[109326] in Cypherpunks
Re: FWD: PC Computing Online: Bombshell
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jean-Francois Avon)
Thu Mar 18 15:38:12 1999
From: "Jean-Francois Avon" <jf_avon@citenet.net>
To: "Cypherpunks" <cypherpunks@toad.com>
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 14:54:38 -0500
Reply-To: "Jean-Francois Avon" <jf_avon@citenet.net>
Greetings Cypherpunks!
Sorry guys, but my sense of humor stops pretty short of that one!
I find this darn pretty serious! Did you check the source for the "april's
fool" banner? Did you dis-assemble the code and check it out? If no, how do
you know it is innocuous? A hoax disguizing a joke disguizing gawdz knows
what! Pretty clever. People will go OUT OF THEIR WAY to download it just to
see the cute little banner!
Some people WILL believe it and WILL download the crap. Some other will want
to see the joke, but is it one? This is like a pickpocket having an
accomplice yelling "fire" in a theatre and later on say "T'was a joke...
April's fool...".
Ciao
jfa
and yes Tim, you can reply to me on Cypherpunks, I am still subscribed...
:-p
On Thu, 18 Mar 1999 11:01:33 -0500, Sunder wrote:
>Right, sure. When you try to "download" this program you get this:
>
> APRIL FOOLS!
>
> But it could happen . . .
>
> What a world, huh? Do you <I>really</I> trust your IS department? Your
>boss? Do you know that they can legally snoop through your e-mail, look at
>the files on your computer, listen in on your phone calls, check out the Web
>sites you visit?
>
> Is this justified because they own the equipment and they're paying for your
>time? Or is it an absolute abuse of authority and a violation of your
>privacy? Do you have any privacy rights at work? Let us know how you feel.
>
>
>
>[My comments]
>
>However, I will add that any machine with a microphone, sound card, and
speedy
>network connection can do this. Most users won't notice, anyone with a
>sniffer tool will notice the extra continous traffic. Under most unixen you
>don't even have to write much software to listen to the microphone. (Netcat
is
>a great tool!) With 9x/NT you'll have to write a bit of code, but it's no
big
>deal.
>
>A while back, at a previous employer we used to have racks and racks and
racks
>of Sun servers and since we were bored we uploaded Bevis & Butthead sounds to
>all of them and setup cron jobs. Every night the machines would say "I am
>Cornholio, I need TP for my bunghole." But we could have just as easily
>plugged in microphones and listened and used netcat to pipe the sounds to our
>own stations should we chose to. Of course we wouldn't have heard much more
>than the fans in the racks, but I digress.
>
>The warning in the article about blinking hard drive lights is fairly
>ominous. Have no fear. Microsoft Swapping algorithms are shit. They always
>swap randomly, even when there's little activity on the machine. So you will
>normally see the lights blink and hear the drive going even if there's little
>activity otherwise.
>
>
>packetstorm@Genocide2600.com wrote:
