TK0JUT2%NIU.BITNET@UICVM.uic.edu (10/08/90)
**************************************************************************** >C O M P U T E R U N D E R G R O U N D< >D I G E S T< *** Volume 2, Issue #2.06 (October 6, 1990) ** **************************************************************************** MODERATORS: Jim Thomas / Gordon Meyer (TK0JUT2@NIU.bitnet) ARCHIVISTS: Bob Krause / Alex Smith USENET readers can currently receive CuD as alt.society.cu-digest. COMPUTER UNDERGROUND DIGEST is an open forum dedicated to sharing information among computerists and to the presentation and debate of diverse views. CuD material may be reprinted as long as the source is cited. It is assumed that non-personal mail to the moderators may be reprinted, unless otherwise specified. Readers are encouraged to submit reasoned articles relating to the Computer Underground. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ DISCLAIMER: The views represented herein do not necessarily represent the views of the moderators. Contributors assume all responsibility for assuring that articles submitted do not violate copyright protections. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ CONTENTS: File 1: Moderators' Corner File 2: From the Mailbag File 3: MARS BBS Sting a Prank File 4: Another view of hacking File 5: The CU in the news ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ******************************************************************** *** CuD #2.06, File 1 of 5: Moderator's corner *** ******************************************************************** From: Moderators Subject: Moderators' Corner Date: October 6, 1990 ++++++++++ In this file: 1. CuD SURVEY 2. NATIONAL COMPUTER SECURITY CONFERENCE 3. CORRECTION / ATI +++++++++++++++ CuD Survey +++++++++++++++ We thank everybody who filled out the CuD survey and thanks to Pat Townson for printing it in Telecom Digest. The response was far, far better than expected, and Bob Krause will have the results as soon as he tabulates them. Because of the volume, it may take a few weeks. Names and all identifying references are, of course, removed. +++++++++++++++++ Computer Security Conference +++++++++++++++++ Coming Next Issue: An eyewitness report on the National Computer Security Conference held last week in Washington, D.C. CuD's coverage will be limited to a single article unless someone else contributes! If you attended the NCSC (and we know many of you did!) why not jot down a few thoughts/observations and send them in? Alternate views, reviews, comments, and summaries are all welcome. ++++++++++++++ Correction on ATI ++++++++++++++ Gremlins in the keyboard mistyped---ATI stands for ACTIVIST TIMES, INC., (*NOT* "Anarchist")-- ******************************************************************** >> END OF THIS FILE << *************************************************************************** ------------------------------ From: Various Contributors Subject: From the Mailbag Date: October 4, 1990 ******************************************************************** *** CuD #2.06: File 2 of 5: From the Mailbag *** ******************************************************************** From: peter@FICC.FERRANTI.COM(peter da silva) Regarding "what to do when you talk to LE agents": Most of these guidelines are important when talking to reporters, too. One would expect the press to be the underground's natural allies: the First Amendment should always be near and dear to their hearts. In practice, however, they have often taken action that seems designed to encourage authorities to curb free speech. Also, one of the recurring themes in articles posted by victimes of witchhunts is the effect of unfavorable publicity on people's lives. There was such an account in this very issue! So watch your tongue. Remember, if the press believe you're a bad guy they'll say anything to get you to make a "publishable" statement. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ From: Mike Jezierski Law Enforcement and Computers: Not many law enforcement officials KNOW about computers. They see a computer as a way to check on a license plate or NCIC (we all know what that is) Refusing to answer questions gets on the bad side of a law enforcement officer, and sometimes he/she WILL use force against you (Indianapolis is a prime example of violent force against criminals) Saying "I want my lawyer" will do nothing but enrage your typical cop/agent and there is the possiblity that they would say "F*** your lawyer, I want answers NOW!!!" then proceed to beat the holy snot out of you... To the police, a criminal is a criminal...no matter is you're a murderer, a rapist, a thief or even a hacker. Of course you *could* bring brutality charges... so then the agent/cop lies and gets out of it ... big deal. Like the alleged thief described in C-u-D 2.05, you might be innocent but their being there makes you guilty. Enough Said... +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ From: The Butler Comment on Operation Sun Devil One of the reasons SS agents confiscated various BBS systems was because of the so called "ILLEGAL" information contained on them. It doesn't matter that most if not all of the "ILLEGAL" information can be found in a local Library, the SS still claimed it should not be posted on Electronic Bulletin Boards. Well the other day as I was thumbing through the latest issue of Computer Shopper I stumbled across an ad for, Guess what??? "TOP SECRET MANUALS" among them being: Computer Phreaking, Beyond Van Eck Phreaking, Automatic Teller Machines, Phone Color Boxes, Voice Mail Hacking, etc, etc. I suppose this is ok because it is in printed form. Same information but different form, is there a difference? Not to me!!! The Butler ******************************************************************** >> END OF THIS FILE << *************************************************************************** ------------------------------ From: Jim Thomas Subject: MARS BBS Sting a Prank Date: 5 October, 1990 ******************************************************************** *** CuD #2.06: File 3 of 5: MARS BBS STING A PRANK *** ******************************************************************** Ok, boys and girls, we've been had--the rumor of alleged Secret Service involvement in the MARS BBS at Mississippi State was a bit of a prank. It was not malicious, not intended to be deceptive, and not without a few lessons. For those who have read the post from Ed Luke, the sysop of MARS, a BBS accessible via ftp, the gist of the story was that the Secret Service had busted the board, but allowed it to return as a sting board. According to the post (reproduced at the end of this file), the names and the up/downloads of allegedly "obscene" .gif and .gl files were kept and turned over to the SS. The post circulated across the nets during the past week, and most of us were concerned about the implications of the story, if true. We tried calling Ed during the week, but couldn't reach him (he was not hiding--he was studying for seven hour exam), which delayed explanation of the prank. Some might be angry at the prank for the consternation it created among a lot of people. Was it tacky, in bad taste and outrageous? Of course it was. But, in context, it was also rather funny (for those of us who prefer Emo Phillips' view of the world to Kant's moral imperative). Here's the story as Ed relates it: MARS BBS began at Mississippi State on a university computer system. Ed had been asked to work on a BBS program for a friend, and he set it up as a demo board called "Resource Pirates Bulletin Board." The name was intended as a campy take-off on pirate boards, because they were "pirating" the nets, not software. Ed was explicit in re-affirming that, whatever his own personal views of proprietary information (he favors "knowledge to the people"), he takes his administrative obligations very seriously, and respects the laws restricting what can and cannot be placed on a university board (see related story on censorship in the next issue). The original software could accommodate about 50 users, and was quite small. It was a "no rules" board, but it became quite popular, something he had not anticipated. He made arrangements to obtain a legitimate board through the university on a legitimate machine and reworked the software. "I had no idea what I was getting when I started," Ed said in explaining that he was surprised at the number of users (currently over 1,400) and the amount of work involved in keeping up with the volume of traffic and the file transfers. The board was down for awhile when it was switched from an Athena to a MARS system. Numerous .gif (graphic pictures) and .gl (animated pictures) were uploaded, many of which were sexually explicit. His position was not to monitor or censor, even if the sheer volume of files would allow him time to do so: "How do I determine what's obscene? It becomes my responsibility to make that judgement call on everything. And I don't want to make that call," he explained. The gif collection grew, and they dominated communications on the board and ftp traffic. Although Ed doesn't know how the National Science Foundation (NSF) became aware of the files, there were complaints and threats by the NSF of curtailing access to the nets, because the NSF provide some of the net backbone. It was not a fight that Ed felt he could win, or one that he felt he could make a strong case for, so he removed the files. That's when the fun began. He began receiving a number of messages, and some of the "ridiculous" ones prompted the prank. He received numerous notes and complaints, and there was what he describes as "lots of paranoia" about why they were taken down. >From mail we received at CuD, Ed's observations are accurate, because some MARS users suspected that the temporary hiatus during the change in systems was the result of a bust. In response to some of the more strident and conspiratorial messages he received, Ed wrote the following post: ******START POST********** Posted By: lush (Ed Luke) Date: Sat Sep 29 21:54:03 1990 Title: The story about the GIF files. Ok, since everyone has been asking about the gif files, here's the story of what happened with the gifs... It seems that the secret service under direction of Pres. Bush is on a campaign against computer crime. You've read about some of this probably. It's called Operation Sun Devil. Some of the older users will remember when this bbs was called the Pirates Resource BBS and was on athena.ee.mssate.edu. Well we eventually got shut down in a fashion similar to that of the victims of operation sun devil. However, in our case, since we were such an allegedly large center for computer criminal activity, the Secret Service, along with the National Computing Defence Council decided to conduct an ongoing investigation. If you want to catch mice, you don't just plug their holes. You lay traps. Well they allowed us to set up again at mars on the strict requirement that we would do strict accounting. We have been keeping records of every (timestamped) upload and download that's been made to this board. In addition, in hopes of cooperating with the Feds for obvious reasons, I instituted the monitoring system software on mars. When anyone did an ftp it logged the date, did a finger on the system that was connecting and snarfed up the userid via ftp protocol and made a complete record of all files downloaded and uploaded. Also, users that download files from the bbs had the machine name they were connecting to, and any other evidence collected in a similar manner. After enough information was collected, we gave them the reams of data files and removed the gifs, giving yall the bogus NSF story. So there it is. The GIFS and GL's aren't the biggest part of the story, but they are illegal in some states and the FCC has been interested in cracking down on computer obscenity for a long time. I can't say I like it, but that we have to live with it. Later, Ed Luke *******END POST******* Ed emphasizes that we wrote the post under his own name, as a user, which he feels gives him the latitude to be more playful, and *not* as "sysop." He offers several reasons for the post: First, it was a response to the numerous messages he received. Second, and more importantly, it was an experiment in the level of paranoia that exists on the nets, and he was surprised when he continued to discover the paths through which the post was spreading. Finally, it was a test of the scope of the BBS. He found that the latter two were significant: "Never underestimate the level of paranoia and the power of the nets," he observed. Ed stresses that he had absolutely no intention to deceive the CU community and that his act was done in good humor, not ill will. But, the sexually explicit files *will not* return, because he feels the board provides far to many other beneficial services to jeopardize it. The MARS board is ftp-accessible at 130.18.64.3, but if the numbers continue to grow, access may be difficult. Type "bbs" at the prompt and follow the instructions from there. It is a true BBS, and files can be ftp-ed or transfered with a variety of protocols, including kermit. On line chat, a lively message section, and an array of free (legitimate) software is available. Those wishing to obtain a copy of the BBS program may download it from the board (free), and are encouraged to tinker with it and make changes, but improvements or suggestions for them should be passed back to Ed. We see two important lessons to be learned from this. The first we will address in the next issue of CuD and relates to prior censorship. Ed (and others) agree that many of the files were in bad taste because of their sexual explicitness. The issue, however, is by what means files are determined to be "obscene" and the process by which even agencies with a legitimate interest in the contents of files should or may intervene to remove them. We do not yet know the circumstances of NFS involvement and we do not challenge the right of those with a legitimate interest to assume responsibility for standards. But, given the current lack of protections for cyberspace media, anything that smacks of censorship should at least raise the question of "how" and "why." The second lesson is more frightening. Although some astute readers were sharp enough to suspect a prank, even they were fully aware of the possibility of Secret Service meddling. This is frightening: Rather than say "no way! The SS would never do *that*," few people would have been surprised at the scenario outlined in Ed's post. Are those who believed the worst gullible or naive? We think not. In the 1960s, it was quite common for law enforcement agents to collect lists of "radicals" (defined as anybody who opposed the Viet Nam war) and use these in highly disruptive ways. For example, in 1977 one CuD moderator was part of a class action suit to obtain "Red Squad" files from the Michigan State Police, which included documents of numerous local, state, and national agencies that detailed surveillance mechanisms. One of the more ludicrous was the practice of listing the license plates of cars in parking lots near anti-war or other meetings, running these plates through the DMV, and then listing those that turned up more than once. The owners of those vehicles, according to these documents, would find themselves added to the list of "suspects" on a Red Squad list, and this type of information demonstrably cost people jobs, promotions, or subjected them to other forms of harassment. A series of law suits and legislative actions curtailed the worst of these abuses. However, the questionable tactics of the Secret Service in Operation Sun Devil hardly inspires confidence in voluntary restraint against the Computer Underground. The 15 hours of video tape that were obtained from the room of an alleged informant at Summercon '88 are one example of questionable surveillance--How far are law enforcement agents willing to go on their war against the "hacker menace?" If they are video taping a bunch of under-age kids drinking, if they seem willing to circumvent Constitutional limitations in indictments and searches, then running a sting board and listing users seems fully plausible. As we have cited in previous articles, sting boards are encouraged as a legitimate option for both state and federal authorities. The tragedy of Ed Luke's prank is not that he pulled it off, but rather that, in the current climate of legitimate paranoia created by a few over-zealous law enforcement agents, few of us would have been the least bit surprised if it were true. What does this say about the respect for law that such actions as Operation Sun Devil have created? ******************************************************************** >> END OF THIS FILE << *************************************************************************** ------------------------------ From: Toxic Shock Subject: Another view of hacking Date: Sat, 06 Oct 90 03:04:57 EDT ******************************************************************** *** CuD #2.06: File 4 of 5: Another View of Hacking *** ******************************************************************** {The Toxic Shock group forwarded the following over to us--moderators.} The Evil That Hackers Do ------------------------ "I am a hacker." If I ever told that to anyone, it would immediately be assumed that I am a malicious, vandalising, thieving, pseudo-terrorist out to take over the computers of the world for personal gain or quite possibly to glean some morbid satisfaction from deleting megs upon megs of valuable data. Excrement of an uncastrated male bovine. "I am associated with the computer underground." If I ever told that to anyone, there would be a flash flood of foolish associations in that person's mind between myself and The Mafia, with Saddam Hussein, Syria, Libya, Abu Nidal, and who knows what else. More excrement of an uncastrated male bovine. Almost universally, among the ignorant majority, we hackers are considered to be dangerous thugs whose sole purpose in life is to cause as much damage as we can in as little time as possible to the largest number of people. Need I repeat my picturesque opinion? Sure, there are those little kiddies (mental and physical) who call themselves "hackers" and fit the above descriptions. There are also people who call themselves "human beings" that rape, murder, cheat, lie and steal every few minutes (or is it seconds, now?). Does that mean that all "human beings" should then be placed in prison? Perhaps the term "hacker" has become a misnomer, but for my purposes in this file, I will use that term to describe the way I view us hackers. A hacker is always two things: curious and bored. The boredom of a hacker is spawned by a society whose educational system is designed mainly to get X number of students through the schools with the average scores of X on tests; tests whose hardest challenge is to maintain consciousness throughout the taking thereof. There is no challenge in balancing the same binomial equations over and over and over again. There is no challenge is learning to print your name on a screen in BASIC, or PASCAL for that matter. There is no challenge in being spoonfed such little bits of information as to make it almost not worth one's while to even bother continuing education. The lack of challenge, the minute bits of knowledge actually given to us, is like a stake through our hearts. We are curious...So intensely curious that we border on being nosy...They teach us NOTHING in schools. What is passed off as education is nothing more than learning by rote. They pound the same things into our heads, the things we learned the first time they pounded it, and they pound and they pound, as if trying to knock our thirst for knowledge right out of our heads! We HAVE to be curious because we want to LEARN! Colleges take three semesters to cover material that should take only three WEEKS! We cannot depend on our educational system to quench our thirst, to satisfy our need for more and more information! We are addicted to information and knowledge, and our drugs are withheld from us. We are forced to seek our precious information and knowledge elsewhere. We have to find challenge somewhere, somehow, or it tears our very souls apart. And we are, eventually, forced to enter someone's system... Why? Because the system is new, unknown. How does one get in? What can be found within? These are questions we can ask, with answers we must find for ourselves...Oh, so different from school already! Our boredom disappears as if it never existed. Our little spark of curiosity becomes a bonfire within our minds. We have an open challenge to our intellect, an opportunity to learn SOMEthing, and we cannot turn that challenge down. It doesn't happen like Wargames shows it. Oh no, it is so much different. The geek in the movie....he had it so easy. No real hackers would exist if it was that easy (perhaps therein lies the solution to the "problem"). No, we hack and hack at a system, like a man on a safari, clearing away the vines of the jungle with his machete, trying to forge ahead to a destination he cannot yet see. We keep on, torturing our brains and pounding our fingers on the keyboard until at last...oh at long, sweet last... we are in. We have already learned something...we know how to get into the system, we know what kind of security the system has. We should, by now, have a general idea how intelligent the operators of the system are or are not, and what kind of information might be found within. Something the nerd from Wargames could get into probably won't have any new AI techniques, or other such things that help us to better our own programming skills. And at this point, many people assume we would then proceed to copy everything we find and then trash the system so we could then sell the only remaining copy of the data to the highest bidder, preferably a foreign agent or the richest competitor of the company... It makes no sense. We thirst for knowledge and information, and then you can possibly think we are going to destroy that which is sacred to us? To take away someone else's chance to succeed in getting in as we did? To fuel an already terrible reputation and increase our chances of getting caught and thus have our lives and careers effectively ruined? Are you really THAT..DAMN..STUPID??? We value information as much as we value our systems, which is almost as much as we value our lives, if not more so. We would no more destroy data than we would chop off our own heads because we value our brains! Most, if not all, of us think information should be exchanged freely... If everyone is kept abreast of the newest technologies, techniques, what have you, then everyone can benefit...The more each of us knows, the fewer past mistakes we will repeat, the greater knowledge base we will have for future developments. Can you really believe that we are so hypocritical that we would SELL that which we demand the free exchange of? But, even as I type this, I begin to realize just why we are such a feared group of people... We are misunderstood by the majority. You cannot understand someone who is driven by the thirst for knowledge, not for money and power. You cannot understand someone who wants to learn, and to teach, instead of putting away more and more money into a bank account. You cannot understand someone who judges others by what they say, think, and do, rather than how they look or how large their income is. You cannot understand someone who wants to be honest and sharing, instead of lying, stealing, and cheating. You cannot understand us because we are different. Different in a society where conformity is the demanded norm. We seek to rise above the rest, and then to pull everyone else up to the same new heights. We seek to innovate, to invent. We, quite seriously, seek to boldly go where no one has gone before. We refuse to be herded like the sheep which make up this society. We choose to think for ourselves. We demand the respect of our individuality. And we are slandered and shunned, condemned without a trial, because of these things. We are misunderstood, misinterpreted, misrepresented. All because we simply want to learn. We simply want to increase the flow of information and knowledge, so that EVERYONE can learn and benefit. And that is the terrible, evil, malign thing that we truly are. Intelligent and inquisitive. Seeking improvement in the lot of all mankind. Seeking equality. Seeking respect for individual freedom. Oppression is our only reward....yet if it were not for people like us, all of you who wake up each day to an alarm clock, or drive to work in your fine new car after cutting on your security system, while drinking that cup of coffee you didn't have to get up to prepare, would still be living in a cave, somewhere near Africa, grunting and reproducing, eating the raw meat of some beast you hunted down with clubs, trying to ignore the cold that seeps in through the animal skins you wear, and wondering when some curious person with some intelligence, creativity, and ingenuity would come along and invent the wheel. ******************************************************************** >> END OF THIS FILE << *************************************************************************** ------------------------------ From: Various Contributors Subject: The CU in the news Date: 28 July, 1990 ******************************************************************** *** CuD #2.06: File 5 of 5: The CU in the News *** ******************************************************************** (Washington, DC)--CONGRESS TO APPROVE BILL BANNING SOFTWARE RENTALS The Senate and the House Judiciary Committee have passed bills that will allow software publishers to prevent computer stores and businesses from renting out their software. Rep. Mike Synar of Oklahoma (a democrat) has sponsored the House's Bill, and Congress is expected to pass his bill (or the Senate's proposal) before October. Mike Synar's bill is aimed at preventing video rental stores from renting microcomputer software, since software pirates who don't own modems can easily obtain commercial software through them. Interestingly enough, the bill does NOT prevent video rental stores from renting out Nintendo Game Cartridges, since Nintendo games can't be copied by software pirates. It seems that Nintendo earns revenue from cartridge sales, since they manufacture ALL Nintendo game cartridges.... (reprinted with permission from: STReport "Your Independent News Source" September 28, 1990 16/32bit Magazine copyright 1990 No.6.39 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ From: Computerworld, September 24, 1990, p. 122, Inside Lines: "And a Merry Christmas to All?" An almost identical version of the IBM Christmas virus that infected thousands of computers on IBM's internal mail in December 1987 has reportedly been posted on the Bitnet network. The virus puts a tree and seasonal greeting message on the screen of infected computers and is known to replicate wildly, shutting down computers. No word of any infections, however. Bitnet connects computers at more than 200 universities as well as to the Earn network in Europe, the entry point of the original virus. IBM was forced to shut down its 350,000-terminal network for nearly three days to get rid of the virus. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ >From the JOHNSON CITY PRESS, Wednesday, October 3, 1990 HACKER ALTERING RECORDED PHONE MESSAGES By Leslie Loyd Associated Press Writer KINGSPORT, TN - A computer hacker is tapping into voice mail telephone messages and replacing them with explicit sexual descriptions, a telephone company spokesman said Tuesday. Phil Timp, a spokesman for United Telephone Co., said the company has received 70 complaints. "All of the sudden in the last two weeks, we've had a barrage of complaints," Timp said. "What the motive is we don't know... Obviously they're very disturbed." The FBI and Kingsport police were called in Tuesday to investigate. ... (portion omitted describing voice mail) ... "(Subscribers) are checking their messages and hearing this," Timp said. "Imagine if your mother called." He said subscribers frequently use the last four digits of their telephone number as their access code because it is easy to remember. But that also makes the code easy to break. Timp said subscribers should check messages and change access code frequently. Timp said someone is using a computer to tap into the system and figure out the codes. "It's a knowledgeable user," Timp said. He said he doesn't know if any subscribers have canceled because of the explicit messages. "We're doing everything we can to make sure these people can continue their voice mail service," Timp said. "It's the first time we've had a problem to this degree," he said. The company began offering the service two years ago and has had a few isolated incidents like this. (Submitted by Paul Schmidt) +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The Ithaca Journal Tuesday September 25, 1990 (reprinted by permission) "IHS student unleashes computer viruses" by Chris Swingle Journal Staff A 16-year-old Ithaca High School student created computer viruses that spread during the summer to dozens of Macintosh personal computers in Ithaca, officials reported Monday. Computers at Ithaca High, BAKA Computers Inc. and Cornell University were affected, but the problems are now believed solved. The viruses took hundreds -- or even thousands -- of work hours to fix, one official estimated. "It can be described as a nuisance," said Ted Palmer, a senior investigator with the New York State Police in Cortland who specializes in computer crime investigations. The Ithaca High School teenager, whose name wasn't released, isn't being prosecuted because he cooperated and agreed to help police in future investigations, Palmer said. Computer viruses are miniature programs that can replicate and spread from one computer to another, much as microorganism do. These viruses can wreak havoc -- tying up computer's memory, interrupting normal operations, causing errors or even destroying data. The IHS case comes almost two years after a Cornell University graduate student drew national attention with a similar type of rogue program called a "worm," which jammed some 6,000 government, military and university computers. Robert T. Morris Jr. was convicted on federal charges of computer tampering in January, and he was sentenced to 400 hours of community service and fined $10,000. This summer's two local viruses, which additionally had variations, didn't destroy any information, but did spread quickly from disk to disk. The virus "infected" a new computer by moving into the hard disk core of the computer, then hopping onto the next disk that was put in the computer. "All that was necessary is that a disk be inserted, to be infected," said Mark Anbinder, a technical consultant for BAKA. "So it was a particularly annoying one." "I would describe it as serious in that it interferes with the computers' operation," he added. One virus was first discovered in May, and another strain appeared in August, Anbinder said. A police investigation started Aug. 22 and ended Sunday, Palmer said. State police and Cornell public safety investigators worked with virus experts to analyze the computer bug and trace its origin. In the spring of 1988, Macintosh computers at Cornell were infected by a virus called Scores that made the machines act increasingly erratically, then stop working altogether. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ IBM US News Bulletin Dateline - September 18, 1990 IBM, MERIT AND MCI FORM NEW ORGANIZATION TO EXPAND NATIONAL COMPUTER SUPERHIGHWAY IBM, MCI Communications Corporation, and Merit, Inc., a consortium of eight Michigan universities, has announced the establishment of Advanced Network and Services, Inc. (ANS), a new company that will help propel high-speed computer networking into the next century for the nation's research and education communities. The new not-for-profit organization will manage and operate the federally funded National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET) backbone, under subcontract to Merit, as well as provide a broad spectrum of networking services to researchers and educators in universities, federal laboratories and the private sector. These services range from basic network monitoring to complete networking connectivity and support. ANS will begin to connect additional educational, industrial and government institutions to the nation's largest public computer superhighway at speed up to 45 megabits per second. ANS is being established to help build and expand current networking capabilities to meet the skyrocketing demand by the nation's scientists, engineers and academics for high-speed networking. The goals of ANS are: * To assist in the expansion of the existing national network so that it broadly serves the research and education community. * To increase the speed and capability of the network, maintaining it at the leading edge of technology. * To provide the highest quality network and services in helping to advance research and education. IBM and MCI are providing ANS with initial funding, as well as leading edge technology. Merit, Inc. will add its expertise in network operations, engineering and planning, in addition to network information services. IBM, MCI and Merit have been partners in NSFNET since 1987. Headquarters for ANS are in Elmsford, Ney York. -- Dan Ehrlich <ehrlich@cs.psu.edu>/Voice: +1 814 863 1142/FAX: +1 814 865 3176 ******************************************************************** ------------------------------ **END OF CuD #2.06** ********************************************************************