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-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Entropy
Volume 1
Issue 1
95.09.14
Contents:
1. How to get in touch with the authors
2. Editorial
3. "LOSE.NEURONS.FAST" by Legion [Parody]
4. "1000 Eyes" by Legion [Fiction]
5. "Something's Out There" by Legion [Fiction]
6. "Rebirth" by Legion [Fiction]
7. "Hackers" [Movie Review]
8. "So you wanna write for Entropy" [send me stories!]
How to get in touch with the authors:
Legion: spordon@nyx10.cs.du.edu
"Legion" on Hacker's Haven, Realm of Chaos, Heresy, Liquid Toxin,
etc. (boards in 303)
Murc: Murc's not in this issue because he didn't send me his story. So
don't get in touch with him.
Editorial
Welcome to the first issue of Entropy, a new zine dedicated to showcasing new
talent in fiction writing. I won't call this a "literary" zine, because
"literary" zines suck (don't believe me? Check them out). However, I will do
my best to feature the best fiction I can find, as well as some nonfiction
and humor.
I call the zine "Entropy" because that's the name of the band I started
(which is now on hold until my drummer gets out of the navy and regains his
brain cells that mysteriously vanished just before he signed up), and I
happen to like the name. The word conjures up thoughts of hard-core science
fiction, which I enjoy reading and writing.
This issue will be short. Most of my fiction is on paper rather than on the
computer, and I don't have time to scan it in and OCR it right now. Although
I've given plenty of advance notice of this zine (like 8 months or so), not
one person has sent me a submission, though I've gotten plenty of queries.
So this issue's theme will be "Legion's Writing: How it Fails to Show the
Spirit of the Zine, Which is Supposed to be Eclectic." If you want to send
submissions, see the submission guidelines below.
Thanks for taking time to download this file. I hope you enjoy it (don't
forget to submit!).
LOSE.NEURONS.FAST
Dear Friend,
My name is Dave Rhodes. In September 1989 my car was reposessed and the
bill collectors were hounding me like you wouldn't believe. I was laid off
and unemployment checks had run out. The only escape I had from the pressure
of failure was my IBM computer and my modem. I longed to turn my advocation
into my vocation. But I instead wasted thousands of dollars of your hard-
earned money by posting a Ponzi pyramid scam to every newsgroup I could find.
This January 1990 my family and I didn't go on a ten day cruise to the
tropics. I would have bought a Lincoln Town Car for CASH in Feburary 1990 if
my scam had worked. I am currently in a federal penitentiary on the West
Coast of Florida, without a private pool, boat slip, or a beautiful view of
the bay from my breakfast room table and patio because of my extreme
lameness. I will never have to work again, except for the work I put in
pounding rocks into dust for the federal government. Today I am poor! I
have earned 10-20 (Ten-to-Twenty years of hard labor) to date and may become
a free man if they ever find the key to my cell. Anyone can do the same.
This money making program works poorly every time, 100% of the time. I
have NEVER failed to earn several years or more whenever I wanted. Best of
all you never have to leave home except to go to your mailbox or post office
or federal penitentiary.
In October 1989, I received a letter in the mail telling me how I could
earn $50,000 dollars or more whenever I wanted. I was naturally very
skeptical and threw the letter on the desk next to my computer. It's funny
though, when you are desparate, backed into a corner, your mind does crazy
things. I spent a frustating day looking through the want ads for a job with
a future. The pickings were sparse at best. That night I tried to unwind by
booting up my computer and calling several of the message posts and than
glanced at the letter next to the computer. All at once it came to me, I
now had the key to a long jail term.
I realized that with the power of the computer I could piss people off
and enhance my stupidity into the most unbelievably poor reputation. I
substitued the computer bulletin boards in place of the post office and
electronically did by computer what others were doing 100% by mail. Now
only a few letters are mailed manually. Most of the hard work is speedily
downloaded to other bulletin boards throughout the world. If you believe
that, then you're even dumber than I thought. Someday you deserve that lucky
jail term that you have waited for all your life, simply follow the easy
instructions below. Your dreams will come true.
Sincerely yours,
Dave Rhode$ (SW Florida Dept. of Corrections)
INSTRUCTIONS
Follow these instructions EXACTLY, and in 20 to 60 days you will have
received well over 50,000 angry email flames, all yours. This program has
remained successful because of the dishonesty and non-intergrety of the
participants. Please continue its success by carefully adhering to the
instructions.
1) Immediately mail $1.00 (cash of money order, no one wants to deal with
50,000 checks for a dollar each) to the 5 names listed below starting at
number 1 through number 5. Send cash only please (total investment $5.00
and 10-20 in a federal prison cell with your lonely cellmate Bubba). Enclose
a note with each letter stating: "PLEASE ADD MY NAME TO YOUR MAILING LIST."
(THIS IS AN ILLEGITIMATE SERVICE THAT YOU ARE REQUESTING AND YOU ARE PAYING
$1.00 FOR THIS SERVICE, WHICH MAKES YOU A GRADE 'A' MORON).
2) Remove that name that appears number 1 on the list. Move the other 4
names up one position. (Number 2 will become number 1 and number 3 will
become number 2, etc.) Place your name, address and zip code in the number
5 position so that potentially violent (tm James "I am a fuckhead" Keegan)
usenet or BBS readers can come to your door and harrass you.
3) Post the new letter with your name in the number 10 position
(even though I just told you to put your name in the #5 slot...you
- are* paying attention, right?) onto ten (10) separate bulletin
boards in the message base or to the file section, call the file,
LOSE.NEURONS.FAST.
4) Within 60 days you will receive over $50,000 in CASH *OR* over
50,000 angry email letters telling you to fuck off. Keep a copy
of this file for yourself so that you can abuse it again and again
whenever you need to be yelled at. As soon as you mail out these
letters you are automatically in the mail fraud business and people
are sending you death threats. This list can then be rented to a
list broker that can be found in the Yellow Pages for additional
torment on a regular basis. The list will become less valuable as
it grows in size. This is a disservice. This is completely
illegal. If you have any doubts, refer to TITLE 18, SECTION 1302
& 1341 OF THE POSTAL LOTTERY LAWS and you'll find the minimum
sentence for mail fraud is much longer than you expected.
Remember as each post is downloaded and the instructions
carefully followed, five members will be endlessly fucked over for
their participation as a List Developer with one dollar each. Your
name will move up the list geometrically that when your name
reaches the number one position you will be receiving thousands of
messages telling you how stupid you are.
1. A. Moron 17688 E. Crestline Ave.
Aurora, CO
80015
2. Jack Ass 3313 W. Grand Ave.
Englewood, CO
80110
3. Fuck Wit Twin Towers 43-W-E
Golden, CO
80401
4. Bubba 5029 S. Michigan Ct.
Littleton, CO
80123
5. Warez D00D 3787 W. Grand Ave.
Littleton, CO
80123
[Note: these addresses were culled from one of these actual spams]
The following letters were written by participating members in this
program.
To Whom It May Concern:
At first I was skeptical of your claim that I could produce
10-20 years of federal prison time with such ease, especially
considering your poorly-written and badly misspelled letter. But
despite my skepticism, I decided to invest the $5. Imagine my
surprise when my sysop booted me off his system because of my
mailbox's unprecedented growth. Imagine my further surprise when
federal agents showed up at my front door insisting that I
accompany them to the pen to be their honored guest for the next
ten-to-twenty years. I am currently in the process of requesting
a transfer to the SW Florida Correctional Facilities where I will
have the pleasure of seeing "the man" himself and kicking his teeth
in for getting me into this predicament.
-- J. Blow, Kokomo Correctional Facility
To Whom it May Concern:
heh. not only are you a potentially violent psychopathic
homophobe, but you're also a liar and a forger. chuckle.
-- J. G. Keegan, Fuckhead at Large
1,000 Eyes
(Inspired by FUCK0109.TXT, the "Altitudes" movement of Jean
Martineaux's (sp?) Symphony #4 (Op. 53), and the song "1,000 Eyes"
by Death, and by the rather odd camera on top of the building near
16th and Tremont that is aimed at the foot traffic on 16th Street
Mall)
I walked down the sidewalk toward the high-rise jumble of
apartment buildings, absently avoiding the numerous potholes that
the city hadn't bothered patching up yet. The informant lived in
a nice area of town, considering his trade; he helped people set
up their computers, and apparently made decent money doing so. As
I stepped out of the burning sun, I caught a glimpse of the
security camera mounted on the outside of the building.
I signed in with the front desk and made my way to the
elevator, noticing more cameras in the lobby. Room 512; I knocked
politely and waited.
After several minutes I became aware of the informant's
presence on the other side of the door; I could hear him scraping
the door as he peered through the peephole. He had obviously been
looking at me for a while now, not knowing what to think. "I'm the
one you called," I said softly. "From the paper."
The bolt on his door was unlocked with a deep "snick!" and he
quickly invited me in. The shades were drawn, so there wasn't much
light filtering into the dim room. I let my eyes adjust to the
gloom.
The informant was seedy looking, like he hadn't slept in days.
Or eaten much.
"I have to make this quick," he said. "I don't have much time.
Set up your recorder or notepad or whatever, and let's get this
over with." I nodded and pulled out a tape recorder, mostly for
show. I wouldn't be needing it.
"My name is Inspector Gadget" -- I almost laughed at his
nickname, but the haunted look in his eyes stopped me -- "and I've
found out some . . . interesting things about our society." He
paused.
He seemed distracted, so I decided to prompt him a little.
"You told my editor that you had a huge story on some sort of
governmental cover-up. Something about 'a thousand eyes,' I
believe."
Startled, he resumed his story. "You may have noticed the
camera on the side of this building when you walked in. Supposedly
for 'security' reasons. There are similar cameras on buildings in
big cities all over America." When I nodded, he began talking less
hesitantly. "I've traced the signal from these cameras and found
out that the building doesn't monitor them at all. The signals lead
to a point outside the buildings, in a central location."
I broke in. "Surely you're not suggesting that the government
monitors data from thousands or even tens of thousands of cameras
across the nation? Doesn't that sound a little . . . paranoid, even
to you?"
He laughed. "Yes it does, to be honest. But not as paranoid
as a heavily armed building in the middle of the desert whose
mainframe's firewall is disguised as a harmless university
computer." He misinterpreted my surprised look as ignorance, and
explained, "a 'firewall' is a system that only lets 'trusted' data
through to the main system and that is immune to hacking.
Supposedly. Kind of like a front-end to the main system. The
firewall I found at this nexus was a nearly exact replica of the
University of Denver."
"But you still don't expect me to believe that the government
would spend thousands of man-hours sifting through this footage,
do you? Everybody knows that Uncle Sam is usually involved in shady
research, but the fact that there's a strange computer there proves
nothing," I said.
"You're forgetting the fact that I traced the signals to that
location. And the government is not wasting precious soldiers on
compiling all the data." He took a swig of Pepsi that looked
flatter than freshly-laid asphalt. "I hacked the main system. The
computer itself -- amazingly huge and more sophisticated than
anything I've ever seen before -- 'sifts through' the information.
I found artificial intelligence algorithms that completely blew
me away, and I'm known as an AI genius in some circles. What
- really* amazed me, though, was the memory on that thing. The
machine was coded using an obscure assembly language, which I had
to learn in about a week," he said with some smugness. "I ran tests
on the memory banks and the results told me that the memory on the
main system was faster than anything currently available...
to civilians, that is.
"They apparently designed this machine for the sole purpose
of picking out illegal acts or even legal gatherings to give the
government total control over its citizens."
"Have you told anyone else about this yet?" I asked.
"I've hinted about it, but I wanted to get my handle on this
story before anybody else. I'll have to lay very low for a long
time after this story hits. The feds' biggest mistake was in using
the phone lines to transmit the information. I probably would never
have found the system if it wasn't for that. Of course, that was
probably the most convenient way, and they most likely designed the
disguised firewall to discourage people who got even that
far . . . "
I stood up. "And your biggest mistake was in not telling
anybody else."
I shot him three times, and quickly rummaged through his
apartment looking for valuables. I pocketed what little he had, and
disrupted his computer and its surrounding peripheral equipment
with an EMF emitter. Before I left, I took his wallet and emptied
it of cash. Just another robbery in the big city, another
statistic.
I left the building secure in the knowledge that my face would
be unseen in the pupils of 1,000 eyes.
Something's Out There
The forest canyon stretched before us, a great green blanket
punctuated with patches of sinister darkness. I could smell the
pungent red sap which bled from the tall evergreens, as well as the
raw soil of the forest and a cool river which gurgled contentedly
as it weaved its way among the trees. We walked down a thickly
wooded hill, surveying the destruction. The sound of softly
crunching brown pine needles and the steady ticking of Bob's Geiger
counter were unnerving in the silence which shrouded the forest.
The scar that seemed to violate the forest's purity was obviously
new -- the trees that had been snapped by the incredible force were
still bleeding. The clay that had been beneath the torn earth
glistened wetly.
"Let's go find it," said Bob.
* * * * *
By the time we reached the clearing where the object had come
to rest, Bob's Geiger counter was no longer registering radiation.
It wasn't registering normal background radiation either, which was
puzzling and frightening. I turned my attention to the metallic
sphere which was resting in the center of the newly-made clearing.
The object had a haze of steam around it; it was reddish in
color and disintegrated even as I watched it. There were no
distinguishing features on the sphere. No dirt or leaves had gotten
stuck to it as it had plunged through the trees. As I watched, a
drop of sap fell from a crippled branch which hung above the object
-- and rolled right off of it. I was reminded of the wood-burning
stove we had when I was younger. I used to flick water at it, and
the droplets would skitter and roll off the stove like marbles
rolling down a slope.
Bob alternated between staring at the sphere in awe and
glancing at his silent Geiger counter in bewilderment. He was
standing almost directly beneath a great arc of the ship when the
thing took off. I watched in horror as Bob was reduced to blackened
char on the forest floor.
* * * * *
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you've heard Mister
Franklin's testimony of what happened the afternoon of August
ninth, nineteen-ninety-three," said the prosecuting attorney. "Now
I ask you to decide which you find more plausible: That Robert
Modero was vaporized in a fight with a twenty-ton spaceship" -- the
audience in the courtroom snickered a bit at that -- "or that Mr.
Franklin burned him while he slept.--"
"Do you think I destroyed seventeen miles of trees to cover
up a murder?" I screamed. The judge was shouting something, but I
was too far gone to understand him.
The trial went badly. I remember snippets of the judge's
monologue: "...remanded into the custody of the . . . Center for
evaluation of . . . until such time as . . . is determined to be
sane and accountable for . . . stand trial for the murder of Robert
Modero." I remember as well my final words to the assembly:
"You don't understand! Are you blind, didn't you see the
marks? The scars? They'll be back someday! They marked this world
for their own!"
"*Something's out there, and it's coming back!*"
"Rebirth"
1.
Rob staggered down the white sidewalk. He was on his way
home from the faceless bar that he had talked himself into entering
with the intention of getting drunk. He had been quite successful
in his efforts, and was now trying to plow a path to his apartment
through the deep snow with his loafers. Looking at the sidewalk
after he had passed, an observer would have noticed a winding,
snakelike trail in the snow, courtesy of Rob's drunken meandering.
As Rob meandered he saw a man hunched over in an alleyway.
Rob paused, calculating how much change he would give the guy if
he asked for some. The man looked up, his eyes filled with agony.
"Help me," he rasped. Then his eyes went flat and cold.
The man appeared to be supported from the inside. A faint
ripping sound floated to Rob's ears on the frigid wind, and the
man's body jerked. A dark form emerged from his back.
Dimly, Rob felt his alcohol-swollen bladder release. He stared
in horror at the monstrosity which was so alien, and yet so very
familiar. It was a moth.
A five-foot tall moth.
It swivelled its oddly-jointed head and looked at Rob with
eyes that resembled nothing so much as mirrored disco balls.
"Human," it buzzed with loathing.
He ran.
2.
He woke up with a hangover and unpleasant memories the next
day. He laughed with co-workers about his "strange dream," but
couldn't quite shake the feeling of unease which had settled over
him like a cold, unfamiliar blanket. After work he decided to drive
around and try to find the area he had visited last night. Since
he was driving he made a mental note to avoid bars tonight.
Besides, he thought, I don't want to be drunk if...anything
happens.
After driving around for several hours, he finally found the
area he had been in the night before. It was dark and vaguely
menacing, although Rob couldn't pinpoint an exact reason. Perhaps
it had something to do with the grafitti scrawled on the side of
the supermarket ahead: "GET OUT."
Rob shivered and cranked up his heater a few notches. A
flickering from the streetlights caught his attention, and when he
looked up, he noticed a figure walking through the snow, stooped
over against the cold. Something was troubling Rob, but he couldn't
quite figure out what it was until he saw the streetlights flicker
again.
Each light faded out when the stooped figure passed under it.
When the figure had passed, the light slowly brightened again.
He realized that the creature -- Moth! screamed his brain --
was somehow stealing the electricity from each light that it passed
beneath.
In sudden horror, and with an instinctive, ancient hatred he
didn't understand, Rob floored the accelerator and rammed his car
into the shambling creature. The car spun out, and Rob caught a
final glimpse of the broken figure pirouetting through the cold
night air before the car hit a telephone post. His head bounced off
the steering wheel, and he blacked out
When he came to, he felt like he had been out for hours. The
car was still warm, however, and there was no fog on the
windshield; it had probably been only a few seconds. He half fell
out of his car, blood dripping from a gash in his forehead which
he was barely aware of. Rob staggered over to where the shattered
body of the moth-creature lay.
Still alive, but hanging on by a thread, he thought as its
disco-ball eye turned to look at him. There was a deep buzzing
sound coming from the inside of the creature, probably its last
breaths. The monster was either trying to say something or moving
its mandibles randomly. Rob hesitated for a fraction of a second,
and then stooped down to hear what the thing was saying.
One uv uz...one uv uz...one uv uz, it buzzed.
"No!" he screamed, and began stomping the moth-creature
violently. When it was no longer moving Rob ran back to his
demolished car. He tried frantically to start it, but the engine
wouldn't catch. Blood dribbled into his eyes, and he mopped at his
forehead in panic...and stopped suddenly.
He looked into the rear-view mirror with fresh horror, more
terrified than he had ever been before.
A six-inch long fuzzy antenna was poking out of the gash in
his forehead.
_Hackers_
I just got back from the sneak preview of _Hackers_. Overall, the movie was
good, but it was lacking in certain areas.
The movie opens with an FBI raid on a hacker called "Zero Cool", an
11-year-old virus writer who crashed 1507 systems in a single day with his
virus. The judge banned ZC from computers until his 18th birthday. 7 years
pass, and Zero has moved to New York with his mom. Here we see the first real
evidence of hacking, as Zero takes over the OTV television station by "social
engineering" OTV's security officer ("my BLT drive is giving me problems"),
and he gets dial-up numbers to the studio's modems. He hacks into the studio
network and changes the tape to the Outer Limits. Crash collides with another
hacker -- Acid Burn -- and changes his handle on the spot when he realizes he
doesn't want to be Zero Cool any more; His new handle is Crash Override. Acid
and Crash use the robots at the studio to fight over which tape gets played.
There are several other cool parts here. Crash hacks the school's system more
than once, getting himself into the cute girl hacker's advanced English class
and cracking the school's security grid to cause all the fire sprinklers to go
off at a preset time.
Crash meets Cereal Killer (Real Name: Emmanuel Goldstein, which all you 2600
buffs will recognize immediately). We get to see Penn Jilette playing a
security guard.
Crash and Acid hold a contest to see who can fuck up Hacker Hunter Richard
Gill's life the most; Acid changes Gill's credit card validity and causes
it to be destroyed; Crash puts a personal ad in the paper in Gill's name
asking for transsexuals and people into watersports to call Gill's office
number; Acid gives Gill 113 DUI violations through a police computer; Crash
changes Gill's records to show him deceased. Fun stuff.
Cons: on Hack the Planet (a pirate TV show), a useless redbox method is
detailed (tape record the quarter tones from a payfone and play them back to
get $5.00 worth of free calls. Right. Maybe if you live In Siberia. . .
everyone else just makes a redbox. There were also far too many crappy virtual
reality simulations (these guys are hacking through laptops, not SGI
workstations).
The virus subplot could have been a little stronger. The movie did not make me
care about the fact that the virus was on the verge of sinking oil tankers
across the globe.
Bonus: the feds read part of the Hacker's Manifesto by Mentor, a real-life
text file written a while ago. For my non-hacker readers, here is the complete
text from Phrack issue 7 (reprinted without permission):
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The following was written shortly after my arrest...
\/\The Conscience of a Hacker/\/
by
+++The Mentor+++
Written on January 8, 1986
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Another one got caught today, it's all over the papers. "Teenager
Arrested in Computer Crime Scandal", "Hacker Arrested after Bank Tampering"...
Damn kids. They're all alike.
But did you, in your three-piece psychology and 1950's technobrain,
ever take a look behind the eyes of the hacker? Did you ever wonder what
made him tick, what forces shaped him, what may have molded him?
I am a hacker, enter my world...
Mine is a world that begins with school... I'm smarter than most of
the other kids, this crap they teach us bores me...
Damn underachiever. They're all alike.
I'm in junior high or high school. I've listened to teachers explain
for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I understand it. "No, Ms.
Smith, I didn't show my work. I did it in my head..."
Damn kid. Probably copied it. They're all alike.
I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is
cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it's because I
screwed it up. Not because it doesn't like me...
Or feels threatened by me...
Or thinks I'm a smart ass...
Or doesn't like teaching and shouldn't be here...
Damn kid. All he does is play games. They're all alike.
And then it happened... a door opened to a world... rushing through
the phone line like heroin through an addict's veins, an electronic pulse is
sent out, a refuge from the day-to-day incompetencies is sought... a board is
found.
"This is it... this is where I belong..."
I know everyone here... even if I've never met them, never talked to
them, may never hear from them again... I know you all...
Damn kid. Tying up the phone line again. They're all alike...
You bet your ass we're all alike... we've been spoon-fed baby food at
school when we hungered for steak... the bits of meat that you did let slip
through were pre-chewed and tasteless. We've been dominated by sadists, or
ignored by the apathetic. The few that had something to teach found us will-
ing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in the desert.
This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the
beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying
for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and
you call us criminals. We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek
after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color,
without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals.
You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us
and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals.
Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is
that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like.
My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me
for.
I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this
individual,
but you can't stop us all... after all, we're all alike.
+++The Mentor+++
_______________________________________________________________________________
This movie gets a B.
How to submit:
Entropy will be dedicated to distributing quality fiction to the electronic
masses. It will also be a (limited) forum for political articles and possibly
a small amount of non-fiction, such as articles on hacking. The ratio of
Fiction to Non-fiction will be approximately 90%-10%. I will review
submissions in the following categories:
Fiction
Sci-Fi
Horror
Comedy
Mainstream
Fantasy
Quasi-Fiction
Humor (Dave Barry- or PLA-type humor)
Non-Fiction
Political commentary
How-to (hacking, phreaking)
Reviews
Games (arcade or home systems)
Books
Movies
Other zines
Current-events or newsworthy stories
By "Dave Barry- or PLA-type humor," I mean the kind of humor that starts out
as an anecdote from reality which quickly introduces elements of hyperbole, or
actual news stories that are genuinely funny without exaggeration.
Be aware that this is by no means a complete list of valid material. If you
have something in mind that you don't see on the list, send me a brief
description of your idea (but not the entire submission) and I will get
back to you.
I can be reached on the internet at spordon@nyx10.cs.du.edu.
-Legion
Hope you enjoyed this issue. The next one will be out within 2 months, I
hope.