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1992-09-11
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From: Moderators
Subject: EXHIBIT E from Riggs' Sentencing Memorandum
Date: 15 May, 1991
********************************************************************
*** CuD #3.17: File 5 of 5: EXHIBIT E from Memorandum ***
********************************************************************
EXHIBIT E:
Exhibit E comes from The Phoenix Project, a BBS in Texas. The
proseuctions' logic seems to claim that the six posts, five from 1990
and one from 1988, show how carefully the CU followed the
Morris case and and that the comments demonstrate that fear of
harsh sentences would be a deterrent. In fact, the logs show
no such thing.
(The following were reproduced from the original Phoenix Project logs
made available to us with the exception of the post of the December 8,
1988, post, which was typed in from the sentencing memorandum).
++++++++++++ BEGIN EXHIBIT E
58/64: morris
Name: The Mentor #1
Date: Tue Jan 23 21:57:27 1990
Robert Morris was found guilty. If he's sentenced to do time, it'll be a
*very* bad precedent.
<sigh>
Mentor
Read:(1-64,^58),? :
59/64: BLackmail?
Name: Erik Bloodaxe #2
Date: Tue Jan 23 22:51:58 1990
Geez...I'd like to think myself above things like that...
In anycase, not everyone has GOOD sensitive information...(not all of us who
ARE in this country have the balls to dig where that type of crap is...god I
want to move to Australia!)
Maybe they'll kick me out of the country! Right...I'm not that important,
although I would like to think that I am...hehe
hell, maybe it IS time to start doing all the terrible things I always had the
capabilities to do on the internet...need to get some "Insurance"
maybe...who knows...
->ME
60/64: well
Name: Phoenix #17
Date: Wed Jan 24 01:29:23 1990
like i said... im open to better ideas.. coz i we do have sensitive ino...
then no matter what we do with it... it will be termed blackmail..
Phoenix4
<and once you have publicised it.. youve played your cards.. andthen theyll
mess you up real bad..>
Read:(1-64,^61),? :
62/64: i understand...
Name: Ravage #19
Date: Wed Jan 24 14:34:03 1990
that the prosecution had a hard time showing malitous (sp!) intent. does
anyone know if that is true? if it is true then i doubt he will get any
time. probably a fine, community service, a probated time. what is the
latest on the ccc guys? have they taken them out and shot them yet?
in my previous post i was refering to the publication, through tv,
radio,and paper, of sensitive information held by organizations. it
would not have to be identified as to sender. therer are plenty of
underground, small town, press services (hey how about the gossip
rags?) that would be ideal to send that kind of stuff to. not only
that but what about the up wire? you could put it in que and it
would go all over.
grey owl
The Urvile #9
11:46 am Thu Dec 08, 1988
christ, i don't know c that well, now c++? fucking a.
wheter you realize it or not, the virus will hurt us a tremendous amount
in
the future. somebody go kill morrison.
even if the courts are lax on him, (which is the only silver lining ican
think
of), then security on all systems is going to increase. we don't need
that.
not one bit. think about the hacker of tomorrow. how the fuck are they
gong
to learn? fuck, how are we going to get in a system that we've
just dug
up
(no tricks, no, the brute force method).
fuck life.
+++++++++++++ END EXHIBIT E
The government reproduced sequential messages #58-62 from January
23-24, 1990, but excluded message #61. We obtained it from the
original logs. It reads:
++++ Start Post #61
61/64: Morris Convicted
Name: Phiber Cut #34
Date: Wed Jan 24 04:43:24 1990
If RTM get's jail time we should all be suprised. What he did was morrally
and ethically wrong, and he fucked upt and will now have to pay the piper.
However, hej is a very bright person and should not be put in a jail cell
with a bunch of hardended ass f**king criminals!
Hopefully he'll get some sort of community service and a fine, and this will
be enough to kkeep him from fucking up the network in the future.
+++++ End Post #61
Exhibit E is used as evidence that "hackers" would be deterred by a
substantial sentence, and the Morris case is used as evidence that
hackers followed it closely. But, several fallacies underlie this
assumption:
1) It is not unusual for computer hobbyists to follow news about their
interests. Morris's worm affected many on the nets, and most were
aware of his action. Contrary to the claim that "Computer bulletin
board services (BBS's) around the country were buzzing about the
Morris case" (Sentencing Memorandum, p. 20), there was surprisingly
little discussion on most boards other than a simple mention and some
brief discussion. On The Phoenix Project, from which the logs for the
exhibits were taken, the discussion was intermittent over a several
day period, and the exhibit lists only 5 following the conviction.
One post was actually taken from December, 1988, over a year before
the Morris conviction. Such a dubious selection of posts to try to
magnify a the prosecutors' interpretation of them is disingenuous at
best.
2) The exhibits totally distort the context of the discussions. We
are curious about the omission of post #61 of January 24, 1990.
Perhaps it was omitted because the poster explicitly condemns Morris's
action as unethical, and this post contradicts the point the
prosecution is trying to make. In fact, the general tenor of posts
about the Morris incident reflected strong condemnation. But,
prosecutors, to the contrary, ignore this and their distortion
borders on blatant fabrication. While this may be "good lawyering," it
does little to instill respect for the integrity of or confidence in
those who fabricate. The CU did not consider Morris a "hacker," and
he was never held up as hero or role model. "Hackers," like most
others, are as hostile (if not more so) to those who create or spread
viruses as law enforcement. Viruses, as Cliff Stoll once suggested (in
a quote taken out of context by the media) are like razor blades in
the sand. Because "hackers" spend considerable time on the beaches of
the cyberworld, they have little sympathy for those cyber-vandals who
trash systems. If the prosecutors had been intellectually honest,
they would have explained that the meaning of the posts was couched in
a hostility for Morris's actions tempered by their understanding that
prison was not an appropriate sentence. In fact, even the selective
quotes from Exhibit E indicate that the fear that viruses might
tighten up security is based on the value that one must *never* trash
a system.
3) The prosecution claims that "Clearly, the (Morris) sentence had
little effect on defendants Grant, Riggs, and Darden" (Sentencing
Memorandum, p. 20). This is outrageously irresponsible. The memorandum
states that their activities occured from September, 1987, through
July 21, 1989. The Morris incident first made the news in November,
1988, when the virus was released. The verdict occured in January,
1990. MORRIS'S SENTENCE was handed down in MAY of 1990. The
prosecution seems to have discovered a revolutionary new approach to
causality and chronological sequencing: Riggs, et. al, are expected to
have learned in 1987-1989 from events that wouldn't occur until 1990!
Mike Godwin (CuD 2.17) and others have raised serious criticisms about
the sentence of Riggs especially. The Exhibits were not available at
the time of those criticisms. However, now that they are public, the
sentences appear even more unjust. Worse, the logic by which they were
justified by the prosecution's exhibits strike us as gross hyperbole.
More simply, drawing from the definition of police lying by Hunt and
Manning (Symbolic Interaction, "The Social Context of Police Lying,"
14(1): 51), a strong case might be made that the prosecution LIED!
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**END OF CuD #3.17**
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