December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Mitnick #3: Markoff responds again to Platt
by Declan B. McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Topic 1119 [media]: Media Appearances of WELLperns VI, S.F.Bay Area Division #212 of 296: john markoff (johnm) Wed Jan 3 '96 (16:58) 256 lines <hidden> My response to Charles Platt's rebuttal..... JM Writes: "The darkside hacker label was created during the late 1980s by the Southern California press. It is a label that I noted, but I didn't create. However, he's right I don't regret using it. And also for the record, Kevin Mitnick used to drive around in Las Vegas with a stack of copies of Cyberpunk in the trunk of his car to give away to admirers. He is on record as saying the book is '20 percent inaccurate.'" >JM is confusing the issue. I never suggested he invented the "darkside >hacker" term. This is totally irrelevant. I said, very specifically, that >he was the first to *apply* this label to Mitnick. JM does not actually >deny this, and I believe it is true. Sorry, you're wrong. The "darkside hacker" label was used in the headlines of Southern California press coverage of Mitnick in 1987-8, in particular by John Johnson, an LA Times metro reporter. I was not the first one to use the term with respect to Mitnick. Re my description of his initial article about Mitnick for the NY Times, JM writes: "This is really inaccurate. Kevin Mitnick had become notorious nationally in the late 1980s as a result of his being arrested for attacks on Digital Equipment Computers. A menacing mug shot? It was the only photo available. No actual news? Not the way I remember it. The news was that he was being pursued by the FBI (three agents full time), the California DMV, US Marshalls, telco security, local police, etc. The further news was that the FBI had told cellular telephone companies that they believed the fugitive had stolen software from at least six cellular phone manufacturers. I thought then, and still think, this merited a story. I also think the story was a good yarn. Mitnick had succeeded in evading law enforcement for more than a year - again." >"Notorious" in what sense? This is another of those vague terms that JM >throws around without limiting or defining it. Mitnick may have been >"notorious" in hacker circles, but not in the eyes of the general public. >My point was, and is, that JM converted Mitnick from a relatively obscure >hacker into a public figure. JM tries to evade this point but cannot >specifically deny it. As for Mitnick being "actively pursued," I believe >this is a vast overstatement. As I understand it, law enforcement had >largely lost interest until JM's news item embarrassed them. Even after >that, according to JM's own book _Takedown,_ law enforcement had to be >prodded into taking action. They seemed not to share JM's perception of >Mitnick as a severe threat. They certainly didn't characterize him as one >of "America's most wanted." Since when is "notorious" a vague term? The dictionary def. of notorious is "generally known and talked of." Kevin Mitnick had national press attention in at least two cases (Los Angeles 1981 and Los Angeles 1987) and there were a number of articles in the Los Angeles Times, which the last time I checked was not a hacker quarterly, before Katie and I wrote about him in Cyberpunk. He was notorious. Charles is just plain wrong about the issue of pursuit: There was a US Marshalls search for him for a parole violation, a team of FBI agents in LA was detailed to finding Mitnick, telecommunications companies in Seattle and Southern California were pursuing him, California DMV had a special investigator looking for him. I could go on....Law enforcement did not have to be prodded into action. The first thing Tsutomu did when he was invited to the Well was meet with a US attorney and FBI agents who had an open case. In response to my statement that Kevin Mitnick has never been accused of intentionally damaging a computer, JM writes: "Wrong again. He was accused of doing more than $100,000 damage at US Leasing, a SF time sharing company in 1980. Their system was trashed by a group that Mitnick was a member of. After that, at various other times he cost companies tens of thousands of dollars trying to close the door on his attacks. >With all due respect, this is not fair or accurate journalism. Was Mitnick >*active* in the group that caused the alleged damage? Did he play a >personal role? Does JM know? If not, he's just slinging mud. This is a >smear and should not be presented as if it is a fact. On the other hand, >if there is evidence that Mitnick was indeed actively responsible, I will >gladly admit that I didn't know of this. Kevin was convicted in this case in the Spring of 1982. He spent 90 days in juvenile detention, he was given a year's probation. >As for the money that companies spent fixing the security weaknesses that >allowed Mitnick to gain access, it is grossly unfair and misleading for >JM to throw this into a paragraph discussing "intentional damage." This >is exactly the kind of deliberate blurring of different kinds of computer >misuse that I complained about in my review. I'm afraid that Charles has confused me here. I simply gave an example where intentional damage was done for which Kevin was convicted. I didn't say that he always damaged machines, I simply object to the portrayal of him as an innocent Regarding Mitnick's "most wanted" status, JM writes: "Sorry, but I didn't create the character, Kevin did. He has now been arrested six times in fifteen years. Each time, except for this last time, he was given a second chance to get his act together. He chose not too. It seems to me that he is an adult and makes choices. He chose to keep breaking in to computers. He knew what the penalty was. So what's the problem?" >Of course Mitnick is responsible for his actions. I never disputed this, >and never suggested he was innocent of the crimes for which he was >convicted. I merely suggested that the crimes were relatively trivial and >were exaggerated out of all proportion by JM's extravagant prose. >Exaggeration, imprecision, and innuendo: *that's* the problem, JM. In a passage above Charles accuses me of being vague, now he says that exaggeration, imprecision and innuendo are the problem. Boy, talk about being vague. But I guess we've descended to the nyah, nyah level.... 8) JM writes: "A witch hunt? Give me a break. It was an article describing a law enforcement hunt for a fugitive, who had been arrested five times previously, convicted at least three times, and was known to be attacking the computers of the nation's cellular telephone companies." >My review complained that JM throws around words such as "attack" without >ever defining them in computer terms. He's still doing it here in his >rebuttal. Kevin Mitnick never attacked any computer, by my understanding >of the word. Mitnick was persistent and frequently arrogant in his break-ins into dozens of different computers. Attack is not an exaggeration. Re Mitnick's dangerousness, JM writes: "This is just not true. Kevin Mitnick was actively sharing system vulnerabilities with other people on the net. That is about the most damaging thing that could be done to the Internet community." >Is JM aware that some highly respected security experts believe that >sharing news of vulnerabilities is the best way to encourage better >security? True, this is a controversial subject; but certainly the >sharing of vulnerabilities is NOT "the most damaging thing that could be >done to the Internet community." That's just another of those wildly >exaggerated phrases that JM throws out for emotional effect. I can think >of many politicians--and even a few journalists--who pose a far greater >danger to the future of the net than Kevin Mitnick ever did. Charles probably missed the followup discussion on this point, but I think there is a dramatic difference between distributing information publicly and sharing it in a clandestine fashion with a small gang of crackers the way Mitnick was doing it. I assume from his comments that Charles thinks that issues like Internet privacy and security are trivial and don't really matter very much. I disagree with him here. Re the petty gossip in _Takedown,_ JM writes: "The reason we described what happened at Toad Hall on Xmas was that the attacks first came from toad.com while Tsutomu and Julia were there. If we hadn't have been complete in our description someone would have charged us with a cover up. Please remember that David Bank, a San Jose Mercury reporter, spent several weeks pursuing the hypothesis that Tsutomu had attack his own computers." >Uh-huh. And I suppose the rest of the sordid, relentlessly personal thread >in _Takedown,_ describing every little nuance of Shimomura's campaign to >steal someone's long-term girlfriend, was merely included so that no one >could complain that the account was incomplete? Really! Sharon Fisher had a good response to the notion of girlfriend as property. Charles is being viciously innaccurate here. In my review, I complained about pejorative terms (such as "attack") that JM uses repeatedly. His response: "Perjorative?? Yikes! I mean we could go to the dictionary....." >Well, I guess JM *should* go to the dictionary. If he does, he will find >that pejorative is a perfectly good word which I spelled correctly. It's >ironic that he seems unaware of it, since it so aptly describes his >own journalistic technique. This is getting weird again. I still don't have any problem with using the word "attack" and would use it again. I think Charles has sort of run out of gas trying to mount a defense against something that is basicly indefensible. It's just not ok to read other people's mail, steal commercial software, leave trojan horses scattered around, and systematically alter system software. No matter how you dress it up, its criminal activity. Re my assertion that all charges but one against Mitnick have been dropped, JM replies: "Wrong. Kevin Mitnick is in jail in Los Angeles facing charges from more than six United States Federal Districts. He may go on trial or he may plea bargain." >I tried to contact Mitnick's attorney before I wrote my review. He did >not return my calls. I based my statement on information from three other >sources. If it's incorrect, obviously I stand corrected. As I understand >it, though, those charges from other federal districts may not have been >actually filed. Is "facing charges" another of those slightly misleading >terms that makes the situation sound worse than it really is? Are the >charges actual, or potential? Why didn't Charles think to give any of half a dozen US District Attorney's a call and chat with them about the charges that are being brought against Kevin Mitncik. For those who are curious there is a plea bargaining process going on now and Mitnick has a scheduled court date for January 29. Finally JM writes: "Myth and reality? I have been writing about Kevin Mitnick for a long time, since 1981 to be precise, but I didn't create a myth, he created his own story." >In his own rebuttal, JM has already referred to the Mitnick story as a >"good yarn." A yarn, of course, is a richly embroidered, sometimes >fictionalized version of the truth. This is precisely what I believe he >concocted, and it isn't my idea of decent journalism. Please Charles, which part is concocted? The part about Kevin being a criminal who was a fugitive and who was caught while he was breaking in to computers? >Would JM like to explain how Dan Farmer's perception of "the Mitnick >threat" can be so different from Shimomura's? To the outside observer, it >almost looks as if there wasn't a significant security threat, and >Shimomura must have been motivated by wounded vanity, while John Markoff >was motivated by his desire to tell a "good yarn" and make a lot of money. >Am I wrong? Yes you're wrong. I can't speak for Dan, but Tsutomu was invited by both the Well and Netcom to help them solve a persistent computer security problem. His advice to the Well was that they would never be secure unless the person who was attacking their computers was apprehended. The Well had no viable way to lock Kevin Mitnick out. Tsutomu's solution to actively pursue Mitnick was the only reasonable option, one which the Well management agreed with. There are several philosophies in the computer security world. One view is that rather than hiding in your shell it is necessary to track down offenders who have broken the law. I really don't see what's wrong with that approach. Do you Charles?

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Novel use of Usenet and remailers to mailbomb from luzskru@cpcnet.com
by abostick＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Somebody, too clever for their own good by half, has come up with a novel way of using Usenet and anonymous remailers to perpetrate mailbombs. The M.O. is to post a message to the naked-lady newsgroups saying "get pics in your mailbox! send this message to this address!), giving the email address of a cypherpunk-style anonymous remailer and including a pgp-encrypted message block. Thousands of horny net geeks will send in the message; some of them will even follow instructions correctly so the remailer forwards the message to its intended target. The result is that the target will be mailbombed -- and the remailer operator can't stop the abuse by blocking the abuser's address, because it's coming from all over the net. There is *no* chance that this is legitimate. The remailer discards the original message header. There is no way for the recipient to know who sent the email message. Cypherpunks: is there any way to respond to, or prevent, this sort of attack short of actually shutting down the remailer? What comes to my mind is the remailer operator grepping for a character string of ASCII-armored cyphertext from the known attack message and throwing messages containing it into the bit-bucket. It is highly unlikely that this would appear in any message except the attack message. The problem with this is that it works only for a known attack message -- it can shut down an ongoing attack, but it can't prevent new ones. I am including the widely-crossposted attack message below, including headers. Alan Bostick | He played the king as if afraid someone else Seeking opportunity to | would play the ace. develop multimedia content. | John Mason Brown, drama critic Finger abostick(a)netcom.com for more info and PGP public key > Xref: netcom.com alt.sex:292849 alt.sex.wizards:44144 alt.sex.magazines:11634 alt.binaries.pictures.erotica:364153 alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.blondes:48686 alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.female:130066 alt.sex.movies:91249 alt.sex.pictures:98757 > Newsgroups: alt.sex,alt.sex.wizards,alt.sex.magazines,alt.binaries.pictures.erotica,alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.blondes,alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.female,alt.sex.movies,alt.sex.pictures > Path: netcom.com!ix.netcom.com!howland.reston.ans.net!news.sprintlink.net!nuclear.microserve.net!luzskru.cpcnet.com!www-39-190 > From: luzskru(a)cpcnet.com (luzskru) > Subject: Get Penthouse and Playboy pics on your mail box!! > Message-ID: <1b7cc$12a26.20(a)luzskru.cpcnet.com> > Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 18:10:37 GMT > Organization: http://www.cpcnet.com/~luzskru/home.htm > X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 > Lines: 119 > > Follow these instructions. > 1) paste everything between the -------- into the body of your message. Be > sure to leave the first line blank and include everything including the :: > 2) Send the message to homer(a)rahul.net > 3) as the subject, specify playboy or penthouse and the month. > 4) if you don't get the file within a few hours, then send it again and be > sure that you didn't do something wrong. 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PRZ "battle lost"
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

regarding PRZ, SP wrote earlier that "we have gained nothing--the US can still harass people over cryptographic algorithms". that's true, but that's a side effect of our legal system, not of our secret government bureacracy (the NSA etc). it has always been the case that someone with lots of money, time, and lawyers can harass someone else in the courts without any leg to stand on. the government does not have a monopoly on this capability, and in fact they can arguably be shown to be a minor player when it comes to what happens every day in the business world. you can consume someone else's time and money significantly, and scare them into submission, without ever even going to trial, through pre-trial hearings and all that kind of thing. is there an alternative? yes, but it involves fewer lawyers than are in the US today. however I don't see lawyers as the problem, but a symptom of something deeper: the tendency of people to resort to legal action to settle even trivial disputes. I for example am aware of a case where someone threatened to sue a well-known kook on the internet for "libel" for material that was clearly satire, and the supposed "libel" was committed--AGAINST A PSEUDONYM!! so to me all the lawyers are not the problem, but the attitude in our society that if you have been offended in some way, you should use the legal system to get "justice". a rather immature kind of mentality, of course, but who am I to criticize an infant for being an infant? I suppose its partly my mistake if I run into an adult that is actually an infant and I don't realize it at first.

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Boston talk on offshore banks
by Rich Salz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I heard an ad on the radio for a free seminar on how to protect your assets using off-shore banks. I forget who the speaker is, I think they're with the English-Irish bank in Austria, or something like that. The thrust was to save assets for when you retire and Social Security isn't there for you. I'm posting this since off-shore banking touches on privacy issues and comes up here now and then. Two dates, Jan 17 (Newton, MA) or Jan 18 (Burlington, MA). Call 617 663 3299 for more info.

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Re: Zimmermann case is dropped.
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I wrote: > ...and I'm sure they'll be watching VERY closely to see how >version 3.0 will be distributed.... John Young wrote: >AUSA William Keane in today's WSJ: > > "This decision shouldn't be interpreted as meaning > anything. I caution people against concluding the > Internet is now free for export." Alex Strasheim wrote: >The government's policy doesn't prevent crypto from spreading around the >world, but it does discourage a lot of people from distributing code >they've written or modified. That's the point of the policy, and from >their point of view it's probably a big success. My sentiments <expanded upon> exactly. I tend to disbelieve in coincidences. Rather, I found the timing of dropping the investigation of PRZ and the anticipated release of version 3.0 extremely interesting. One might conclude that their attitude was: "Let's throw this fish back and aim for a 'keeper'.

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Re: Zimmermann case is dropped.
by koontz＠MasPar.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

tcmay(a)got.net wrote: >Yes, I think it likely that another case will be filed, a case the >government senses is more winnable. In many ways, what Phil and/or some of >his friends may or may not have done was too "stale." None of the Four >Horsemen were involved directly, and Phil's case generated publicity that >tended to make him a hero, not an Enemy of the People. The question is, can Phil get through U.S. Customs at a point of entry in a reasonable time, now?

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Re: Shimomura on TV?
by Douglas F. Elznic 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:38 PM 1/11/96 -0500, hallam(a)w3.org wrote: > >>Has anyone heard anything else about this? I am getting real sick of the >>media's portrayal of the internet. They never say anything good about it. > >At the last World Wide Web consortium meeting I said that the media were >pumping up the bubble and their favourite game is to see if they can >destroy what they have the arrogance to imagine they created. > >That is why we have to replace the press. Consider this in the next >election voters on the Internet will be able to read the press releases >of the candidates without the press filtering them. There is the potential >for the internet citizens to participate in shaping the political agenda >- another role the press likes to usurp for itself. > >I recently held a workshop on political use of the Web which was attended >by Republican and Democrat party workers and political activists from >6 other countries. One thing that suprized me was the consensus amongst the >politicians that the differences between them were smaller than their >differences with the press. > >To take one example. A collumnist in the New York Times recently received >much coverage for calling the First Lady "a congenital liar". Yet little >mention is made of the fact that said collumnist worked for both Nixon and >Spiro Agnew and has never condemned either for their actions. > > > Phill > > It is disgusting to me. I would really like to do something about it. I use to have a sig file(s) that said: "The revolution will not be televised but the proceeedings will be available oonline." During the french revolution someone said "Look their is a revolt" And another replied "No, a revolution." Or something to that affect. But anyway I say we as a community do something. Look around the potential is here for something big e.g. C2.org -- ==================Douglas Elznic=================== delznic(a)storm.net http://www.vcomm.net/~delznic/ (315)682-5489 (315)682-1647 4877 Firethorn Circle Manlius, NY 13104 "Challenge the system, question the rules." =================================================== PGP key available: http://www.vcomm.net/~delznic/pgpkey.asc PGP Fingerprint: 68 6F 89 F6 F0 58 AE 22 14 8A 31 2A E5 5C FD A5 ===================================================

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Re: PRZ grand jury - how about free accts for them...
by liberty＠gate.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- patrick finerty wrote: <snips> >it would be nice if someone (c2??) would offer dialup >access for any members of the grand jury who wanted it. > and Professor Froomkin responded: >sounds like jury tampering to me. a good way to go to jail quickly. > >A. Michael Froomkin | +1 (305) 284-4285; +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax) >Associate Professor of Law | >U. Miami School of Law | froomkin(a)law.miami.edu >P.O. Box 248087 | http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin >Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA | It's warm here. I agree with the Professor (although as a native Floridian, I dispute his .sig about it being warm here!:)) but AFAIK, and unless there are court orders to the contrary, members of the jury may speak freely *after* dismissal from grand jury duty. Our problem is finding them (which shouldn't be *too* hard, given the technology we have). IMO, after the jury is dismissed we must _not_ contact them directly, but rather make it clear that we would be happy if they were to contact us. Hopefully, one of our journalist-types could manage this without yet-another article giving out the <cypherpunks(a)toad.com> address. Presumably, grand-jurors who have carefully followed the court's instructions would have a bit of catch-up reading on the subject to do, thus giving us an opportunity for indirect contact with them. I don't think that this would be illegal, but best to check with a real-lawyer, and perhaps research the issue a bit, since PRZ's case (supposedly) has "national security" overtones which could possibly cause a court to want to hush things. JMR -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Freedom isn't Freeh. iQCVAwUBMPb+uG1lp8bpvW01AQHB4wP+MMFkH9sWknEksRmEDEYQTldnFIvZGoH0 R4oQeQiZhUOj9TNNpgLSldVHN0KqKtbs0oUS5n5tT+eNDgm7vguZVik/3pWvhQwQ ERUi/Bp2E0l7DPZ/lploUdqqmxJmSwO4MFaJtoHMiabH20S0cmcqDqkwiV+LCQkv u/CaLagzGi4= =E5Wl -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: (fwd) e$: Starting an Avalanche
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:33 PM 1/12/96 -0500, Robert Hettinga wrote: >The most interesting thing I've read in quite a while is a reprint of >the March 31,1995 issue of Esther Dyson's Release 1.0, which, I >understand, was the first time someone other than Esther herself edited >an issue. > >The editor was none other than Eric Hughes, of cypherpunks fame, and the >topic was, of course, e$. Well, he didn't up and say "e$" anywhere, >exactly, the title of the whole issue was "A Long-Term Perspective on >Electronic Commerce", I'll second that. I read part of the draft as Eric was working on it at CFP95. Good work. DCF

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Re: Novel use of Usenet and remailers to mailbomb from luzskru@cpcnet.com
by Rich Graves 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This seems to have been confirmed in private email. So, what's the real target? ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 13:15:37 -0800 (PST) From: Rich Graves <llurch(a)Networking.Stanford.EDU> To: Eric Murray <ericm(a)lne.com> Subject: Re: Novel use of Usenet and remailers to mailbomb from luzskru(a)cpcnet.com On Fri, 12 Jan 1996, Eric Murray wrote: > > Unless someone comes forward to say that they were the target of this > > attack, I'd guess that the target is the remailer network itself. > > The target, Homer Wilson Smith, is one of the people embroiled in > the Scientology wars. I don't want to get into the recent history > of repression and abuse by Scientology agents & sympathizers, but > my guess is that this is an attempt to harass someone that > Scientology doesn't like. Yes, I've heard of him. But doesn't the given address just forward to a remailer? Have you seen anything to indicate that the flood really goes to him? Actually, last time I saw, he was no longer really embroiled. He was backing off to become a neutral ISP. He still runs lazarus, of course. -rich

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