bfalcon@rescon.uucp (Bob Falcon) (11/18/90)
Hi all,
I just ran across this in {Digital News} [ 11/12/90 ] : <page 3 >
H A C K E R S C O S T I D G
A missing poster from a Gamepro subscription, a video-game monthly
magazine, prompted two Staten Island, N.Y., teen-age brothers to break
into the telephone mail system at International Data Group's
Peterborough, N.H., office - where Gamepro is published - and cause
$2.4 million worth of damage.
The computer hackers, 14- and 17-year-olds, apparently made more than
500 calls to the IBM Rolm telephone system, recorded bomb threats and
obscenities, changed passwords and erased advertising orders. Agents
of the U.S. Secret Service and the New York State Police arrested the
youths and charged them with a host of misdemeanors, including
computer tampering, aggravated harassment and unauthorized use of a
computer.
There is also a full page article about Cliffort Stoll's book "The
Cuckoo's Egg", on page 66.
Acording to the article , he's a Computer Security GURU [now], and the
last American hero of the now defunct Cold War. <grin>
This was DIGITAL's NEWSmaker Interview in the last issue.
Anyhoo, Have a good one!
Catchya later,
Bob Falcon [ Co-Sysop : Turbo 386 Remote Access ]
[ (1:273/906) @Fidonet ] [ (215) 745-9774 HST/DS ]
internet: bfalcon@rescon.uucp or bfalcon@alba2l.uucp
uucp: [backbonesite]!bpa!alba2l!rescon!bfalcon
[Moderator's Note: Talk about naughty, spoiled children! I hope their
parents are forced to pay restitution for the damages done. With a
little luck, maybe the judge will send the older one to jail for
awhile and the younger one to a juvenile reform school and order them
both to stay away from computers for at least ten years. PAT]daemon@cs.utexas.edu (The devil himself) (11/22/90)
> A missing poster from a Gamepro subscription, a video-game monthly > magazine, prompted two Staten Island, N.Y., teen-age brothers to break > into the telephone mail system at International Data Group's > Peterborough, N.H., office - where Gamepro is published - and cause > $2.4 million worth of damage. I wonder how likely that figure is to shrink under the gaze of a competent defense lawyer ... No, I'm not sticking up for the two miscreants. The spectre of BellSouth looms large whenever monetary damage is discussed, however. Bob Izenberg (512) 346 7019 [ ] cs.utexas.edu!{kvue,balkan}!dogface!bei [Moderator's Note: Suppose the damage was only $24,000; or $240, or $24. Then what? PAT]
jmm@uunet.uu.net (John Macdonald) (11/27/90)
|[Moderator's Note: Suppose the damage was only $24,000; or $240, or |$24. Then what? PAT] Pat, are you trying to say that it doesn't matter how much damage was done? The and importance and concerns are the same for $2.4M and $24? Do you consider the offence to be identical when one person kicks over a sand castle and another dynamites a ten story building? Certainly it is a cause for concern when people break into a computer, but I feel that the amount of damage actually done, if any, is an important consideration in deterining the appropriate response for society to take. BellSouth's previous actions have provided a very strong precedent for distrusting even the scale of damage when estimated by the victim. The fact that we can be seriously be discussing the possibility that the damage estimate is inflated by a factor of a hundred thousand is somewhat frightening in itself. John Macdonald jmm@eci386 [Moderator's Note: It is not clear to me what BellSouth's actions in their litigation have to do with the most recent case of vandalism and burglary. Why are you trying to associate the one with the other? If you don't like it when hackers are stereotyped or painted with one brush then you would do well to extend the same courtesy to telcos and computer sites. And no, the monetary value is not nearly as important as is the nearly forgotten and frequently ignored ethical value called 'respect for the property rights of others'. I really get sick of hearing this bologna about how hackers/phreakers are so different, oh-so-special, such prima donnas whose only offense was that due to their high degree of intelligence and insatiable curiosity they got into someplace they don't belong and that the rest of us have to cater to them rather than risk possibly traumatizing them with a jail sentence followed by federal probation. PAT]
jgd@convex.csd.uwm.edu (John G Dobnick) (11/27/90)
>> magazine, prompted two Staten Island, N.Y., teen-age brothers to break >> into the telephone mail system at International Data Group's >> Peterborough, N.H., office - where Gamepro is published - and cause >> $2.4 million worth of damage. > I wonder how likely that figure is to shrink under the gaze of a > competent defense lawyer > [Moderator's Note: Suppose the damage was only $24,000; or $240, or > $24. Then what? PAT] To the Moderator, re: your comments... I have no sympathy for the "teen-age brothers" who allegedly trashed the phone mail system -- if they are guilty they must pay the consequences. And perhaps be made examples of. [Cheee... am I in a vindictive mood this morning, or what? :-) ] However, I agree with the poster, Mr. Izenberg, about the "spector of Bellsouth". It will be interesting to see how much the claimed monetary damages have been "inflated". [I find the $2.4 million hard to swallow.] John G Dobnick (JGD2) Computing Services Division @ University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee INTERNET: jgd@csd4.csd.uwm.edu ATTnet: (414) 229-5727 UUCP: uunet!uwm!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!jgd
caf@uunet.uu.net (Chuck Frosberg WA7KGX) (11/29/90)
Sounds like an attractive nuisance. If corporations with attractive nuisances were treated the same as homeowners with attractive nuisances, they would pay proper attention to computer security.
cowan@marob.masa.com (John Cowan) (11/29/90)
In article <14983@accuvax.nwu.edu>, John Macdonald <eci386!jmm@ uunet.uu.net> writes: >Pat, are you trying to say that it doesn't matter how much damage was >done? The and importance and concerns are the same for $2.4M and $24? >Do you consider the offence to be identical when one person kicks over >a sand castle and another dynamites a ten story building? Our Esteemed Moderator replies: >The monetary value is not nearly as important >as is the nearly forgotten and frequently ignored ethical value called >'respect for the property rights of others'. Ethical values are one thing; bases for legal action, quite another. In law, the amount of the damage makes a great deal of difference. For example, "diversity jurisdiction" suits (ones that are heard in Federal court because the parties are of different states) must involve damages exceeding $10,000, or back to state court they go. Therefore, your smart member of the Federal bar always specifies at least $10,000, however petty the issue. Punishment-by-frivolous lawsuit is indeed a serious problem in this country, exacerbated by the each-pays-for-himself rule of American courts (as opposed to English ones, where the loser bears the winner's costs). Inflating the value of the matter at hand allows the bringing to bear of much larger guns. >I really get sick of >hearing this bologna about how hackers/phreakers are so different, No argument with the sentiment, but the word in that sense is spelled "baloney". Check out Al Smith's speeches. cowan@marob.masa.com (aka ...!hombre!marob!cowan) [Moderator's Note: I get tired of the baloney also! PAT]
kdb@macaw.intercon.com (Kurt Baumann) (11/30/90)
In article <14982@accuvax.nwu.edu>, jgd@convex.csd.uwm.edu (John G Dobnick) writes: > >> magazine, prompted two Staten Island, N.Y., teen-age brothers to break > >> into the telephone mail system at International Data Group's > >> Peterborough, N.H., office - where Gamepro is published - and cause > >> $2.4 million worth of damage. > > I wonder how likely that figure is to shrink under the gaze of a > > competent defense lawyer > > [Moderator's Note: Suppose the damage was only $24,000; or $240, or > > $24. Then what? PAT] > I have no sympathy for the "teen-age brothers" who allegedly trashed > the phone mail system -- if they are guilty they must pay the > consequences. And perhaps be made examples of. [Cheee... am I in a > vindictive mood this morning, or what? :-) ] > However, I agree with the poster, Mr. Izenberg, about the "spector of > Bellsouth". It will be interesting to see how much the claimed monetary > damages have been "inflated". [I find the $2.4 million hard to swallow.] I would have to agree here too. In fact I thought about sending IDG a FAX asking what in the world they could have on their voice-mail that would be worth $2.4M? Come on, even if they broke in and physically destroyed the equipment you would be hard pressed to do $2.4M. It is also interesting to see this figure coming out of one of their own periodicals. (So far I haven't seen it anywhere else) My feeling is that they are doing themselves and a lot of other people, who get hurt by people doing the wrong thing, a dis-service by inflating the amount of damage. Especially if this amount comes down, the general public will start getting the opinion that all cases are overly inflated. I too feel that these kids (I don't think that the 17 year old should be viewed as an adult, I know how I was at 17 :-)), should pay the piper. But to say that they did $2.4M worth of damage is a bit hard to swallow. Kurt Baumann InterCon Systems Corporation 703.709.9890 Creators of fine TCP/IP products 703.709.9896 FAX for the Macintosh.