jim@umigw.MIAMI.EDU (jim brown) (02/17/88)
Food for the line eater :-) re: Chaos Computer Club "threats" and SPAN reaction The chaos computer club attempts at every opportunity to live up to its name. To threaten to disrupt the activities of a reasonably open (open as far as the institutions who are supported by NASA), scientific computer network is both childish, and illegal. No "public service" can result from the intentional hacking of SPAN. You mention that you believe that SPAN was disrupted during the latest threat; I beg to differ. It is true that SPAN was temporarily severed from the HEPnet network (for 24 hours); HEPnet is its own autonomous DECnet network which is not funded by NASA, and the severing of the connections was carried out by mutual agreement of the management of both networks. It makes it easier to trace a hacker, by the way, when the connections through which he could come are reduced. Also, two machines which provide direct access to SPAN from the public packet switch system (Telenet/NASA Packet Switch System) were reconfigured to provide only outgoing access to Telenet, rather than incoming access to SPAN. This is less disruptive than you think; all of the NPSS is planned to migrate to its own Closed User Group next month, and the reconfiguration we carried out actually mimics the operation of a CUG. This was planned long before anyone ever heard of the chaos computer club. All NASA funded dedicated circuits, connections which provide the basis of SPAN, remained active and available. Yes, SPAN shut down access to the few individuals who occasionally access the network from the outside. Of course it did. When one is threatened by a bully, one usually tries to defend oneself. Obviously, if the bully had not had a press conference, SPAN would have continued as it normally does, and, we believe, probably would have suffered little anyway. But that is not the point. What do you think the outcome would have been if there had been a press conference, and SPAN had done nothing? All it would have taken, in that case, would have been one hit on one computer, and SPAN would have again been abused by the community for not responding and protecting itself. We anticipated (and received) some complaints, but the alternatives were not permissible. Please remember that SPAN is not a public network, but is a government funded, scientific network, open only to those individuals affiliated with projects that are supported by the government for carrying out basic scientific research. Linda Porter [porterl@ssl.span@miami.miami.edu] Marshall Space Flight Center/SPAN Routing Center Manager