROM: US News & World Report DATE: May 18, 1987 The booming business in cellular phones has been a gift to eavedroppers too. About 700,000 of these new mobile telephones, high in quality and low in cost compared with the old-fashioned car phones, are already in use. But few users are aware that the first leg of the conversation-- from the car to the base stations that connect to the telephone network -- is carried on an ultrahigh-frequency radio channel that many radio scanners can tune in. According to Tandy corporation, which sells cellular phones, some 5 million scanners are already in the hands of the public, and most can be modified to recieve the cellular frequencies. Tandy's own Radio Shack stores sell a $399.95 scanner already equipped to pick up cellular channels. A law passed by Congress last fall makes it a misdemeanor to listen in on phone calls carried over microwaves or on cellular channels- but obviously such laws are almost unenforceable. The increased use of computers in business also has enhanced the possibilitiy of sophisticated snooping. Banks and other financial institutions authorize transfers of funds electronically, by transmitting computer-to computer messages over the phone lines. In one case, a technician in New York attached a tap recorder to an automatic teller machine he had been told to repair. As customers punched in their account numbers and indentification and directed their transactions, sending the data flowing to the bank's main computer, the recorder obediently taped all. The technician emptied several accounts before he was caught. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ NOTA: Just another article on the use of scanners to pick up cellular signals. The part at the end about the ATM repairman could possibly refer to Mr. Post (The Magician.) See TNS Issue #2 for more details. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ TITLE: Pirate BBS FROM: A+ Magazine DATE: November 1986 While several software publishers are removing copy protection, allowing users to copy application programs to their hard disks and keep an archival copy for backups, the Software Publishers Association is taking direct action to combat software theft. Through a private investigator, the group recently located and closed down a pirate bulletin-board system (BBS) called the Star Chamber, d made available more than 40 megabytes of Atari software, including a disassembled version of the Macintosh ROMs that allowed some Mac software to run on a modified Atari ST. BBSs and commercial information-retrieval systems such as GEnie, Delphi, CompuServe, and The Source provide an increasingly useful means for distributing information and ideas. The commercial services usually police their own systems. "The days are over when someone can illegally transmit copyrighted software via BBS systems", said Mark Skapinker of Batteries Included, one of the 12 publishers involved in the Star Chamber raid. The SPA will continue to monitor BBS systems and pursue individual piracy cases. "We're all fed up with tolerating theft of our products, and we intend to go after these scofflaws aggresively", added Gordon Monnier of Michtron, another publisher involved in the closing of the BBS. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ NOTA: It should be noted that the Star Chamber was back up soon after the BBS was raided. It just had more security. The Star Chamber may even be up still. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ TITLE: Scanning Bust FROM: The STC Telecomputing Network DATE: 1987 CHINA, Me. (NB) -- A 16-year-old computerist used his machine to dial every telephone number in his small town early one morning. And now he's doing time by doing computer work at the Kennebec County Sheriff's office. The boy will spend about 60 hours entering some 2,000 items of data that have backed up in the office. The sheriff said the youth programmed his computer to dial every number in the town of China. Then he fell asleep. When he awoke, he discovered that the computer had made 801 phone calls. When the sheriff got some irate calls from China citizens, he knew who to look for, because the youngster earlier used his computer and modem to make calls all over the country, leading to a $5,000 telephone bill for his mother. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ NOTA: The kid was scanning for computers in his prefix. He shouldn't have been scanning because he was busted for computer crimes earlier. Stupid kid. Of cours e this wouldn't have happened if he lived in a bigger town. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ TITLE: Rip Offs FROM: Time (Business Notes) DATE: May 25, 1987 Reach out and Rob Someone-"Pssst! Wanna buy a cheap long-distance phone call?" Words to that effect are now being whispered in the vicinity of telephone booths across the country as part of a scam that costs US phone companies anywhere from $6.5 million to $11 million a year. Hustlers who might once have peddled drugs or sex offer prospective customers cut-rate telephone calls that are placed by using access codes stolen from long-distance phone companies. The most likely buyers: people waiting in urban bus and train terminals, especially immigrants who mightved one in a foreign la nd without having to fork over a fistful of quarters. At New York City's Port Authority Bus Terminal, the going illegal rate is $2 to call anywhere in the US and $4 for an overseas hookup. Authorities have rounded up hundreds of phone hustlers around the country in recent months. In New York alone, last year 190 people were arrested for participating in the hot line scam. Three local telephone companies and 20 long-distance carriers, including AT&T, US Sprint and MCI, joined forces to form a group called the Communications Fraud Control Association, which now includes a number of other phone companies. The associations mission: to help crack down on the growing practice by urging tougher laws and stricter law enforcement. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ NOTA: This article gives the details on the forming of the CFCA (Communications Fraud Control Association). This association was formed from MANY LDC's (Long-Distance Companies). The alternate carriers are joining forces in an effort to stop phone fraud. Luckily, they are hitting hard on these "code hustlers" and that should bring some attention away from phreaks. These "code hustlers" have been found in most airports and bus terminals. Many times they are just homeless people who manually scan for working codes. Other times they are people who use their computers to hack them and then just make money by going around to airports an selling them. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ TITLE: How the Soviets are Bugging America FROM: Popular Mechanics DATE: April 1987 Soviet agents may be listening to your personal telephone conversations. If you're involved in the defense industry or in sensitive scientific activity, there is a good chance they are. In fact, a recent unclassified Senate Intelligence Committee report on counterintelligence indicates that more than half of all telephone calls in the United States made over any distance are vulnerable to interception. Every American should know this. In the ultimate phone tap, you place a call and the signal goes to a phone company microwave transmitter, which beams the call to a reciever. Some of the return signal "spills" allowing Soviets to pick it up. Signal is transmitted to a Russain satellite , which sends it to Cuba. Map shows Russian spy stations. When you place a long-distance telephone call from point A to point B, there are three communications paths or circuits, over which your call might travel:microwave, satellite, or cable. Cable is the most secure. However, it is the least practical and economical method. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ NOTA: This article actually went on for about four pages. Most of the article is Reaganish propaganda with anti-soviet themes. The part that was placed above is about the technical aspects of intercepting communications. When the transmissions are the Soviets can pick up the signals. Anyone could really pick up the signals. I hope that the small part that I printed above will be of some technical value. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ TITLE: Deadly Bugs FROM: The Chicago Tribune (Sunday Magazine) DATE: May 3, 1987 In 1971 a sophisticated scam was uncovered in South Korea involving a US Army supply computer. Through insider access, a group of South Korean blackmarketeers and US personnel had a lucrative racket going. By using the computer they were able to siphon off as much as $18 million dollars worth of US military supplies a year, and even resold the stolen items- somtimes back to the US Army- they manipulated computer files to conceal traces of the fraud. When this classic case of computer crime by insiders finally came to light, the moral seemed to be clear: software-the detailed instructions that tells a computer how to function and what operations to perform- is the ultimate medium for anyone wo for whatever purpose, seeks to engage in deception. Yet from that time to the present a sometimes-touching trust in computer software has become a hallmark of ever more of our nations's business and defense establishments, from banks transferring funds electronicaly to Strategic Defense Initiative [SDI]. In recent years Americans often have been entertained by stories of youthful "hackers" breaking into corporate or government computers and toying with the data or programs contained there. Amusement has sometimes turned into alarm, as it did in 1983 when some young people in Wisconsin penetrated part o a computer at the US government research center in LOS ALAMOS, NM. Or when, in July of 1985, New Jersey teenagers were found to have developed the capability through their home computers to alter orbits of commercial communications satellites. The forerunner of some members of this new generations may be "Captain Midnight", one of the first high-tech saboteurs to carryout an operation with dramatic nationwide impact. On April 27, 1986, Captain Midnight, as he called himself, interfered with a satellite transmission to Home Box Office viewers in the US, interrupting a movie to run his own message- and production widespread consternation in civilian and military circles. With some irony, the movie that Captain Midnight chose to interrupt was "the Falcon and the Snowman", which was based on one of the great US spy scandals of the 1970s. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ NOTA: What you have just read is only a part of the article. Most of the article centered on new SDI technology and government computer system. I selected the first few paragraphs and the second to last one about Captain Midnight. The article was about 6 pages long and had the following pictures: - a man sitting at a computer terminal with what appears to be an explosive device beneath the terminal -what appears to be a scorpion shaped like a computer Both of these pictuthe reader that hacking can cause deadly damage and that it should be wiped out. The first illustration wants to get over the idea that working at a computer can be deadly because of the software. The second illustration (that was actually on the cover of the Sunday Magazine) represents more danger ("Deadly Bugs") in computers. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ TITLE: The Newest Dating Game FROM: U.S. News & World Report DATE: June 8, 1987 "Hello? Any ladies out there?" asks 17-year-old Dan from Detroit. Over a crackling, echo-filled telephone line comes the voice of 14-year-old Michelle:"What color hair do you have?" Dan responds:"Br own, I have brown hair." About a minute later, Dan pops the question: "Do you want to call me? Here's my number....." Welcome to the weird world of hightech courtship. Dan and Michelle, like thousands of other teenagers and young adults, have dialed into the "party phone" lines that are now popping up across the country. For a toll ranging from 50 cents to $1 a minute, callers can talk to complete strangers, evaluate what they hear, then agree to continue talking through private telephone lines--or even to meet in person. The new services are enormously popular. Ultraphone of Seattle started party-phone lines in Omaha last year and now operates in more than 30 cities. Spitech, in Marlton, N.J., launched its service in Philadelphi a last year. It now operates in Pittsburge and Cincinnati, and is considering five other cities. "People are lonely and need somebody to talk to," says Ultraphone President Betsy Superfon. "With social diseases and rejection rampant, party phones are an alternative to the bars." KEEPING CONVERSATIONS CLEAN Along with the popularity has become controversy. Mountain Bell's part-phone service for teenagers and adults had "significant problems" from the start, says spokesman John Gonzales. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ NOTA: Just something I wanted to print. Slightly interesting.