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Issue Number: 02
Release Date: November 19, 1987
Welcome to the first REAL issue. Real meaning that it contains articles. With
nothing further, this issue now goes to the articles.
Issue #2 Index:
1) They sure can talk in Raleigh
2) Teaching Computer Ethics in the Schools
3) Cash-Machine Magician
4) Cheaper Electronics Makes it a Snap to Snoop
5) Los Alamos Nuclear Facility Security Boost
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TITLE: "They sure can talk in Raleigh"
FROM: The Chicago Tribune (Tempo Section)
DATE: July 21, 1987 (Wednesday)
"What is that?" Kathy Riedy asked her husband, John, as he entered the
family home in Raleigh, N.C., the other day with a box under his arm.
"It's the phone bill," he said, and before she had a chance to let that
register, he opened the box. Inside was one long-distance phone bill from
Sprint- all 729 pages of it, all 3 pounds, 13.5 ounces of it- for
$24,129.99. The Riedys' Sprint bill usually runs about $5 a month. But in
June, according to the statement, he had been on the long-distance line for
10,731 minutes, or 72 days and 51 minutes. Examining the statement in
detail, Riedy discovered that most of the calls had been made over a
three-day period, June 15-17. Not even as teenagers, so far as they could
recall, had either of the Riedys spent 72 days on the phone in a month, let
alone three days. Riedy had been ready for something like this. He received a notice that his calling card would be
revoked because of excessive use. Evidently phone companies get
suspicious when a single residential customer suddenly runs up a monthly
bill in five figures.
Puzzled by the notice, Riedy tried several times to call Sprint, he
said, but the lines were always busy. "We had some fun with it," says Kathy
Riedy. "Our 22-year-old son is here for the summer. So we asked him if he would
look at the phone bill and tell us which calls were his. Then we handed
him the box." The bills showed that Riedy had made $3.27 worth of
long-distance calls from Raleigh in June. The rest were dialed in
Minneapolis, Indianapolis and Chicago, about 1,500 of them all together, including calls to
California, New York, Colorado and Texas. "We were never worried," says
Kathy Riedy. "It's easy to prove you didn't make $24,000 worth of calls,"
she explained, "but imagine the trouble we would have had if the bill
had been for $200."
---- Clarence Petersen ----
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NOTA (Notes On the Article):
T of code abuse. There are some important
details that should be remembered:
"received a notice that his calling card would be revoked because of
excessive use"- The LDC computer detected excessive use of the code.
"phone companies get suspicious when a single residential customer suddenly
runs up a monthly bill in five figures"- This is the main reason why
LD Companies (LDC's) cancel codes.
"dialed in Minneapolis, Indianapolis and Chicago, about 1,500 of them all
together, including calls to California, New York, Colorado and
Texas"- This makes it very likely that the code was hacked out and then passed
to different phreak bulletin boards. That would be a logical reason why the
calls were placed from different states.
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TITLE: "Teaching Computer Ethics in the Schools"
FROM: Education Digest
DATE: February 1987
Changing the Attitudes of "Hackers" by William Weintraub
Several outstanding problems with computer use must be addressed by any
responsible school district: copyright violations, unauthorized entry into
computers and phone fraud. John Rogers, a security agent for Bell Atlantic,
says, "75 % of computer phone fraud is committed by people under 25....the
rest is often committed by adults using the children as vehicles for the
crime."
Schools that teach computer literacy and don't teach the
ethical/legal use of computers are doing a disservice to their students.
The FBI has taken a serious approach to computer crime, many agents focusing on
nothing but this type of fraud. FBI Special Agent Larry Hurst says,
"Teaching kids about computers without teaching the ethical use and rules is
like giving a child a car and not teaching him the rules of the road."
One of the reasons schools have been slow to react to this type of crime is
that it usually involves students who ordinarily do not get into troulbe and
who justify their acts by saying, "I really didn't hurt anyone." As Rogers
states, "Many of the people involved are not the kind who would ever
consider stealing from anyone in a physical manner." They are often of
above-average intelligence, considered trustworthy, and just trying to "beat
the system." However it isn't a victimless crime. In 1984, in New York
City alone, $70 million in phone and computer fraud occurred. This charge is
passed right on to the customer. After a NEWSWEEK reporter wrote an article on
people who invade computer systems without authorization some of these
so-called "hackers" invaded a national credit history computer and destroyed
the financial history of the writer of the article. They charged thousands of
dollars to his account numbers, shut off his utilities, and sent him death
threats from across the nation. Computer fraud is not a victimless
crime.
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NOTA:
Here are some thing that will help clear up this article:
"a NEWSWEEK reporter wrote an article on people who invade computeorization"- The person they are talking about is Richard "Revenge
of Hackers" Sandza.
"invaded a national credit history computer and destroyed the financial
history of the writer of the article"- This refers to someone on Pirate-80
getting into TRW and posting Richard Sandza's credit-card numbers.
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TITLE: "Cash-Machine Magician"
FROM: US News & World Report
DATE: Unknown
Automated bank-teller machines can be maddening devices, but there is one
thing they supposedly do will: protect customers' accounts. Not always
apparently. Police are looking hard for Robert Post, 35, a Polish-born
electronics expert and former ATM repairman who brags that he is something of
a magician. According to the secret service, Post last year managed to make
some $86,000 disappear from cash machines-all from other people's bank
accounts. Post allegedly worked his legerdemain with blank white plastic
cards and a small magnetic encoding machine that he bought for $1,800. By
peering over customers' shoulders and retrieving their discarded banking
receipts, he obtained the personal ID and bank account numbers need to
activate the computerized tellers.
Using the encoding machine, he embellished his plastic with strips of
magnetic tap bearing digital codes almost identical to those on the
defrauded customers' cards. Eventually,
though, a recurring flaw in Post's codes was picked up by the bank's
computer. Post skipped out on a $25,000 bail in Manhattan. He is still
at large.
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NOTA:
I found this article very interesting. The most important piece was the part
about the magnetic encoding machine. ATM fraud is definitely the crime of
the future. The magnetic encoding machine most likely encoded the cards
with the customers' PIN.
"a recurring flaw in Post's codes was picked up by the computer"- Was
something really wrong with his method or did the customers just report the
things that were wrong with their accounts?
After making $86,000 from ATM's, I don't think that Mr. Post will be
turning himself in.
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TITLE: "Cheaper Electronics Makes it a Snap to Snoop"
FROM: US News & World Report (Business Section)
DATE: May 18, 1987
In the old-tech days, a wiretap had to be hooked up directly to the phone
line, leaving a physical trace of tampering. Newer devices are impossible
to detect. Take long-distance phone calls. At least part of their trip
usually takes place over micro wave-relay links, pairs of dish-shaped
antennas on hilltops about 30 miles apart. Anyone in the path of these kind
of microwave beams with the right kind of radio receiver can pick up calls
loud and clear. To find frequencies serving two particluar phones and
eavesdropper might have accomplices place a brief call between those phones
and send a distintive tracer signal over the line. A microcomputer could
then channels and switch on a recorder when it detected
the the dialing code. International calls, which are often beamed up by
satellites, can be intercepted with a satellite dish anywhere within hundreds
of miles of a ground station.
To protect its own secrets, the US government uses only buried telephone
lines and fiber-optic cables for most of its most sensitive communications.
Scramblers and other devices encrypt all classified telephone calls, telexed
messages and computer data sent over phone lines. And, under a program
code-named TEMPEST, computer equipment used for classified work is tightly
shielded to prevent electronic leaks.
Until recently, bulk and expense restricted sophisticated scramblers to
government agencies that use classified information. Their file-cabinet size
and $60,000-plus price tag had put them out of the reach of paper-clip
manufactureres worried mostly about keeping the wraps on next month's
production figures. Microchip technology has now cut the costs to
about $20,000, however, and at lease one manufacturer E-Systems- a Dallas-
based defense contractor- is beginning to promote the equipment for sale to
private companies.
TEMPEST equipment, required for defense contractors who handle
classified data, is being adopted by others as well. Chase Manhattan, the
third-largest bank in the US, is planning to include electronic
shielding in new office construction. Encrypting computer data sent over
telephone lines has been more widely accepted by industry, especially banks,
though most bank managers refuse to believe that something dire can
happen to them. "They say, 'A spy would have to pick out that one little wire
that has our stuff on it,'" says Bob Meadows, former assistant director for
security and risk management at American Bankers Association. That's
one reason why most ATM's, and many electronic funds transfers, are still
unencryped. In addition, confustion has arisen over a uniform coding standard,
needed so that everyone speaks the same encrypted language. The federal
government has been trying to introduce a new, more secure standard to replace
one already adopted by many banks. The banks have balked at the new code
because of classification restrictions that forbid its use outside of the US.
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NOTA:
This article explained many different types of telecommunications security.
Operation TEMPEST was mentioned and so was other news on government security.
One of the main things that was emphasized was the picking up of radio
waves to monitor both calls and transmissions from computer equipment.
Only certain portions of the article were typed up (the interesting parts.)
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TITLE: Los Alamos Nuclear Facility Security Boost
FROM: -------
DATE: September 7, 1987
LAB UPGRADES RADIO SECURITY
Concerned about illegal interception of computer-emitted radio signals, the US
Departmened security systems at the Los Alamos
National Laboratory. An article by the lab's security division says recently
security personnel at the lab went outdoors and used radios to detect
computer information leaks, finding that computer and communication systems
data inside could be detected by spy radios in a nearby parking lot.
DOE spokesman Dave Jackson told The Associated Press, "We had our own
people go out there with sophisticated equipment to detect this."
First to call attention to the problem was an article published in PanorAma, a
monthly for employees of Pan Am World Services, which has about 1,600
employees at the lab.
--Charles Bowen
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NOTA:
This is just a report on more security at military installations because of
Operation TEMPEST.