Computer underground Digest Tue May 17, 1994 Volume 6 : Issue 42 ISSN 1004-042X Editors: Jim Thomas and Gordon Meyer (TK0JUT2@NIU.BITNET) Archivist: Brendan Kehoe Retiring Shadow Archivist: Stanton McCandlish Shadow-Archivists: Dan Carosone / Paul Southworth Ralph Sims / Jyrki Kuoppala Ian Dickinson Covey Editors: D. Bannaducci & S. Jones CONTENTS, #6.42 (May 17, 1994) File 1--Hope Conference File 2--The creeping evil of people with funny nameZ (REVIEW) File 3--Contributions Wanted for Book on Internet Culture File 4--Letter to NSF Internet Pricing (TAP Info Policy Note) File 5--Fidonet Crackdown in Italy (update) File 6--FEDGOVT> Congress On-Line (fwd) Cu-Digest is a weekly electronic journal/newsletter. Subscriptions are available at no cost electronically. CuD is available as a Usenet newsgroup: comp.society.cu-digest Or, to subscribe, send a one-line message: SUB CUDIGEST your name Send it to LISTSERV@UIUCVMD.BITNET or LISTSERV@VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU The editors may be contacted by voice (815-753-0303), fax (815-753-6302) or U.S. mail at: Jim Thomas, Department of Sociology, NIU, DeKalb, IL 60115, USA. Issues of CuD can also be found in the Usenet comp.society.cu-digest news group; on CompuServe in DL0 and DL4 of the IBMBBS SIG, DL1 of LAWSIG, and DL1 of TELECOM; on GEnie in the PF*NPC RT libraries and in the VIRUS/SECURITY library; from America Online in the PC Telecom forum under "computing newsletters;" On Delphi in the General Discussion database of the Internet SIG; on RIPCO BBS (312) 528-5020 (and via Ripco on internet); and on Rune Stone BBS (IIRGWHQ) (203) 832-8441. CuD is also available via Fidonet File Request from 1:11/70; unlisted nodes and points welcome. UNITED STATES: etext.archive.umich.edu (141.211.164.18) in /pub/CuD/ ftp.eff.org (192.88.144.4) in /pub/Publications/CuD aql.gatech.edu (128.61.10.53) in /pub/eff/cud/ world.std.com in /src/wuarchive/doc/EFF/Publications/CuD/ uceng.uc.edu in /pub/wuarchive/doc/EFF/Publications/CuD/ wuarchive.wustl.edu in /doc/EFF/Publications/CuD/ EUROPE: nic.funet.fi in pub/doc/cud/ (Finland) ftp.warwick.ac.uk in pub/cud/ (United Kingdom) JAPAN: ftp.glocom.ac.jp /mirror/ftp.eff.org/ COMPUTER UNDERGROUND DIGEST is an open forum dedicated to sharing information among computerists and to the presentation and debate of diverse views. CuD material may be reprinted for non-profit as long as the source is cited. Authors hold a presumptive copyright, and they should be contacted for reprint permission. It is assumed that non-personal mail to the moderators may be reprinted unless otherwise specified. Readers are encouraged to submit reasoned articles relating to computer culture and communication. Articles are preferred to short responses. Please avoid quoting previous posts unless absolutely necessary. DISCLAIMER: The views represented herein do not necessarily represent the views of the moderators. Digest contributors assume all responsibility for ensuring that articles submitted do not violate copyright protections. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 15 May 1994 15:00:48 -0700 From: Emmanuel Goldstein Subject: File 1--Hope Conference H A C K E R S O N P L A N E T E A R T H ! ==================================================================== * T h e F i r s t U. S. H a c k e r C o n g r e s s * Come together in the summer of 1994 to celebrate the hacker world and the tenth anniversary of 2600 Magazine. We will have speakers and demonstrations from around the globe, a collection of films and rare videos on hacking, and our very own network between all of us and the outside world! This is an opportunity to feel the real magic of hacking instead of hearing about how we're about to destroy the world in some cheap tabloid or on the news during sweeps week. Government propaganda and corporate doublespeak have finally met their match! If you want to help put together this historic event, contact us by telephone at (516) 751-2600, through the mail at H.O.P.E., PO Box 848, Middle Island, NY 11953, on the Internet at 2600@well.sf.ca.us. We need ideas, people, technology, and karma. H.O.P.E. - August 13th and 14th at the Hotel Pennsylvania, right in the middle of bustling New York City (Seventh Avenue and 34th Street, right across the street from Penn Station). We've rented out the entire top floor (except for the mysterious NYNEX office). Special rates of $99 a night are available from the hotel (double rooms, four can probably fit easily). Cheaper places are also available as is nearly anything else. This is New York City, after all. Admission to the conference is $20 for the entire weekend if you preregister, $25 at the door, regardless of whether you stay for two days or five minutes. We encourage you to bring a computer so you can tie into our giant Ethernet and add to the fun. We hope you try to hack root on the system we'll be running - all attendees will get accounts with prizes for the penetrators. Dancing and merchandising in the halls Cellular phone workshop Celebration of the Clipper Chip (not) Hacker videos from all over the world Surveillance demos Hacker legends from around the globe It's not Woodstock - It's The Future Many more details are on the way. Information sources: 2600 Magazine The Hacker Quarterly Summer 1994 edition Off The Hook Wednesdays, 10:00 pm WBAI 99.5 FM New York City 2600 Voice BBS 516-473-2626 alt.2600 on the Internet and random bits of text like this ------------------------------ Date: 16 May 94 16:40:30 EDT From: Urnst Couch / Crypt Newsletter <70743.1711@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: File 2--The creeping evil of people with funny nameZ (REVIEW) "DR. SOLOMON'S PC ANTI-VIRUS BOOK" EXPOSES THE CREEPING EVIL OF PEOPLE WITH FUNNY NAMES WHOM YOU WILL NEVER MEET Sometime at the dawn of the personal computer age, publishers reversed the laws of good writing for the specialty niche of computer books. In place, readers got anti-consumerism which mandated that, usually, books about computers, computer issues, or software would be written only by presidents or employees of computer manufacturers, consulting firms peddling advice on computer issues defined by the same consultants or software developers and their publicity stooges. This means that if you actually buy such books, you're getting a pig in a poke. Nowhere is this more obvious than the "DOS For Dummies" series, a line of pamphlets so easy to sell competitors have rushed out mimics written for "Idiots" and/or "Morons." And, in the true spirit of American mass marketing, you can now purchase attractive yellow and black "DOS For Dummies" baseball caps, suitable for wearing inside the house, restaurant, bowling alley or local smart bar. In reality, the hats are a fiendishly clever IQ test. If you buy one, you fail, signalling to the corporate office that you are the kind of Pavlovian consumer ready to invest in a fax subscription to weekly company press releases. Which is a long way of bringing the reader to "Dr. Solomon's Anti-Virus Book" (New-Tech/Reed Elsevier), which fits all the, uh, _good_ characteristics of the _computer book_. On the cover are always tip-offs. Look for concocted venal plaudits and non-sequiturs. For instance, "The Anti-Virus Book" is "THE book on how to eliminate computer viruses" ". . . from the foremost anti-virus experts" and exposes "computer games and viruses - the truth!" The publishing inference is that readers have somehow become too stupid in 1994 to recognize something decent without a gratuitous amount of pettifogging and boasting. Alan Solomon and his co-author, Tim Kay, do realize the bogus nature of computer literature. On page 26 they write, "If you hadn't the money to start manufacturing, or the knowledge to program, you could always aim at the book market . . . Anyone who could persuade a publisher that he had an area of expertise and could write, which wasn't that difficult, could get into print. One author was reputed to be writing four or five books at once by using several different typists in different rooms. The story went that he walked from room to room dictating a sentence to each typist as he went. Looking at some of the output, there is no reason to doubt this story." That's a good tale. But rather ill-spirited when considering "The PC Anti-Virus Book" is a higgledy-piggledy assembly of reprints from the S&S International (Solomon's company) corporate organ Virus News International, Solomon interviewing himself and bursts of writing which make absolutely zero sense. For example: "It would be difficult to create more [virus] experts, because the learning curve is very shallow. The first time you disassemble something like Jerusalem virus, it takes a week. After you've done a few hundred viruses, you could whip through something as simple as Jerusalem in 15 minutes." Or: " . . . the DOS virus will become as irrelevant as CPM (an obsolete operating system). Except that DOS will still be around 10 or 20 years from now, and viruses for the new operating system will start to appear as soon as it is worth writing them." And this favorite: ". . . take the game of virus consequences: "In the game of Consequences, you start with a simple phrase, and build up to a convoluted and amusing story. In the virus version of consequences, you start off with a false alarm and build from there." The computer underground also figures highly in Solomon's book as he spent a great deal of time over the past couple years attempting to track down and telephone American hackers from the United Kingdom. Nowhere Man - the author of the Virus Creation Laboratory - is in the book. Although VCL viruses never seemed to make it into the wild, mentioning the software without pointing this out has always been in vogue. Members of the hacking group phalcon/SKISM appear, as does John Buchanan, a Virginia Beach resident, who sold his virus collection to numerous takers, making about $6-7,000 in the process. Solomon didn't have these numbers - they're mine. He also fails to mention that at one point Buchanan contributed his virus collection to S&S International and was nominated for membership in the pan-professional Computer Anti-Virus Research Organization by Solomon, one of its charter members. Solomon's book wouldn't be complete if it didn't invoke the creeping evil of virus exchange bulletin board systems. "The Hellpit" [sic] near Chicago, is one. And "Toward the end of 1992, the US Government started offering viruses to people who called one of their BBS's . . . In 1993 the Crypt newsletter blew the whistle on the US Government [AIS bulletin board] system . . . " Solomon writes. Since I edit the newsletter, this is a surprise to me and I'm sure, Kim Clancy, the AIS system supervisor. But it's almost identical to the nutty claim made by American computer security consultant Paul Ferguson when the black-balling of AIS was featured news in Computer underground Digest. As the story developed, Ferguson - egged on by Solomon - planted complaints about AIS in RISKS Digest and, later, the Washington Post. Solomon has been a reader of the Crypt Newsletter and it must have seemed logical to embroider the story because a back issue featured an interview with Clancy after she was profiled in Computer underground Digest. However, Clancy had been a target of CARO since opening her system to hacker underground files. Finally, the negative publicity campaign did that part of the AIS system in. What a lot of people don't know is that other public systems have been a target of the same people. About a year earlier, Hans Braun's COM-SEC computer security BBS in San Francisco had been a target of a similar smear campaign for carrying issues of 40Hex, a phalcon/SKISM-edited virus-programming electronic magazine. In a recent interview for the book "The Virus Creation Labs," Braun mentioned security workers David Stang (who has by turns been involved with or worked for the National Computer Security Association in Carlisle, Pennsylvania; the International Computer Security Association - now defunct - in Washington, DC; and Norman Data Defense of Falls Church, Virginia) and Alan Solomon as responsible for the pressure. Since COM-SEC wasn't politically sensitive like AIS, Braun said the efforts to tar him were unsuccessful. COM-SEC still carries 40Hex magazine. "The anti-virus software industry is going through a shake-out; not everyone is successful anymore," said Braun. "It's my opinion, most of these kinds of things are really attempts to keep access to information from competitors." "The Anti-Virus Book" also has annals of alleged virus-related computer crime, which illustrates the same rush to seize everything without leveling criminal charges as seen in the United States. In the book there is the case of an unnamed man in the town of Rugby, who had his door broken down by a sledgehammer and all his equipment grabbed by New Scotland Yard officers in December of 1992 after taking out an ad selling a virus collection in the English periodical Micro Computer Mart. The charges were ethereal to non-existent. About the same time, a hacker was arrested for stealing phone service from his neighbor's line and his equipment confiscated, too. The hacker turned out to be Apache Warrior, a member of the small United Kingdom virus-writing group called ARCV (for Association of Really Cruel Viruses). Some background information not included in the book: Alan Solomon was apparently able to convince New Scotland Yard's computer crime unit that they should also try to prosecute Apache Warrior as a virus-writer and that the rest of the group should be rounded up, too. In conversation, Solomon has said Apache Warrior turned over the names of other group members. Subsequently, New Scotland Yard and local constabularies conducted raids at multiple sites in England, arresting another man. Paradoxically, prior to the arrests, Solomon joked that ARCV was better at cyber-publicity than virus programming and its creations were little more than petty menaces. The book offers no reported incidences of ARCV viruses on the computers of others, although Virus News International, by extension S&S International, solicited readers for such evidence in 1993. Later in the year, Solomon telephoned John Buchanan to tell him he had been implicated as a member of ARCV - he was not - and that Scotland Yard might be interested in extraditing him for trial. It turned out to be so much air. Apache Warrior settled with the telephone company for the fraud and the virus-writing prosecutions remain unresolved. Most of this is left out of "The PC Anti-Virus Book" except parts about the necessity of jailing virus programmers. The final part of "The Anti-Virus Book" is devoted to around fifty pages of leaden legal boilerplate addressing computer meddling supplied by a lawyer named Wendy R. London. Only those required under penalty of death or the mentally ill would be interested in paying attention to it. A computer book must also include poor reviews of the author's competitors' products. "The Anti-Virus Book" toes the line in this regard, criticizing McAfee Associates and Central Point Software. Also included is a diskette containing an extravagant color advertisement for S&S International and a poster-sized Virus Calendar for 1994 and 1995. The calendar was fun. I'm thinking of sending it to some middle manager in computer services at a large, boring corporation (or an editor at a computer magazine). Then they can vex their underlings (or readers) every day with network e-mail like, "It's May 31. Be on the lookout for Tormentor-Lixo-Nuke, VCL-Diogenes, AntiCad-COBOL, Month 4-6, Ital Boy, and Kthulhu computer viruses." Finally, it would be unfair not to mention "The Anti-Virus Book's" GOOD parts. The technical analyses of well known PC computer viruses were fascinating as was Solomon's description of how he developed specialized virus identification programming for S&S International. Solomon's development project, called Virtran, was capped when John Buchanan - the same fellow who was denounced by him for selling viruses in America - gave the programmer a copy of the NuKE Encryption Device, or NED - a piece of code written by Nowhere Man and designed to encrypt viruses in an esoteric manner. At the time Solomon received it, the NED code wasn't actually in any viruses. It still isn't, in fact, except for one called ITSHARD. And the story of the development of Solomon's anti-virus software shows how the virus underground and one developer in 1993 had each other in a weird involuntary combination stranglehold and symbiosis. ". . . it does everything in a hundred different ways; it uses word and byte registers, there are lots of noisy nonsense bytes, little jumps . . . The NED looked like something out of a Salvador Dali nightmare and I thought it was going to take a month of programming [to detect ITSHARD]," writes Solomon. According to the book, Solomon threw up his hands and decided to revive a stalled project called the Ugly Duckling. The result was a major revision of his software, the fruition of the proprietary Virtran programming techniques used in it and a Queen's Award for Technological Achievement in 1993. The one NED virus - ITSHARD - still isn't in the wild almost two years after Nowhere Man wrote the original encryption code. These sections didn't suffer at the hands of the patchwork editors who threw most of "The Anti-Virus Book" together. Unfortunately, they comprise a small part of "The Anti-Virus Book" and were written so that only someone already acquainted with the field - not your average computer user - would get much from them. Just like most of the dubious literature marketed by computer book publishers. ------------------------------ Date: 15 May 1994 04:18:11 GMT From: dporter@LELAND.STANFORD.EDU(David Porter) Subject: File 3--Contributions Wanted for Book on Internet Culture I am looking for people who might be interested in contributing to a new book on Internet Culture. The project is still in its early planning stages, but I foresee an anthology gathering together a collection of essays, stories and even poetry about life on the Net. I'm particularly interested in the way the possibilities of "cyberspace" get people thinking in new ways about things like community, social interaction, authority, manners, sexuality, education, story-telling, youth culture, the public sphere, and so on. I don't have any set line on any of these things beyond my conviction that things are changing out there in interesting ways, and ways that are worth thinking and talking about. At this stage I am not yet asking for contributions, but rather for comments and initial expressions of interest from people who might like to contribute something later. If you have an idea for a piece you might like to do (or that you have already done), please send me a brief description of what you're thinking about via e-mail (dporter@leland.stanford.edu) within the next couple of weeks. Based on the responses I receive, I'll decide if the project actually seems feasible, and if so, try to form a better idea of the shape the book might take. At that point I'll write back to all those who responded to talk about how we might proceed. I see my own role in all this primarily as that of an editor, though I might also contribute a piece myself. My own background happens to be academic (I'm a doctoral student in Comparative Literature at Stanford), and though I would welcome scholarly contributions, I'm hoping this collection will represent a wide range of styles and approaches, and don't want to prescribe in advance the forms submissions might take. I've edited a book before (Between Men and Feminism, Routledge, 1992), and taught a couple of courses on the social impact of computing, so I'm reasonably confident about my ability to bring the project off. Please write to let me know what you think, and what you might like to contribute! Also, if you can suggest other newsgroups where this message might find a favorable reception, I'll try to post it there too. Thanks, David Porter dporter@leland.stanford.edu Dept. of Comparative Literature Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305-2087 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 May 1994 16:38:20 -0400 From: email list server Subject: File 4--Letter to NSF Internet Pricing (TAP Info Policy Note) This message is being forwarded to the cpsr-announce list as it is very relevant to the issue of equal access to the NII- a principle fundamental to CPSR's NII policy. TAP postings are archived at cpsr.org:/taxpayer_assets. Several other postings on the Internet are listed there. ********************************************************************* Distributed to TAP-INFO, a free Internet Distribution List (subscription requests to listserver@essential.org) TAXPAYER ASSETS PROJECT - INFORMATION POLICY NOTE May 7, 1994 - Request for signatures for a letter to NSF opposing metered pricing of Internet usage - Please repost this request freely The letter will be sent to Steve Wolff, the Director of Networking and Communications for NSF. The purpose of the letter is to express a number of user concerns about the future of Internet pricing. NSF recently announced that is awarding five key contracts to telephone companies to operate four Internet "Network Access Points" (NAPs), and an NSF funded very high speed backbone (vBNS). There have been a number of indications that the telephone companies operating the NAPs will seek permission from NSF to price NAPs services according to some measure of Internet usage. The vBNS is expected to act as a testbed for new Internet pricing and accounting schemes. The letter expresses the view that metered pricing of Internet usage should be avoided, and that NSF should ensure that the free flow of information through Internet listserves and file server sites is preserved and enhanced. jamie love, Taxpayer Assets Project (love@essential.org; but unable to answer mail until May 15). Until then, direct inquires to Michael Ward. If you are willing to sign the letter, send the following information to Mike Ward of the Taxpayer Assets Project (mike@essential.org, fax: 202/234-5176; voice: 202/387-8030; P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036): Names: ___________________________ Title: ___________________________ (Optional) Affiliation: ____________________________________ (for purposes of identification only) Address: ______________________________________ City; St, Zip ________________________________ Email Address: _____________________________________ Voice: __________________________________ for verification) the letter follows: Steve Wolff Director Division of Networking and Communications National Science Foundation 1800 G Street Washington, DC 20550 Dear Steve: It is our understanding that the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other federal agencies are developing a new architecture for the Internet that will utilize four new Network Access Points (NAPs), which have been described as the new "cloverleaves" for the Internet. You have indicated that NSF is awarding contracts for four NAPs, which will be operated by telephone companies (Pac Bell, S.F.; Ameritech, Chicago; Sprint, NY; and MFS, Washington, DC). We further understand that NSF has selected MCI to operate its new very high speed backbone (vBNS) facility. There is broad public interest in the outcome of the negotiations between NSF and the companies that will operate the NAPs and vBNS. We are writing to ask that NSF consider the following objectives in its negotiations with these five firms: PRICING. We are concerned about the future pricing systems for Internet access and usage. Many users pay fixed rates for Internet connections, often based upon the bandwidth of the connection, and do not pay for network usage, such as the transfer of data using email, ftp, Gopher or Mosaic. It has been widely reported on certain Internet discussion groups, such as com-priv, that the operators of the NAPs are contemplating a system of usage based pricing. We are very concerned about any movement toward usage based pricing on the Internet, and we are particularly concerned about the future of the Internet Listserves, which allow broad democratic discourse on a wide range of issues. We believe that the continued existence and enhancement of the Internet discussion groups and distribution lists is so important that any pricing scheme for the NAPs that would endanger or restrict their use should be rejected by the NSF. It is important for NSF to recognize that the Internet is more than a network for scientific researchers or commercial transactions. It represents the most important new effort to expand democracy into a wide range of human endeavors. The open communication and the free flow of information have make government and private organizations more accountable, and allowed citizens to organize and debate the widest range of matters. Federal policy should be directed at expanding public access to the Internet, and it should reject efforts to introduce pricing schemes for Internet usage that would mimic commercial telephone networks or expensive private network services such as MCI mail. To put this into perspective, NSF officials must consider how any pricing mechanisms will change the economics of hosting an Internet electronic mail discussion groups and distribution lists. Many of these discussion groups and lists are very large, such as Humanist, GIS-L, CNI-Copyright, PACS-L, CPSR-Announce or Com-Priv. It is not unusual for a popular Internet discussion group to have several thousand members, and send out more than 100,000 email messages per day. These discussion groups and distribution lists are the backbones of democratic discourse on the Internet, and it is doubtful that they would survive if metered pricing of electronic mail is introduced on the Internet. Usage based pricing would also introduce a wide range of problems regarding the use of ftp, gopher and mosaic servers, since it conceivable that the persons who provide "free" information on servers would be asked to pay the costs of "sending" data to persons who request data. This would vastly increase the costs of operating a server site, and would likely eliminate many sources of data now "published" for free. We are also concerned about the types of accounting mechanisms which may be developed or deployed to facilitate usage based pricing schemes., which raise a number of concerns about personal privacy. Few Internet users are anxious to see a new system of "surveillance" that will allow the government or private data vendors to monitor and track individual usage of Information obtained from Internet listserves or fileserves. ANTI-COMPETITIVE PRACTICES We are also concerned about the potential for anti- competitive behavior by the firms that operate the NAPs. Since 1991 there have been a number of criticisms of ANS pricing practices, and concerns about issues such as price discrimination or preferential treatment are likely to become more important as the firms operating the NAPs become competitors of firms that must connect to the NAPs. We are particularly concerned about the announcements by PAC-Bell and Ameritech that they will enter the retail market for Internet services, since both firms were selected by NSF to operate NAPs. It is essential that the contracts signed by NSF include the strongest possible measures to insure that the operators of the NAPs do not unfairly discriminate against unaffiliated companies. Recommendations: As the Internet moves from the realm of the research community to a more vital part of the nation's information infrastructure, the NSF must ensure that its decisions reflect the needs and values of a much larger community. 1. The NSF contracts with the NAPs operators will include clauses that determine how the NAP services will be priced. It is important that NSF disclose and receive comment on all pricing proposals before they become final. NSF should create an online discussion list to facilitate public dialog on the pricing proposals, and NSF should identify its criteria for selecting a particular pricing mechanism, addressing the issue of how the pricing system will impact the Internet's role in facilitating democratic debate. 2. NSF should create a consumer advisory board which would include a broad cross section of consumer interests, including independent network service providers (NSPs), publishers of Internet discussion groups and distribution lists, academic networks, librarians, citizen groups and individual users. This advisory board should review a number of policy questions related to the operation of the Internet, including questions such as the NAP pricing, NAP operator disclosure of financial, technical and operational data, systems of Internet accounting which are being tested on the vBNS and other topics. 3. NSF should solicit public comment, though an online discussion group, of the types of safeguards against anticompetitive behavior by the NAPs which should be addressed in the NSF/NAPs contracts, and on issues such as NAPs pricing and Internet accounting systems. +----------------------------------------------------------------- TAP-INFO is an Internet Distribution List provided by the Taxpayer Assets Project (TAP). TAP was founded by Ralph Nader to monitor the management of government property, including information systems and data, government funded R&D, spectrum allocation and other government assets. TAP-INFO reports on TAP activities relating to federal information policy. tap-info is archived at ftp.cpsr.org; gopher.cpsr.org and wais.cpsr.org Subscription requests to tap-info to listserver@essential.org with the message: subscribe tap-info your name +----------------------------------------------------------------- Taxpayer Assets Project; P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036 v. 202/387-8030; f. 202/234-5176; internet: tap@essential.org +----------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 May 94 16:31:26 GMT From: luc pac Subject: File 5--Fidonet Crackdown in Italy (update) Updates will follow. >From 'la Repubblica' , May 13th 1994, page 21 COMPUTER PIRATE HUNTING IN ITALY (Caccia ai pirati dell'informatica) by CLAUDIO GERINO Translated by Fabio Rossetti. Translator's notes in square brackets. 'La Repubblica' is currently the 2nd most important newspaper in Italy after the 'Corriere della Sera'. ROME - Crime association finalized to the spreading of illegaly duplicated computer software; illegal passwords used to break into government owned computers: the first maxi-operation against computer piracy starts from the prosecutor's office in Pesaro, Italy, following the passage of the new computer crime bill on January 14th. Dozens of BBSes ('telematic data-banks') have been shut down; computers, floppy disks and modem have been seized; a large number of sysops (system operators) has been denounced all over Italy. Nonetheless, the actions of Sostituto Procuratore [italian prosecutor] Gaetano Saverio Pedrocchi have been questioned by the networks involved in the affair. Two very well-known networks, Peacelink and Fidonet, have been indeed caught under the eye of the judge from Pesaro. The first network - Peacelink - offers news and services regarding pacifist voluntary services in our country [Italy] and in the rest of the world. This is the network which, in collaboration with radio amateurs, has kept alive most of the communication with the people in ex-Jugoslavia. In these days it had even indicted a national conference on peace. The second network is instead the 'italian branch' of an 'international sysop network' and is considered the most up-to-date data bank on telematics. Both network have iron clad rules regarding illegal duplication of computer software and password exchange. Both networks are based on the voluntary collaboration of system operators. On the other hand, investigations seem to have ascertained severe violations of the norms against computer piracy in Italy. It is not unlikely - at least so the investigators seem to intend - that inside those networks somebody has created a sort of secret sub-network, perhaps hiding it to the system operator themselves. The operation conducted by the 'Guardia di Finanza' [the italian customs office] started the night beetween Wednesday and yesterday [May 11th/ May 12th 94]: it will now be extended to all the people who logged themselves to the BBSes involved. "While in the rest of the world BBSes are assuming an extremely important role in the diffusion of information - explains Peacelink spokesman Alessandro Marescotti - in Italy networks with inflexible norms against piracy have been struck. All this has happened charging system operators with every responsability regarding everything that could possibly happen in a bulletin board. The truth of the matter is the absence of laws protecting the rights to existance for these networks. Indeed, many volunteers have already decided to stop their activities, notably 'Net 10', a sort of 'telematic help line'. We suspect these investigations to be - as a matter of fact - aimed to favour the survival of commercial networks only." +______________________________________________________ BITs Against The Empire Computer Underground Fido 2:333/412 Research & Documentation CyberNet 65:1400/1 Trento - Italy ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 May 1994 16:26:37 CDT From: Carol Singer Subject: File 6--FEDGOVT> Congress On-Line (fwd) This was forwarded to the ACE mailing list ========================================== UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES CONSTITUENT ELECTRONIC MAIL SYSTEM We welcome your inquiry to the House of Representatives Constituent Electronic Mail System. Currently, twentythree Members of the U.S. House of Representatives have been assigned public electronic mailboxes that may be accessed by their constituents. The results of the six month public mail pilot have been very encouraging. The nature and character of the incoming electronic mail has demonstrated that this capability will be an invaluable source of information on constituent opinion. We are now in the process of expanding the project to other Members of Congress, as technical, budgetary and staffing constraints allow. A number of House committees have also been assigned public electronic mailboxes. The names and electronic mailbox addresses of these committees are listed below after the information about participating Representatives. Please review the list of participating Representatives below, and if the Congressional District in which you reside is listed, follow the instructions below to begin communicating by electronic mail with your Representative. If your Representative is not yet on-line, please be patient. U.S. REPRESENTATIVES PARTICIPATING IN THE CONSTITUENT ELECTRONIC MAIL SYSTEM. Hon. Sherwood Boehlert 23rd Congressional District, New York Rm. 1127 Longworth House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 BOEHLERT@HR.HOUSE.GOV Hon. Dave Camp 4th Congressional District, Michigan Rm. 137 Cannon House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 DAVECAMP@HR.HOUSE.GOV Hon. Maria Cantwell 1st Congressional District, Washington Rm. 1520 Longworth House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 CANTWELL@HR.HOUSE.GOV Hon. John Conyers, Jr. 14th Congressional District, Michigan Rm. 2426 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 JCONYERS@HR.HOUSE.GOV Hon. Sam Coppersmith 1st Congressional District, Arizona 1607 Longworth House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 SAMAZ01@HR.HOUSE.GOV Hon. Peter Deutsch 20th Congressional District, Florida Rm. 425 Cannon House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 PDEUTSCH@HR.HOUSE.GOV Hon. Jay Dickey 4th Congressional District, Arkansas Rm. 1338 Longworth House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 JDICKEY@HR.HOUSE.GOV Hon. Vernon Ehlers 3rd Congressional District, Michigan Rm. 1526 Longworth House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 CONGEHLR@HR.HOUSE.GOV Hon. Anna Eshoo 14th Congressional District, California Rm. 1505 Longworth House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 ANNAGRAM@HR.HOUSE.GOV Hon. Elizabeth Furse 1st Congressional District, Oregon Rm. 316 Cannon House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 FURSEOR1@HR.HOUSE.GOV Hon. Sam Gejdenson 2nd Congressional District, Connecticut Rm. 2416 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 BOZRAH@HR.HOUSE.GOV Hon. Newton Gingrich 6th Congressional District, Georgia Rm. 2428 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 GEORGIA6@HR.HOUSE.GOV Hon. Dennis Hastert 14th Congressional District, Illinois Rm. 2453 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 DHASTERT@HR.HOUSE.GOV Hon. Martin Hoke 2nd Congressional District, Ohio Rm. 212 Cannon House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 HOKEMAIL@HR.HOUSE.GOV Hon. Sam Johnson 3rd Congressional District, Texas Rm. 1030 Longworth House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 SAMTX03@HR.HOUSE.GOV Hon. Mike Kreidler 9th Congressional District, Washington Rm. 1535 Longworth House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 KREIDLER@HR.HOUSE.GOV Hon. George Miller 7th Congressional District, California Rm. 2205 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 GEORGEM@HR.HOUSE.GOV Hon. Earl Pomeroy North Dakota, At Large Rm. 318 Cannon House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 EPOMEROY@HR.HOUSE.GOV Hon. Charlie Rose 7th Congressional District, North Carolina Rm. 2230 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 CROSE@HR.HOUSE.GOV Hon. Karen Shepherd 2nd Congressional District, Utah Rm. 414 Cannon House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 SHEPHERD@HR.HOUSE.GOV Hon. 'Pete' Stark 13th Congressional District, California Rm. 239 Cannon House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 PETEMAIL@HR.HOUSE.GOV Hon. Charles Taylor 11th Congressional District, North Carolina Rm. 516 Cannon House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 CHTAYLOR@HR.HOUSE.GOV Hon. Mel Watt 12th Congressional District, North Carolina Rm. 1232 Longworth House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 MELMAIL@HR.HOUSE.GOV INSTRUCTIONS FOR CONSTITUENTS The list above includes the electronic mail addresses of members who are participating in the program. However, if your Representative is taking part in the project, we request that you send a letter or postcard by U.S. Mail to that Representative at the address listed above with your name and internet address, followed by your postal (geographical) address. The primary goal of this program is to allow Members to better serve their CONSTITUENTS, and this postal contact is the only sure method currently available of verifying that a user is a resident of a particular congressional district. In addition, constituents who communicate with their Representative by electronic mail should be aware that Members will sometimes respond to their messages by way of the U.S. Postal Service. This method of reply will help to ensure confidentiality, a concern that is of upmost importance to the House of Representatives. COMMITTEES OF THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES PARTICIPATING IN THE ELECTRONIC MAIL SYSTEM. Committee on Natural Resources 1324 Longworth House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 NATRES@HR.HOUSE.GOV Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 2320 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 HOUSESST@HR.HOUSE.GOV COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS Please feel free to send electronic mail comments about our new service to the Congressional Comment Desk, at COMMENTS@HR.HOUSE.GOV We will make every effort to integrate suggestions into forthcoming updates of our system. Thank you again for contacting the House of Representatives' Constituent Electronic Mail System. We are excited about the possibilities that e-mail has to offer, and will be working hard to bring more Members on-line and to expand our services. This message will be updated as necessary. Honorable Charlie Rose (D-NC) Chairman Committee on House Administration [Submitted by: Administration Account (admin@envirolink.org) Sun May 8 19:17:48 1994] This message has been automatically posted to the EnviroLink Network 4551 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15213 412-681-8300 The EnviroLink Network assumes no liability for any of the information contained within. -----------------------------------------------------------This message has been posted from the EnviroNews Service, a project of the EnviroLink Network. If you would like to subscribe to or unsubscribe from this environmental news service, please send mail to: listproc@envirolink.org with the word HELP in the body of the message. Send all contributions to: environews@envirolink.org If you would like more information on the EnviroLink Network, please telnet or gopher to: envirolink.org and follow the directions. If you have any questions or comments, please call (412) 268-7187. ------------------------------ End of Computer Underground Digest #6.42 ************************************