The Hacker's Encyclopedia 1998

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==Phrack Inc.== Volume Three, Issue Thirty-Four, File 10 of 11 PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN Phrack World News PWN PWN PWN PWN Issue XXXIV / Part One PWN PWN PWN PWN Compiled by Dispater PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN What We Have Got Here Today is Failure to Communicate ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Editors Comment: Dispater With hundreds, maybe thousands of lives at stake, three airports in New York had to shut down due to a long distance carrier failing. It is absolutely amazing how irresponsible these services were to rely on only on form of communication. Where was the back up system? This incident might not have happened it they would have had an alternative carrier or something as simple as two way radios. Many people are running around these days screaming about how irresponsible AT&T was. The real problem lyes with people in our society failing to take the time to learn fundamental aspects of the common technology. It is also a shame that the people "in control" were incapable of using something as simple as a "port" to dial through another extender. This is the kind of thing that happens when people choose to isolate themselves from the technological society we have today. What follows is a compilation of several articles dealing with AT&T long distance carrier failures. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Thank You for abUsing AT&T October 18, 1991 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ by Kimberly Hayes Taylor and Steve Marshall (USA Today "Phone Failure Stalls Air Traffic Disruption in N.Y. Felt Nationwide") Air traffic in and out of New York City resumed late Tuesday after a phone-service failure virtually shut down three airports for almost four hours. Hundreds of flights coast to coast were delayed or canceled when controllers at John F. Kennedy, La Guardia and Newark (New Jersey) airports lost the link that allows communication among themselves or with other U.S. airports. Communications between pilots and air-traffic controllers travel over telephone lines to ground-based radio equipment. AT&T spokesman Herb Linnen blamed an internal power failure in a long-distance switching office in Manhattan. Hours after the 4:50 PM EDT failure, 40 planes loaded with passengers were sitting on the runway at Kennedy, 35 at Newark, 30 at La Guardia. "During the height of the thing, at least 300 aircraft were delayed at metropolitan airports," said Bob Fulton, a spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration. Included: flights taking off "from California to Florida" and headed for New York, said FAA's Fred Farrar. Farrar said planes had to be grounded for safety. Without telephone communication, they would "fly willy-nilly." Among diverted flights: a British Airways supersonic Concorde from London, which landed at Bradley airport outside Hartford, Conn. Passenger reaction: at Washington's National Airport, Dominique Becoeur of Paris was "reading, drinking, and thinking" while waiting for a flight to New York. At La Guardia, Ernie Baugh, of Chattanooga, Tenn., said, "I think I will go and have another beer." Flights were reported resuming by 9 p.m. EDT. Linnen said AT&T was busy Tuesday night restoring long-distance service in and out of New York City, which had been interrupted. Some international service also had been affected. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - AT&T's Hang Ups October 19, 1991 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ By John Schneidawind (USA Today - "The Big Hang-Up Phone Crash Grounds Airplanes, Raises Anger") The Federal Administration Aviation has some good news for travelers who were stranded at airports, or delayed for hours, the past two days by the New York City telephone outage. If a similar phone disaster strikes next month, hardly any fliers will know the difference. That's because AT&T is close to completing installation of a network of microwave dishes that will supplement, if not replace, the phone lines AT&T uses to relay calls between air-traffic controllers in different cities. Tuesday evening, flights in and out of some of the nation's busiest airports - Kennedy, La Guardia, and Newark, N.J. - were grounded because FAA controllers couldn't communicate with one another. For much of the 1980's, land-based fiber optic lines have been slowly replacing microwave phone dishes phone companies long have used to transmit telephone calls. That's because fiber-optic wires were thought to provide clearer calls than microwave technology. Now, it's becoming apparent that sending some or most telephone calls via wireless microwave might ease the burden handled by fiber-optic cables. In addition, a microwave call could be transmitted point-to-point, bypassing an inoperative switching center when a breakdown or catastrophe occurs. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Computer Maker Says Tiny Software Flaw Caused Phone Disruptions ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ by Edmund L Andrews (New York Times) WASHINGTON -- A manufacturer of telephone call-routing computers said that a defect in three or four lines of computer code, rather than a hacker or a computer "virus," appeared to be the culprit behind a mysterious spate of breakdowns that disrupted local telephone service for 10 million customers around the country in late June and early this month. In congressional testimony Tuesday, an official of the manufacturer, DSC Communications of Plano, Texas, said all the problems had been traced to recent upgrades in its software, which had not been thoroughly tested for hidden "bugs." Although the telephone companies that experienced failures were using slightly different versions of the software, the company said, each version was infected with the flaw. "Our equipment was without question a major contributor to the disruptions," Frank Perpiglia, DSC's vice president for technology and product development, told the House telecommunications subcommittee. "We must be forthright in accepting responsibility for failure." Officials at both DSC and the regional Bell companies said they could not entirely rule out the possibility of sabotage, but said the evidence points strongly to unintentional errors. The flaws caused the computers to send a flood of erroneous messages when the computer encountered routine maintenance problems. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TELEPHONE TECHNOLOGY QUESTIONED AFTER FAILURES ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ by Edmund L. Andrew (New York Times) WASHINGTON -- Striking similarities between nearly simultaneous computer malfunctions that disrupted local telephone service on the East Coast and in Los Angeles on Wednesday have raised questions among communications experts about the reliability of advanced networks that all the Bell telephone companies are now installing. The problems experienced by both Pacific Bell and the Chesapeake and Potomac Co., which serves Washington, Maryland, Virginia and parts of West Virginia, involved computer programs on advanced call-routing equipment, which uses the same new technology, one being adopted throughout the communications industry. The problems, which were corrected in both areas by early evening on Wednesday, made it impossible for about nine million telephone customers to complete local telephone calls. Although the origins of both malfunctions remained unclear on Thursday, the difficulties at the two companies bore a strong resemblance to a brief but massive breakdown experienced by the American Telephone and Telegraph Co.'s long-distance lines in January 1990. In all three cases, a problem at one switching center quickly corrupted other switches and paralyzed much of the system. Perhaps the biggest fear, federal regulators say, is that as telephone companies link their networks more closely, malfunctions at one company can infect systems at other companies and at long-distance carriers. "What you want to avoid is the situation where one system contaminates another," said an investigator at the Federal Communications Commission who insisted on anonymity. "I guess the ultimate concern is that software or hardware would be deployed in a way that the corruption could be processed through entire network, and there would be no alternatives available." As the telephone companies and government regulators tried to determine more precisely on Thursday what went wrong, investigators at the communications commission said they would also look at several other questions: Are there system wide problems that have gone unnoticed until now? Can telephone companies reduce risks by reducing their dependence on one type of switching equipment? Were the disruptions caused by computer operators outside the telephone companies trying to sabotage the systems? Officials at both companies discounted the possibility that a computer hacker might have caused the failures, and outside experts tended to agree. "There's always that possibility, but most likely it was some kind of glitch or bug in the software," said A. Michael Noll, a professor at the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Southern California and author of several textbooks on telecommunications technology. Several independent communications experts said the problems reflected the difficulty of spotting all the hidden problems in complex software before putting it into commercial use. "It's very hard to simulate all the possibilities in a laboratory," said Richard Jay Solomon, a telecommunications consultant and research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "You have to go out in the field and keep your fingers crossed." As more information became available on Thursday, the two disruptions appeared to be almost identical. The problem at Chesapeake & Potomac, a subsidiary of the Bell Atlantic Corp., began as the company was increasing the traffic being routed by one of its four signal processing computers. For reasons that remain a mystery, the system began to malfunction about 11:40 a.m. The computer was supposed to shut itself down, allowing the traffic to be handled by other computers. Instead, it sent out a barrage of erroneous signals, apparently overwhelming the other two computers. "It was as if bogus information was being sent," said Edward Stanley, a company spokesman. The same thing seems to have occurred almost two hours later, at about 11 a.m., in Los Angeles, said Paul Hirsch, a spokesman for Pacific Bell, a subsidiary of the Pacific Telesis Group. Hirsch said the problem began when one of four signal transfer points signaled to the others that it was having problems. The other three computers froze after being overloaded by signals the defective computer. Hirsch said his company continued to believe that the two telephone incidents were completely unrelated. "Someone wins the lottery every week," he said. "Stranger things can happen." Officials at Chesapeake and Potomac said the problems were probably unrelated. Asked if hackers could have caused the problems, Ellen Fitzgerald, a spokeswoman for Chesapeake and Potomac, said she had been assured that the system could not be penetrated. But, she added, "a few days ago I would have told you that what happened yesterday wouldn't happen." Terry Adams, a spokesman at the DSC Communications Corp., which made both systems, said company officials also discounted any connection between the failures. ______________________________________________________________________________