werner@ut-ngp.UUCP (Werner Uhrig) (10/10/86)
[from the Sunday paper - I hate it when they use 'hacker' instead of 'cracker'] 'Pink Floyd' attacks lack clear motive SAN FRANCISCO - A sophisticated computer hacker who calls himself "Pink Floyd" has broken into dozens of university and business computers around the nation and taunted the experts who have tried to thwart him. The hacker reportedly has used telephone connections to break into computers at Stanford University, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, the University of Illinois, MIT, Mitre, and at least 3 unidentified Silicon Valley companies. The intruder began the break-ins Aug. 25. Some of the computers contain military and government information, .... However, a computer official at Stanford speculated that the hacker may be using his extraordinary skill to make a point, since no damage to files or programs has been found. "Pink Floyd" has made only subtle alterations to some systems to make detecting his intrusions more difficult .... Stanford and others have spent thousands of dollars to improve security as a result. Stanford officials said the hacker has tapped into as many as 60 campus computers, some of which include systems that contain non-classified, Pentagon-sponsored research data and programs. The intruder, described by one computer scientist as fitting the profile of a computer-science graduate student, has called Standford officials and carried on a phone conversation with them while breaking security protection in campus computers. "This is the most pesky kind of case, involving people trying to get into systems rather than do damage," said Jay BloomBecker, director of the National Center for Computer Crime Data in Los Angeles.
csg@pyramid.UUCP (Carl S. Gutekunst) (10/12/86)
>[from the Sunday paper - I hate it when they use 'hacker' instead of 'cracker'] > > 'Pink Floyd' attacks lack clear motive > >SAN FRANCISCO - A sophisticated computer hacker who calls himself "Pink Floyd" >has broken into dozens of university and business computers around the nation >and taunted the experts who have tried to thwart him. I've seen three different newspaper articles on the Bay Area UNIX cracker, all terribly innaccurate. For anyone who wants to know what really happened, check out mod.risks. Brian Reid wrote an extensive article on what happened. Although the news is now ancient (+ 6 weeks), you may still have some of the articles online; in addition, the moderator has made a copy of the breakin- related articles available via FTP. Contact RISKS-Request@CSL.SRI.COM. <csg>
werner@ut-ngp.UUCP (Werner Uhrig) (10/12/86)
In article <736@pyramid.UUCP>, csg@pyramid.UUCP (Carl S. Gutekunst) writes: > > [ I deleted the article ---Werner ] > I've seen three different newspaper articles on the Bay Area UNIX cracker, > all terribly innaccurate. For anyone who wants to know what really happened, > check out mod.risks. Brian Reid wrote an extensive article on what happened. > Although the news is now ancient (+ 6 weeks), you may still have some of the > articles online; in addition, the moderator has made a copy of the breakin- > related articles available via FTP. Contact RISKS-Request@CSL.SRI.COM. thanks, Karl, for making the connection to the articles in RISKS=mod.risks Even though I had read Brian's report (some time ago) I did not make the connection, but rather thought this was a new incidence. Also, I had since stopped reading RISKS and, therefore, not kept up. Well, over the weekend I caught up with RISKS (that new $299 2400baud modem is a great help - mail-ordered from QUBIE, see their ad in InfoWorld on Sep 15 - please, don't send me "More-Info"-mail ) and, yeah, talking about inaccurate. I wonder how low my opinion of the press can sink - it seems that on most topics that I feel I know a little bit about, enough to suspect inaccuracies, anyway, I see my worst suspicions confirmed later. The recent aviation-accidents come to mind, for example. Makes me wonder, these journalists sitting safely on their desks are writing about what a pilot is faced with???? hell, they don't know the first thing ....but they sure write prolifically about it, and throw stones into every which direction. The sad thing is, that the parties involved (FAA, airlines, aviation-businesses - or DARPA, universities, police, DAs...) feed all that one-sided crap to these ignorant mass-media journalists .... but back to the topic at hand. RISKS = mod.risks, in my opinion, is *THE EXAMPLE* of how a moderated news-group should look like. Peter Neumann is simply doing an *UNBELIEVABLE* job as moderator, and the contributed articles are of superb quality and style (most of the time). Do yourself a favor and read mod.risks and send Peter a note of appreciation (and to me for giving you this lead ..(-:). But, rather than adding to Peter's work-load, send your request for the collected articles on the break-in topic to me, and depending on the demand, I'll either mail or post them. I feel that's the least I can do for Peter and for you fellow-Usenetters ... Cheers, ---Werner ......!ut-sally!ut-ngp!werner PS: avoid mailing via seismo and ihnp4 if you can; I understand one is VERY sick (seismo) and the other one unreliable .... no insults to either intended.