Computer underground Digest Sun Oct 25, 1998 Volume 10 : Issue 52 ISSN 1004-042X Editor: Jim Thomas (cudigest@sun.soci.niu.edu) News Editor: Gordon Meyer (gmeyer@sun.soci.niu.edu) Archivist: Brendan Kehoe Shadow Master: Stanton McCandlish Shadow-Archivists: Dan Carosone / Paul Southworth Ralph Sims / Jyrki Kuoppala Ian Dickinson Field Agent Extraordinaire: David Smith Cu Digest Homepage: http://www.soci.niu.edu/~cudigest CONTENTS, #10.52 (Sun, Oct 25, 1998) File 1--Fwd: Internet Pioneer Postel Dies File 2--Jon Postel Tribute File 3--Islands in the Clickstream. Who Cares? September 12, 1998 File 4--SANS News: First Salary Survey Results File 5--Is Your Kid a Hacker? (ZDnet excerpt) File 6--Cyber Patrol (and others) hacked File 7--Wal-Mart Sues Amazon.com (AP Excerpt) File 8--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 25 Apr, 1998) CuD ADMINISTRATIVE, EDITORIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION ApPEARS IN THE CONCLUDING FILE AT THE END OF EACH ISSUE. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 11:54:59 EDT From: Cudigest@aol.com Subject: File 1--Fwd: Internet Pioneer Postel Dies Source - AOLNews@aol.com Internet Pioneer Postel Dies .c The Associated Press By TED BRIDIS WASHINGTON (AP) -- Jon Postel, the Internet pioneer who wielded enormous influence managing technical details of the global computer network, has died of complications from heart surgery in Los Angeles, friends in Washington said Saturday. He was 55. Postel, considered by the Clinton administration to be a crucial player in the future of the Internet, died Friday night while recovering from surgery to replace a leaking heart valve, said Vint Cerf, a senior vice president for MCI Worldcom Inc. who worked closely with Postel. The death also was announced Saturday at an Internet conference in Barcelona, said Bill Semich, the president of .nu domain, another Internet company. Postel's death comes at a critical juncture for the Internet, with the federal government in the midst of largely turning over management of the worldwide network to a non-profit group that Postel helped organize. Though Postel worked behind the scenes and was hardly known outside high-tech circles, his role as director of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority allowed the Internet to match unique numerical addresses for computers on the global network with its millions of Web addresses, such as www.ap.org. So powerful was Postel that ``The Economist'' once dubbed him ``god'' of the Internet. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 16:57:17 -0700 (PDT) From: Pallas Anonymous Remailer Subject: File 2--Jon Postel Tribute Who runs DNS? Fat, bearded computer geek Send no more email Those numbers to names Connect computers worldwide Used to download porn Internet machines What a crazed numbering scheme! They will still run fine Sitting at a desk Cerebral life unbalanced Move only fingers Nerd in chair still eats Body responds with belly Arteries clog fast Convulsions of stroke Brutal seizure of organs The body dumps core Life lived on the net Life in virtuality Death does not reboot His lover alone No more big hugs to be had Email is cold death Each day on the net Disconnected from real life Brings us emptiness Type email with pride Impotence of modern age It is all bullshit Click the damned icon A life gone by sans meaning Geeks all die lonely ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1998 17:41:34 -0500 From: Richard Thieme Subject: File 3--Islands in the Clickstream. Who Cares? September 12, 1998 Islands in the Clickstream: Who Cares? "Because they have so little," observed Eleanor Roosevelt, "children rely on imagination rather than experience." Which is why childhood is such a magical time, during which - even among the worst deprivations - children can weave a luminous web around their daily lives, filling the landscape with lively fantastic shapes. Just like adults. This week an extraordinary event gave the digital world its seal of approval. Lively fantastic shapes humped and bumped their way across our monitors, a magic lantern show for the wickedly leering. Those of us who remember Watergate recall a judicial process that proceeded at a deliberate pace. Congressional hearings spelled out how the President of the United States had undermined the law by directing criminal activities from the Oval Office. The intelligence community was widely used to destroy enemies, distort the truth, subvert the constitution. A generation later, the independent prosecutor's report of the Clinton affair is shot-gunned onto the Net so debate can slosh back and forth across the body politic and members of congress, fingers to the wind, can sail toward impeachment, or not. We all frame the world according to our experience. As the Viet Nam War and Watergate unfolded, it became clear that our leaders, Democrats and Republicans alike, were lying through their teeth. Our denial eroded, and the voice of the people grew until it was amplified by those hearings, saving the constitution for another generation. Where is that "voice of the people" now, crying out for the deeper truth? Is it locked in the closet with our comic books, faded tales of Superman, an idealized father who couldn't protect us? Whose heroic belief in "truth and justice" made us feel better when we were children afraid of the night, as Auden said, lost in a haunted wood? The digital world, with its altered or manufactured images, is a haunted wood, a prison of the imagination. But when we use digital images to tell as much truth as can be told, the prison walls become transparent and we see real trees in the digital forest. We need to see more than the rubble and dust of falling-down public lives. There is so much more going on out there than presidential peccadilloes. We need a transcendent vision that begins with the simple truth but moves toward larger possibilities. A former computer hacker who occupies a sensitive position in corporate America and works frequently with the intelligence establishment described a chilling moment. He found himself involved with something so much bigger, deeper, more evil than he had imagined that he felt that chill running down his spine that tells us our world view has shifted forever. My friend had stumbled into the heart of darkness. Once we know, we can't not know what we know. Hackers are often portrayed as criminals, but - like many hackers - my friend was really an innocent. The hacker ethic of integrity, a passion for truth and knowledge, an obsessive desire to put together the Big Picture - that's closer to the superhero credo of "truth, justice, and the American way" than a criminal code. The History Channel just ran a series on the Kennedy assassination. The series raised legitimate questions - again - about a conspiracy. All we can know now about the assassination is filtered through text, the television screen, the digital interface and sometimes, the words of a friend. A prominent local physician remembers when his mentor at Medical School was called away to examine Kennedy's body. When he returned, he tried to work as if nothing had changed, but he kept looking away and muttering to himself, "It's the damndest thing." Then he said: "One day - one day it'll all come out." Just another "conspiracy theory." Like Gary Webb's. This month's Esquire has a story about Webb. He wrote articles for the San Jose Mercury News about the connections between cocaine distribution, the CIA, and the Contras. His story was well-documented but it didn't take long for the guardians of consensus reality to whack him. The truth is, he described the tip of the iceberg, but that's all he had to do to find himself surrounded, isolated, neutralized. The deep involvement of members of our government in narcotic trafficking is well documented, but when Webb tried to tell the truth, it was as if he had screamed himself awake from a nightmare and rushed to the window, only to find it nailed shut and people on the walk below who would not look up. Besides guns, Contras, cocaine who really cares? I have explored the fun-house mirrors of the world of UFOs for years. When you brush away the cobwebs of disinformation, snake oil, mistakes, and reports of remarkable flying machines that we make ourselves, we are left with credible people telling us what they saw. Fighter pilots, intelligence agents, commercial airline pilots have told me what they or their friends encountered, that the hardware is real and flew rings around them, leaving them in the dust. We're a small planet on the edge of a vast spiral of stars, the center of nothing but our own perspective. All we have is our small voice. Digital media can amplify that voice or drown it out. "The movie "Conspiracy Theory," said my hacker friend, "doesn't even come close." As Jane Wagner said, I get more and more cynical all the time and still can't keep up. Yet we humans are meant for a deeper truth, more truth than a thousand pages of a president lying to keep a sexual affair secret. Perspective, as Alan Kay said, is worth fifty points of IQ. Sex on the Net is a sideshow, keeping our eyes on the dancing bears. So step right up! The circus is just beginning! Elephants are on parade, clowns pour out of a tiny auto, a calliope pipes and - in the distance - we think we can hear a voice, a contrarian voice, a still small voice but it's only our imaginations. Isn't it? Anyway who cares? ********************************************************************** Islands in the Clickstream is a weekly column written by Richard Thieme exploring social and cultural dimensions of computer technology. Comments are welcome. Feel free to pass along columns for personal use, retaining this signature file. If interested in (1) publishing columns online or in print, (2) giving a free subscription as a gift, or (3) distributing Islands to employees or over a network, email for details. To subscribe to Islands in the Clickstream, send email to rthieme@thiemeworks.com with the words "subscribe islands" in the body of the message. To unsubscribe, email with "unsubscribe islands" in the body of the message. Richard Thieme is a professional speaker, consultant, and writer focused on the impact of computer technology on individuals and organizations. Islands in the Clickstream (c) Richard Thieme, 1998. All rights reserved. ThiemeWorks on the Web: http://www.thiemeworks.com ThiemeWorks P. O. Box 17737 Milwaukee WI 53217-0737 414.351.2321 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1998 20:12:10 -0400 (EDT) From: sans@clark.net Subject: File 4--SANS News: First Salary Survey Results ((MODERATORS' NOTE: Thanks to SANS for allowing reprint of their salary survey results. SANS News is an excellent source of security and other news, and an invaluable resource. It's a low cost subscription and well worth it. Contact them at: sans@clark.net or visit the homepage at: http://www.sans.org ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ FIRST SALARY SURVEY RESULTS The average annual salary for the 7209 valid respondents was US$61,072/year. All numbers below are annual salaries converted to US Dollars. How do the salaries break down? What about the gender gap? Salary range M+F % Males/% Females/% Under 20,000 105 1.5% 103/ 1.6% 2/ 0.3% 20,000-29,999 245 3.4% 220/ 3.4% 25/ 3.4% 30,000-39,999 659 9.2% 574/ 8.9% 85/11.5% 40,000-49,999 1226 17.1% 1078/16.8% 148/20.1% 50,000-59,999 1415 19.7% 1258/19.5% 157/21.3% 60,000-69,999 1338 18.7% 1204/18.7% 134/18.2% 70,000-79,999 880 12.3% 799/12.4% 81/11.0% 80,000-89,999 532 7.4% 472/ 7.3% 60/ 8.2% 90,000-99,999 272 3.8% 250/ 3.9% 22/ 3.0% 100,000 & up 499 7.0% 477/ 7.4% 22/ 3.0% Other than at the highest salaries (for which the female sample size is a bit small for great conclusions), there does not appear to be a major gender gap in salary. What about salaries for the different kinds of administrators? --- Administrator Type --- Sal Range System Network Security Under 20,000 63 1.7% 31 1.4% 11 1.0% 20,000-29,999 136 3.6% 78 3.5% 30 2.7% 30,000-39,999 322 8.4% 270 12.0% 64 5.8% 40,000-49,999 692 18.1% 431 19.2% 109 9.8% 50,000-59,999 773 20.3% 455 20.3% 188 17.0% 60,000-69,999 729 19.1% 391 17.4% 217 19.6% 70,000-79,999 454 11.9% 241 10.7% 190 17.2% 80,000-89,999 273 7.2% 135 6.0% 119 10.7% 90,000-99,999 135 3.5% 80 3.6% 55 5.0% 100,000 & up 240 6.3% 131 5.8% 124 11.2% Average 60394 58455 68261 Security administrators seem to make significantly more money than their counterparts in System and Network administration. How did salaries increase from year to year? Is there a gender gap? Sal Range Male Memale Under 20,000 18.32% [ 92] 26.65% [ 2] 20,000-29,999 10.16% [ 187] 14.32% [ 23] 30,000-39,999 10.46% [ 513] 7.65% [ 66] 40,000-49,999 11.12% [ 974] 8.08% [ 137] 50,000-59,999 11.57% [1182] 9.73% [ 149] 60,000-69,999 11.72% [1155] 10.34% [ 123] 70,000-79,999 11.95% [ 762] 10.60% [ 79] 90,000-99,999 12.79% [ 241] 9.48% [ 21] 80,000-89,999 13.55% [ 453] 11.61% [ 60] 100,000 & up 16.86% [ 437] 24.83% [ 20] 5996 Male respondents 680 Female respondents Except on the very highest and lowest end, male salaries seem to be rising faster than their female counterparts. NOTE: People totals on some charts are fewer than 7,209 because some people omitted certain pieces of information (e.g., gender). ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 22:48:18 -0500 From: jthomas@SUN.SOCI.NIU.EDU(Jim Thomas) Subject: File 5--Is Your Kid a Hacker? (ZDnet excerpt) Source - http://chkpt.zdnet.com/chkpt/zdnu98101802/www.zdnet.com/familypc/ content/9810/columns/parental.html November, 1998 IS YOUR KID A HACKER? By Kevin Poulsen If you suspect your kid is a computer hacker, here's some advice from a convicted hacker on how to handle it It starts with a knock on the door. A dozen men in suits and shoulder holsters are outside, their Buicks and Broncos crammed into your driveway and parked along the street. Over their shoulders you can see your bathrobe-clad neighbors watching the spectacle from their lawns. It might be the FBI, it may be the Secret Service, but whoever it is, the humorless agents hand you a piece of paper and head toward your son or daughter's room. You wonder, perhaps for the first time, what your kid has been doing in there with the computer. If you're a parent, you probably regard the Internet as a font of both promise and peril for your children. It can be an invaluable learning tool and a way to encourage your kids to develop the basic computer skills they'll eventually need. But what if they take to it a little too eagerly and enthusiastically and begin using it to get into places where they don't belong? In that case, normal youthful rebellion, or simple inquisitiveness, if it's expressed over the Internet, could turn your family upside down. It happened last February in Cloverdale, California, when surprised parents found out their teenage son was suspected in a series of Pentagon intrusions. It happened again in Massachusetts a week later, when the Justice Department won its first juvenile conviction under the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. It happened to my family 15 years ago, in one of the first hacker raids in the country. At that time, I was the teenage miscreant who was illegally accessing federal computers. Now, in my early thirties, I've begun to wonder how I would protect a kid of my own from becoming a poster child for computer crime. I believe the best approach is to stay informed and to communicate with your potential cyberpunks. Open Communications Channels ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1998 14:11:05 -0500 From: Bennett Haselton Subject: File 6--Cyber Patrol (and others) hacked We've posted a program on Peacefire.org that will display the Cyber Patrol administrator password on any computer where it is run. Cyber Patrol has just found out about it, and they are not pleased. They have about 9 million users and the dam is about to burst. We also have instructions for disabling all the other blocking programs --CYBERsitter, SurfWatch, BESS, I-Gear, etc. We're protesting the imminent likely passage of "CDA II" and legislation that is likely to make it mandatory for schools and libraries to use blocking software. All programs and instructions are at: http://www.peacefire.org/ -Bennett bennett@peacefire.org (615) 421 5432 http://www.peacefire.org ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 16:47:19 -0500 From: jthomas3@SUN.SOCI.NIU.EDU(Jim Thomas) Subject: File 7--Wal-Mart Sues Amazon.com (AP Excerpt) Wal-Mart Sues Amazon.com .c The Associated Press By RACHEL BECK NEW YORK (AP) -- In a battle of booksellers, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has sued Amazon.com and claimed the Internet company that wants to be the discount superstore of cyberspace is stealing trade secrets. In a lawsuit filed in Chancery Court in Benton County, Ark., Wal-Mart asked for an injunction against Amazon.com to prevent the Seattle-based company from allegedly trying to duplicate proprietary technology. The order also would apply to Amazon.com affiliates Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Drugstore.com. The Bentonville, Ark.-based company claims Amazon.com recruited its former associates and targeted its vendors to learn more about Wal-Mart's information database, which analysts say is second in size only to the U.S. government. It includes data on sales, inventory and consumer buying habits. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1998 22:51:01 CST From: CuD Moderators Subject: File 8--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 25 Apr, 1998) 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 post with this in the "Subject:: line: SUBSCRIBE CU-DIGEST Send the message to: cu-digest-request@weber.ucsd.edu DO NOT SEND SUBSCRIPTIONS TO THE MODERATORS. The editors may be contacted by voice (815-753-6436), fax (815-753-6302) or U.S. mail at: Jim Thomas, Department of Sociology, NIU, DeKalb, IL 60115, USA. 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