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The Syndicate Report Issue 08
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THE SYNDICATE REPORT
Bell Information Transmittal No. 8
Released November 24, 1986
Featuring:
Electronic Fraudulent Crackdowns (olt ccm 11\5)
ISDN: A Primer Part III (eet 11\11)
PicTel's 56-kbps 'PicturePhones' / Nynex (eet 11\11)
by The Sensei
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ELECTRONIC FRAUDULENT CRACKDOWNS:
In this article; brought forth will be assorted bits of electronic
computer crime crackdowns, and other misc. fraudulent proceedings. Actual
identification of the criminal people will not be presented; initials will
instead be used. This is for sole protection of The Syndicate Report and
the prosecuted people. (I definitely don't need to be charged for some
newly processed law.)
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DP, 22 year old man, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., stands accused of American
Express and MCI. Authorities say the man is charged with theft, possession of
stolen property, avoiding payment of telephone property, "offenses against
intellectual property and offenses against computer users." This is the
second run-in with the law for the man from Fla. Last October he was accused
of using his home computer to break into confidential computer files of
Southern Bell Telephone Co., police said.
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RW, A Silicon Valley businessman, has been sentenced to pay a 40,000$ fine
and serve a five-year suspended prison sentence for his part in diverting a
shipment of computer equipment to the Soviet bloc in 1985. RW, and associate
of a brokerage firm, pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate U.S. export laws
by shipping a 196,000$ Digital Equipment Corp. computer and components from
Haiti to Czechoslovakia in February 1985.
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JS, 43, of Encino, Calif., has told local polic he's received numerous
death threats from alleged extortionists visiting his computer bulliten board.
Forum administrator JS told LA authorities he received threats and demands for
money in electronic messages posted posted on his BBS throughout August and
early September. "We can still make you life unfit for living," said one of
the messages, according to a report by United Press International.
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Police have arrested seven youths in the South Plainfield, N.J., area on
charges they used their home computer to exchange stolen credit card numbers,
swap information on how to make free long distance phone calls, and call coded
phone numbers at the Pentagon. Middlex County Prosecutor AR also said the
seven, all under the age of 18, had codes that would cause communications
satellites to "change position," possibly interupting intercontinental
communications, An AT&T spokesmans, however disputed that claim. The arrest
of the seven represented the seventh major presecution under a one-year-old
state computer crime law in New Jersey.
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KG, a 19-year-old New Jersey pre-law student who said he was "addicted"
to online computer games, was placed on probation and ordered to make
restitution to CompuServe after pleading guilty to stealingcredit to continue
playing. Court officials said KG played MegaWars for free for about three
months on illegally obtained credit card account numbers. KG got the numbers
from carbon copies of receipts he retrieved from trash bins at a local
shopping center.
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Three teen-agers have been arrested in Jacksonville, Fla., on charges they
used credit card information stolen during an invasion of a TRW Corp. system
in Cleveland. Eighteen-year-olds AP and MS (initials) could each face up to
five years in prison and a 5,000$ fine if convicted. They are alleged to
have used credit information stolen online from TRW to buy atleast 800$ in
computer equipment.
Florida State Sen. Edgar Dunn, in response to the events detailed in the
previous story, has introduced a bill that would make credit card fraud via
computer in that state subject to anti-racketeering laws. The measure would
also tighten Florida's existing 1984 computer crime law to allow victems to
recover three times their loss from computer crime as well as punitive damages,
reports The Associated Press.
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Transcall America, an Atlanta-based discount long-distance telephone
service, has uncovered crackers who ran up at least 12,000$ in illegal calls
in five months. According to company officials, no one has been charged, but
the FBI is investigating the case and could bring state and federal charges.
The crackers were caught when investigators allowed a stolen access code,
which was posted on a CoCoa Beach bulletin board, to remain valid. To bogus
calls were traced to several homes in Brevard County, Fla.
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Crackers in at least three major cities have been blamed for a 60,000$
phone bill that was sent to a California man whose stolen credit card number
was apparently posted on an underground network of computer bulletin boards.
Officials with GTE-Sprint Communications Corp. told the Associated Press that
computer vandals in Atlantic, Blatimore and New York used the Sprint number of
RB of Campbell, Calif., to charge more than 250,000 minutes of calls in two
months, Sprint spokesman MF said "an investigation is under way" with law
enforcment officials in the three East Coast cities and at least seven other
cities. RB's (owner of Sprint code) mid-July bill ran 722 pages and listed
17,311 calls. The total for 256,697 minutes on that bill came to 55,562.27$,
non counting an 8,197$ "volume discount."
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Kaypro Inc.'s national director of sales and marketing, SE, has been
sentenced to 30 months in prison for convictions related to a drug-smuggling
conspiracy. Previously, the 27-year-old SE had pleaded guilty to a charge of
conspiring to travel in interstate and foreign commerce in aid of racketeering
and to a count of subscribing to a false tax return. Most of the things he
has commited were done threw his personal computer.
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To summarize these crimes, The Syndicate Report would just like to
advise computer criminals to reveiw the previous articles and make sure the
same mistakes are not made.
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ISDN: A PRIMER PART III
There has been so much progress over the last couple of years on
developing standards for the various interfaces, that the transition to an
all-ISDN network will take about half the time originally predicted.
ISDN cautioned about many questions about technology, costs and
pricing has yet to be resolved. Even so, it will be the end of the century
or later before voice, data and images can be sent at the high speeds
standardized by the CCITT's ISDN committees.
Krueger, co-founder of Stanford Telecommunications Corp., spoke to more
that 100 executives from Japanese electronics companies. The impact of ISDN
will be positive for certain products and the death knell for others, Data--
Quest predict. Once telecommunications lines are all digital, the now-booming
modem market will tail off. Statistical multiplexors may also be a thing
of the past, and data-only BPXs probably will become extinct. For packet
switches, central digital switches and T-1 multiplexors, the future will
become brighter. Terminal adapters, to transform non-ISDN telephones,
connected to Centrex systems or PBXs, will provide market opportunities,
Krueger said.
One product which will quickly benefit in the Group IV facsimile. The
clarity, speed and low cost of facsimile transmissions via an all digital
network will be a boon to the next generation of fax machines. G-IV fax
machines are now readily available but sales are languishing because of low--
bandwidth phone lines and non-digital central switches.
About 17 percent of all phone lines are serviced by digital central
switches. Because nearly all new switches in-stalled now are digital--simply
because that is the cheapest way to make a central switch--About half of all
phone lines will be served by digital switches by 1990. By then, offices
wired for digital transmissions will be able to send G-IV faxes to other
offices with digital networks.
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PICTEL'S 56-KBPS 'PICTUREPHONES' - NYNEX:
A Massachusetts startup specializing in video-compression technologies
has scored big with its first release of "picturephones," and won a vote
of confidence from one of the biggest network operators, Nynex Corp.
For PicTel Corp. (Peabody, Mass.), the recent success is part of a
pattern that began two years ago when two engineers developed a proprietary
codec that allowed the construction of a videotelephone that didn't require
the use of extremely high transmission speeds. For the much antivipated
videoconferencing business, it was the microcomputer.
Because of PicTel phones operate at speeds of 56 kbits per second
(instead of traditional 1.544 Mbits per second known as T-1 speeds), the
devices can be plugged into digital switches already installed by telephone
companies in a growing number of offices. That's one reason why Nynex
Business Information Systems is interested in the technology and has started
to market PicTel phones to business customers.
Since formally releasing the system in October, PicTel has reported
500,000$ in orders for the first telephone system, which costs as much as
100,000$. There's also a growing order backlog which could augur well for
future company prospects.
With the shipment of its first products, the increasing digitalization
of the nation's telephone offices and the expectations of the ISDN, PicTel's
prospects should be favourable. To date, its principal competitors, such as
General Electric Co. plc of Britian and Compression Labs Inc. (San Jose, CA)
offer picture phones that require an expensive videoconferencing room and T-1
lines to handle the breakdown, transmission and reconstruction of video
images.
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If there is any question to the information in this file, contact the
author. Now can be found on the Private Sector 20 Meg, 3/1200 baud
system at (201) 366-4431 (2600 Magazine Bulliten Board).
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This concludes this transmittal No. 8 presented by:
The Sensei - The Syndicate Report
Released November 24, 1986
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