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blast vol 1 ish 09
BLAST.famy
volume 1 ish 9
March 1995
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F _ A _ M _ Y
C Y B E R - sensationalism - I S S U E
A Private World E-zine.
Publisher = P. W. Casual http://www.shmooze.net/pwcasual
Editor-run-amok = markjr@shmooze.net Mark (psst: "LandslidE") Jeftovic
+----------------------------------+
| ...don't forget history, |
| that bottomless well atop |
| which the present moment |
| is but a scrim of bubbles. |
| -Paul Di Fillipo |
+----------------------------------+
cyber-SensATIOnaliSm-issue
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||||||||||||||||||||||||| c o n t e n t s |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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makesyawannascreem -DLH
What They Did To Someone With No Face
Is this Really Good For Us?
The Fake Mail FAQ
JR's Rrrrannnnt:
Are you sure the modem's plugged in?
I have seen Hell, and it is the inside of a net access providing boiler
room. It don't mean "boiler room" in the sense of a fly-by-night operation,
I mean it in the sense of "broiler room" I guess. 10 or more hours a day
of constant seething frustration. Helplessness. Literally watching the world,
the internet and all the golden opportunity therein, slipping by. Giving
me the slip while I'm on the phone with some clueless nob or the other
all-day-long explaining things in nice
stand
E-Z-2
terms, that they should have known b4 they ever turned on
a fucking computer. Maybe it's somebody's idea of fun, but not mine.
It's the sheer ignorance of the basics that peeve me the most. More
accurately, there seems to be this tacit assumption of late among "newbies"
(another popularly embraced colloqialism I detest) that all this
wonder-net stuff is as simple as television. Give me a fucking break.
A point and click internet is handy but to get anything _meaningful_
done, give me a unix shell (pref. tcsh) uber alles.
When I first got into computing, and bbs'ing one of my primary attractions
to it was that other people involved in it actually used their brains.
They had to to keep the fucking gear from crashing. In a nutshell, they
were computer literate. Now people are in such a tizzy to get wired,
they're jumping on the net as a first step of getting up to speed
on all this computer shit. It's as good as any place to start I guess,
but shut the hell up until you know what you're talking about (within
reason) and if you don't know rtfm. And if you don't know what that
means read the FAQ (F-r-e-q-u-e-n-t-l-y A-s-k-e-d Q-u-e-s-t-i-o-n-s)
It's there somewhere. And another thing. When you see a file called
README, read it ("I swear to God I'm going change that filename to
DONT.README", a sysadmin i know once sighed).
Some quick pointers (read things people do that annoy the hell out of me):
>test, test, test, test ----this is just a test ...ignore ,,,hey wait a
>minute!! CAN ANYONE READ THIS?? hello. Just checking my post....
Put above in a test newsgroup. They are all over the place. Like on your
own system even. Don't spew it all over god's creation.
>Subject: MAKE.MONEY.FAST
Eat my fuck.
>Subject: GVC 9600 baud modems
If you are asking a question, then end your subject line with a "?"
or somehow communicate whether you're asking a stupid question or an
expert in the field. If I saw the above line I would access it, because
I have one and would be annoyed at encountering:
>anyone know how to work one?
instead of some useful information. If on the other hand I saw:
>Subject: Init string for GVC 9600 V4.2 ????
I might actually make an effort to fire one off.
Computing and netting requires fluidity and dexterity of mind. It is
not a passive zombiance that typifies television, and for better or
for worse requires thought. What happens next I guess is determined
by what level the common denominator sinks to now that the honeymoon
is over and everyone wants to be a Jetson immediately if not sooner.
"Give me convenience or give me death (D.K. -ism)" This thing
would be really rockin if I could order in a six-pack from here, but
as it stands I guess I'll have to duck up the street for last call..
So without further adieu, and nearly 3 months overdue...
Welcome to BLAST.famy's 9 th ish... markjr@shmooze.net
((((( makesyawannascream )))))
Newsgroups: alt.angst
Subject: makesyawannascream
From: "Your Name Here!" <dennish@extsparc.agsci.usu.edu>
Date: Mon, 13 Mar 95 11:40:15 MST
Reply-To: <dennish@ext.usu.edu>
Friday night, dark, raining, net's down, bored shitless channel surfing
thorugh bad teevee and then there's a knock at the door.
It's, it's..... a woman, not just any woman, but one I have lusted after
from afar now for about a year. She's coming to my house on Friday
night...I'm ready to take back all my anti-religious ranting....
she says she "wants to talk to me"...(whee!, I'm handsome *and*
interesting)
..."about this new water home filter company I'm working for now
(aaaaaagh!), it's a really great opportunity (aaaaagh!) and we're looking
for distributors for our environmentally friendly products (aaaagh!) if you
wouldn't mind watching this video tape (aaaaagh!)."
one hour and a banal sales replicant pitch later she leaves. I go to the
bar where I should have been in the first place.
DLH I wish I was making this up
From: an123569@anon.penet.fi
Organization: Anonymous contact service
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 1995 06:35:17 UTC
Subject: What They Did To Someone With No Face
Lines: 99
What They Did To Someone With No Face
"What happened to my FACE?!?!" - SKHS
Some years ago when I was in college, we did a project in Sociology
class. We divided into groups, and each group picked some social norm.
The bravest one in the group would break it in public, while the others
watched and made note what happened.
My group decided to see what would happen to someone with no face, and I
did the honors. I put a big paper bag, a grocery bag, over my head, and
sat in the University Center. I wore baggy clothes so no one could tell
if I was male or female. And I just sat there.
People came up to me, yelled insults, made noises, threw things, and so
on. Why? I wasn't hurting anyone. For all they knew, I was someone who
was having a very bad problem. Or someone who was carrying out a big
dream. Or both. No matter; they disrespected me and treated me very
badly. I couldn't figure this, then or now. I wouldn't throw stuff at
someone just because they were sitting in the UC with a bag over their
head. But then maybe I'm weird.
I've been thinking about this incident the past few days as I see how
things are getting here on Internet. There is so little real talk any
more; most threads consist of innane comments or people picking up on
some phrase that someone else said and taking off on their own tangents.
Very few people seem to be able to write coherently, or to understand
what they read. I hardly ever see anyone say anything original lately,
or anything that really relates to anything that anyone else has said.
Something's going on.
Yet the people here are (theoretically) intelligent and literate; it
just seems that they don't want to take the time or trouble to
understand or make themselves understood. Many posts are barely
coherent. There's lots of thoughtlessness, disrespect, and even some
abuse. Conversations degenerate into namecalling, and people never
seem to get past the same points.
Another thing. On just about every subject there are "party lines", and
woe to those who deviate! I've made some very provocative posts lately,
and expected to see a lively thread the next day. But in most cases, not
a word. Am I being shunned? Or is it just that no one could find a way
to hook into the party line from what I said?
As a final straw, recently a friend and I busted ass to post a very long
text file to expose some very harmful myths, and mostly all we got in
return was a mailbomb, a form-letter flame, and a lot of "duh..."
requests to email people the same huge piece that we'd uploaded all over
the place. My friend and I have talked about why this is...
Part of it may be TV. Since this is a screen, and TV is a screen, some
people seem to be in the same state of mind while at the terminal as
they are when they watch TV. Short attention span, high emotional
arousal, brain on idle. Commercial breaks right when things get hot.
Everything is equally (un)real, equally (un)true. Time for a smoke
break.
Part of it may be because people do a lot of stuff online rather than
capping the stuff and thinking things thru and reading and answering
when they have time. People tend to get carried away, and blurt things
out that don't always relate to what the other guy said, or don't even
make much sense at all.
But these are probably symtoms rather than the cause. Maybe people who
don't want to think too deeply are drawn to the nets. I've actually
gotten a few replies to my recent posts which start off something like
"I havn't read all of your message yet but ..." and then go on about
what they *think* I said, which is usually not what I said.
What gives?!?! People don't seem to have any trouble understanding what
they read when they read a newspaper or magazine. A 100 line post is
too much for some people to follow, but they have no trouble reading a
10 page magazine article or a 1000 page book.
Internet could have been so good. It might even have been a place made
of windows, centered in the East, where we all talk and make decisions
about the future. Why has it come to this?
I think it's mainly because we can't see each other's faces.
I'm winding down my Internet involvement. It was fun at first, but I've
known all along that it's just part of the Lie. I've got some other
writing and other things to do. If anyone would like to talk with me,
send me your snailmail address and we'll take it from there.
"The Fat Lady's singing
by the light of the moon
The Blue Star is dancing
to a brand new tune." - SKHS
WEJOT 68
Is This All Really Good For Us?
Joe J. Deagnon paranoid@idrect.com
How long does it take to become a binary junkie? What depths is a
human being capable of when at the helm of this thing we call
Internet? Hey listen...I'd rather be out drinking, and watching
live, youthful women, than poking away at this idiotic computer,
but, there is all kinds of trouble to get into on the Internet,
anyway...
You've heard all the stories about IRC chat in every national
magazine in the fucking country from
Esquire to Details, from Rolling Stone to Cosmopolitan.....
Well, Chet, you wanna get your excitement anonymously tap tap
tappin' away to some self-dubbed, fourteen year old wet dream, who
in reality turns out to be a 46 year old male alcoholic? Or is a
BBS chat mode more inviting? Less anonymity that way...people can't
pretend they're someone else without a hell of a lot of hassle.
I was talking to this asshole a female BBSer let on her
keyboard--one who had never tried a telephone conversation with his
fingers-- and he said "Don't you guys have anything better to do
than pick up chicks over the computer? Don't you have a life in the
real world? What are you a loser?" and proceeded to tell me a
dirty, yet horrendously stale, old joke about some moron stranded
on an island, a girl who washes up on the beach, and a coconut tree
with a hole in it. Fuck you if you haven't heard it before, because
I can't stand anyone more agressive than me, and I hate jokes...
Turns out they were drunk, and she let her cousin on line so he
could vent his computer-geek hatred at someone who doesn't give a
shit. She got back on and apologized, while he went to the W.C. to
vomit. Such is the riotus fun and games that is the BBS chat....
There is no room for nuance, is a world where no one can hear you
scream. Unless you can type 50 w.p.m., you're going to be
pathetically ill equipped to handle a misunderstanding, over phone
cables, sans microphone. I see this chat-thing as just another
way to raise a people's expectations with grandiose plans of the
"global circle jerk", and "let's all just try to get along", so we
can communicate like happy little chipmunks--- 'till the apocolypse
comes crashing down around us.
"Find her finer..sneak up behind her..act like a dummy 'till ya
finally grind her." -FZ
The master was right when it comes to bedding woman in real life,
but Frank wrote that little ditty before the BBS's and the Internet
is changng the way people are viewing each other. If you want to
get into a woman's pants over a computer, you'd better be the
Marquis De Sade, Don Quixote, with a smattering of Jean Paul Sarte,
and some X-Files knowledge thrown in for good measure.
I ain't looking for anyone you see...just tooling around, letting
my ID get the better of me. I'll discuss the BBS scene for now, and
leave the masquerade ball of the IRC alone. Don't worry, this
won't be a blow by blow reiteration of my hapless adventures, full
of gaiety and mirth, as spewed by the "journalists" of the consumer
gloss, but an experiement in how far you can really push someone
into revealing themselves, instead of who they'd like to be. In a
world where you can push a button, and zap another human being into
the ignorance void, you can really get caught up with someone
you've never met. In the worst case scenario, it's a gruelling test
of endurance, feeling yourself get more and more disillusioned with
the gobs of inanity people tend to spew.
On the First Class Client system by Soft Arc Inc., you are
connected with several on line BBS's, locally, and have a limited
Internet access. There are files for download, e-mail, and chat.
After you've pilfered a BBS of it's cache of useless programs, you
start to slowly drop in on conferences and add your two cents here
and there. Then you start receiving either positive or negative
replies. You will form "friendships" over the course of your
visitation to particular sites, and of course some of these will be
of the opposite sex.
The strange thing about all of this, is that you may know a
percentage of the population on any given BBS. These people will
know others, that you don't. So, you'd better be careful if you
think you're going to be a Bulletin Board Casanova or some kind of
twisted Digital Mae West.
Females, I've gotten to "know", will forward me pathetic, ill
written, dedications of love sent to them, even though the writer
and the lady haven't even seen one another. You begin to witness
the thread of their comings and
goings, their opinions and attitude. You find out down the road
that other women have received almost identical e-mail from the
same wanker. A serial typist with a scattershot rifle. One of
these chicks is bound to fall for it, right?
Women are, as in any social arena, subject to all kinds of weird
come-ons and well, I don't want to get ugly or PC but,
"harrasment". It's no wonder you
won't find any pictures of females in some of the "user albums"; a
place on some BBS's where you can upload your picture or resume.
So, taking that step beyond typing to a name and a self generated
description, can parallel the blind date syndrome so many
introverts encounter in your typical tele-personals scenario. I
have yet to see a general area conference, or chat, go beyond the
computer equivilance of the weather, although there's a great deal
of bondage talk flying around. Jeez....ya give someone a bit of
leash....er....and the safety of their bedroom or den, and they can
play anyone they like.
The time will come when you find someone
interesting enough to actually make it flesh. It's usually
disappointing, and a waste of time. These introverts have hours at
their disposal to come up with eloquent banter, witty postings, and
other fine features, but once faced with the prospect of living up
to the myth they've created in the safety of their tombs, they
wither.
I have a friend who can't understand why I adore an
amazonian, war-horse like Anna Nicole Smith. He says "But her tits
aren't real!" I calmly try to explain to him that it has nothing to
do with the reality, since the chances of me fondling those
gargantuan orbs is about 1:100,000,000. It's just a case of image,
of style---or lack of, of candy for my eyes. The mind can always
conjure up more facinating scenarios, for itself, than any reality.
This is really what the fantasy is all about isn't it?
When the women have all left the land of chat--- sick of the bozos
cutting them down, or trying to woo them with their washed up
Charles Boyer routines, men will end up complaining to each other
that there's nothing to talk about. I've seen it happen. They post
shit about how everyone in this conference or that is a fucking
loser, and why aren't their any intellectuals out there---boo hoo
hoo.... They aren't completely wrong, really. The concept of "chat"
resembles a bar atmosphere, where everyone has the notion that it's
imparitive to step up and say what's on their mind. Then get
ripped to shreds by someone across the room. It can be
stimulating to watch the tribal scapegoat get his or her due for
their flippant comments, but I can't help wondering if they're
crying out for attention, like taking the boots to those incoherent
winos staggering around our city yelling about injustice.
This is nothing new. It's nothing grand. It aint even interesting
anymore.
I think I'll download some naked pictures of Princess Di.
T H E "F A K E M A I L" F A Q
Version 0.2 950309
Written by Rourke McNamara
(rourkem@pobox.com)
A good number of people have asked me questions about how possible it is
to "Fake
Mail" on the internet. People have asked both becuase they wanted to know if
someone could do to them or becuase they wanted to do it to someone else. I
decided that I'd write a small FAQ on the subject and add to it as I have time.
(1) Can people send "fake" mail on the Internet?
Yes. People can send mail that looks like it came from someone else. People can
send mail that looks like it was received by more people than actually received
it. HOWEVER, only very rarely is this mail truly indistinguishable from
mail that
really DID come from the person in question.
In any case the ONLY real way to be completely sure a message is from a
particular person is to have that person digitally "sign" the message with
something like PGP.
(2) How do you know if a message you have is "fake"?
You can't always tell for sure. If the person was sloppy the message will have a
line in the the header block (the text above the message with date and subject,
etc information) that says something like "Apparently-To:". You can also compare
the full headers of the message to the full set of headers on another message
that you have received from that person. If they don't come close to matching
then ONE OF THEM is probably "fake". Also look for computer names in the headers
that have nothing to do with your information provider or his information
provider.
In order to be better able to spot fake mail you need to understand how it is
sent. To do that see the section on sending fake mail below.
The above don't always work. If the person sending the "fake" message is
particularly crafty he can make the headers look so similar it is nearly
impossible to catch. In this case you would have to ask the person who
'sent' you
the message whether or not it was really him.
(3) Why is it possible to "fake" mail?
It is possible to fake mail becuase all computer on the internet send mail
around
using something called SMTP - Simple Mail Transfer Protocal - and it is possible
for a human to connect to a computer and pretend that it is another computer by
speaking SMTP. This problem will not go away. Mail programs (both clients and
SendMail servers) will probably learn to better recognize when someone is trying
to send fake mail, but they will most likely never be able to detect EVERYTHING.
(4) How can I "fake" mail?
That is perhaps the question that is hardest to answer and will take the
longest,
so I will start with the basic and most detectable technique and work up to the
most complicated and hard to detect technique. Of course, faking mail
REALLY well
is not such an easy and mechanical process. It requirs some amount of creativity
in the techniques you apply. So, lets start with the basics....
(a) The Basics
To send fake mail you need to pretend that you are a computer transfering mail
legitimatly. You start by telnetting to the SMTP socket (25) on the remote
computer. For example, if I wanted to telnet to Cornell's SMTP port I would type
the following from a UNIX prompt:
-> telnet cornell.edu 25
Once you have connected you ussually have to issue a "helo" command. You
basically are saying hello to the other computer an telling it who you are. For
now lets just claim to be the computer that we are sending mail "from". For this
example lets pretend to be rf34+@andrew.cmu.edu. Lets send this message to
"jmk17@cornell.edu" (he loves getting junk mail):
< helo andrew.cmu.edu
Sometimes there is an error entering that command. Enter it again and it will
work. After that we have to move on to starting the message and annoucing who it
is from. We do this with the "mail" command. The syntax is "mail from:
<noone@nowhere.com>" where the <>'s are optional on most systems. In out example
we would type:
< mail from: rf34+@andrew.cmu.edu
After specifying who the mail it from we must specify who the mail is to. We do
this by using the "rcpt" command. The syntax of this command is "rcpt to:
<bob@nowhere.com>" where the <>'s are once again optional. This has
nothing to do
with who it APPEARS to get the message. The addresses specified with this
command
will actually receive the message. In our example we would issue the
command like
so:
< rcpt to: jmk17@cornell.edu
Next comes the actual message. You send specify the text of the message is to
follow by using the "data" command to begin and end with a "." on a line by
itself. In our example we would do the following:
< data
> (answerback garbage)
< You suck. I hate you.
< .
Now we're almost done. All we have to do now is quit. We do this by typing
"quit".
< quit
(b) What about the headers?
The above message will be easy to spot as "fake". Instead of saying "To:
jmk17@cornell.edu" it will say "Apparently To: jmk17@cornell.edu". Similar will
happen with from and there will be no subject. To fix these problems we must
manually enter headers for the message. Here I will just talk about the most
important headers - To:, From:, Cc:, and Subject:.
The "To:" header will be who the recipient sees that the message is "To:".
If the
recipient "group replies" he will reply to all people listed after "To:" and
"Cc:" other than himself.
The "From:" header specifies who the message is from. You should always have the
address that you used in the "mail from:" command somewhere here. It looks more
real if you include the persons real name when issuing this command. One way to
do that is to have the email address and then the real name in parenthesis.
The "Subject:" line is what appears to the recipient as the subject. End of
story.
You enter the header when entering the message. Lets alter our above example so
that we want it to look like bob@nowhere.net gets a carbon copy. We don't want
him to get a copy - we just want jmk17@cornell.edu to think so. All we would do
is change the second to last step so it looks like this:
< data
> (answerback garbage)
< To: jmk17@cornell.edu
< From: rf34+@andrew.cmu.edu (Randy Fields)
< Subject: I hate you!
< Cc: bob@nowhere.net
<
< You suck. I hate you.
< .
Note the space between the headers and the message. That is very important.
Now when jmk17@cornell.edu gets our message it will look like a normal message
from his friend Randy. If he had extensive knowledge regarding the way mail
worked he's be able to figure out that it came from your computer and not
andrew.cmu.edu by looking at the extended headers. Since jmk17@cornell.edu is
just your average computer user he can look at the message all day and not see a
problem with it.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
This FAQ will be updated periodically. It can be found on Rourke's Home Page at
URL http://matrix.resnet.upenn.edu/rourke/ _or_
http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~rourkem
If you have any questions, suggestions, corrections, or comments please email
Rourke at rourkem@pobox.com.
--
Rourke McNamara
School of Engineering and Applied Science
University of Pennsylvania
rourkem@seas.upenn.edu
http://matrix.resnet.upenn.edu/rourke/home.html
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