| ==Phrack Inc.== |
|
|
| Volume Four, Issue Thirty-Nine, File 2 of 13 |
|
|
| [-=:< Phrack Loopback >:=-] |
|
|
| By Phrack Staff |
|
|
| Phrack Loopback is a forum for you, the reader, to ask questions, air |
| problems, and talk about what ever topic you would like to discuss. This is |
| also the place Phrack Staff will make suggestions to you by reviewing various |
| items of note; magazines, software, catalogs, hardware, etc. |
| _______________________________________________________________________________ |
|
|
| A Review of Steve Jackson Games' HACKER |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| By Deluge |
|
|
| They had to get around to it eventually. While I was scanning the game section |
| at the not-so-well-stocked game and comic store where I shop on occasion, I saw |
| something that caught my eye: A game called "Hacker" by Steve Jackson Games. |
|
|
| What you see on the cover gives you a clue that this game is a bit more than |
| the typical trash we see about hackers. Here we have a guy with a leather |
| jacket with a dinosaur pin, John Lennon shades, a Metallica shirt, and a really |
| spiffy spiked hairdo. This guy has an expression with a most wicked grin, and |
| his face is bathed in the green glow of a monitor. Various decorations in the |
| room include a model rocket, a skateboard, a pizza box, and a couple of Jolt |
| Cola cans. Behind him, hanging on his wall, are a couple of posters, one which |
| says, "Legion of Doom Internet World Tour," and another which says, "Free the |
| Atlanta Three." On his bookshelf, we see a copy of Neuromancer, Illuminati |
| BBS, and The Phoenix-- (I assume "Project" follows, and don't ask me why this |
| guy has BBSes in his bookshelf). Finally, there's a note tacked to the LOD |
| poster that says "PHRACK SummerCon CyberView, St. Louis" which appears to be an |
| invitation of some kind. |
|
|
| This struck me as quite interesting. |
|
|
| Twenty bucks interesting, as it turns out, and I think it was twenty well |
| spent. Now don't tell me Steve Jackson Games has no significance for you |
| (sigh). Ok, here is how Steve tells it (in the intro to the game): |
|
|
| ----- |
|
|
| "In 1990, Steve Jackson Games was raided by the U.S. Secret Service during a |
| 'hacker hunt' that went disastrously out of control. We lost several |
| computers, modems, and other equipment. Worse, we lost the manuscripts to |
| several uncompleted games, most notably _GURPS Cyberpunk_, which a Secret |
| Service agent the next day called 'a handbook for computer crime.' The company |
| had to lay off half its staff, and narrowly avoided bankruptcy. |
|
|
| "Eventually we got most of our property back (though some of it was damaged or |
| destroyed). The Secret Service admitted that we'd never been a target of their |
| investigation. We have a lawsuit pending against the officials and agencies |
| responsible. |
|
|
| "But since the day of the raid, gamers have been asking us, 'When are you going |
| to make a game about it?' Okay. We give up. Here it is. Have fun." |
|
|
| ----- |
|
|
| Weeeell...everybody naturally wants to look as good as they can, right? For |
| the real lowdown on the whole situation, a scan through some old CUDs would be |
| in order, where you could find a copy of the warrant which authorized this |
| raid. I can tell you that Loyd Blankenship is the author of SJG's _GURPS |
| Cyberpunk_, so draw your own conclusions. |
|
|
| Hacker is played with cards. This does NOT, in my view, make it a card game, |
| though it is advertised that way. It's pretty similar to Illuminati, requiring |
| a lot of diplomacy, but it has a totally different flavor. |
|
|
| The goal here is to become the mondo superhacker king of the net by getting |
| access on twelve systems. You build the net as you go along, upgrading your |
| system, hacking systems, and looking for ways to screw your fellow hackers so |
| they can't be king of the net before you can get around to it. While the |
| hacking aspect is necessarily resolved by a dice roll, the other aspects of |
| this game ring true. They distinguish between regular and root access on |
| systems, have specific OSes, specific net types, NetHubs, secret indials, back |
| doors, and, of course, the feds, which range from local police to combined |
| raids from the FBI and other government authorities. |
|
|
| This is a good game all on its own. It's fun, it has a fair amount of |
| strategy, lots of dirty dealing, and a touch of luck to spice things up. And |
| if things get too hairy and blood is about to flow, they inevitably cool down |
| when someone uses a special card. Quite a few of these are funny as hell. |
| Some examples: |
|
|
| Trashing: Somebody threw away an old backup disk. Bad idea. You can leave |
| them e-mail about it...from their own account. |
|
|
| Get A Life: A new computer game ate your brain. 100 hours later, you beat it, |
| and you're ready to get back to hacking, but you get only one hack |
| this turn. There is another one of these about meeting a member |
| of the opposite sex and briefly entertaining the notion that there |
| is more to life than hacking. |
|
|
| Original Manuals: The official system manuals explain many possible security |
| holes. This is good. Some system administrators ignore |
| them. This is bad. They usually get away with it because |
| most people don't have the manuals. This is good. But |
| YOU have a set of manuals. This is very interesting. |
|
|
| Social Engineering: "This is Joe Jones. My password didn't work. Can you |
| reset it to JOE for me?" There is another one of these |
| that says something about being the phone company checking |
| the modem line, what's your root password please. |
|
|
| And my favorite, a card designed to be played to save yourself from a raid: |
|
|
| Dummy Equipment: The investigators took your TV and your old Banana II, but |
| they overlooked the real stuff! No evidence, no bust -- and |
| you keep your system. |
|
|
| As you can see, this game goes pretty far toward catching the flavor of the |
| real scene, though some of it is necessarily stereotypical. Well, enough |
| praise. Here are a couple of gripes. |
|
|
| The game is LONG. A really nasty group of players can keep this going for |
| hours. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but be forewarned. A few |
| modifications to shorten it up are offered, but the short game is a little like |
| masturbating. Just not as good as the real thing. |
|
|
| There was too much work to get the game ready to play. I've gotten used to |
| some amount of setting up SJGs, and believe me, I would not have bought more |
| unless they were good, and they always are, but the setup has not usually been |
| such a pain. HACKER has a lot of pieces, and a lot of them come on a single |
| page, requiring you to hack them out with scissors and hope you don't do |
| something retarded like cut the wrong thing off. Once I got done with this, |
| everything was cool, but this was a real pain. |
|
|
| So, overall, what do I think? Four stars. If you play games, or if you're |
| just massively hip to anything about hacking, get this game. You're gonna need |
| at least three players, preferably four or five (up to six can play), so if |
| you only know one person, don't bother unless you have some hope of getting |
| someone else to game with you. |
|
|
| And when Dr. Death or the K-Rad Kodez Kid calls you up and wonders where you've |
| been lately, just tell him you're busy dodging feds, covering your tracks, and |
| hacking for root in every system you find in your quest to call yourself king |
| of the net, and if he doesn't support you...well, you know what to do with |
| posers who refuse to believe you're God, don't you? |
|
|
| Muahahahahahahaahaha! |
| _______________________________________________________________________________ |
|
|
| CPSR Listserv |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) has set up a list |
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| We hope you enjoy this new service. |
| _______________________________________________________________________________ |
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|
| TRW Allows Inspection |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| According to USA Today, as of April 30, you can get a free copy of your TRW |
| credit report once a year by writing to: |
|
|
| TRW Consumer Assistance |
| P.O. Box 2350 |
| Chatsworth, CA 91313-2350 |
|
|
| Include all of the following in your letter: |
|
|
| - Full name including middle initial and generation such as Jr, Sr, III etc. |
| - Current address and ZIP code. |
| - All previous addresses and ZIPs for past five years. |
| - Social Security number. |
| - Year of birth. |
| - Spouse's first name. |
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| - A photocopy of a billing statement, utility bill, driver's license or other |
| document that links your name with the address where the report should be |
| mailed. |
| _______________________________________________________________________________ |
|
|
| The POWER Computer Lives! |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| Do the words of the prophet Abraham Epstein ring true? (Remember him from his |
| correspondence in Phrack 36 Loopback?) |
|
|
| If you don't believe that The IBM/TV Power Computer and is attempting to take |
| over the world then read the following and judge for yourself. |
|
|
| o IBM is the worlds largest corporation. |
|
|
| o IBM has more in assets than most small countries. |
|
|
| o In 1991 IBM and it's arch enemy, Apple Computer, have joined forces to build |
| the POWER computer. |
|
|
| o The POWER computer will replace all existing Macintosh, PS/2, and |
| RS/6000 machines. |
|
|
| o The POWER architecture will be licenced to third-party companies in order |
| that they may build their own POWER computers. |
|
|
| o With both Apple Computer (QuickTime) and IBM (Ultimedia) advancing their |
| work on Multimedia, it can only mean that the POWER computer will speak |
| through TV. |
|
|
| - - - - - - - - - |
|
|
| Here are some quotes from Harley Hahn of IBM's Advanced Workstation Division: |
|
|
| "PowerOpen is a computing architecture based on AIX and the POWER |
| Architecture. To that we've added the PowerPC architecture [a low- |
| end implementation if POWER ] and the Macintosh interface and |
| applications." |
|
|
| "Our goal is to create the major RISC computing industry standard |
| based on the PowerPC architecture and the PowerOpen environment." |
|
|
| "Eventually all our workstations will use POWER" |
|
|
| - - - - - - - - - |
|
|
| Here's a quote from Doug McLean of Apple Computer: |
|
|
| "It is our intention to replace the 68000 in our entire line of |
| Macintosh computers with PowerPC chips." |
|
|
| - - - - - - - - - |
|
|
| The PROPHECY IS COMING TRUE. We have no time to lose. Unless we act quickly |
| the world will come to an abrupt end as the POWER COMPUTER passes wind on all |
| of us. |
|
|
| Abraham Epstein [Big Daddy Plastic Recycling Corporation] |
| [Plastic Operations With Energy Resources (POWER)] |
| _______________________________________________________________________________ |
|
|
| Major Virus Alert |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| George Bush Virus - Doesn't do anything, but you can't get rid of it |
| until November. |
| Ted Kennedy Virus - Crashes your computer, but denies it ever happened. |
| Warren Commission Virus - Won't allow you to open your files for 75 years |
| Jerry Brown Virus - Blanks your screen and begins flashing an 800 number. |
| David Duke Virus - Makes your screen go completely white. |
| Congress Virus - Overdraws your disk space. |
| Paul Tsongas Virus - Pops up on Dec. 25 and says "I'm Not Santa Claus." |
| Pat Buchanan Virus - Shifts all output to the extreme right of the screen. |
| Dan Quayle Virus - Forces your computer to play "PGA TOUR" from 10am to |
| 4pm, 6 days a week |
| Bill Clinton Virus - This virus mutates from region to region. We're not |
| exactly sure what it does. |
| Richard Nixon Virus - Also know as the "Tricky Dick Virus." You can wipe |
| it out, but it always makes a comeback. |
| H. Ross Perot Virus - Same as the Jerry Brown virus, only nicer fonts are |
| used, and it appears to have had a lot more money put |
| into its development. |
| _______________________________________________________________________________ |
|
|
| AUDIO LINKS |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| By Mr. Upsetter |
|
|
| It all started with my Macintosh... |
|
|
| Some time ago I had this crazy idea of connecting the output from the audio |
| jack of my Macintosh to the phone line. Since the Macintosh has built in sound |
| generation hardware, I could synthesize any number of useful sounds and play |
| them over the phone. For instance, with a sound editing program like |
| SoundEdit, it is easy to synthesize call progress tones, DTMF and MF tones, red |
| box, green box, and other signalling tones. So I set out to do exactly this. |
| I created a set of synthesized sounds as sound resources using SoundEdit. Then |
| I wrote a HyperCard stack for the purpose of playing these sounds. Now all I |
| needed was a circuit to match the audio signal from the headphone jack of my |
| Mac to the phone line. |
|
|
|
|
| How The Circuit Works |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| I designed a simple passive circuit that does the job quite well. Here is the |
| schematic diagram. |
|
|
| +------+ T1 +------+ |
| o-----| R1 |-----o------o--------(| |)-----| C1 |-----o-----o |
| +------+ +| -| (| |) +------+ | |
| +---+ +---+ (| |) +---+ |
| to Mac | D | | D | 8 (| |) 500 |VR | to |
| headphone | 1 | | 2 | ohm (| |) ohm | 1 | phone |
| jack +---+ +---+ (| |) +---+ line |
| -| +| (| |) | |
| o------------------o------o--------(| |)------------------o-----o |
|
|
| C1-.22 uF, 200V |
| D1,D2- 1N4148 switching diode |
| R1-620 ohm, 1/4W |
| T1- 8 ohm to 500 ohm audio transformer, Mouser part 42TL001 |
| VR1-300V MOV, Mouser part 570-V300LA4 |
|
|
| VR1 is a 300V surge protector to guard against transient high voltages. |
| Capacitor C1 couples the phone line to transformer T1, blocking the phone |
| line's DC voltage but allowing the AC audio signal to pass. The transformer |
| matches the impedance of the phone line to the impedance of the headphone jack. |
| Diodes D1 and D2 provide clipping for additional ringing voltage protection |
| (note their polarity markings in the schematic). They will clip any signal |
| above 7 volts. Resistor R1 drops the volume of the audio signal from the Mac |
| to a reasonable level. The end result is a circuit that isolates the Mac from |
| dangerous phone line voltages and provides a good quality audio link to the |
| phone line. |
|
|
|
|
| Building and Using the Circut |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| This simple circuit is easy to build (if you're handy with electronics). I |
| personally prefer to solder the circuit together. A length of shielded audio |
| cable with a 1/8 inch mono plug on one end should be connected to the audio |
| input end of the circuit. A standard RJ11 phone jack should be connected to |
| the phone line end of the circuit. Although this circuit will protect against |
| dangerous phone line voltages, it is best to disconnect it when not in use. |
| You just don't want to risk anything bad happening to your brand new Quadra |
| 900, right? |
|
|
| Once you have an audio link between your Mac and the phone line, the |
| applications are limitless. Use HyperCard's built-in DTMF dialing to dial for |
| you, or build a memory dialer stack. Talk to people with Macintalk. Play your |
| favorite Ren and Stimpy sounds for your friends. Play a ringback tone to |
| "transfer" people to an "extension". Build and use a set of synthesized MF |
| tones. Try to trick COCOT's with synthesized busy and reorder signals. |
|
|
|
|
| But Wait, There Is More... |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| So you say you don't own a Macintosh? That is ok, because the circuit can be |
| used with other devices besides your Mac. You can use it with the 8 ohm |
| headphone output from tape recorders, radios, scanners, etc. You could also |
| probably use it with any other computer as long as you had the proper audio D/A |
| hardware and software to create sounds. |
|
|
| All parts are available from Mouser Electronics. Call 800-346-6873 for a free |
| catalog. |
| _______________________________________________________________________________ |
|
|
| Thank You Disk Jockey! |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| Date: May 22, 1992 |
| From: Sarlo |
| To: Phrack |
| Subject: The Disk Jockey |
|
|
| I was searching through some Phracks (issues 30-38), just checking them out and |
| noticed something. It's small and insignificant, I guess, but important to me |
| all the same. |
|
|
| I noticed in Disk Jockey's Prophile (Phrack 34, File 3) that he "Never got any |
| thanks for keeping his mouth shut."..I dunno how to get ahold of him or |
| anything, but if you drop a line to him sometime, tell him I said "thanks." |
|
|
| -Sarlo |
| _______________________________________________________________________________ |
|
|
| An Upset Reader Responds To Knight Lightning and Phrack |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| Date: Mon, 20 Apr 92 16:57 GMT |
| From: "Thomas J. Klotzbach" <0003751365@mcimail.com> |
| To: Knight Lightning <kl@stormking.com> |
| Subject: In response to your comments of Phrack Vol 4, Issue 37, File 2 of 14 |
|
|
| Hi, |
|
|
| I have a lot of respect for Phrack and all the work they are doing to |
| promote an understanding of the Computer Underground. But your comments in the |
| latest issue of Phrack are what I would like to comment on. |
|
|
| You say: |
|
|
| "In short -- I speak on behalf of the modem community in general, |
| 'FUCK OFF GEEK!' Crawl back under the rock from whence you came |
| and go straight to hell!" |
|
|
| First, you don't speak for me and about five other people at this college. |
| I have maintained throughout that the ONLY way to further the efforts of the |
| Computer Underground is to destroy them with logic - not with creton-like |
| comments. Yes, you are entitled to your say - but why not take this Dale Drew |
| person and destroy him with logic? The minute that you descend to the level |
| Dale Drew operates from makes you look just as ridiculous as him. |
|
|
| In my opinion, you came off very poorly in the exchange with Dale Drew. |
|
|
| Thomas J. Klotzbach MCI Mail: 375-1365 |
| Genesee Community College Internet: 3751365@mcimail.com |
| Batavia, NY 14020 Work: (716) 343-0055 x358 |
|
|
| - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
|
|
| Dear Mr. Klotzbach, |
|
|
| >From all of us at Phrack, this is our reply to your recent email... |
|
|
| ******************************************************************************* |
|
|
| Cyber-Redneck & Shitkickin' Jim's |
| GUIDE TO MANLY HACKING |
|
|
| A Lod/GoD Presentation |
| Legion of d0oDeZ / Gardeners of Doom! |
|
|
| "You can have my encryption algorithm, |
| when you pry it from my cold dead fingers!" |
|
|
|
|
| ******************************************************************************* |
|
|
| NOW BOYS... first of all, you gotta git yerself a pickup truck. Shitkickin' |
| Jim's got one. And you gotta get a bedliner, a toolbox, a gunrack, and a CB. |
| For decoration, you have to get a confederate flag Hank Williams Jr. license |
| plate, or a Harley Davidson license plate, at your option. You also gotta get |
| an NRA sticker for the back, and the Bassmaster fishing sticker (you know, the |
| one that's has a fish on it). The most mandatory requirement are two antennaes |
| for your CB which are mounted on each of the side view mirrors. |
|
|
| Now that you have your pickup truck/hackermobile, you gotta rip out the |
| dashboard and mount a Data General processing unit in the front seat, cuz |
| that's a manly-sounding computer name, not some pussy sounding 'puter. You |
| also have to get an Anchorman direct-connect modem, cuz that's the only thing |
| left that your battery will be able to power. |
|
|
| Not only do you have to have a pickup truck, but you gotta have rollbars, with |
| foglights, armed with KC light covers so that you can see at night while you're |
| trashing. |
|
|
| THE MANLY WAY FOR A NIGHT OF HACKING |
|
|
| NOTE: Before you begin any journey in the hackmobile, you must get a six pack |
| of Budweiser, and a carton of Marlboro reds. It's mandatory. |
|
|
| Call up your buddy who owns his own trash business. If you are a real man, ALL |
| of your friends will work in this business. Get him to take the company truck |
| out (the deluxe model -- the Hercules trash truck, the one with the forklift on |
| the front). |
|
|
| HOW REAL MEN GO TRASHING |
|
|
| Drive down to your local Bell office or garage, and empty all of the dumpsters |
| into the trashtruck, by way of the convenient forklift. This method has |
| brought both me and Shitkickin' Jim much luck in the way of volume trashing. |
|
|
| Now that you have all of your trash, go back and dump it in your backyard. If |
| you are a real man, no one will notice. Dump it between the two broke down |
| Chevette's, the ones that all the dogs will sleep under, next to the two |
| barrels of wire. |
|
|
| Go through the trash and find out who the geek is that is the switchman at the |
| central office. This shouldn't be hard. It's the little squiggly letters at |
| the bottom of the page. |
|
|
| Next, drive to his house. Pull your truck into his front yard. Threaten him |
| with the following useful phrase: |
|
|
| "HAY FAY-GUT! WUT IS THE PASSWORD TO THE LOCAL COSMOS DIALUP?" |
|
|
| "IFFIN YOU DON'T TELL ME, I'M GONNA RUN OVER YOUR PIECE OF SHIT RICE-BURNING |
| COMMUNIST JAPANESE CAR WITH MY 4 BY 4 PICKUP TRUCK, GAWDDAMIT!" |
|
|
| Then spit a big, brown, long tobaccoe-juice glob onto his shirt, aiming for the |
| Bell logo. Should he withhold any information at this point, git out of yer |
| truck and walk over to him. Grab him by his pencil neck, and throw him on the |
| ground. Place your cowboy boot over his forehead, and tell him your going to |
| hogtie his ass to the front of your 4 by 4 and smash him into some concrete |
| posts. At this point, he will give in, especially noticing the numerous guns |
| in the gunrack. |
|
|
| WHAT TO DO WITH THE INFORMATION THAT YOU HAVE COVERTLY OBTAINED |
|
|
| Don't even think about using a computer. Make him log on to his terminal at |
| home, and make him do whatever you like. Read a copy of JUGGS magazine, or |
| High Society, or Hustler, while at the same time exhibiting your mighty hacker |
| power. Enjoy the newfound fame and elitism that you will receive from your |
| friends and loved ones. GOD BLESS AMERICA! |
|
|
| ***************************************************** |
|
|
| This file was brought to you by Cyber-Redneck a/k/a Johnny Rotten, and |
| Shitkickin' Jim a/k/a Dispater. |
|
|
| Iffin you don't like this here file, we will burn a cross in your yard, and |
| might even tell the BellCo geek to cut your line off. He's still tied up in |
| Shitkickin' Jim's basement. |
| _______________________________________________________________________________ |
|
|