[810] in libertarians
packet sniffers & their ilk
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Operator)
Thu Mar 16 10:37:46 1995
From: root@MIT.EDU (Operator)
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 95 10:34:50 -0500
To: libertarians@MIT.EDU
Cc: trott@lids.MIT.EDU
I'm not on this list, so if this was already discussed, my apologies.
What sort of packet sniffing--intended to violate student's privacy rather
than to merely break into the system--can be done on Athena? How about
the other major machines around here? Non-hackers like myself have no
feel for this. Like, an athena admin said if anyone tried to catch
email from my username, this could not be done without violating lots of
other people's email.
Could a cracker look for a certain word or phrase within all email
(e.g., the phrase "Committee on Discipline" or the name "LaMacchia") and
then find the to-from fields of the messages the phrase/word was contained in?
Is it possible that MIT deans might recruit or employ hackers (like, as part of
a deal for immunity from COD action for hacking/cracking offenses) to
penetrate the files/communications of students subject to COD action,
involved in rough readmission cases, etc.?
Please discuss...someone will forward me the discussion.
(Prof. Trott--I've heard you have an interested in computer security issues
and are also a systems admin--please contribute!)
(you don't have to tell us anything about the deans if you know and don't
want to speak about it...also we communicate this in confidentiality, like,
we request you don't forward this to any other faculty/officialdom)
What legal protection does a student in this situation have against MIT?
