Blank Frank and Lori Banks

[Abuse at Microsoft]

Hello,

Thank you for contacting Cypherpunks.

The following email from Microsoft was inappropriately sent to a large
email list. Please don't do it again.

On Monday, 05 Feb 2001 at 12:24, Abuse at Microsoft <abuse at microsoft.com> wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> Thank you for contacting Microsoft.
>  
> I regret that you are receiving unwanted communication from this sender,
> and understand how this can be a frustrating experience. The e-mail 
> address you contacted is primarily intended for the reporting of abusive
> traffic coming from Microsoft's networks. Although your issue doesn't 
> appear to involve Microsoft directly, I have taken the liberty of 
> providing the following resources:
> 
> If you are receiving unwanted e-mail messages, you may consider using an
> e-mail filter or spam reporting service. Information on spam can be 
> found at the following web sites:
> http://www.abuse.net
> http://www.spam.abuse.net
> 
> If you want to identify the sender of an offending message, you may be 
> able to do so through one of the following web sites:
> http://visualroute.datametrics.com
> http://swhois.net
> 
> If you want to report an abusive Hotmail user, please send e-mail to 
> abuse at hotmail.com.
> 
> If you want to report an abusive WebTV user or WebTV spam, please send 
> e-mail to abuse at webtv.net. 
> 
> If you want to report an abusive MSN user, please submit feedback at the
> following web site: 
> http://memberservices.msn.com/us/default_feedback.asp.
> 
> If you are receiving unwanted newsletters from Microsoft.com, you may 
> unsubscribe by going to http://register.microsoft.com/regsys/pic.asp. 
> After you have signed in, click "Newsletters Subscribe/Unsubscribe" and 
> follow the directions to unsubscribe. If you have difficulties, please 
> send a copy of the offending newsletter to feedback at microsoft.com so 
> that we can update the record on your behalf. 
> 
> If you want to report spam sent to a Microsoft newsgroup, please send 
> e-mail to webmaster at microsoft.com. 
> 
> I sincerely hope this information is helpful to you. 
> 
> If you have any additional questions, please let us know by replying to 
> this message.
> 
> Thank you,
> 
> Josh
> Microsoft Online Customer Representative
> 
> Original Message Follows: 
> -------------------------
> You can always chat with MS about "fixing" the password problems.  If
> your child is a minor, you've got the right to access that information
> (and depending upon your state, maybe even if he isn't).
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bill Stewart [mailto:bill.stewart at pobox.com]
> Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2001 12:35 AM
> To: Lori Banks; cypherpunks at toad.com
> Subject: Re: Blank Frank and Lori Banks
> At 07:51 AM 1/23/01 -0600, Lori Banks wrote:
> > I just read an interesting email that you sent concerning cracking
> .pwl
> files.  
> >I have a need to crack a .pwl file, but I don't know how to make that
> program work. 
> > I'm really not computer literate (if you can't tell).  
> >I am a concerned parent that has stumbled upon information that is 
> >not good regarding my teen and the Internet.  
> >Could you help me find out what these passwords are or how to work that
> program? 
> > I downloaded some sort of password pwl program and it showed 17
> passwords, 
> >but they are encrypted. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
> Thanks,
> Mrs. Banks  
> Mrs. Banks - Cypherpunks is a large, noisy mailing list.
> In addition to talking about cryptography, privacy, and the effects
> on economics and politics of being able to talk and conduct business
> without government interference, and random other topics,
> we end up receiving lots of mail from people pretending to be
> teenagers asking us about bombs, hacking, credit cards, etc.
> Some of them are clueless kiddies who think we'll tell them
> how to steal stuff to make bombs so they can be rilly kewl d00ds,
> some of them are annoying kiddies who've found they can stir up
> lots of annoyed discussion by posting provocative or clueless questions,
> and some are probably cops who think they can stir up business
> by finding people doing stuff with Bombs and Computer Crime
> that make good headline material.*
> So don't be surprised if readers like Blank Frank take you for 
> one of these three categories (start at the middle and work your way
> out),
> and either gives you the flames you're looking for or
> the abuse you deserve if you're one of the clueless types.
> Your message could be perfectly legitimate, but it's just
> dripping with troll bait....  We haven't had anybody
> saying their somebody's Mom who wants to break into her kid's
> machine before, but hey, there's a first time for everything.
> On the other hand, many of us were once teenagers who had
> parents who didn't understand us (what a surprise, eh?)
> and a request saying "I don't trust my kid and I want to crack
> his passwords to spy on him" isn't guaranteed to get more
> sympathy for you than for your kid.
> Anyway, that being said, there are only a few reasons for having
> lots of Microsoft password files around.  One is that your son has
> created
> lots of logins on your home computer, either for his friends to use
> or because he's creating lots of different identities for himself.
> The former is something you may want to talk to him about,
> depending on how much control you want to have over that computer
> (is it his bedroom game machine or are you running the family business
> on it?)
> Another is that he has logins of his own on multiple machines using
> Microsoft-style logins.   That's kind of odd - is he running a bunch
> of web pages on FrontPage-based servers, or is he cracking into
> corporate machines?
> The "17 passwords" is pretty close to a magic number, which is the
> number
> of "access devices" it takes for possessing stolen/cracked passwords
> to become a US Federal crime.  I forget if the number is 15,
> in which case by asking us to crack them you're asking us to
> commit a Federal crime (remember the discussion about cops trying
> to win friends and influence headlines through entrapment?),
> depending on whether you have authorization to access the machines
> that those passwords apply to (if you give us permission to crack the
> passwords for your own machine, it's not a crime, but if they're
> the passwords for your kid's publishing accounts on commercial porn
> sites,
> that might be criminal, and if they're for accounts your kid's
> trying to break into, or if you're really the kid or a cop,
> it could be criminal.)  
> So if you're thinking about breaking into your kid's machine,
> because you don't trust him, yes, you've got some relationship
> problems you'll have to deal with.  Not much different from asking
> your kid where he went and having him say "Out" - either you go
> ask all the neighbors where he went because he won't tell you,
> or you work on the relationship, or you hire a private detective
> to track him, just as you could probably hire Access Data or somebody
> to break his password files, if you were willing to risk criminality.
> I'd recommend going for the relationship....
> ===================
> *  (Perhaps some are even good cops trying to do what they think is 
> their job by stopping clueless kiddies from posting dangerous inaccurate
> information where more clueless kiddies will find it.  
> We do have some cops and Feds on the list that are open about it, 
> and they're good folks we go shooting with :-)
> 				Thanks! 
> 					Bill
> Bill Stewart, bill.stewart at pobox.com
> PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF  3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
> .
> 
> 
> 
> 
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