[118563] in Cypherpunks
Re: New Center Will Combat Computer Security Threats
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John Young)
Sat Oct 2 14:08:40 1999
Message-Id: <199910021748.NAA30101@smtp10.atl.mindspring.net>
Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1999 13:37:38 -0400
To: Adam Shostack <adam@homeport.org>
From: John Young <jya@pipeline.com>
Cc: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
In-Reply-To: <19991002110435.A9231@weathership.homeport.org>
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Reply-To: John Young <jya@pipeline.com>
The WSJ yesterday had a lead article describing the long-term
FBI surveillance and arrest of a small band of phreakers.
A $70,000 device ("magic box") was invented for the main dick
for intecepting signal from the modem and convert it back to
digital, keystroke by keystroke. The feeb wouldn't tell the WSJ
more about the secret technology.
A 24x7 surveillance op was run for a lengthy period to document the
case, which dates back to the mid-90s but has been only recently
resolved in court for the targeted phreaker -- who was induced to
rat on and setup his collaborators.
While the phreakers managed to snarf some of the FBIs
list of phones being tapped, they never checked on their
own lines. Or so the crime doesn't pay story goes.
The FBI loved to play in court the guys kidding about being
tapped by the FBI and assuring each other they'd never rat.
None of this applies to anyone here, surely.
Thursday another WSJ story described how a band of security
bandits at icsa.net prowl the net looking for outlaws, and do
so by joining lists and chats and posing as would-be outlaws.
Peter Tippett, a ringleader, loved to brag about how gullible
people on the Net are for people posing as just like them
(cops chasing cops).
None of this applies to anyone here, surely.
Nor would the WSJ and NYT et al ever flog a dead horseman,
FBI lowbrow tech, while the main attack NSA calvary is intercepting
elsewhere, everywhere else, high and low.
