CRYPT NEWSLETTER 40
CRYPT NEWSLETTER 40
December 1996 - January 1997
Editor: Urnst Kouch (George Smith, Ph.D.)
Contributing Editor: Stephen Poole
INTERNET: 70743.1711@compuserve.com crypt@sun.soci.niu.edu
Who reads Crypt Newsletter
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Readers of Crypt Newsletter log in monthly from organizations like Lucent Technologies, Loral, Lockheed, MITRE Corporation, NASA-JPL, Electronic Data Systems, Intel, Digital, CSIRO, Science Applications, Unisys, the World Bank, Fujitsu, DuPont, the Securities and Exchange Commission, FermiLab, the US Dept. of the Treasury, the US Naval Undersea Warfare Center, the EPA [?!], Disney [heh], Oak Ridge National Lab, Argonne Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley, Vandenberg AFB, China Lake Naval Weapons Research, and many anonymous U.S. military Internet domains that refuse open telnet connections and "finger" queries. Others log in from media organizations like the BBC, The Bloomberg Business News Service, New York Times, various newspapers, The Net magazine, and The Age (a Melbourne, Australia-based newspaper), too.
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Contents: Crypt Newsletter #40
THIS ISSUE
MEDIA REVIEW
- Uncool: Excite, MIT robot-men and a crew of beamish TV psychotics
NEWS
- The New York Times digs up some Serbian electronic bogeymen
- Disinformation wants to be free: An FBI newsletter is hooked on a 'Net joke
- The case of the Ft. Bragg hacker: Eric Jenott ruled no ChiCom spy
- Random notes: A dispatch from Paskell Paris & Tom Tomorrow's tour of CIS
- Virus Hysteria Awards 1996 -- The Winners, or losers
- SOFTWARE
- EMD's Personal Firewall keeps pushy Webmasters out of your business
- MISCELLANY
- Letters page
- Crypt Newsletter Hypertext
- Crypt Masthead Info
- Credits/Acknowledgment
THE WEB SAGES OF EXCITE, THE ATTACK OF THE MIT ROBOT-MEN, TORONTO BOB AND THE DEFINITION OF UNCOOL
Crypt Newsletter was overwhelmed this issue by a flood of disinformation in the mainstream media addressing the nature of "coolness" on the Internet. (For the rest of this piece, the word "cool" will be spelled Ko0L, so the reader knows it transcends whatever prosaic meaning the dictionary has assigned to it.)
The Daily Bugle (check Crypt's mailing address and guess the real name of the local newspaper) had an article on Ko0l on the 'Net. So the reader knew the article was about being Ko0L, it used the word frequently. Excite, a Mountain View, CA, company that runs one of the more successful Web search engines had invested a lot of effort, the article said, into a research team delving into the nature of Ko0L. The ubiquitous company flack said Excite had "the world's best editorial team" working on the project. The Excite investigators of Ko0L, it was said, had the "judgment and wisdom of experienced [Web site] reviewers."
The mandarins of Ko0L at Excite had cataloged and ranked 60,000 Ko0L sites. Sixty thousand! Crypt whipped out a pencil and paper and calculated that if it visited 10 Ko0L sites a day, a modest number, it would take about two years of burrowing to get to the bottom of the Ko0L pile. This was such a large amount, Crypt mused that it might be wise to consult the collective owners of it -- this vast corral of Ko0L, so to speak -- in order to investigate its potential as a saleable good. Perhaps Ko0L could be purchased by credit card number after which the owner of it would send some in a packet of electrons to the lucky buyer's e-mail address of choice.
In fact, The Bugle's reporter was so ahead of the curve on the issue of Ko0L, she realized it was impossible to define and instead focused the article on those charged with dispensing the illusion of it to the proletariat.
Just think about this for a moment.
There you are, sitting at home in your underwear, fiddling with your Website. You have no idea the vast amount of Ko0L you could be perched on top of. If you shout, "Hey, check out my site, d00d, there is a great deal of Ko0L to be found," most likely you will be met with a mixed response. Visitors will scratch their heads and wander away. But, when an "editorial team -- the best in the world" -- passes judgment, suddenly everyone, including you, can see that pile of Ko0L.
Ten thousand hits will clog your server for one whole day. Sycophants will turn up to ask for virtual favors. On-line time-wasters will send you witless and indecipherable electronic mail messages. Second rank "Me-too" journalists may be goaded into writing articles on your Ko0L-mine. The Bugle's J. Jonah Jameson could send Peter Parker to take photos of you sitting at your PC, admiring your pile of Ko0L. Therefore, we see that the Excite reviewers are the actual fountainhead of Ko0L. Which is what the business wants you to think. Without it, you are nothing.
Crypt News wondered aloud how many of its loyal readers with Websites of their own secretly yearned for a team of reviewers possessed of "judgment and wisdom" and armed with high editorial skill to descend upon them and bestow the gift of Ko0L, ranked from 1-to-60,000-and-counting. Fortunately, not many, it reckoned.
The computer wizards at MIT also took the last couple of weeks to drown TV viewers in Ko0L. It seemed as if the school had made a secret deal to acquire the Discovery channel so every "futurist" program aired could feature MIT students and faculty around-the-clock.
It was so overwhelming, Crypt News imagined the school was about to hire Lindsay Wagner as a spokeswoman.
Just like with her commercials for Ford, Lindsay could be shown receiving a CD-ROM from MIT. She'd pop it into her computer and a vista of MIT's Media or Artificial Intelligence Lab would appear.
Lindsay would click on a door to the AI Lab, it would open and a bunch of extremely fucked-looking students wearing computers they had inventively crafted into ugly hats and fannypack purses would waddle out. "Ohhhh," Lindsay would coo. "Those MIT guys think of everything. Oh, they're so cute!"
No joke! This is actually what Discovery seemed to be showing for a great part of the month of November: Alan Alda and some MIT computer-wearing students walking around campus. Henry Tennenbaum -- with the same footage, sans Alan -- showing the MIT computer-wearing students trudging down a flight of stairs.
It was really neat. Just think the pleasure _you_ could get if you were one of those MIT students with a computer you could wear on your head, blocking the vision out of one or both eyes. You could add a video camera to the top of your head, too, and send pictures of yourself sitting at a table, ordering falafel or chatting with newfound celebrity pals like Alan.
Hey, stop picking your nose on camera! It's spoiling the video.
Complete strangers could watch it and send you e-mail suggestions to forward the footage to Henry Tennenbaum or those two sissies dressed in lab coats who pretend to be scientists for NextStep while tooting the horn for whatever $5000 piece of computer equipment a vendor has sent them for free this week. Just think how innovative and techno-groovy it would be to annoy acquaintances at restaurants by wearing your stylish computer and impatiently tapping at the keyboard during their boring old-fashioned conversation. You could pretend to be a robot . . . just like the actors portraying the icky Borg in the new Star Trek movie.
And when you left MIT, you might start meeting people who aren't beamish psychotics from TV-land like Alan, Henry or the two sissies in lab coats. You could run into Americans who aren't paid handsomely to cluck and gobble appreciatively on canned TV while humoring self-indulgent idiosyncracy.
You could even walk into a bar. A member of the Bandidos biker gang, a power drunk or a downsized corporate employee might catch a glimpse of your computer garments and mistake you for an irritating geek. Then you could broadcast riveting real-time footage to the Internet of him bashing you savagely over the head with a cuestick until the connection is lost due to damage to the hardware.
A week later, instead of being on Discovery or A&E, you would be on Fox's "When Animals Attack!" -- thus broadening your audience.
Even more annoying was seeing Bob Ezrin on Toronto's MediaTelevision, a program that appears to be one incarnation of the anti-Christ in this world, being a platform only for the veneration of TV and computer advertising.
But -- back to Bob.
Remember him? He was the record producer for legendary rock and roll albums like Alice Cooper's "Love It To Death" in 1971. Now, Toronto Bob is a "multimedia mogul," responsible for a number of silly CD-ROM games. Toronto Bob was so excited about computers, the serial number on the rubber feet of his old Commodore, and the future of the civilized world it appeared he was about to wet himself.
Now let Crypt News put this in perspective. In the 70's Bob was never seen on TV flogging transient technology. Instead he produced record albums by legendary rock bands -- record albums that are still in demand over 25 years later. Today, Toronto Bob has jumped on the high-tech express to oblivion, producing CD-ROM games, nine out of ten of which will be in the virtual trashcan inside four months.
That's tragic.
Well, Crypt News has decided it's no judge of Ko0L. However, it sure knows the opposite when it sees it.
THE NEW YORK TIMES DIGS UP AN ELECTRONIC BOGEYMAN FROM SERBIA POISED TO FREE MANKIND FROM YOKE OF THE INTERNET
electronic bogeyman: a hacker, instrument of a hacker or anonymous source portrayed in the mainstream media as a menace to society. The electronic bogeyman must always be quoted making grandiose, unverifiable, or nutty claims (e.g., opening all the automatic garage doors in Anaheim, California at precisely 2:00 pm) about feats, usually malicious, that can be performed with a computer.
Usage: The New York Times interviewed an _electronic bogeyman_ from Serbia who claimed his computer virus would corrupt data on the Internet in order to save mankind from itself.
--From the Crypt News "Joseph K Guide to Tech Terminology"
The Dec. 8 issue of the New York Times included a short bit of news on Serbian virus-writers yearning to destroy the Internet.
In de facto electronic bogeyman style <tm>, the Times printed 18-year old Belgrade University physics student Rasa Karapandea declaring he and a group of peers were bending their life to the destruction of the Internet.
How was this to be accomplished? By the writing of computer viruses for the Unix operating system, said Karapandea.
"We are working on making viruses for Unix, the system the Internet uses, but it is well protected. We know how to destroy the DOS system, that is easy," Karapandea conspiratorially confided to the Times.
Like all good electronic bogeymen, Karapandea and his team of virus-writers have a back-up plan should their grasp of the technology of Unix viruses fall short. It's "Dig we must!"
"If we can't make a virus fox Unix we can always cut the optical cable . . . This is my mission in life to save the world from the Internet."
It is only the pure milk of human kindness, apparently, that motivates Kaparandea in this superhuman task. "The Internet is a dehumanizing [addiction] and the greatest single threat to human civilization," he said.
Since the Serbian electronic bogeyman was part of a story on Yugoslavian protesters on the Web -- a junknews topic imitated in knee-jerk fashion by many major dailies during the first weeks of December -- it's worth mentioning that a few discerning Crypt News readers felt the electronic bogeyman <tm> quotient for the topic so high that it seemed likely there was a 50-50 chance the N. Y. Times reporter had embellished a substantial portion of his dispatch purely for effect.
FBI LAW ENFORCEMENT BULLETIN GULLED BY 'NET JOKE
"Disinformation wants to be free" -- perversion of overused and tiresome hacker slogan, "Information wants to be free." In this case, a more accurate description of a condition that shapes cyberspace.
-*-
Most wanderers of the Internet are familiar with the running joke concerning computer viruses with names of celebrities, politicians or institutions.
The names and satirical content evoke a momentary smile or groan.
For example:
"Gingrich" randomly converts word processing files into legalese often found in contracts. Victims can combat this virus by typing their names at the bottom of infected files, thereby signing them, as if signing a contract.
"Lecture" deliberately formats the hard drive, destroying all data, then scolds the user for not catching it.
"Clinton" is designed to infect programs, but it eradicates itself when it cannot decide which program to infect.
"SPA" examines programs on the hard disk to determine whether they are properly licensed. If the virus detects illegally copied software, it seizes the computer's modem, automatically dials 911, and asks for help.
However, editors and writers for the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Law Enforcement Bulletin, published monthly out of the organization's training academy in Quantico, Virginia, apparently think they are real.
Writing in the December issue of the magazine, David L. Carter, Ph.D., and Andra J. Katz, Ph.D., respectively professors at Michigan State and Wichita State, cite them as real examples of "insidious" new computer viruses in the magazine's feature article entitled "Computer Crime: An Emerging Challenge for Law Enforcement."
The authors seem to genuinely believe these computer viruses are in circulation, even to the point of citing the "Clinton" joke again in an paragraph attempting to explain the motivations of virus-writing, would-be system saboteurs.
"Some employees could be motivated to infect a computer with a virus simply for purposes of gamesmanship. In these cases, the employees typically introduce a virus to play with the system without intending to cause permanent damage, as in the case of the 'Clinton' virus."
Put in perspective, this is similar to reading a scientific paper on the behavior of elephants and suddenly running across a section that straightforwardly quotes from some elephant jokes as proof of what pachyderms really do when wandering the African veldt.
Alert reader Joel McNamara hipped Crypt News to this LEB gem and wrote:
"The two researchers with the Dr. in front of their names seem to be totally clueless that this was a tongue-and-cheek joke that is still floating around the 'Net. If they did know it was humor, they made no effort to inform readers - [readers] I highly doubt are technically adept enough to recognize it.
"It's really telling that the world's lead law enforcement agency allows these types of inaccuracies to be widely distributed to police departments and agencies.
"Unfortunately, to me this is another example of the credibility problem the FBI has when it comes to dealing with computer related issues."
Neither authors nor editors of the Law and Enforcement Bulletin could be immediately reached for comment.
The FBI's curious article can be found off the FBI home page on the Web: http://www.fbi.gov/leb/dec961.txt
THE FT. BRAGG HACKER CASE: SOMEWHAT LESS THAN A CHICOM SPY
In late October, the Fayetteville Observer-Times started reporting on pre-trial maneuvering in the case of Eric Jenott, a Fort Bragg, NC, paratrooper accused of hacking U.S. Army systems and furnishing passwords to a citizen of communist China. Much of the Jenott trial -- a court martial -- was characterized by long bouts of closed-court testimony, gossip, a suicide attempt by one of the prosecutors, argument over whether computer passwords were classified or not and electronic scribblings attributed to the Ft. Bragg hacker which indicated that when he was a teenager he had a standard if somewhat intense youthful resentment of authority -- aimed at the U.S. government in particular.
Witnesses came forward to testify that Jenott had made various statements about hacking feats on Department of Defense computers. Some of this testimony was furnished by a convicted two-bit thief obviously maneuvering to gain some leverage for his own legal battles. Other testimony on Jenott's interest in hacking into protected systems came from bits and pieces apparently culled from posts on an Army bulletin board system at Ft. Bragg.
At the finish, Jenott was found guilty only of compromising a military system and for that he was given three years in prison. He and his lawyer seemed satisfied with the outcome.
Pre-court martial maneuvering
In testimony at a hearing on October 23rd, Chief Warrant Officer Lorenzo Clemmons said Eric Jenott told him he could break into an Army communications system three months prior to the paratrooper's arrest on spying charges.
Clemmons said Jenott told him in March 1996 that the Army's Mobile Subscriber Equipment, carried by hummvee and the Army's equivalent of cellular telephones, computer and fax communications, "might not be as secure as we think . . . "
Jenott demonstrated the system's weakness to a supervisor who passed it along to a Major Jerry R. Moore. Moore subsequently met with Jenott to discuss the weaknesses he had uncovered. On October 23rd, Jenott's defense attempted to show that statements the paratrooper made to investigators during this session not be allowed as evidence since Moore did not advise Jenott of his rights.
Jenott's family has maintained only that he gave an _unclassified_ Internet access code to a friend from China. The Army insists Jenott gave secret computer passwords to a Chinese hacking accomplice, named "Mr. Liu." At the hearing, Jenott's lawyer, Tim Dunn, said "Mr. Liu" had left the country and could not be located.
According the Observer, the Jenott hearings are shrouded in secrecy. "During the hearing only a few minutes of testimony were open. The hearing was closed to reporters twice when court wasn't even in session," reads a boxed-out quote from the 24th October edition of the newspaper.
Security officers for the Army claimed some testimony and audiotapes presented at the hearing contain classified information.
During a period in which Jenott's lawyer questioned Moore over what he would do if he discovered a soldier had "hacked" into Army systems, Army prosecution objected, maintaining Dunn was getting into classified information. More testimony was subsequently conducted behind closed doors.
The court martial begins
Jenott's formal court martial on espionage charges at Fort Bragg, NC, began Monday, Dec. 9, 1996. If convicted, the potential sentence for the Ft. Bragg hacker -- life in prison -- was dire.
The Army, according to the Fayetteville Observer, had been trying to demonstrate Jenott was a criminal hacker trying to "gain favor" with the communist Chinese government by giving passwords on an Army system to a Chinese agent, known as "Mr. Liu." According to the paper, Jenott's family has insisted all along that he gave only an unclassified "Internet code" to Liu.
Jenott's defense team immediately tried to get "Mr. Liu," also identified as Quihang Liu, declared an essential witness. The idea behind this stratagem: Since Liu would not or could not return to the U.S. for Jenott's court martial, his absence would force the dismissal of the case against the soldier. Liu was a Chinese national who worked for a short time at Oak Ridge National Laboratory on a computer database and management system and was a friend of Jenott's. He is no longer in America.
However, according to the Observer, Liu was interrogated by the FBI before leaving the country.
During this investigation, Liu apparently "told federal agents that Jenott did not give him a classified computer password. Later, he said Jenott might have given him the password, then finally said he probably received [a] password from Jenott."
Further, "Liu told investigators that Jenott gave him at least two other computer passwords, including one that let him enter [a] University of Washington computer system."
John Jenott, the Ft. Bragg soldier's father, has provided a partial transcript of a conversation conducted in which his son said the passwords which the government contends were classified were, in fact, not classified. The passwords were published in training books given by GTE to soldiers for home study, said Jenott. In later testimony, this would be confirmed by the industry developers of the system that used the passwords.
US Army Prosecutor attempts to kill himself
At the beginning of the second week of December, the court martial of Eric Jenott took a strange turn when the military judge, Fred Arquilla, replaced the Army's lead prosecutor, Emmett Wells, because he had attempted to commit suicide.
Wells tried to kill himself by slashing one of his wrists with a razor early Sunday morning, December 8th, and was immediately taken to an army medical center, according to the Fayetteville Observer.
Moving swiftly, Arquilla appointed a new lead prosecutor, Tim Lucas, and postponed further court action for only a day and a half over objections from both sides. On Monday, December 9, Jenott also pleaded not guilty to all charges leveled at him.
Arquilla then denied a defense motion to have Quihang Liu named an essential witness. Liu had indicated he would not return to the United States for the trial. Arquilla also denied a request by Jenott's defense for a review copy of the information taken from 600 diskettes and two hard disks, formerly belonging to the Ft. Bragg soldier, and seized by the government during its investigation.
On Thursday, Army investigator James P. Samberg testified the Ft. Bragg hacker told him he was trying to "hurt the United States and help China" when he gave away a "secret" password.
As the proceedings at the court martial unfolded, Samberg read from Jenott's personal diary, a diary seized at the Ft. Bragg barracks in June.
From Jenott's diary -- dated sometime in 1991, according to Samberg:
"I just wish America, my own country, would be put to shame. America is disgusting. I'm getting more and more impatient to go to China."
Samberg also presented a poem, attributed to Jenott in 1993, entitled "Red Blood and Snow." "By the way, I've been a communist for about three years," was alleged to be the poem's closing line.
Jenott's defense counsel, Tim Dunn, attacked Samberg's credibility. According to the Observer, Samberg had acknowledged "falsifying a weapons qualification record."
Prosecutors then tried to build the case that Jenott was a communist Chinese defector-in-waiting by summoning one of Jenott's platoon members, Nicolas Salado. Salado had travelled with Jenott in February 1996 to visit Quihang Liu in Knoxville. Salado testified that he saw Jenott and Liu access Playboy's site on the Internet -- a known hotspot of communists -- and that Jenott spoke to Liu in Chinese.
Prosecutor Matthew Wilkov subsequently claimed Jenott burned his passport because he wanted to defect. The defense countered that Jenott merely wanted to be a tourist and had a strong interest in Chinese culture, having grown up with Chinese friends.
In keeping with the aura of secrecy that has surrounded the court martial, military judge Fred Arquilla closed the court to the public a number of times, supposedly due to the discussion of classified material, according to the Observer. At one point, a witness' name rank and unit were classified. The Observer reporter got it anyway and published the name of the classified soldier: "Alan Castle."
Willkov claimed that Jenott had also hacked systems run by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the secretary of the Army, the Department of Defense, the Army, the Navy and the Air Force -- installing password sniffers on them during the process.
On Friday, December 13, Fred Arquilla locked the public out of the court martial for all but three minutes. The rest of the day the case testimony was closed under a court order for military secrecy.
The so-called criminal hacker
By December 17th, the U.S. Army's prosecution of Eric Jenott, "the Ft. Bragg hacker," was in full swing. Much of the testimony continued to be aimed at proving Jenott to be a criminal hacker. However, one key witness turned out to be little more than a convicted thief attempting to curry favor for himself in return for helping to convict Jenott. Other testimony appeared to be standard circumstantial hacker hearsay attributed to the Ft. Bragg soldier. Very little of the court's unclassified proceedings convincingly portrayed Jenott as a potential spy for communist China.
Raymond Chen, a former Marine, testified Jenott gave "the [Internet] address for the secretary of defense computer system" to him "before Jenott joined the Army." Chen accessed the system using this information, he said.
According to Chen, Jenott confided that he had been hacking into Navy, Air Force and other DoD computers since 1994. He claimed that Jenott had admitted to deleting information from a Navy system.
Chen, who is also in legal trouble from this case and a convicted thief stemming from a 1991 break-in at the University of Washington in which he stole a computer, claimed he has been granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony in the Jenott case. Chen was convicted of burglary and possession of stolen property in December 1992. His sentence was 60 days in jail and 30 days of community service.
Chen testified that he had negotiated immunity with Army prosecutor Emmett Wells. According to the Fayetteville Observer, Chen said in court "Wells said if I can get Jenott convicted of espionage, he will get me out of my trouble in Washington state."
Wells was quickly removed from the case when he attempted to commit suicide by slashing a wrist a few days earlier.
Army prosecutor Matthew Wilkov had Chen say "he understood that Wells was an Army prosecutor and had no direct control over the charges in Washington." However, Wilkov added "he had agreed to write a letter saying Chen had cooperated in an Army case."
Testimony continued from Army employees who worked the Fort Bragg bulletin board system. Janet Warden said she had been monitoring posts by Jenott and undisclosed others on the board. The postings were about computer hacking, she said, and included references to S-MILS, a military acronym for secure military sites.
Warden said she had been instructed to observe Jenott's conversations on the system.
Logs from the Ft. Bragg BBS indicated Jenott sent "several" electronic messages to Qihang Liu at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Liu did not reply.
Another military intelligence investigator, Ronald E. Davis, said that he interviewed Jenott and that "I learned he passed the password . . ."
Davis was asked twice by prosecution what he learned from Jenott. The second time he said he "learned [Jenott] committed espionage." Jenott's lawyer, Tim Dunn, immediately objected and Fred Arquilla sustained it.
The court was then closed again for the purposes of secrecy during the rest of Davis' presentation and testimony from John F. Deasy, a soldier from the Land Information Warfare Activity at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
When the court was re-opened, Deasy said he had been asked to look "over a file about someone from Fort Bragg hacking into [a] University British Columbia computer." Deasy also said he was told the security of a "switching station" on the Army's Mobile Subscriber Network was breached. The running subtext was that Jenott was responsible for breaking the security of the military system.
Ray Chen testified again, claiming he had learned in a chat group with Jenott's brother, Lance, and unnamed others that Jenott had "hacked" into a university of British Columbia computer.
Other prosecution witnesses said they had followed Jenott's discussions on the Ft. Bragg BBS on the use of passwords of "professors and students" to hack into computers and the utilization of laptops and payphones to avoid being traced.
Izzit secret?
While the U.S. Army contended Eric Jenott gave a secret password for a secure cellular telephone network to Quihang Liu, the system's builder did not consider the password verboten until more than a full month after the Ft. Bragg hacker was charged with espionage.
GTE developed the system and an employee, Steven Sullivan, testified at Jenott's court martial in another closed session, December 18th.
The prosecution's Matthew Willkov maintained the password was classified. "If classified information is carried on the system, the password is secret" he said, according to the Fayetteville Observer.
Jenott's defense disagreed.
Judge Fred Arquilla said the password is classified, but only in the context of determining whether the court should be in closed session during testimony. He informed the jury that closing the court should not bear on its decision as to whether or not the password in contention was or is actually classified.
Clear?
Anyway, much later FBI agent Steven McFall -- who said he was suffering from a case of food poisoning -- testified that federal agents had seized an Army jacket and uniform with Jenott's name on it from the apartment of Quihang Liu.
Suicide? Or not? In court gossip rules
Jenott's counsel, Tim Dunn, said on Friday that he had checked out a tip "that a former prosecutor [Emmett Wells] in the case tried to kill himself because he was being pressured to alter documents."
According to the Fayetteville Observer, Dunn said he had also talked to Wells and the rumor proved unsubstantiated.
"He said it was not true, it was fascinating, but he had to go," Dunn said. Wells is currently being treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center after a mystifying attempt at killing himself by slashing a wrist.
The Observer also reported the defense's effort to have some evidence declared inadmissible because the government has kept sloppy records on it. Judge Fred Arquilla denied Dunn's request but said he could introduce evidence pointing out the government's sloppiness.
Kevin Nauer testified on computer data apparently seized from Jenott's hard disks or diskettes. It included words purported to be written by the Ft. Bragg hacker.
According to Knauer and reported in the Observer, a poem credited to Jenott said "At least I'll have a tiny part in bringing this nation to its knees."
According to prosecution testimony, Jenott is also claimed to have said he had "wiped out hundreds of computers at the Defense Information Systems Agency."
Throughout most of the Jenott case, it has been impossible to distinguish whether much of the testimony is based on anything more substantive than weird hacker bragging, notes from the underground, hearsay or crazy gossip.
Jenott takes the stand
According to the Fayetteville Observer, Eric Jenott took the stand in the last day of testimony of his court martial.
One of the charges leveled by the government against Jenott -- larceny -- was dropped because "a computer password" was judged "intangible."
In his defense, Jenott said he was neither trying to hurt his country or help China. He added he was "ashamed" about things he had written in his diary that had seemed to cast him in the light of a communist sympathizer.
Jenott testified that he had never believed in communism.
As a teenager, Jenott said "he had a negative opinion of Americans . . . I thought Americans lived a soft lifestyle."
Continuing, he said he "was fascinated with China when he was younger, but lost interest in the country after visiting it twice." Jenott said he had burned his passport on a trip to China in 1993 "because [he] thought it would keep him from being deported," according to the Observer. Later, the paper reported Jenott claimed he became homesick on the trip and told the U.S. consulate that his passport had been stolen.
There was discussion of Jenott's attempted sale of an American passport in China in 1994. Jenott said a childhood pal, Tim Edgley, had given him the passport for sale when informed that it would be worth some money in China.
The plan went awry when Jenott tried to sell the passport to a Chinese police officer.
Going back to his childhood, Jenott described his life in a divorced family and life with friends like Edgely, with whom he learned about computer hacking.
Edgley, who also testified, agreed with Jenott's testimony.
The defense produced two of Jenott's Army peers as character witnesses, too. Both praised Jenott, one saying he would have liked to have an entire squad composed of soldiers like him.
Jenott cleared of espionage charges, gets three years and big chicken dinner, anyway
In the end an Army jury did not buy the prosecution's contention that Eric Jenott had been a spy for China when he allegedly gave a secret-or-perhaps-not-secret password to Quihang Liu.
Late Sunday, December 22, Eric Jenott was found not guilty of espionage against the United States. He was, however, convicted on three lesser computer crimes involving the damage of government property -- specifically, the meddling with the switching system of a U.S. Army communications network, according to reports in the Fayetteville Observer.
Jenott was sentenced to three years in prison and a big chicken dinner, or "bad conduct" discharge.
The jury of eight -- split evenly between officers and non-coms -- considered the Jenott case for four and one-half hours before returning its decision.
Jenott's counsel, Tim Dunn, appeared convinced justice was served. The Observer reported him saying: "For us, it was clearly a victory."
Jenott was remorseful, saying, "I understand I've got to be punished for what I did, but I hope that whatever punishment I get I'll have the opportunity to serve my country again."
Judge Fred Arquilla told the Jenott jury "that in order to find Jenott guilty of espionage, they would have to find that Jenott intended or had a reasonable belief that the information would be used to injure the United States or provide an advantage for a foreign nation."
Phillip Loranger, division chief for information systems security at the Pentagon, said $5 million had been spent to improve the security of the computer system that Jenott had demonstrated he could break into.
RANDOM NOTES: A DISPATCH FROM PASKELL PARIS; TOM TOMORROW VISITS COMPUSERVE
Over the holidays, Paskell "Geno" Paris mailed Crypt a number of dispatches including a Christmas greeting. Paris, recently admonished by a two year stint in prison, has resumed travel in cyberspace under the handle "Colostomy Bagboy." Any who are interested in swapping correspondence with him can send mail to: jesus.christ@webcitement.com .
Paris indicated he was once again involved in tormenting users of the Fidonet, referring to them in one electronic document as "[the] Filthy Fido Capitalist PigDogs." Bagboy's current operations are somewhat reminiscent of those of the character Jesus Bernal in Carl Hiaasen's black humor/crime story, "Tourist Season" (Warner Books). In neo-Bernal style, Paris vows to "smite [enemies] until they are most smote" by employing mass distribution of nuisance electronic leaflets and political statements.
-*-
Dan Perkins, also known as Tom Tomorrow and the creator of the comic strip, "This Modern World," came to CompuServe in December to promote his new book, "The Wrath of Sparky."
At an advertised on-line conference attended by four people, of whom only one was not a CompuServe staffer directly connected to the book promotion, Perkins made himself available to chat with reader(s). Even though the promotion was _sparsely_ attended, CompuServe staffers still imposed the service's "gag" software on the conference. When in force, it compels those at the conference to put their questions to the speaker into a queue for approval by a moderator. While it's effective at controlling the flow of large on-line discussions and dispatching hecklers, its use was decidedly Kafka-esque in a chat attended by only one person not connected with the promotion.
Perkins' strip runs in alternative weekly publications nationwide and is well known for its savage skewerings of American social, political and corporate shibboleths.
When asked what his favorite rejection was, Perkins said it was "WIRED magazine."
"WIRED asked me to contribute to their initial issue but I didn't have time," Perkins related. "When I approached them one or two issues later, I was told my work wasn't 'futuristic.'
"Now that I have a clearer sense of what they are all about, I don't think they'd run my stuff because I'd be tearing down the fantasy world they work so hard to [promote]."
With cover blurb's by Noam Chomsky and Ben Badigkian, Tomorrow's new book, "The Wrath of Sparky" (St. Martin's Griffin), is available in good bookstores everywhere.
SOFTWARE REVIEW: EMD'S ARMOR 95/PERSONAL FIREWALL KEEPS PUSHY WEBMASTERS OUT OF YOUR BUSINESS
By Stephen Poole
================
EMD Enterprises (73 East Forrest Avenue, Shrewsbury, PA 17361) obviously takes security very seriously. The introduction in the on-line help to the company's new Armor 95 - Personal Firewall System help states that it will keep "hackers, viruses, and lurkers" from messing around with your hard drive. It's no joke, either.
When you install the software, the provided Setup Wizard will install a DOS device driver, a DOS TSR, a VxD and several Windows programs. This approach allows EMD to provide protection whether the PC is actually under DOS mode or Windows, which is nice.
Once you've installed it, be warned that the Firewall isn't active until you click on the "Personal Firewall" icon and select "Install." You'll be prompted for a name and password. The system will then be restarted and protection is enabled.
Don't forget that password! From that point on, you'll need it at each bootup. You'll also need that password if you want to change something in the configuration.
The bootup screen comes from the device driver (which is loaded as the first line in CONFIG.SYS) and it's the first evidence that EMD is keeping the grubbies of others out of your hard drive. Pressing F8 won't work. You'll still get the Logon screen.
Of course, even Joe Average User might guess that starting the machine from a floppy would win access to the hard drive, and Joe'd be right. For those who want to control even this access, EMD includes the Lock program. This installs a custom boot record to the hard drive, rendering it inaccessible to anyone who tries to bypass the logon.
When you run Lock, you'll be prompted to make a special recovery diskette that can be used for emergencies. (You should do this. Otherwise, you will have to FDISK and reformat the hard drive to use it if something ever goes wrong).
The primary protection against file alteration (for example: by a virus) is provided by a behavior-blocking system -- a suspicious-activity monitor. You can specify filenames which are read-only. You can also specify file extensions that are to be "watched." If anything attempts to modify a "protected" file, you're warned about it.
The behavior blocker is very sensitive. As a simple exercise, I ran an installation program that copied and renamed some .EXE files and succeeded in generating several warning screens with the Personal Firewall. In other words, anything that tries to mess with your disk's file system unbidden can be brought to a screeching halt by the software.
So, if you don't mind an occasional warning screen, the blocker is extremely effective. Nothing in my collection of nasties could get past it. The Firewall stopped everything dead in its tracks before it could cause damage. When employed in this manner, the Firewall is extremely useful in vetting new software.
The Security provisions are the best part of the package. They allow the personal PC user to enjoy a few features that are more common on large network systems. Indeed, EMD offers a "desktop" version of the program, called -- naturally enough -- the Desktop Firewall. This version expands the program's features to cover intranet peer-to-peer security for Win95 client PCs over a business' network.
Anyway, the Internet Security feature is very effective, but the name confused me. I initially thought it implied on-the-fly scanning of .DOCs and other stuff downloaded from the 'Net. But what this really does is allow you to prevent access to selected subdirectories ("Folders," for you Win95-only folks).
For those who aren't familiar with how subdirectory protection works: Say you have a folder named "My Secret Stuff" that you don't want anyone looking into. You don't even want to allow a directory listing of the filenames.
To prevent The Evil Web Lurker <tm> from doing this -- add that folder name to the protected list, enable Internet Security, and no one can look at it -- not even you. You'll get an "access denied" error if you try.
If you need to access the folder, you click the little padlock icon on the taskbar and disable Internet Security for a moment. When you're done, you click the padlock and re-enable it. The folder is inaccessible again.
So, how does this provide Internet protection against "ActiveX, JAVA, and Cookies" as EMD's documentation claims? It takes a little work, and to be frank, EMD does a terrible job of explaining this in the program's on-line help, but to prevent access to certain data pushed or used by an ActiveX page, you protect the folders containing that data. To prevent receiving "cookies," you find the subdirectory the page pushes them into and protect it.
Just before starting your Web browser, click the little padlock icon and enable "Internet Security." Your Web browser (and thus any Web page that you might access) will be unable to tamper with the protected files or subdirectories. This is currently a hot issue because computer magazines have whipped the proletariat into a frenzy over the idea that avaricious, nosy businessmen, pranksters and vandals lurk under every Web page in cyberspace and that they all live to play fast-and-loose with your machine and data via ActiveX or Java. Whatever you believe, the EMD Armor/Personal Firewall renders the issue moot with its directory protection.
When coupled with the behavior-blocking system, you're protected to an almost paranoid level. It's very effective but it could confuse some Web browsers if they expect to find a subdirectory and it suddenly becomes inaccessible.
What this also means is that the Personal Firewall doesn't suffer fools gladly. It has to be tweaked to be of maximum benefit. However, no software of this nature is much different. Installing a powerful security system on your PC makes no sense at all if you're a person who can't remember a password or spell anything without making six typos. Setting up directory protection so it was optimal and seamless in operation took some fiddling and a couple of trips to EMD's Web page before I had it completely figured out.
The Firewall provides some other nice security features. For example, to protect your PC in a semi-private setting or small home business while you're off in the restroom or fetching coffee, you can just log off. The Firewall will keep out the petty snoops and meddlers. You'll have to enter your name and password before you can get anything back.
The Firewall also comes with an anti-virus scanner called QuikScan. It is the weakest part of the package. While it found most of the viruses in my limited collection, it did miss a few common ones, primarily polymorphic strains like the SMEG viruses. This makes me suspect that the scanner is a simple string-search type, which is hardly cutting-edge technology. Testing it against several macro viruses also produced mixed results: For example, it detected most Concept variants just fine, but missed an uncommon example, Bandung.
In summation, the Personal Firewall can be configured so tightly it's perfect if you suspect you'll be spending a lot of time going in harm's way in cyberspace. However, constantly using it with maximum protection enabled is confining. And the scanner needs work even though it's passable. In truth, however, with everything else included in the package in proper use, an anti-virus scanner isn't particularly valuable, anyway. The Internet Security features are where the Personal Firewall really shines and they make it well worth the asking price of $79.00 alone. I do recommend it.
Postscript: As this issue went to the electronic presses EMD announced that the next version of the program would enable Internet Security mode automatically, activated the moment the user fires up any Internet browser like Internet Explorer or Netscape. That's not a bad idea.
[EMD Enterprises can be reached at (800) 8989-EMD or (717) 235-4423. FAX number: (717) 227-9746; WWW Site URL -- http://www.emdent.com for a demo version of the software.]
COMPUTER VIRUS HYSTERIA 1996: WINNERS DECLARED!
In the PUBLICITY category, corporations were the clear losers, er, victors. Nominees were chosen from absurd, lunatic or fraudulent statements that resulted in overwhelming publicity for those responsible for uttering them.
The voters tallied up for Symantec, casting 116 chits into the Norton Anti-virus hat:
**Symantec is a bona fide bad actor when it comes to packaging disinformational sales pitches as news about computer viruses. One example of many cited in Virus Hysteria 1996 had to do with a March press release describing a new Norton Anti-Virus feature: the ability to detect Java viruses. However, the press release admitted "no current Java virus threats exist." This led some to question how you could test this feature to see if it really worked.
Actually, it didn't matter since all the company was interested in was publicity. The press release, you see, claimed Symantec customers couldn't test it -- because the feature didn't yet exist in Norton Anti-virus! Of course, "At the first sign of a Java virus threat, Symantec will make this technology available to customers via an immediate virus definition update . . ." the company warmly promised.
However, Virus Hysteria Awards voters weren't confused by Symantec's contorted advertising and the company received a solid kick in the pants marked by its large margin of victory over the other nominees.
Runners-up:
2. CompUSA (71 votes).
3. Jack Brock, Government Accounting Office (53 votes).
Since the Government Accounting Office's information systems expert was the highest scoring _individual_, the Virus Hysteria Awards committee will be awarding the book allocated for the PUBLICITY category, Janet Endrijonas' "Data Security" (Prima), to him.
In the cause of computer literacy, the judges felt this would be more productive than hurling one into a mire of Symantec or CompUSA pitchmen.
Sorry, no appeals.
4. Peter Harrison, Cheyenne (10 votes).
THE QUOTATION CATEGORY
Nominees were chosen for well-publicized quotes that, generally speaking, fit the following categories: (1) brainless non sequiturs; (2) outright lies; (3) sales pitches disguised as information; or (4) interesting combinations of the first three.
**1. Ann Landers (73 votes)!
The well-known advice expert exchanged diatribes in her column with U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy regarding the Internet. Leahy says he regularly surfs the web; Landers admits she doesn't even own a computer. But failure to own a computer doesn't detract from her Internet expertise:
"I don't have to have a computer to know what's out there."
Ann Landers will be sent a copy of Dan Barrett's excellent book, "Bandits on the Information Superhighway" (O'Reilly Assoc.).
Runners-up:
2. Brian Williams, MSNBC (62 votes):<P>
Of the Hare virus: "I'm scared to death that I'm going to get this or, even worse, my computer . . ."
Doh!
3. Mark Clauder, CompUSA (48 votes):
"If you download your protection . . . you may not be protected from the latest strains of a virus."
4. Richard M. Smith, Phar Lap (39 votes):
"Its the good time virus for real."
5. Rick Kreysar, McAfee Associates Dir. of Operations (26 votes):
"McAfee [Associates] has never been a company to hype viruses, and I think it is a poor trend that is happening . . . in the last year."
This gem of mental nose-gold taken from an interview with the McAfee Associates' Director of Operations was the judges' favorite. However, it wasn't enough to make Kreysar a winner.
6. Larry Magid, consumer news cyber-pundit (5 votes):
"As far as I know, I've only twice been infected by viruses."
This from a column devoted to dispensing advice on getting rid of computer viruses. Larry Magid: Threat or menace?
THE EVENT CATEGORY
Nominees were taken from the best junkfood computer news stories of 1996.
**1. The winner by a whisker was . . . the Hare virus scare (114 votes)!
Runner-ups:
2. Java virus scare (113 votes).
3. Boza virus scare (23 votes).
SPECIAL "GERALDO RIVERA" AWARD FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM
**1. And the winner is . . . Brian Williams, MSNBC (53 votes)!
Williams' eye-glazing TV chat with yet another Symantec salesperson dressed up as a computer virus guru (Mary Engstrom) during the assault of the dread Hare computer virus (our winner in the EVENT category) was a clear winner over runner-up Stephen Pizzo's "Millenium virus" junkfood news story in Web Review.
For the text of Williams' brain-froster, surf to www.kumite.com/myths .
Williams wins a copy of "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" (Springer).
Runners-up:
2. Stephen Pizzo, Web Review (42 votes).
3. United Press Int'l (37 votes).
4. James Daly, Ziff-Davis (32 votes).
5. Larry Seltzer, Ziff-Davis (31 votes).
6. Pittsburgh Business Wire (23 votes).
7. Jon Swartz, San Francisco Chronicle (22 votes).
Further comment Swartz' downright bizarre newspaper story that showcased Aristotle's "Burma" virus and more Symantec salesmen than you can shake a stick at can be read on this site: http://www.soci.niu.edu/~crypt/other/symant2
Swartz's reporting was deemed so execrable by Virus Hysteria judges he was awarded a book, even though finishing seventh in the tallying. He will receive a copy of Stephen Cobb's "PC and LAN Security."
8. Lisa Carricaburu, Salt Lake City Tribune (8 votes).
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
A 'NETIZEN COMMENTS ON VIRUS HYSTERIA 1996 & THE INTERNET AS CONVEYANCE FOR INFO-RUBBISH
Crypt:
There is an editorial in the most recent Analog magazine pointing out that Clarke's Law -- any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic -- is already in effect among modern populations. Most people have given up on understanding the technology around them. Unfortunately it did not, I think, mention the real reason for this, and that is the very poor quality of media coverage of science or technology. Computer viruses are only one example of media-induced hysteria about technologic/scientific issues. Another is the environment. A third is medicine. A recent example was the possible evidence of life having existed at one time on Mars.
All it takes is one study to suggest that maybe x might be related to y, and the next thing you know the press have gone to town. That is because the job of a newspaper/TV station/radio station is not to inform folks, but to make money -- and scare headlines sell. There is no money in publicizing ten studies saying that the zebra mussels did not destroy the Great Lakes (they did not), or that most folks in North America die of old age (they do), or that the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum reality is only a theory (with ever more problems for which its adherents must invent even more bizarre explanations).
The problem is that most folk have no alternate source of information. For all the hype about the Internet setting information free, all it has done is turn into another mass medium for circulating hysteria.
My personal suspicion is that hysteria is ingrained in the human psyche. And, maybe hysteria about computer viruses is less destructive than older forms that burned strange old women as witches, or ruined the careers of suspected Commies.
I look forward to the final tally.
-Gamin
[Check the results published in this issue, Gamin!]
JACK BROCK, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTING OFFICE, RESPONDS TO HIS NOMINATION IN VIRUS HYSTERIA 1996
Crypt:
I read -- with some amusement -- my nomination to receive a 1996 Virus Hysteria Award in the hotly contested publicity category. Hopefully, by being first on the ballot, I'll receive additional votes and be able to pick up a prize.
A couple of points of clarification. First, the objective of our report and subsequent testimony was to provide an overview of the Defense Department's vulnerability to unauthorized access to their unclassified computer systems. The fact that such vulnerability exists is, in fact, well documented by the Department's own internal assessments. Such vulnerability extends far beyond the potential damage that might be perpetuated by a virus attack. In fact, our report focused more on the damage that could be done by authorized persons accessing [sensitive] information and inappropriately using or altering such information.
Second, as I recall our conversation. Your primary interest in the report was further information on those countries having an ability to initiate attacks against computer systems throughout the world. Our report stated an NSA position that 125 nations possess this capability. You wanted more specifics on the extent of that capability and which countries had been identified as threats. As I related to you, this information is classified by NSA. Since NSA did not provide such information to GAO -- nor did we request it -- there was no need to be sworn "to secrecy".
[Enjoy your "Virus Hysteria Award" book. It's on its way. See the related story in this issue on the awards and winners.]
MYTHS AND BOGEYMEN ARE A PART OF MAINSTREAM AMERICA'S CYBER-WORLDVIEW
Crypt:
I read with pleasure your [pre-print] article . . . about the lack of knowledge some of our federal law enforcement agencies that shall remain shamefully nameless have about computers viruses, and maybe computers in general ("FBI Law & Enforcement Bulletin gulled by 'Net joke") which was reposted with a link to your site in the C4I mailing list.
Now that I've found your site I am enjoying more. Thanks for the good work. The site goes to the top of my book marks.
A comment: There seems to be a general pattern of mythologies present in every society which are usually not acknowledged by its members but stands out glaringly to non-members of the group. Such ideas as the ghost in the road common to many cultures or the vigilante-cowboy-superman particular to American culture. The boogey-entity idea has a pattern unique to itself which can be classified as a new archetype. What was known as the deadly invisible spirit is later the lethal microbe and comes now as the insidious computer virus. One cannot blame the believer for claiming the sky is falling. They are too much a part of their own worldview. To them the sky falls. (Reference to Jon Swartz in the SF Chronicle fnord).
Wasn't Bulgaria part of Vlad Drakul's empire?
It is so sad that such a pathetic show can be so much fun.
Regards,
Judge
-=The Crypt Newsletter welcomes thoughtful mail from readers at crypt@sun.soci.niu.edu. Published letters may be edited for length and clarity or anonymized to protect the naive from themselves.=-
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