hello, apparently the recent FBI sting happened with the cooperation of AOL, which allowed the FBI to monitor downloads.. here's some info to test if you are being monitored on AOL ------- Forwarded Message Date: Sat, 16 Sep 1995 14:47:38 -0400 To: snet-l@world.std.com From: Charles Zeps <czeps@icis.on.ca> Subject: How to find out if you are sniffed at AOL
America Online Opens Private E-mail to Federal Sting (c) 1995 N.Y. Times News Service
(14 Sept. 1995 ) Responding to court orders related to a nationwide crackdown on the electronic transmission of child pornography, America Online, the nation's largest information service, gave law enforcement agents access to the private electronic mailboxes of an unknown number of its subscribers, company officials confirmed Thursday.
From: Eric Muetterties <ericm3@ix.netcom.com> All you America online users would be wise to check out your software...(WINDOWS) Use a file viewer that will allow you to view in hexadecimal.Or use the DOSSHELL.EXE program in your DOS directory and use the menu to VIEW file contents Find your Aonline directory and find the directory marked IDB. This should have two files marked with your screen name and a suffix of either .arh or .pnd (eg. ericmuette.arh) With the file loaded in the viewer you will see the hex dump of these files. In the side pane will be the equivalent ascII of the hexadecimal dump (in laymans terms... if there is text you will recognize it...) Use PAGE DOWN to move down through the files.... soon you will recognize the first files you downloaded and references to where you were on the internet and what directory you saved the file to. Make these files READ ONLY with the file attributes menu in your file manager and they can not use this facility../ You will get an error message when you first start up ("XFER ERROR - - - could not create database") Click on "OK" and program will continue. Then when program gives you messages when you try to save to disk or download something just click on "IGNORE" till program continues (usually 3 times). When they realize everyone is defeating this they can easily come up with a more covert way of tracking you but in the meantime... ... better to change to another provider... You will be amazed at your freinds expressions when you get on their computer and tell them what they have downloaded. If you view the files in the TOOLS directory , at the end of the files you will find the internal names for these programs such as "Internal DAtabase" , ETC. !!! Have fun... Big Bro is here in a BIG WAY... MIND YOUR P's and Q's on the NET !!! E. Muetterties If you can't figure out how to do this email me with what is in your "IDB" directory and I'll tell you which files to view. ericm3@ix.netcom.com Linda Thompson American Justice Federation Home of AEN News and "Waco, the Big Lie" "America Under Siege" 3850 S. Emerson Ave. Indianapolis, IN 46203 Telephone: (317) 780-5200 Fax: (317) 780-5209 Internet: lindat@iquest.net "When even one American -- who has done nothing wrong -- is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth, then all Americans are in peril." Harry Truman
Thanks for the kewl.rad.tip Love Always, Carol Anne On Sat, 16 Sep 1995, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote:
hello, apparently the recent FBI sting happened with the cooperation of AOL, which allowed the FBI to monitor downloads..
here's some info to test if you are being monitored on AOL
Member Internet Society - Certified BETSI Programmer - WWW Page Creation ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Carol Anne Braddock <--now running linux 1.0.9 for your pleasure carolann@censored.org __ __ ____ ___ ___ ____ carolab@primenet.com /__)/__) / / / / /_ /\ / /_ / carolb@spring.com / / \ / / / / /__ / \/ /___ / ------------------------------------------------------------------------- A great place to start My Cyber Doc...
This sounds fishy to me. Why would AOL need to download the databases of files you've downloaded to your hard drive? I'm 99.9999% sure that they would keep their own logs about just what you do online. They wouldn't have to steal a copy of the log from your hard drive to find this out... A further hint as to why this won't work: the client software doesn't keep track of which messages you've read in a discussion area, AOL's server's do. How do I know this? Because I use AOL on a Mac from home, and from Windows at work. Completely separate installations, yet AOL remembers which messages are New or rather unread to me regardless of which of the clients I use. So if they keep that info on their side, they sure as hell wouldn't keep the logs of the files you've downloaded on yours. Making the download database read only is a silly measure, not likely to do anything for you. If you want to protect what is on your system, it's easy. Encrypt your whole hard drive except for about 20Mb or so, and don't mount the encrypted portion when going on AOL. Leave a copy of Windows with nothing but AOL in it outside, and use that copy. If their software tries to access another drive, they don't get a clue as to what you have or don't -- other than DOS and Windows and their client. :-) There are probably a dozen more ways of doing this.... i.e. booting of a SyQuest or M.O. cartdrige, using another computer to download files, using another PC which has nothing on it, using these in combination with using another account - not just another screen name, etc. Bad thing is that this will mean a lot of extra work on your part... But from the sounds of this, the precautions offered here are just another net.legend in the making... If I were AOL, I would have written their side of the software to track the files, not the client side. Further, if I wanted to (I'm not AOL, nor do I want to do the following, nor do I have any knowledge of how AOL's clients were written...) if I wanted to check out your hard drive, I would include directory searching routines in the client, as well as a way to transfer info back on any file or the file itself to AOL. However this would be obvious to any smart user as they would see their external modem's XMIT LED light up like christmas in a very suspicious way. There is no way to know if such code exists in the AOL client, however, if there is, as unlikely as the possibily is, you still can hide your files from such possible privacy invasion techniques. ========================================================================== + ^ + | Ray Arachelian | Amerika: The land of the Freeh. | _ |> \|/ |sunder@dorsai.org| Where day by day, yet another | \ | <--+-->| | Constitutional right vanishes. | \| /|\ | Just Say | | <|\ + v + | "No" to the NSA!| Jail the censor, not the author!| <| n ==========================================================================
In article <Pine.SUN.3.91.950917113021.11534E@amanda.dorsai.org>, you wrote:
A further hint as to why this won't work: the client software doesn't keep track of which messages you've read in a discussion area, AOL's server's do. How do I know this? Because I use AOL on a Mac from home,
Ohhh-God, not again... Can anyone remember the Prodigy rumor? How IBM was snooping around your hard disk, and it turned out to be nothing but a swapfile. Does "Good times" ring a bell? And don't get me started on MicroSoft Network rumors... 1) 90% of the FTP sites I use mention that they log xfers. 2) My .newsrc file can tell anyone that I read alt.hackers and alt.2600 3) My address book shows who I send mail often enough to warrent me putting in a nickname. 4) My sent-mail folder shows who I sent mail to in the past year. 5) My bookmark file shows that I read the NYC-Speedtraps page one or two time a week. I am sure that AOL, Prodigy, CompuServe and Acme Internet all log what mail/news/web pages/ftp sites you have visited, in one way or another. Does this bother me? A little. I use a local Internet provider with an OS I understand enough to know what is logged and what is not logged. My fear is not LEA, but crackers. As long as I make myself a hard target- they vultures will look elseware. I repeat this like a mantra yet no one belives me- IF YOU WANT PRIVACY, DON'T USE THE PHONE. Once the headset is raised, big brother is online. If you do not like those rules, don't play the game. -- Salvatore Denaro sal@panix.com I waited for the joke/It never did arrive. Yes, I use PGP Words I thought I'd choke/I hardly recognize.
2) My .newsrc file can tell anyone that I read alt.hackers and alt.2600 Hmmm...potential new crypto product...a "secure" newsreader with encrypted .newsrc?
Why not write a shell script to decrypt you .newsrc, run your reader then re-encrypt the .newsrc file ? Why not do that for you mail address book file as well ? Hey, this is cypher-punks- DIY :) -- Salvatore Denaro sal@panix.com I waited for the joke/It never did arrive. Yes, I use PGP Words I thought I'd choke/I hardly recognize.
participants (5)
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Censored Girls Anonymous -
Ray Arachelian -
Sal＠panix.com -
Thomas Grant Edwards -
Vladimir Z. Nuri