💾 Archived View for aphrack.org › issues › phrack39 › 2.gmi captured on 2021-12-04 at 18:04:22. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2021-12-03)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
==Phrack Inc.==
Volume Four, Issue Thirty-Nine, File 2 of 13
[-=:< Phrack Loopback >:=-]
By Phrack Staff
Phrack Loopback is a forum for you, the reader, to ask questions, air
problems, and talk about what ever topic you would like to discuss. This is
also the place Phrack Staff will make suggestions to you by reviewing various
items of note; magazines, software, catalogs, hardware, etc.
_______________________________________________________________________________
A Review of Steve Jackson Games' HACKER
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By Deluge
They had to get around to it eventually. While I was scanning the game section
at the not-so-well-stocked game and comic store where I shop on occasion, I saw
something that caught my eye: A game called "Hacker" by Steve Jackson Games.
What you see on the cover gives you a clue that this game is a bit more than
the typical trash we see about hackers. Here we have a guy with a leather
jacket with a dinosaur pin, John Lennon shades, a Metallica shirt, and a really
spiffy spiked hairdo. This guy has an expression with a most wicked grin, and
his face is bathed in the green glow of a monitor. Various decorations in the
room include a model rocket, a skateboard, a pizza box, and a couple of Jolt
Cola cans. Behind him, hanging on his wall, are a couple of posters, one which
says, "Legion of Doom Internet World Tour," and another which says, "Free the
Atlanta Three." On his bookshelf, we see a copy of Neuromancer, Illuminati
BBS, and The Phoenix-- (I assume "Project" follows, and don't ask me why this
guy has BBSes in his bookshelf). Finally, there's a note tacked to the LOD
poster that says "PHRACK SummerCon CyberView, St. Louis" which appears to be an
invitation of some kind.
This struck me as quite interesting.
Twenty bucks interesting, as it turns out, and I think it was twenty well
spent. Now don't tell me Steve Jackson Games has no significance for you
(sigh). Ok, here is how Steve tells it (in the intro to the game):
-----
"In 1990, Steve Jackson Games was raided by the U.S. Secret Service during a
'hacker hunt' that went disastrously out of control. We lost several
computers, modems, and other equipment. Worse, we lost the manuscripts to
several uncompleted games, most notably _GURPS Cyberpunk_, which a Secret
Service agent the next day called 'a handbook for computer crime.' The company
had to lay off half its staff, and narrowly avoided bankruptcy.
"Eventually we got most of our property back (though some of it was damaged or
destroyed). The Secret Service admitted that we'd never been a target of their
investigation. We have a lawsuit pending against the officials and agencies
responsible.
"But since the day of the raid, gamers have been asking us, 'When are you going
to make a game about it?' Okay. We give up. Here it is. Have fun."
-----
Weeeell...everybody naturally wants to look as good as they can, right? For
the real lowdown on the whole situation, a scan through some old CUDs would be
in order, where you could find a copy of the warrant which authorized this
raid. I can tell you that Loyd Blankenship is the author of SJG's _GURPS
Cyberpunk_, so draw your own conclusions.
Hacker is played with cards. This does NOT, in my view, make it a card game,
though it is advertised that way. It's pretty similar to Illuminati, requiring
a lot of diplomacy, but it has a totally different flavor.
The goal here is to become the mondo superhacker king of the net by getting
access on twelve systems. You build the net as you go along, upgrading your
system, hacking systems, and looking for ways to screw your fellow hackers so
they can't be king of the net before you can get around to it. While the
hacking aspect is necessarily resolved by a dice roll, the other aspects of
this game ring true. They distinguish between regular and root access on
systems, have specific OSes, specific net types, NetHubs, secret indials, back
doors, and, of course, the feds, which range from local police to combined
raids from the FBI and other government authorities.
This is a good game all on its own. It's fun, it has a fair amount of
strategy, lots of dirty dealing, and a touch of luck to spice things up. And
if things get too hairy and blood is about to flow, they inevitably cool down
when someone uses a special card. Quite a few of these are funny as hell.
Some examples:
Trashing: Somebody threw away an old backup disk. Bad idea. You can leave
them e-mail about it...from their own account.
Get A Life: A new computer game ate your brain. 100 hours later, you beat it,
and you're ready to get back to hacking, but you get only one hack
this turn. There is another one of these about meeting a member
of the opposite sex and briefly entertaining the notion that there
is more to life than hacking.
Original Manuals: The official system manuals explain many possible security
holes. This is good. Some system administrators ignore
them. This is bad. They usually get away with it because
most people don't have the manuals. This is good. But
YOU have a set of manuals. This is very interesting.
Social Engineering: "This is Joe Jones. My password didn't work. Can you
reset it to JOE for me?" There is another one of these
that says something about being the phone company checking
the modem line, what's your root password please.
And my favorite, a card designed to be played to save yourself from a raid:
Dummy Equipment: The investigators took your TV and your old Banana II, but
they overlooked the real stuff! No evidence, no bust -- and
you keep your system.
As you can see, this game goes pretty far toward catching the flavor of the
real scene, though some of it is necessarily stereotypical. Well, enough
praise. Here are a couple of gripes.
The game is LONG. A really nasty group of players can keep this going for
hours. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but be forewarned. A few
modifications to shorten it up are offered, but the short game is a little like
masturbating. Just not as good as the real thing.
There was too much work to get the game ready to play. I've gotten used to
some amount of setting up SJGs, and believe me, I would not have bought more
unless they were good, and they always are, but the setup has not usually been
such a pain. HACKER has a lot of pieces, and a lot of them come on a single
page, requiring you to hack them out with scissors and hope you don't do
something retarded like cut the wrong thing off. Once I got done with this,
everything was cool, but this was a real pain.
So, overall, what do I think? Four stars. If you play games, or if you're
just massively hip to anything about hacking, get this game. You're gonna need
at least three players, preferably four or five (up to six can play), so if
you only know one person, don't bother unless you have some hope of getting
someone else to game with you.
And when Dr. Death or the K-Rad Kodez Kid calls you up and wonders where you've
been lately, just tell him you're busy dodging feds, covering your tracks, and
hacking for root in every system you find in your quest to call yourself king
of the net, and if he doesn't support you...well, you know what to do with
posers who refuse to believe you're God, don't you?
Muahahahahahahaahaha!
_______________________________________________________________________________
CPSR Listserv
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) has set up a list
server to (1) archive CPSR-related materials and make them available on
request, and (2) disseminate relatively official, short, CPSR-related
announcements (e.g., press releases, conference announcements, and project
updates). It is accessible via Internet and Bitnet e-mail. Mail traffic will
be light; the list is set up so that only the CPSR Board and staff can post to
it. Because it is self-subscribing, it easily makes material available to a
wide audience.
We encourage you to subscribe to the list server and publicize it widely,
to anyone interested in CPSR's areas of work.
To subscribe, send mail to:
listserv@gwuvm.gwu.edu (Internet) OR
listserv@gwuvm (Bitnet)
Your message needs to contain only one line:
subscribe cpsr <your first name> <your last name>
You will get a message that confirms your subscription. The message also
explains how to use the list server to request archived materials (including
an index of everything in CPSR's archive), and how to request more information
about the list server.
Please continue to send any CPSR queries to cpsr@csli.stanford.edu.
If you have a problem with the list server, please contact the administrator,
Paul Hyland (phyland@gwuvm.gwu.edu or phyland@gwuvm).
We hope you enjoy this new service.
_______________________________________________________________________________
TRW Allows Inspection
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
According to USA Today, as of April 30, you can get a free copy of your TRW
credit report once a year by writing to:
TRW Consumer Assistance
P.O. Box 2350
Chatsworth, CA 91313-2350
Include all of the following in your letter:
- Full name including middle initial and generation such as Jr, Sr, III etc.
- Current address and ZIP code.
- All previous addresses and ZIPs for past five years.
- Social Security number.
- Year of birth.
- Spouse's first name.
- A photocopy of a billing statement, utility bill, driver's license or other
document that links your name with the address where the report should be
mailed.
_______________________________________________________________________________
The POWER Computer Lives!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Do the words of the prophet Abraham Epstein ring true? (Remember him from his
correspondence in Phrack 36 Loopback?)
If you don't believe that The IBM/TV Power Computer and is attempting to take
over the world then read the following and judge for yourself.
o IBM is the worlds largest corporation.
o IBM has more in assets than most small countries.
o In 1991 IBM and it's arch enemy, Apple Computer, have joined forces to build
the POWER computer.
o The POWER computer will replace all existing Macintosh, PS/2, and
RS/6000 machines.
o The POWER architecture will be licenced to third-party companies in order
that they may build their own POWER computers.
o With both Apple Computer (QuickTime) and IBM (Ultimedia) advancing their
work on Multimedia, it can only mean that the POWER computer will speak
through TV.
- - - - - - - - -
Here are some quotes from Harley Hahn of IBM's Advanced Workstation Division:
"PowerOpen is a computing architecture based on AIX and the POWER
Architecture. To that we've added the PowerPC architecture [a low-
end implementation if POWER ] and the Macintosh interface and
applications."
"Our goal is to create the major RISC computing industry standard
based on the PowerPC architecture and the PowerOpen environment."
"Eventually all our workstations will use POWER"
- - - - - - - - -
Here's a quote from Doug McLean of Apple Computer:
"It is our intention to replace the 68000 in our entire line of
Macintosh computers with PowerPC chips."
- - - - - - - - -
The PROPHECY IS COMING TRUE. We have no time to lose. Unless we act quickly
the world will come to an abrupt end as the POWER COMPUTER passes wind on all
of us.
Abraham Epstein [Big Daddy Plastic Recycling Corporation]
[Plastic Operations With Energy Resources (POWER)]
_______________________________________________________________________________
Major Virus Alert
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
George Bush Virus - Doesn't do anything, but you can't get rid of it
until November.
Ted Kennedy Virus - Crashes your computer, but denies it ever happened.
Warren Commission Virus - Won't allow you to open your files for 75 years
Jerry Brown Virus - Blanks your screen and begins flashing an 800 number.
David Duke Virus - Makes your screen go completely white.
Congress Virus - Overdraws your disk space.
Paul Tsongas Virus - Pops up on Dec. 25 and says "I'm Not Santa Claus."
Pat Buchanan Virus - Shifts all output to the extreme right of the screen.
Dan Quayle Virus - Forces your computer to play "PGA TOUR" from 10am to
4pm, 6 days a week
Bill Clinton Virus - This virus mutates from region to region. We're not
exactly sure what it does.
Richard Nixon Virus - Also know as the "Tricky Dick Virus." You can wipe
it out, but it always makes a comeback.
H. Ross Perot Virus - Same as the Jerry Brown virus, only nicer fonts are
used, and it appears to have had a lot more money put
into its development.
_______________________________________________________________________________
AUDIO LINKS
~~~~~~~~~~~
By Mr. Upsetter
It all started with my Macintosh...
Some time ago I had this crazy idea of connecting the output from the audio
jack of my Macintosh to the phone line. Since the Macintosh has built in sound
generation hardware, I could synthesize any number of useful sounds and play
them over the phone. For instance, with a sound editing program like
SoundEdit, it is easy to synthesize call progress tones, DTMF and MF tones, red
box, green box, and other signalling tones. So I set out to do exactly this.
I created a set of synthesized sounds as sound resources using SoundEdit. Then
I wrote a HyperCard stack for the purpose of playing these sounds. Now all I
needed was a circuit to match the audio signal from the headphone jack of my
Mac to the phone line.
How The Circuit Works
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I designed a simple passive circuit that does the job quite well. Here is the
schematic diagram.
+------+ T1 +------+
o-----| R1 |-----o------o--------(| |)-----| C1 |-----o-----o
+------+ +| -| (| |) +------+ |
+---+ +---+ (| |) +---+
to Mac | D | | D | 8 (| |) 500 |VR | to
headphone | 1 | | 2 | ohm (| |) ohm | 1 | phone
jack +---+ +---+ (| |) +---+ line
-| +| (| |) |
o------------------o------o--------(| |)------------------o-----o
C1-.22 uF, 200V
D1,D2- 1N4148 switching diode
R1-620 ohm, 1/4W
T1- 8 ohm to 500 ohm audio transformer, Mouser part 42TL001
VR1-300V MOV, Mouser part 570-V300LA4
VR1 is a 300V surge protector to guard against transient high voltages.
Capacitor C1 couples the phone line to transformer T1, blocking the phone
line's DC voltage but allowing the AC audio signal to pass. The transformer
matches the impedance of the phone line to the impedance of the headphone jack.
Diodes D1 and D2 provide clipping for additional ringing voltage protection
(note their polarity markings in the schematic). They will clip any signal
above 7 volts. Resistor R1 drops the volume of the audio signal from the Mac
to a reasonable level. The end result is a circuit that isolates the Mac from
dangerous phone line voltages and provides a good quality audio link to the
phone line.
Building and Using the Circut
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This simple circuit is easy to build (if you're handy with electronics). I
personally prefer to solder the circuit together. A length of shielded audio
cable with a 1/8 inch mono plug on one end should be connected to the audio
input end of the circuit. A standard RJ11 phone jack should be connected to
the phone line end of the circuit. Although this circuit will protect against
dangerous phone line voltages, it is best to disconnect it when not in use.
You just don't want to risk anything bad happening to your brand new Quadra
900, right?
Once you have an audio link between your Mac and the phone line, the
applications are limitless. Use HyperCard's built-in DTMF dialing to dial for
you, or build a memory dialer stack. Talk to people with Macintalk. Play your
favorite Ren and Stimpy sounds for your friends. Play a ringback tone to
"transfer" people to an "extension". Build and use a set of synthesized MF
tones. Try to trick COCOT's with synthesized busy and reorder signals.
But Wait, There Is More...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So you say you don't own a Macintosh? That is ok, because the circuit can be
used with other devices besides your Mac. You can use it with the 8 ohm
headphone output from tape recorders, radios, scanners, etc. You could also
probably use it with any other computer as long as you had the proper audio D/A
hardware and software to create sounds.
All parts are available from Mouser Electronics. Call 800-346-6873 for a free
catalog.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Thank You Disk Jockey!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Date: May 22, 1992
From: Sarlo
To: Phrack
Subject: The Disk Jockey
I was searching through some Phracks (issues 30-38), just checking them out and
noticed something. It's small and insignificant, I guess, but important to me
all the same.
I noticed in Disk Jockey's Prophile (Phrack 34, File 3) that he "Never got any
thanks for keeping his mouth shut."..I dunno how to get ahold of him or
anything, but if you drop a line to him sometime, tell him I said "thanks."
-Sarlo
_______________________________________________________________________________
An Upset Reader Responds To Knight Lightning and Phrack
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Date: Mon, 20 Apr 92 16:57 GMT
From: "Thomas J. Klotzbach" <0003751365@mcimail.com>
To: Knight Lightning <kl@stormking.com>
Subject: In response to your comments of Phrack Vol 4, Issue 37, File 2 of 14
Hi,
I have a lot of respect for Phrack and all the work they are doing to
promote an understanding of the Computer Underground. But your comments in the
latest issue of Phrack are what I would like to comment on.
You say:
"In short -- I speak on behalf of the modem community in general,
'FUCK OFF GEEK!' Crawl back under the rock from whence you came
and go straight to hell!"
First, you don't speak for me and about five other people at this college.
I have maintained throughout that the ONLY way to further the efforts of the
Computer Underground is to destroy them with logic - not with creton-like
comments. Yes, you are entitled to your say - but why not take this Dale Drew
person and destroy him with logic? The minute that you descend to the level
Dale Drew operates from makes you look just as ridiculous as him.
In my opinion, you came off very poorly in the exchange with Dale Drew.
Thomas J. Klotzbach MCI Mail: 375-1365
Genesee Community College Internet: 3751365@mcimail.com
Batavia, NY 14020 Work: (716) 343-0055 x358
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Dear Mr. Klotzbach,
>From all of us at Phrack, this is our reply to your recent email...