[net.sources] Canceled messages

bob@primesun.uucp (10/30/85)

.

We've just received about 14 messages in a row for net.sources which had
a CANCEL subject line and whose text was simply "inapropriate newsgroup".

What's going on?

ejb@think.ARPA (Erik Bailey) (11/01/85)

In article <428@primesun.uucp> bob@primesun.uucp writes:
>.
>
>We've just received about 14 messages in a row for net.sources which had
>a CANCEL subject line and whose text was simply "inapropriate newsgroup".
>
>What's going on?

NEW YORK TIMES:

Teenage hackers strike again!

In a harrowing incident on the worldwide network of UNIX machines, known
as USENET, there has been overwhelming evidence of (fanfare) TEENAGE
HACKERS! Thousands of messages of the type:

<XXXXXXXXXXX.XXXX>

Innapropriate news group

We can only assume that these are a coverup for the REAL DAMAGE these
insolent brats have caused. Mr. Oliver Wendell, a world-wide leader in
the subject of breaking into systems, reports that:

"the teens may well have smashed through national security at the NORAD
base in Cheyenne Mt., and slowly worked their way via comandeered
satellite to a USENET gateway. Here, drinking cased of salvaged Old
Coke, they maliciously logged in as 'anonymous', and broke through all
standard UNIX defenses, to the point of becoming the so-called
'super-user'. From here it was a trivial matter simply to execute Pnews
and wreak havok with USENET. HOWEVER - the site had just implemented a
new version of Pnews, with advanced AI facilities. When it saw the work
IBM-PC in a msg directed to net.unix-wizards, it IMMEDIATELY fired off a
msg to net.news reporting that an incorrect newsgroup had been used."

"But Mr. Wendell - the messages appeared in net.sources!"

"@$@"^$*{@$^*) systems programmers!"

*** The end ***

[ PS - no more msgs on this, UNLESS you have a real answer. Sorry for
       cluttering up net.sources like this, but I couldn't resist...]

-- 
Erik Bailey
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Erik Bailey        -- 7 Oak Knoll                (USENET courtesy of
ihnp4!godot!ejb       Arlington, MA  02174        Thinking Machines Corp.
ejb@think.com.arpa    (617) 643-0732              Cambridge, MA)

"I was walking in a forest one day and a tree fell in front of me,
 and I didn't hear it."
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