FREQUENCY : inside the hacker mind FREQ25 OCTOBER 2002 COVER – http://www.bobandchad.com/hackermind/images/freq25ab.gif =========================== 1. “The Changing Times” 2. Practical Examples of Social Engineering 3. Hackers – A Declining State? 4. VNC – The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly 5. The Death of the Internet 6. Review – “The Art of Deception” 7. Random Stuff From the Net 8. Crosstalk 9. Closing Arguments 10. Crew =========================== “Only the educated are free.” Epictetus (50 AD - 138 AD), Discourses 1. “The Changing Times” You hit a certain age, and suddenly you hate hackers and all they stand for…isn’t that the way it is? Not in all cases, I assure you. Although in recent times I’ve found myself bombarded by people who want to know if this odd phenomenon is happening to me, am I cutting back the output of Hackermind due to a sudden hatred of hackers? Get real. I’ve been into this stuff for almost twelve years now, the idea of suddenly going against everything I’ve spoken out about is absurd if you ask me. I think I’ve laid out rather clearly why Hackermind isn’t airing, so I won’t bother repeating myself. Nonetheless, I am at a point in my life where I have a ton of things to think about…certifications, job hunting, finding a nice place to live and starting a life for myself. You’ll get there too someday, and you’ll have the same things to think about. It’s not easy, which is why I’m glad I have this ezine to tell you all about it. Saying it all on the air would have been better, but I think this is almost just as good. Long time listeners may recall my frequent stories regarding college, dealing with incompetence, switching schools, and so on. Or perhaps you remember Dash’s experiences with the law, or our encounters with “hacker-hating” online. Whatever the case may be, we always tried to give people a heads up about what to expect in life. Some of you might have loathed the personal stories, but we know from feedback that many of you were thankful. That’s exactly what I’m doing now, letting you see firsthand what it’s like to make one of the biggest transitions of your life…and how you can still hold on to that hacker ethic. You do feel a bit more grown up, more mature, but for the most part you still think the same way you always have. I say “for the most part” because opinions on certain issues do change, but that’s only natural. It’s when you do a complete 180 that you have to worry, like going from hacker supporter to FBI informant. To me, the things I’ve always condoned are still perfectly all right. After all, how can I go against what I used to believe, when I always condemned invading home PC’s or destroying other people’s property? I was always about exploration and creation, so no, I won’t suddenly agree with the MPAA. Fuck ‘em. And to even things out, fuck the RIAA too. Personally, I’m looking forward to getting an interesting job in computers where I can spread the hacker spirit, and so far I’ve been met with open arms. The school I’m attending is (are you ready for this?) completely hacker friendly. I’ve had instructors who have encouraged me to get curious with the machines, to try things out, and tell others what I find. Probably because they themselves were hackers. Alright, so if people can maintain that hacker spirit when entering the job field, why do so many others repent their former hacker ways? Getting busted is usually a big factor, many hackers see how foolish it is to hack into a phone switch if it means going to prison for a year. Others find different, perhaps more social, hobbies and find their old ways to be “childish” or “foolish.” These are only possibilities, and I’d like to assure you that just because you find other things to be interested in does not mean that hacker mind goes away. The best advice I can offer is to remember who you are, don’t let that fancy Porsche or $100,000 a year paycheck cloud your mind too much. If you stay true, and not buy into the corporate bullshit that’s out there, you can be an active participant in the business world while still maintaining your hacker beliefs. Not everyone will, but imagine if more people did. Picture a successful CEO thanking 2600 for pointing out a vulnerability…sound impossible? It’s not, not if you stay true. The best advice is to incorporate the hacker inside you into the life you choose. It would probably be a much more hacker friendly world if you did. Remember, times change, but the hacker spirit lives on. And now, before we all fall asleep, welcome to Freq25. -screamer ================================================================= 2. *** Practical Examples of Social Engineering *** By: dual_parallel (www.oldskoolphreak.com) Humans. These creatures are involved in every system that hackers encounter. Guess what - humans are the most vulnerable component and a fruitful target for information gathering. Surreptitiously gaining what you desire is called social engineering (SE). Surreptitiously, here, does not mean without the target's knowledge. It means the target does not have knowledge of your motives or who you really are. This is not to say social engineering always occurs face-to-face. Social engineering can be used through the telephone, electronic mail, physical mail, or through another person. This article will demonstrate (and hopefully inspire) the use of social engineering, not through fictional scripts, but through real world examples experienced or witnessed. Retail Paging Systems --------------------- Wal-Mart store phones have clearly marked buttons for the paging system. Wal-Mart is the exception, not the rule. So how do you get on the paging system to have a little fun when you're bored out of your mind shopping with your girlfriend? Social engineering, my whipped friend. Find a phone and dial an extension, preferably the store op. The key here is to become a harried employee, saying something similar to..."This is Bill in shoes. What's the paging extension?" More often than not, you'll get the extension without another word. Now, get some by saying something sweet over the intercom. Airport White Courtesy Phones ----------------------------- Imagine you've already been stripped searched and you're waiting for your delayed flight. Naturally, you gravitate to a phone. Is it white? Then you've got a free call right in front of you. Just pick up to get the op. "This is Bill at Southwest, Gate A5. We're swamped and our phones are tied. Can I get an outside line?" If the phone does not have DTMF, or the op wants to dial the call for you, do not call a number related to you. Hotels ------ Hotels hold such promise. Some hotels have voice mail for each room, guests receiving a PIN when they check in. Hotels also have "guest" phones; phones outside of rooms that connect only to rooms or the front desk. Pick up a guest phone, make like a friendly guest and say, "I forgot my PIN. Could I get it again? Room XXX." Knowing the registered name of the target room helps, for the Hotel and Restaurant Management Degree Program graduate may ask for it. Do not follow through with the next social engineering example. Or, like the author, try it on a friend. Go to the front desk and tell the attendant that you've locked your key (card) in the Laundromat, in your room, lost it, etc. Do not try this with the attendant that checked you in. And again, do not enter someone's room without permission. Calling Technical Support ------------------------- So you've found a new-fangled computerized phone and you want to learn more about it. Do the same thing you do when you have trouble with your AOL - call tech support. First, do a little planning (after getting the tech support number off of the phone or the web). Get some info on the phone, like phone number, model number, other identifying numbers, etc. Also, know the name of the facility in which the phone is located. Now that you've got some ammo, you're ready to make the call. Posing as an employee of the facility, call tech support and make up a problem for the phone you've identified. Act a little dumb and be apologetic, acting like you don't want to waste their time. All the while, pumping them for information - "I hate to bug you for this, but ." And so on until you reach the point where you can feel that it's time to end the call. Occasionally acting amazed at their knowledge may be helpful. Calling AS Technical Support ---------------------------- The most famous examples of social engineering are the SE panels at HOPE. H2K2 saw Emmanuel change some poor soul's dinner reservations and obtain customer credit information from a randomly chosen Starbucks. He called the Starbucks as tech support. When you've determined what you want and where you want it from (don't call MIT as tech support, by the way), make up a "report" of a problem. More than likely, there will be a problem, or the person you call will have a question. Questions are gold! Even if you have no idea what the target is talking about, you can of course fake it and use that question as leverage to gain more information. Practice these easy-to-do examples of social engineering and then extend the skills you gain to larger projects. And no, Dade, do not be funny when social engineering - that'll get you nowhere. Most importantly, do not use you SE skills for evil. Have some fun, gain the "forbidden" knowledge, and use your skills wisely. ========================================================================== 3. *** Hackers – A Declining State? *** By: Zero Tolerance First it was all about programming, making the most elegant code you could, so that a program could come to life and do something amazing. That was a time where hackers were creators, artists, and yes even magicians. Then it was about exploration, using blue boxes to route calls all over the world and really bringing the hacker spirit to the people. Eventually this changed, and hackers became more interested in playing with systems they wouldn’t normally have access to, and all of this could now be done from home. Getting in wasn’t really as important as using the machine once you were in there. These hackers loved to program, so they got access to machines that would actually allow them to get some good cpu time. But what do we have today? Everywhere I turn I see hackers who are so obsessed with spotting vulnerabilities and exploiting them that it becomes a type of addiction, how many computers can you penetrate in a given week, or month, or year? The concept of USING the machines is gone, replaced with the mere thrill of “getting in.” This might raise a lot of hostility, but think about it, has the state of “hackerdom” somehow declined to being nothing more than a script kiddy free for all? Have we let ourselves become so obsessed with going where we’re not supposed to that the actual fun of creating with computers has been all but forgotten? Now I know that there are still programmers out there, but what are they doing? Writing exploits! They’re cracking security for fun. Sure they’re doing it an incredibly ingenious way, but why aren’t more hackers actually creating things? It’s rare you hear about a hacker creating a program to help the average joe learn about computers more easily, or a group working on an easier to use version of Linux. They do exist, but my point is their numbers are so small as to be negligible. And yet, the hunt for holes and vulnerabilities goes on. Forgetting about script kiddies for a moment, how many times have you yourself examined source code trying to find that one flaw, that one strcpy() or undersized buffer, that will allow you to get root with a little effort. OK, I see about three hundred thousand hands, now put them down. How many of you have gathered up a group of friends and started writing some software that will actually DO something other than exploit a flaw? How many of you have started making operating systems that are easy to use, but that don’t forget the spirit of open source? Needless to say, the number of hands really isn’t that many. A valid argument against this logic is that the good stuff is already there. Linux is already a fantastic operating system (if people would give it a chance instead of buying every damn micro$oft product that comes out), or GNU is coming out with a ton of free software as we speak. Fair enough, then let me ask this…how many of you are currently working on making Linux better? Or improving other open source programs? You can do that you know, that’s what open source is all about ;). Head over to mozilla.org and give modifying their source a try, if you make a good enough improvement they might even add it to the official product. But how many people will? How many people will actually try creating something with a computer, instead of putting down everyone else’s faulty software? I don’t mean to suggest that improving security by solidifying code isn’t important, but it sure would be nice to see more people get a bit more creative. If more people stopped spending all their time bitching about crappy software and actually tried writing some of their own, they might get a better understanding of why it’s no easy task, not to mention get a better understanding of what it truly means to “hack.” To conclude, I should stress that I never meant to compare programmers searching for vulnerabilities to script kiddies who exploit them. I’m afraid some people may read this article and come away with that impression, so let me assure you, that’s not the message I wanted to convey. However I do stand by my statement that hackers as a whole seem to be declining these days. You might disagree, but I think it’s high time we stopped trying to prove how easily something can be exploited (either through programming wizardry or script kiddy attacks) and started showing the world what we can actually do with our talents. The hacker spirit will live on, only in it’s more original sense. Maybe then people will start accepting hackers, and won’t mind so much when they do find a vulnerability. Oh well, just a thought. ========================================================================== 4. *** VNC – The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly *** By: Screamer Chaotix VNC, or “Virtual Network Computing” was created by AT&T Laboratories Cambridge as a way of giving users remote control over another machine. Unlike telnet or other such remote control applications, VNC allows a user to see the desktop and actively interact with it. Like other programs however, VNC has its advantages and disadvantages, and that’s what I’d like to go over today. I won’t bother covering the history of the application, that’s already been done at http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/. Installation To begin, a user downloads either the Windows package or UNIX package, depending on what type of machine they will be running the server on. The package includes both the “VNC Viewer” and “VNC Server”, which should be pretty self-explanatory. Users install the server on the machine they’d like to have remote control over, and adjust various settings (such as allowing or disallowing keyboard use on the remote machine by a connected client, setting a password, etc). Once tailored to the users liking, the user can install the same package on a remote machine and run the viewer. From here, it’s a simple matter of entering in an IP address and then typing the password. Once logged in, the user can control the remote machine in real time. Any actions done on the machine will remain that way, and can be seen by anyone else currently on that computer. Whatever control the original installer of the program had is the same control the remote user has, and therein lies one prob! lem…but I’ll get to that in a bit. The Good VNC can be a great tool for people wanting to use their machines from far away without having to bother with shell accounts or the like, but other uses have been found as well. One use I’ve found for it allows friends and family to view a private website I’ve set up on my home LAN. Like the great power they are, Optimum Online (our “friendly” cable provider here in Connecticut) won’t allow you to set up a web server on their network. You could get around this by changing the port, but too much traffic will most likely be noticed, and why risk losing my access when there’s another workaround? By installing the VNC server on a separate, Win98 machine, people were able to VNC in and use a browser to visit the otherwise inaccessible site. True, this is not the most efficient way of doing things, but there are other, more “hackerish” uses. Playing on a home network is great, but it’s even more fun when you have a few friends login and join you. Shell accounts are good, but logging into Windows machines leaves a bit to be desired. Through the use of VNC, people can connect to one machine, and simply use Network Neighborhood or a dos window to browse through the other machines and have all sorts of fun. Once, me and a friend were both logged into a Win98 machine (check the properties of the VNC Viewer to be sure you allow simultaneous connections) and actually found ourselves fighting over the mouse pointer! Using a mere notepad file, we had an amusing time chatting with one another while simultaneously playing with the box. The possibilities are limitless. One thing I hear people yelling right now is, is it OS dependant? The answer is, no. Linux users (running X of course) can open up the viewer, enter in the IP of a Win machine, login, and bingo! Windows as seen through the eyes of Linux. Some cry blasphemy, I say it’s pretty darn cool. The Bad I suppose this section is only “bad” depending on how you look at it, but VNC does pose an often overlooked security risk. Running on port 5800, it’s often all to easy to set nmap to scan for open ports all night long. Once found, one need only connect to each IP and try some common passwords (and considering these are probably personal PC’s, the passwords are most likely a trivial joke). The only real security is that the VNC Viewer will close if an incorrect password is given, but there’s a way to give an attacker a better chance of getting in. By merely opening a browser and heading to http://12.34.56.78:5800, you’ll receive a java login prompt. Some machines have different settings, but I’ve found most allow 5 login attempts via this method. Typical passwords may include “password,” “admin”, “administrator”, “12345” or “asdf”. You may also want to try the computer name, which is so generously shown in the title bar of the browser window. Once in, the user’s desk! top is at your control. Unlike one of those sad little Trojans, you will actually have access to everything, all of which appears in a real time GUI window. With no username required, VNC looks to be the backdoor of the new millennium. The Ugly VNC, aside from posing a security risk, has its drawbacks. For one, regardless of your connection speed it’s extremely laggy. While it does provide a great way to use your home PC from a remote location, a lot of patience is required. If anything, I’d recommend for making routine checks on a machine you keep running. If your VNC password is secure enough, you should find this to be a reliable way of monitoring your machine remotely. Aside from performance, the fact that anyone who logins gets complete control of the machine can be quite disconcerting. For one thing, they can shutdown the machine. A person on the road will most likely have a hard time turning the machine back on without a little help. That’s not the worst thing that could happen though, imagine my horror as I watched my friend open up regedit. I’ll leave the other possibilities up to you. Conclusion This article should not be considered a complete guide to Virtual Network Computing, but rather an introduction to some of its pros and cons. For a better understanding, I encourage you to download it (it’s freeware) and play around for yourself. And if you’re the nosy type, go ahead and scan the net for port 5800, you’ll probably be shocked by how many keep this program running on a daily basis. That’s it for now, but I encourage others to share what they’ve found with this interesting program ========================================================================== 5. *** The Death of the Internet *** By: Jeff Chester (originall posted on tompaine.com) Jeff Chester is executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. The Internet’s promise as a new medium -- where text, audio, video and data can be freely exchanged -- is under attack by the corporations that control the public’s access to the 'Net, as they see opportunities to monitor and charge for the content people seek and send. The industry’s vision is the online equivalent of seizing the taxpayer-owned airways, as radio and television conglomerates did over the course of the 20th century. To achieve this, the cable industry, which sells Internet access to most Americans, is pursuing multiple strategies to closely monitor and tightly control subscribers and their use of the net. One element can be seen in industry lobbying for new use-based pricing schemes, which has been widely reported in trade press. Related to this is the industry’s new public relations campaign, which seeks to introduce a new "menace" into the pricing debate and boost their case, the so-called "bandwidth hog." But beyond political and press circles are another equally important development: new technologies being developed and embraced that can, in practice, transform today's open Internet into a new industry-regulated system that will prevent or discourage people from using the net for file-sharing, internet radio and video, and peer-to-peer communications. These are not merely the most popular cutting-edge applications used by young people; they also are the tools for fundamental new ways of conducting business and politics. These goals and objectives are visible to anyone who cares to look at the arcane world of telecommunications policy and planning, either in the industry trade press or government documents. The bottom line is the industry want to kill the Internet as we know it. Take a minute and wade through this bit of arcana -- and ponder its implications. "The IP Service Control System from Ellacoya Networks gives the Broadband Operator ‘Total Service Control’ to closely monitor and tightly control its subscribers, network and offerings." So reads the Web site of Ellacoya.com, a relatively new firm, describing the business-to-business service that it is selling to large Internet service providers. Ellacoya is backed by Wall Street investment powerhouse, Goldman Sachs, which sees a major opportunity to turn around the red ink-plagued broadband sector. Continuing, the website explains, "Establishing Total Service control enables operators to better manage traffic on the network, [and] easily introduce a range of tiered and usage based service plans... Talkative applications, especially peer-to-peer programs like KaZaA and Morpheus, tend to fill all of the available bandwidth... The IP Service Control System allows operators to identify, limit and report on these aggressive applications." The fundamental character of the Internet today is that it lacks precisely these kinds of tolls, barriers and gatekeepers. But technology like Ellacoya’s hardware and software is not just an enticing idea; it’s more of a silver bullet for beleaguered telecom executives. It’s being tested in industry trials and points to the kind of Internet the industry would like to develop over the next few years. The way telecom corporations get from today’s open-access Internet to their version of the future starts by changing how people pay for the net. Industry's New Business Plan Most people now pay a flat fee for online access. But the big media companies offering Internet service; Comcast, ATT, AOL -- would like to change that, and already have in a few test locations. The broadband industry’s plans to institute tiered pricing have been widely reported in its trade press. There are numerous articles about replacing today’s open 'Net environment with industry-self-described versions of "walled gardens" or "Internet Lite." (See "Cable Operators Seek to Corral Bandwidth Hogs", Cable Datacom News, 10/01/02) The central feature of these proposals is much like telephone companies; there’s a price plan for everyone. To make the case to regulators that such pricing is fair and overdue, cable operators have begun a PR effort, spinning that a small percent of users account for a disproportionately large amount of bandwidth used on broadband networks. They’ve created and embraced the pejorative term, "bandwidth hog," to describe those -- such as music-obsessed college students -- who find robust uses for high-speed connections. Already major news sources, such as the BBC, and technology journalists are using the term in their reports. To deal with this "problem," the companies are considering a variety of approaches to ensure they remain in full control of their bandwidth -- unless consumers can afford to pay the hefty access fees. Under a typical plan, a user would be allotted a limited amount of bandwidth per month, and would be charged extra fees for going over this amount. This approach isn’t very different from the software industry, where the free versions of an application are intended to frustrate and prompt people to buy the ‘better’ version. Bandwidth caps have already been implemented in Canada by major Internet service provider Sympatico, Inc., and observers have been quick to note that the limit -- 5 GB per month -- would effectively restrict regular use of emerging applications such as Internet radio, streaming media and video-on-demand. Consider this excerpt from an article about Sympatico’s bandwidth caps in the May 6 edition of Toronto Globe and Mail by reporter Jack Kapica. A classic conflict has arisen over streaming media, especially of radio. In a recent letter to globetechnology.com, Andrew Cole, manager of media relations for Bell Sympatico, defended the 5GB bit cap, saying that "In my experience, Internet radio stations usually transmit at approximately 20 Kbps. This equates to 1.2MB per minute, or 72MB per hour. At this rate, a HSE customer could enjoy 70 hours of Internet Radio per month and remain within the bandwidth usage plan." But a 20-Kbps stream is considered poor quality by many people who tune into Internet-based radio stations for such things as classical music concerts. For these people, audio quality streamed at 20 Kbps has been described as "pathetic at best, somewhat akin to AM radio" by Tony Petrilli of Level Platforms Inc. of Ottawa. "Decent audio quality starts at 56 Kbps to 64 Kbps, and really gets acceptable only around 100 Kbps," he said. This alone, continued Mr. Petrilli, "will blow the cap, let alone any other form of surfing, such as looking at movie trailers or even reading Web-based news. Heaven forbid that someone listens to 90 minutes a day of quality Internet radio. That way we'd blow the cap in 20 days. When you consider the fact that the largest American telecommunications firms are often part of the same mega-corporation with music, video or movie-producing entertainment divisions -- such as AOL-Time Warner -- you can see how an industry-regulated Internet would handily end music and movie industry worries about Napster-like file swapping by people who don’t want to pay industry-monopolized retail prices for content. Thus, the strategic and technically feasible solutions embodied by companies such as Ellacoya is obviously why Goldman-Sachs was keen to invest in the firm -- as it offers the actual means to monetize the net and turn around the revenue-poor broadband sector. According to Ellacoya’s technical datasheet, operators can create "up to 51,000 unique policies that can be combined to generate limitless numbers of subscriber policies." Such rules, they explain, can either permit, deny, priority queues, address lock, rate limit or redirect access. The same technology also poses new concerns over privacy, since Ellacoya's technology "collects usage statistics for subscribers and applications, capturing service events, session details, and byte counts.... Operators can 'stamp' the subscribers identity on all records." The Industry Spin The cable industry will argue that such ubiquitous control systems and restrictive pricing structures are necessary to resolve bandwidth backups. But the fact is, this cannot be the case, because cable systems are constructed to avoid bandwidth shortages. But don't take my word for it. Mike LaJoie, vice president for advanced technology at AOL-Time Warner told MultiChannel News, "The way that the HFC (hybrid fiber coaxial) architecture works, we never run out of bandwidth," LaJoie said. "We can always split or do other things that will give us the bandwidth that we want, so it really ends up being a desire to provide the best and highest experience for our customers." (See "HD on VOD Searches for Resolution", Multichannel News, 09/30/02) What these statements make clear is that the cable industry's goal for broadband is to monetize bandwidth. By charging a toll for every bit, the industry can simultaneously extract great profits from the new applications that it allows on its networks, as well as restrict access to those that it finds problematic, i.e. those that compete with its own content offerings. In short, the industry finally sees a way to make money online. Of course, these calculations are utterly self-serving, ignoring the fact that the net was developed with tax dollars and has been an incubator for an array of innovations that extend far beyond creating new profit centers for big media companies. The envisioned control structures will inhibit robust Internet use by early broadband adopters, and discourage development of new high-speed applications such as Internet-based telephone and video-on-demand, thus slowing overall broadband growth. Worse, this business model will erect high economic and technical barriers to entry for non-commercial and public interest uses of the high-speed Internet, threatening civic discourse, artistic expression and non-profit communications. In moving to implement this highly centralized vision for broadband, the cable industry does not simply ignore the democratic and competitive history of the Internet -- it is actively hostile to it. Consumption-based pricing and other restrictive access controls contradict the spirit of openness and innovation that built the Internet in the first place, and will do irreparable harm to its future as a medium for small business initiatives, non-commercial users and democratic discourse. New threats to privacy are also clear, given the intrusive nature of the technology to closely monitor all online use. If you think spam is bad now... And Where Is The FCC? This new threat to online communications is a direct consequence of recent Federal Communications Commission policies by Chairman Michael Powell that permit cable companies to operate their broadband platforms in a "discriminatory, non-open access" manner. This legalese means the FCC, the historic guardian of the public interest in the communications field, has abdicated its founding charge: to serve the public interest before private interests. In sum, the Internet as we now know it -- and its revolutionary promise -- may soon pass into the history books. In the absence of public policy safeguards, the emerging pricing and control structures will fundamentally change the kinds of information -- and way it’s delivered -- on the Internet. The ramifications extend far beyond the quarterly reports and shareholder earnings for the nation’s telecommunications corporations. The consequences are cultural and will affect the pace and character of progress in the early 21st century. If the communications companies impose tolls, roadblocks and dead ends on the information ‘superhighway,’ they will be robbing public trust resources in much the same way 19th century mining companies pilfered public lands and 20th century radio and television networks privatized the public’s airwaves. ==================================================================== 6. *** Review – “The Art of Deception” *** By: Screamer Chaotix “The Art of Deception” by Kevin D. Mitnick (note the D., perhaps to separate himself from his former hacker activities and be taken more seriously) is a look at the art of social engineering. While fairly pricey for most, coming in at about 27.50 unless you find a sale or get it online, the majority of the book is well worth your dollar. Not everything is perfect, but overall it does what it sets out to do…which might not be exactly what a lot of people had in mind. To explain, the book is definitely aimed at those looking to stop social engineering. Through the use of “Mitnick Messages” scattered throughout, Kevin offers advice on how to prevent people from invading your private property by way of social engineering. At first I was a bit thrown by this, I would have preferred just a general look at the actual “art” of conning someone, but in the end I decided to shutup and just enjoy the book for what it was. “What it is” is a little hard to explain. Beginning with an foreword from Steve Wozniak, and an even more interesting introduction from Kevin, the majority of the book deals with specific instances of social engineering. Acting out line for line how a call, or an in person visit, may go, the book takes us into the minds of both the “mark” and the social engineer. This is where it really gets interesting. We’re able to see many of the tricks used by Kevin, er.. allegedly used, and can actually witness people falling for these manipulations. It’s a great opportunity to get inside the human psyche and see exactly why we fall for certain things. Plus, it makes for damn entertaining reading. The end of the book is dedicated to helping people stop social engineering by giving instructions on what companies can do to protect themselves, but the odds are if you’re reading this ezine you probably have little need for that. If anything, it gives some good tips on how to protect yourself in your daily life…and it comes from a master of manipulation. While Kevin does devote much time to helping companies prevent this, rest assured he takes time to explain to people exactly what he feels a true hacker is. He admits he broke the law, but still asserts he is not a malicious hacker. He clearly states that a hacker is someone who figures things out and does not damage the computers they visit (read his preface for an exact explanation). Hacking however, is not the books primary concern. Those of you looking for technical explanations regarding computers and other electronics would be better off purchasing “Hacking Exposed” or something similar, this book is clearly about the human element. This may deter some readers, I myself would love to see Kevin create a book about computers and give the same explanations about hacking that he gives regarding social engineering, but whether he ever does is up to the laws that be. All in all, I see no reason why anyone should not by this book. It both informs you about, and alerts you to all that can be done through social engineering. And any book where a detailed explanation of how to walk off with eight million dollars without a gun or computer in the first chapter is well worth it’s cover price if you ask me. He’ll definitely give you something to think about, and keep you entertained throughout. A personal congratulations to Kevin Mitnick for an excellent first book, I look forward to seeing more of his work. -screamer 7. *** Random Stuff From the Net *** [musicunited.org] Registrant: RECORDING INDUSTRY ASSOC. OF AMERICA INC (NAGCNJPUSD) 1330 Connecticut Ave., NW #300 WASHINGTON, DC 20036 US Domain Name: MUSICUNITED.ORG Administrative Contact: McCaffrey, Howard (IXPMOSZSRI) info@musicunited.org 1330 Connecticut Ave., NW #300 Washington, DC 20036 US 202.775.0101 202.775.7253 Technical Contact: DIGEX INC. (DH3795-ORG) QIP@DIGEX.COM DIGEX INC. One Digex Plaza Beltsville, MD 20705 US 240-264-2000 fax: - - o^?`po^?a o^?` Record expires on 18-Sep-2005. Record created on 18-Sep-2002. Database last updated on 25-Oct-2002 15:35:39 EDT. Domain servers in listed order: MIA01.DIGEX.COM 216.255.129.249 MIA02.DIGEX.COM 216.255.130.249 MUSICUNITED.ORG (AKA CHICAGOLANDSPEEDWAY.COM) MICROSOFT – IIS/5.0 WINDOWS 2000 $ telnet www.musicunited.org 80 Trying 164.109.25.159... Connected to www.musicunited.org. Escape character is '^]'. head HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0 Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2002 21:10:09 GMT Content-Type: text/html Content-Length: 87 ErrorThe parameter is incorrect. Connection closed by foreign host. /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ [http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Farm/9753/poem_files/computers1.htm] “Cheap Spell-Checker” Eye halve a spelling chequer It came with my pea sea It plainly marques four my revue Miss steaks eye kin knot sea. Eye strike a key and type a word And weight four it two say Weather eye am wrong oar write It shows me strait a weigh. As soon as a mist ache is maid It nose bee fore two long And eye can put the error rite Its rare lea ever wrong. Eye have run this poem threw it I am shore your pleased two no Its letter perfect awl the weigh My chequer tolled me sew. -Sauce unknown “If Dr. Seuss were a Technical Writer” Here's an easy game to play. Here's an easy thing to say. If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port, And the bus is interrupted as a very last resort. >And the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort, Then the socket packet pocket has an error to report! If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash, And the doubleclicking icon puts your window in the trash, And your data is corrupted 'cause the index doesn't hash. Then your situation's hopeless and your system's gonna crash! You can't say this? What a shame, sir! We'll find you another game, sir! If the label on the cable on the table at your house Says the network is connected to the button on the mouse, But your packets want to tunnel on another protocol, That's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall, And your screen is all distorted by the side affects of Gauss, So your icons in the windows are so wavy as a souse, Then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang, 'Cause as sure as I'm a poet, the sucker's gonna hang! When the copy of your floppy's getting sloppy on the disk, And the microcode instructions cause unnecessary RISC. Then you have to flash your memory and you'll want to RAM your ROM. Quickly turn off the computer and be sure to tell your mom! =================================================================== 8. *** Crosstalk *** >Frequency, In response to your crosstalk reply in Freq24, regarding Linux in a Microsoft world, I’d like to point out something I see far too often. You had said that Linux might be better if the world wasn’t dominated by Microsoft products, but like so many others, you forgot one key fact. Microsoft does not force the world to use its products, therefore, please don’t blame Linux shortcomings on them. You use their operating systems for ease of use, as does most of the world, so any argument you have against them should at least acknowledge that fact. [nerve_ending] REPLY> It’s ironic you say that Microsoft doesn’t force people to use their products while they’re in the middle of a antitrust scandal. They’re accused of being a monopoly, and a monopoly, as I’m sure you’re aware, is a corporation that gets so large it completely dominates the market and prevents competition. If this wasn’t so, perhaps more people could find out about Linux and realize what a great system it is (I refuse to call it an “alternative” to Windows), and that could lead to even greater advancements on the open source front. However, we do acknowledge that Windows is easy to use. But what about all the times it crashes? What about all the errors we receive? To be honest, every time we made a show we worried about the operating system simply freezing up on us, and on several occasions, it did. Shouldn’t we acknowledge that as well? Windows has become synonymous with operating system, much like Kleenex with tissue. It comes preinstalled on virtually every! machine you buy, so yes, of course most people will be using it one way or another. But that doesn’t mean we have to support it whole heartedly. >Frequency, I’m surprised you allowed an article about cracking into porn sites to be published in your otherwise distinguished ezine. Despite cracksalots arguments, I don’t understand what that has to do with hacking. I can remember screamer arguing a long time ago about how he didn’t like anarchy and stuff like that, and yet you’ll print an article about this? In the future, you should strive to give hackers a positive image before the eyes of the world. You used to do that, and I don’t want to see the quality of your ezine go down the tubes because of this. [lionel] REPLY> We knew we’d receive letters regarding “Cracking 101” by Sir Cracksalot in issue 24. First off, who are we to silence someone who writes an article to inform others? There was no personal information about individuals given out, and it wasn’t a tool for crime disguised as an article. It did deal with computers, and making them do something interesting, whether we agree with what could be done or not is irrelevant. As for “anarchy” material, I had made that statement not about information, but about relevance. Hackers, and I stress in my opinion, are people who play with technology to make it do incredible things. No information about how something could be made or done is “bad” information, but is it necessarily relevant? That was my whole argument, as I didn’t see “how to break the human wrist” or drive by shootings as things that were, or should be, associated with hacking. The information itself should not be condemned, but I do think there are more approp! riate places for it besides a hacker board. >Frequency, Back in Freq21, Leland D. Peng wrote an article titled “Don’t Support This Site.” As a webmaster myself, I’m very discouraged to see someone talking shit about people who ask for donations or use banner ads. Usually if you want quality, you have to pay. I respect his opinion, but banners and donations help to keep some very important voices on the net. Not all of us have as much money as micro$oft, stop putting down those you claim to support. [Jagged Edge] REPLY> [To clarify, that article appeared in Freq22] At the time of this writing Leland isn’t available to comment, but through discussion I’ve seen we think very similar. His arguments stem from anger towards those that try to make a buck off of what they do, without any genuinely necessary reason to make that money. To use the Hackermind shirts we created a while back as an example, we put those up on cafepress.com at the minimum price. Why? Because we didn’t have to pay anything in the first place, so why force a price hike on our listeners just so we could get a profit? As for a site’s survival, I’m sure Leland will agree that no one here wants to silence those voices that are helping the community, but the bottom line is that there are cheaper ways for everything. Using your imagination will take you a long way, and save your visitors a lot of headaches too. >Frequency, When people write articles for 2600 they get a shirt, why not give people some incentive to write for your ezine? I know I’d write a lot more if I knew I’d get something outta the deal, but it’s just an idea. [Cricket] REPLY> We have considered doing what Phrack does; sending each issue to the people who submitted articles that were published a week or more before everyone else gets it. We haven’t yet started doing this, but in all likelihood we will soon. It’s the least we can do for those that take the time to contribute. As for shirts or other goodies, the point of writing articles is to say whatever’s on your mind, not for a reward. >Frequency, I’m confused about hacking laws in the United States…are there differing degrees of severity when hacking? Does the legal system distinguish between casual snooping and actual destruction? And if so, what other kinds of factors come into play? [anonymous] REPLY> We’re not lawyers, so we’re probably not the best source to turn to for legal advice. These days it almost seems like you’re at the mercy of the court, your punishment is based on how paranoid the judge is or how horrific the prosecutor’s imagination can be. For the most part, intent is hard to prove and doesn’t seem to come into question. For example, nowadays getting into a hospital’s computer could be construed as attempted murder. Ironically the punishment is probably more severe because you used a computer…go figure. It really is a shame how the majority of the world looks at computer hacking these days though. Today, even if you simply view someone’s directory structure in a web browser you may very well be facing some serious consequences. To those anti-hacker types, that’s exactly how it should be. They’ll never understand the technology, so it’s better to use guerrilla tactics instead of looking like fools. ======================================================================= 8. *** Closing Arguments *** In case you didn’t notice, our cover this month was inspired by musicunited.org, a website owned by the RIAA, although they don’t want to admit that on the actual site. I won’t bother explaining what they’re all about, I’m sure you all have browsers capable of viewing their pretty graphics and text, but just so you don’t miss it, here’s a link to learn what artists think about downloaders http://www.musicunited.org/3_artists.html and for more propaganda, visit http://www.musicunited.org/4_shouldntdoit.html . It makes me a little angry to see artists who already make millions (if not billions) demanding that you put every hard earned cent into their pocket. Forget about whether getting someone else’s work for free is right or wrong for a moment, it’s something that anyone can do these days! It’s as simple as breathing, and is done on a worldwide scale. Do the artists, and especially the RIAA, honestly believe they can stop people from trading files once and for all? And lastly, to the artists…if music doesn’t pay anymore, maybe you should get a real job and leave the music to the people who truly love making it. If all you want is the most “compensation” possible, you probably don’t give a shit about what you make. I send out this ezine for free, you don’t see me demanding people pay 13 dollars an issue. Why? I do it because I love it, and a lot of other people seem to enjoy it. I’ll make money some other way, threatening readers to pay up is NOT the way to do it. And with that said, everyone needs to send me 20 bucks right now…haha, just kidding. I just hope everyone realizes I don’t hate all popular musicians or filmmakers. In fact, while watching the horror film “Jason X” on DVD (yes, I admitted I downloaded that movie before it was released because the studio delayed it so much…well there you go, now I’ve paid my debt) I heard the lead writer and director joking about how their film was such a popular bootleg online. They themselves knew the studio fucked up by waiting so long to bring it out, and seemed pleased that people got to see it one way or another. In fact, the writer was actually SELLING the bootleg! He was so pissed at the studio that he began selling his own copies…now that’s how it should be done. Put more power in the hands of the creators, and less in the white haired CEO’s at New Line Cinema. I only wish I knew about it, I would have been proud to send in my cash…if only to give 100% profit to the creators. Aside from my horror movie fixation, there’ve been some other things going on in the world. Recently the internet experienced one of the largest DDoS attacks ever. The attack targeted the 13 root servers that make up the main backbone of the internet, although not enough were actually affected badly enough to cause slowdown. Naturally, CNN reported on the hackers that nearly shutdown the internet. Their security professional (obviously a pro, he had spiked hair) said it wasn’t a sophisticated attack, but alas, hackers were the culprits. You know, a guy sent a virus to his friend in Illinois…that damn hacker. And to close the 25th issue, a message to all present and future writers. If you would like to receive personal feedback, please include your address, along with the handle you submit, at the top of your article. We won’t print your address unless it’s included in the body of your email, nor will it be given to anyone who asks. As usual, send any and all submissions to articles@hackermind.net, or screamer@hackermind.net will work just as well. Now, with that said, farewell and adieu. -screamer ================================================================= 9. *** Crew *** Editor in Chief – Screamer Chaotix Webmaster – Dash Interrupt Network Administrator – Leland D. Peng NT Specialist – Unreal Radio Specialist – w1nt3rmut3 Writers – dual_parallel, Zero Tolerance, Jeff Chester Shout Outs – Todd Farmer, Jim Isaac, Kevin D. Mitnick, Sparky (go home), Langley, www.artbell.com SEND ARTICLES TO – articles@hackermind.net W W W . H A C K E R M I N D . N E T January 2003 6 2 3