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January 2000 - Issue 2
============================================================================

Whats In This Issue:
    # The leader of ALOC speaks to us and gives us some info for securing
      a newly installed system
    # Crackers deface the Australian Broadcasting Authority's (ABA)
      website three times in as many weeks
    # A story by an anonymous person telling of the Australian government's
      plans to silence certian individuals
    # How the Australian internet censorship laws that take effect on
      January 1st will affect you
    # The Victorian State Government Y2K readiness webpage defaced

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The Interview Of Phrost Byte: The Leader Of ALOC.  |   http://www.aloc.cc
--------------------------------------------------
Background:
ALOC stands for Australias Legion of Cyberpunkz. ALOC's purpose is to
provide knowledge for aussie hackers and aussie phreakers from their 
website. ALOC has copped a bit of flack lately from organisations like
2600 Australia. ALOC is rather popular with hacking groups as there are 
many postings on the wwwboard by aussie hacking groups. In my opinion
ALOC doesnt deserve all the flack they get. I had the chance to talk to 
Phrost Byte the founder of ALOC and didnt find him lame at all. Anyways 
here's the interview:

QuadCon: If you were a system administrator of a newly installed Slackware
Linux machine and you had 20 minutes to secure it what would you do?

Phrost Byte: - The first and most important thing is to take the box off
the network (assuming it was on one, either a local or wide/internet),
this will stop external probes, etc from occuring whilst securing the
box. Next remove the startup services/daemons that are not required
such as mountd, fingerd, sendmail, talkd, etc. The services which need to
be removed really depend on what the box is to be used for. If they must
be used, make sure the latest version and patches have been applied and
keep current with security posts from the vendor. Then remove all
unnecessary suids, this will prevent buffer overflows being used on them
and reduce the amount of patches to look out for. Install a third party
logging program such as tcplogd, and an Intrusion Detection System such
as portsentry, and lastly make sure the shadow password suite has been
installed correctly! Then connect it back to the network, and if time
permits, update the kernel :) (This answer is based on a cleanly installed
Slackware distribution on a machine that has not previously been broken
into, no trojans, etc.)

QuadCon: What is the most common thing to hack to gain access to?

Phrost Byte: - If you mean 'hack' as in breaking into a machine, then
I would say either a default installed UNIX based machine (running
outdated daemons, sample cgi scripts, etc), or buffer overflows.

QuadCon: How would you characterize the media coverage of you?

Phrost Byte: - I myself have never been in the media, but it portrays
'hackers' with their own bias in order to sell their story and suit their
needs. It is always the same old 'bad hackers' story, labelling credit
card frauders as 'hackers'. To the media, if a crime involves technology,
it's 'hacking'.

QuadCon: What do you think about hacks done in your name--for instance,
the recent webpage hacks?

Phrost Byte: - There has only been one defacement in my name, and my
opinion on that was explained in another defacement by me, which I should
not have done and should instead have posted the information contained
therein to my site. In reference to the 'ALOC' defacements, you first
must understand what ALOC is all about. It is NOT a group of people,
there is no set list of members. It is an attempt to get the Australian
Underground organised, and make it easier for the .au members to find
each other and gain more knowledge. I am not fussed with people doing
defacements using the ALOC name, as ALOC is supposed to be the .au
underground collectively. But I do dislike defacements done in an attempt
to defame / degrade me. Even if I did dislike these defacements, there
is no way I could stop them.

QuadCon: What's the biggest misconception perpetuated by Hollywood cybermovies?

Phrost Byte: - All movies are extremely exagerrated. Look at action movies
for example, how many times has Harison Ford saved the day, or Michael
Myers cheated death?? Movies are purely for entertainment purposes, I have
no problem with cybermovies, and enjoy them for the fact that they are
meant for entertainment. So what if 'hacking' isn't really all the fancy
graphics portrayed in a movie, do you think a movie viewer is going to enjoy
a black screen with white text scroll up it!? The public will never know
what 'hacking' is really like, and no movie could show the perserverence and 
frustration of 'rooting' a box without the viewer literally falling asleep. 
The biggest misconception is the glorification of 'hackers'.

QuadCon: In your own words, define hacker.

Phrost Byte: - Someone who improves upon the existing. Making things flow
together, organsied and neat. One who has a great interest in technology,
likes to control it, and push it to the limits.

QuadCon: What is your technical background. (Which platform do you prefer
PC/MAC? What is your online background? Do you do networking? Do you know 
programming languages,etc.)

Phrost Byte: - My first computer was an IBM 486 and I have stuck with the
PC since. I have little to no experience with Macs.. except for a quick play
with the iMacs at Uni. My online background being the Internet, and not
really experencing BBS's, or X.25 networks is quite substanstial being one
of the Internet generation. I have a small network at home consisting of
a few machines, each running a different Operating System (Windows95/98,
RedHat Linux, and SCO UNIX). I originally learned to program in BASIC on
the Commodore-64 (didn't everybody?), then progressed to gaming consoles,
and programming went out the window until I aquired my first PC. I tampered
with alot of batch programming, and I am now proficient in a number of
languages including C and C++, Perl, and Assembly. Between my personal
endeavours in computers, and my University studies (Bachelor of Science
in Computer Science) I feel I have a large technical background and
programming knowledge.

QuadCon: I understand that hackers assume an online nickname to become known
by - how did you acquire your nickname?

Phrost Byte: - I was running through handles one day, and I needed one
that showed my interest in phreaking and hacking (see my above definition).
I glanced down at an old magazine laying on the floor, and there was an
advertisement for a club called 'Frost Bites', a change of letters and it
became 'Phrost Byte' the 'ph' for the phreakers facination with changing
f's to ph's and the byte ... duh :)

QuadCon: What do you portray system administrators are like?

Phrost Byte: - A person probably straight out of finishing a computer
related University or TAFE degree, after only choosing the course because
the career guidance counsellor said that computers are the way of the
future. One who doesnt have a main interest in computers other than using
them for playing games on.

QuadCon: What do you think of Halcon, another aussie hacking group?

Phrost Byte: - I do not believe that it is necessary for me to have, or
to form, an opinion on Halcon, or any other .au hacking group/individual.
Besides, aren't we all in this for the same reasons? :)

QuadCon: What currently is ALOC working on?

Phrost Byte: - ALOC is not currently working on anything as such, as it
is simply a network of individuals as opposed to a group with specific
goals and targets. It is a name which people align themseleves with under
the common ambition of freedom of information. As for myself.. keeping
the page updated :)

QuadCon: What would you like ALOC to be in the future?

Phrost Byte: - The site to be known as one of the leading references for
the .au underground mainly in the area of phreaking (as most others are
universal such as 'hacking'). Also for it to be known as an organisation
that brought together all stratas of the cyberpunk community, and removed
the elitist / lamer barrier, and the group rivalry pettiness from 'hacking'
in Australia.

QuadCon: Who in the world do you dislike most?

Phrost Byte: - I dont dislike any one person, but I do dislike egos :/

QuadCon: Any last comments?

Phrost Byte: - I hope that one day people will overcome their so-called
elitist views and accept that something new is attempting to benefit the
whole rather than the individual as opposed to supressing it, and being
the 'one and only'.

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The Australian Broadcasting Authority's Hack   |   http://www.aba.gov.au
---------------------------------------------
Over the last few weeks the Australian Broadcasting Authority's
(ABA) website has defaced three times by a person calling himself Ned_R
and omni. "We're investigating, and awaiting a report from our ISP," said
ABA spokeswoman Anne Hewer. Ned_R put obscenities on the site saying how
no censorship would stop him.

The following is what was added to the bottom of the defaced page by the
Ned_R:

  "YOU CANT FUCKING CENSOR ME... if a message wants to get out..it 
   will..leave it up to the au gov to make sure we stay in te dark
   ages... people only now can get connectivity USA has enjoyed for
   years ...and now one of te greatest resources we gave for free
   speech and afree learning will be stifled by a vocal minority
   with no understanding of the underlying technology stand up
   now..and fight for your rights..if you want to be able to decide
   for YOURSELF what you can and cant read... i say once again..
   ...LOUD and clear.. the internet is NOT a babysitter.. wou wouldnt
   let them roam the streets... dont let them roam the world... dont 
   let your bad parenting spoil it for others... go buy a fucking
   clue.. ------ greetz and respect to the usuals.kat.etc.analognet.
   and barry heh... and a big FUCK YOU CNUTSUCKING SMEGWHORES to au
   gov..  clueless fucks... i digress.. adios... Ned R ----- p.s.
   admin.. dont bother.. you wont trace me... and im not coming back
   here.. my point is made.. if i get time one day ill secure it for
   you...luv and kisses.. Ned R  ---pp.s My spelling sucked real bad
   cos i was high on methyldioxymethamphetamines and crack..."

Ned_R's second defacement appears to have occurred sometime in the early
hours of Friday morning but the site was offline almost the whole day while
the admins tryed and fixed the security hole. The hole still isnt fixed
and by using Magna's firewall to try and protect the website wont work 
either.

The following is what was added to the bottom of the defaced page by omni:

"omni owns this page. Shoutz - sh33p, NtWh0re, pewp, CraiK, biowin, xlr, 
rewbs, sect, Black_Plauge. 2@#$ too bad if i forgot you" 

Omni's defacement occured on Wednesday. He left a short message at the
bottom of the site.

Details on what exploit was used on this site are hard to find but quadcon
has learned that it was an exploit known as RDS. RDS is the name of the
API between the web server component, IIS and ODBC databases on the
server. This function is provided by a program called MDAC. MDAC 1.5 is
installed by default with IIS 4.0 on Windows NT. The exploit works by
inserting a command into the database then a buffer overflow. The command
is executed  with system level priveliges. The RDS hack can only execute
single line commands (or a series of them. Website defacers generally use
something along the lines of this:

echo "you are owned" >> c:\InetPub\WWWROOT\Default.htm

The end result of this is that the words "you are owned" are added to
the bottom of the page (in this case Default.htm). The NT hacks listed
on Attition.org are usally just a hacked page with a single line of
text. This is because the defacer used > instead of >> (> replaces
the file while >> adds the command to the bottom of the file.

If you're interested in more information about this, check:

      http://www.wiretrip.net/rfp/

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Australian Government Silencing Certain Individuals
----------------------------------------------------
Note: This story was written by a person who for his protection will be
named CitizenX. It has been taken with permission from:

	http://www.halcon.com.au/bigbrother.html           

Keep checking this page as it has ongoing writings whenever CitizenX 
contacts Halcon.

As I sit here writing this, I realise that out there I am on the 'most
wanted' list of Australia. I am Citizen X, for years I have been in the
Australian underground, and I am probably one of the highest profile
political hackers in Australia. Telstra and Optus have been wanting me
out of the scene for years. 

My crime is that I tell the truth, my crime is that I seek the truth. For
this I am marked as a dangerous criminal mastermind by 'them'. Who -is-
Big Brother I hear you ask? 

Big Brother is what we call them, the conglomeration of the government,
the federal bodies, the police (state and federal, as well as all the
little spook divisions on the side) and also into 'them' goes the 
corporations. The corporations -do- have power in the 'system' because
they have the money. We all know the government loves them and will back
them to the hilt. 

Six months ago Big Brother had no idea who I was, except I made one
mistake. I trusted Australia's privacy laws and a corporation. I was
asked to call a mates school and make a bomb threat just to get him
out of class, which is pretty lame, I agree, however I wanted to see
whether our privacy existed, or whether Australia is as bad as America
when it comes to monitoring the populace and controlling them. 

A few weeks ago I was called up by a spook, he said that the call was
traced to my cellular phone and that due to the fact I gave a fake
address for the account, I am on the most wanted list. He said that
my options are to turn myself in, or be hunted down practically. 

Now normally a prank call is let go of, however, when the police got
to the school they said, in their over ambitious way, that they found
'seven potentially explosive devices' in the premises. Mind you there
was nothing in the school, however the moronic police made that
statement and lo, they have to stick to it. Now they need someone to
crucify so they don't lose face in front of Big Brother, they need to
find the Xibomber. 

Some spook in his corporate office in Big Brother's bedroom spotted
the links between me and my political hacks, even though my hacks
promoted morals and lawful upholding of Australian citizens freedom,
they persist that now, I, Citizen X, am a dangerous criminal. I must
be caught and punished for my crimes against 'them' and for planting
seven explosive devices in a school on the other side of Australia 
I've never heard of nor seen. 

Don't trust the government, don't trust the system. They want to
control us, they want to keep us as mindless zombie-like consumers
who work, raise kids to follow in our footsteps, consume, and die.
All telecommunications companies are also in with 'them', I know this
now because of this situation. I cannot explain it perfectly, as it
is I've given away too much information and am risking even more
trouble from Big Brother. But let me say that, at this moment in
time, they will never catch me. 

Due to their own fuck up, they now have the need to find a sacrificial
lamb to publically crucify to make them seem 'right'. Why don't I go
public? Why don't I tell the Australian Associated Press? Simple,
because they are part of the system also. There's no escape once the
government have it in for you, other than making a new identity, getting
fake ID's made up for it, and living as the other being. 

I am Citizen X, an unlawful evil sadistic serial killer hacker with
attitude, I must be caught, and I must be punished for my crimes against
society. What a crock of shit, I am a lawful hacker who likes to tell the
truth about the conspiracy behind Australia's 'system', but hey, I may
aswell be a serial killer in 'their' eyes.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
How The Censorship Laws Will Affect You
------------------------------------------
With just over three weeks to go before new Internet censorship regulations
go into effect here, confusion and controversy continue to reign. The
censorship legislation has been watered down a little but it still is 
unfair to the normal Australian net community. The new legislation says
that ISPs do not have to block sites but ISPs are required to tell users
about censoring programs etc and have a complaint form which you can fill
out and if the ABA thinks action is to be taken action will be taken. 

If you thinking of evading the censorship some guidelines of how to
legally evade the censorship are
at:
	http://www.2600.org.au/censorship-evasion.html  

In closing, what ISPs are required to do are at:

	http://www.aba.gov.au/what/online/index.htm

The censorship is still tough but nowhere near as tough as it was when it
was first introduced.

Please feel free to email me at armour@halcon.com.au with your comments
regarding the censorship. 

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The Victorian State Government Y2K Readiness Webpage Defaced
-------------------------------------------------------------
A Victorian State Government Y2K readiness webpage was taken down for a
day today after a security breach. The password protected site 
www.y2k.dpc.vic.gov.au  was changed to show the name of the hacker calling 
themselves "Net Illusion". The hack tookplace sometimes between 7am and 
8:30am. A Goverment spokeswoman said no data was lost during the attack 
and said there was an investigation into the security breach was underway.

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Synopsis 
--------
The purpose of this newsletter is to 'digest' current events of interest
that affect the Australian online underground. This mainly includes
coverage of general security issues. 

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Special Thanks
---------------
Phrost Byte Of ALOC : http://www.aloc.cc
Valiant Of Halcon : http://www.halcon.com.au
Landfill : http://landfill.bit-net.com
Nebula : http://neblula.tne.net.au

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Support Us
----------

If you believe you can help us in any way see the contact section below. Also
if you know anyone who wants or deserves to be interviewed also see the 
contact section below. We are also looking for aussie underground
related news. If you know any please send it to armour@halcon.com.au

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Contact
-------
I can be contacted on IRC efnet #halcon as the nick Armour or on the email
address armour@halcon.com.au

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Copyright 1999 QuadCon
"iiWantMen : the merged companies of iiNet, Wantree and Omen"