Terminal Compromise, Winn Schwartau [sight word books txt] 📗
- Author: Winn Schwartau
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BOOM’S STILL AT UCLA, I JUST TALKED TO CRACKER, MAD MAX, ALPHA,
SCROLLER, MR. MAGIC . . .WE MISSED YOU. LOOKING FORWARD TO A
GOOD VACATE?
Yeah, 4 days before next term starts . . .Has anyone got the key
to the NPPS NASA node?
THEY CLOSED IT AGAIN. WE’RE STILL LOOKING. WE WERE BACK INTO
AMEX, THOUGH. CLEANED UP A FEW DEBTS FOR UNSUSPECTING CARD
MEMBERS. HAPPY LABOR DAY TO THEM. GOOD FUN.
And CHAOS? Anyone?
BEST I’VE EVER HEARD. 4 NEW VIRUSES SET TO GO OFF. HIGHLY POTENT
VARIATIONS OF JERUSALEM-B. THEN SOME RUMORS ABOUT COLUMBUS DAY,
BUT NOTHING HARD.
When you get the code send me a copy, OK?
SURE. HEY, REMEMBER SPOOK? STILL ASKING TO JOIN NEMO. SEEMS HE
BEEN UP TO A LOT OF SUCCESSFUL NO GOOD. WE’RE ABOUT READY TO LET
HIM IN. HE BROUGHT A LOT TO THE PARTY.
Careful! Remember 401
YEAH, I KNOW. HE’S CLEAN. GOOD GOVT STUFF . HE BROUGHT US THE
NEWEST IRS X.25 SIGN-ONS, 2 MILNET SUPERUSER PASSWORDS AND, DIG
THIS, VETERAN’S BENEFIT AND ADMINISTRATION, OFFICE OF POLICY AT
THE VA.
What you gonna do, boy? In them thar computers?
I FIGURE I’D GIVE A FEW EXTRA BENEFITS TO SOME NEEDY GI’S WHO’VE
BEEN ON THE SHORT END.
Excellent! Hey, Lori’s on the line. gotta go.
TA
<<<<<< CONNECTION TERMINATED >>>>>>The screen of his communications program returned to a list of
names and phone numbers. Lori said she’d be over in an hour and
Steven Billings was tempted to dial another couple of numbers
before his date with Lori. But if he found something interesting
it might force him to be late, and Lori could not tolerate play-
ing second fiddle to a computer.
Steven Billings, known as “KIRK, where no man has gone before”,
by fellow hackers, had finished his midterms at San Diego State
University. The ritual labors were over and he looked forward to
some relax time. Serious relax time.
The one recreation he craved, but downplayed to Lori, was spend-
ing time with his computer. She was jealous in some respects, in
that it received as much attention from Steve as she did. Yet,
she also understood that computers were his first love, and they
were part of his life long before she was. So, they came with the
territory. Steve attended, upon occasion, classes at SDSU, La
Jolla. For a 21 year old transplant from Darien, Connecticut, he
lived in paradise.
Steve’s single largest expense in life was his phone bill, and
instead of working a regular job to earn spending money, Steve
tutored other students in their computer courses. Rather than
flaunt his skills to his teachers and risk extra assignments, he
was more technically qualified than they were, he kept his mouth
shut, sailed through classes, rarely studied and became a full
time computer hacker. He translated his every wish into a com-
mand that the computer obeyed.
Steve Billings did not fill the picture of a computer nerd. He
was almost dashing with a firm golden tanned 175 pound body, and
dark blond hair that caused the girls to turn their heads. He
loved the outdoors, the hot warmth of the summer to the cooler
warmth of the winter, surfing at the Cardiff Reef and betting on
fixed jai-alai games in Tijuana. He played soccer and OTL, a San
Diego specific version of gloveless and topless co-ed beach
softball. In short, he was a guy. A regular guy.
The spotlessly groomed image of Steve Billings in white tennis
shorts and a “Save the Whales” tank-top eclectically co-existed
with the sterile surroundings of the mammoth super computer
center. The Cray Y-MP is about as big and bad a computer as
money can buy, and despite Steve’s well known skills, the head of
the Super Computing Department couldn’t help but cringe when
Steve leaned his surf board against the helium cooled memory
banks of the twelve million dollar computer.
He ran his shift at the computer lab so efficiently and effort-
lessly that over time he spent more and more of his hours there
perusing through other people’s computers. Now there was a feel-
ing. Hacking through somebody else’s computer without their
knowledge. The ultimate challenge, an infinity of possibilities,
an infinity of answers.
The San Diego Union was an awful paper, Steve thought, and the
evening paper was even worse. So he got copies of the New York
City Times when possible, either at a newsstand, borrowed from
yesterday’s Times reader or from the library. Nice to get a real
perspective on the world. This Sunday he spent the $4.00 to get
his own new, uncrumpled and unread copy of his revered paper, all
thirty four pounds of it. Alone. Peace.
Reading by the condo pool an article caught his eye. Steve
remembered a story he had heard about a hacker who had invaded
and single handedly stopped INTERNET, a computer network that
connected together tens of thousands of computers around the
country.
Government Defense Network Halted by Hacker by Scott Mason, New York City TimesVaughn Chase, a 17 year old high school student Galbraith High
School in Ann Arbor, Michigan was indicted today on charges that
he infected the nationwide INTERNET network with a computer
virus. This latest attack upon INTERNET is reminiscent of a
similar incident launched by Robert Morris of Cornell University
in November, 1988.
According to the Computer Emergency Response Team, a DARPA spon-
sored group, if Mr. Chase had not left his name in the source
code of his virus, there would have been no way to track down the
culprit.
A computer virus is a small software program that is secretly put
into a computer, generally designed to cause damage. A virus
attaches itself to other computer programs secretively. At some
time after the parasite virus program is ‘glued’ into the comput-
er, it is reawakened on a specific date or by a particular se-
quence of events.
Chase, though, actually infected INTERNET with a Worm. A Worm is
a program that copies itself, over and over and over, either
filling the computer’s memory to capacity or slowing down its
operation to a snail’s pace. In either case, the results are
devastating – effectively, the computer stops working.
Chase, a math wizard according to his high school officials,
released the Worm into Internet in early August with a detonation
date of September 1, which brought thousands of computers to a
grinding halt.
INTERNET ties together tens of thousands of computers from the
Government, private industry, universities and defense contrac-
tors all over the country. Chase said he learned how to access
the unclassified computer network from passwords and keys dis-
tributed on computer Bulletin Boards.
Computer security experts worked for 3 days hours to first deter-
mine the cause of the network slowdown and then to restore the
network to normal operation. It has been estimated that almost
$100 Million in damage was caused by Mr. Chase’s Worm. Mr. Chase
said the Worm was experimental, and was accidentally released
into INTERNET when a piece of software he had written malfunc-
tioned. He apologized for any inconvenience he caused.
The Attorney General of the State of Michigan is examining the
legal aspects of the case and it is expected that Mr. Chase will
be tried within in a year. Mr. Chase was released on his own
recognizance.
This is Scott Mason wondering why the Pentagon doesn’t shoot
worms instead of bombs at enemy computers.
*The next day Steve Billings signed on to the SDSU/BBS from his
small Mission Beach apartment. It was a local university Bulletin
Board Service or BBS. A BBS is like a library. There are li-
braries of software which are free, and as a user you are recip-
rocally expected to donate software into the Public Domain. Con-
ference Halls or Conversation Pits on the BBS are free-for-all
discussions where people at their keyboards can all have a ‘live’
conversation. Anyone, using any computer, anywhere in the world
can call up any BBS using regular phone lines. No one cared or
knew if you were skinny, fat, pimpled, blind, a double for
Christy Brinkley or too chicken shit to talk to girls in person.
Here, everyone was equal.
Billings 234 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXThere was a brief pause.
WELCOME TO THE SDSU/BBS. STEVE BILLINGS, YOU ARE USER #109
Steve Chose (12) for SERVICES:
The menu changed to a list of further options. Each option would
permit the user to gain access to other networks around the
country. From one single entry point with a small computer,
anyone could ‘dial up’ as it’s called, almost any of over
20,000,000 computers in the country tied into any of ten thousand
different networks.
SDSU/BBS WINDOW ON THE WORLD NETWORK SERVICES MENUSteve selected CALNET, a network at Cal Tech in Los Angeles.
Many of the Universities have permanent connections between their
computers.
LOGON: Billings014
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