Forwarded From: iteam@iwarfare.com
I N F O R M A T I O N W A R F A R E - N E W S B R I E F S
Monday 06 July, 1998
Articles for today:
1. Teen hacker breaks into Cape Internet accounts
2. Hacker posts anti-nuke message on scores of sites
3. AFTER ONLY ONE YEAR, AF BATTLELABS ARE 'HERE TO STAY'
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Teen hacker breaks into Cape Internet accounts
(Boston Herald; 07/04/98)
A 16-year-old Eastham computer hacker broke into the Cape's main
Internet service provider and looked at its customers' 15,000 account files,
Barnstable police said yesterday.
"His parents didn't seem to have a clue about what he was doing," said
Detective James Tamash. "They're cooperating with us 100 percent."
He attends Nauset Regional High School and studies computers.
Barnstable police and the attorney general's high-tech unit are now
investigating whether the hacker and his friends also gained access to
customer credit card numbers.
"We believe so," Tamash said. "Right now we can't say for sure."
Police searched the youth's bedroom at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday and confiscated
his computer equipment after a long investigation that began in February with
an anonymous fax sent to CAPEInternet of Osterville.
The fax said a group of teenagers had gotten their hands on customers' log-
on names and passwords, giving themselves free Internet access.
As many as six Cape teens may be involved, including a Harwich youth who
worked for a company called Doctor PC, the Cape Cod Times reported.
CAPEInternet traced a security breach last month to Doctor PC in Harwich
Center - the office where the company keeps modems that hook up 3,000 of its
Cape computer users to the net.
But CAPEInternet has no evidence the hackers obtained any credit card
information from customer files, CI president W. Brooks McCarty said in a
letter posted on the company's home page. The company has stepped up security
and also moved its modems from Doctor PC to an undisclosed location.
Investigators now are combing through the Eastham teen's computer files and
expect to charge him with several crimes. His name was not released because he
is a juvenile.
(Copyright 1998)
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Hacker posts anti-nuke message on scores of sites
(Reuters; 07/06/98)
By James Glave SAN FRANCISCO (Wired) - An 18-year-old member of the
anti-nuclear hacker group that last month wreaked havoc with e-mail and Web
servers at India's atomic research center has struck again with another
Internet political protest. In what may be the largest "mass hack" ever
undertaken, the cracker, who goes by the name "JF," along with a number of
anonymous colleagues, simultaneously defaced more than 300 Web sites late
Thursday. The group replaced the sites' homepages with an image of a mushroom
cloud and an anti-nuclear screed. "This mass takeover goes out to all the
people out there who want to see peace in this world," read the 800-word
declaration that graced an eclectic mix of general interest, entrepreneur,
adult, sport, and fan sites until early Friday morning. Affected domains
included sites for The World Cup, Wimbledon, The Ritz Casino, actor Drew
Barrymore, and The Saudi Royal Family. Some of the sites were still defaced or
down as of late Friday afternoon, when Wired News spoke with JF over Internet
Relay Chat. "The year is 1998," wrote JF, who is based in England. "We
should be moving towards world peace in the millennium, and nuclear warfare
[and] testing is NO way forward. It can destroy the world," the teen said.
"I'm only young; I don't want a hostile world on the edge of a nuclear
conflict," he added.
The mass hack happened almost by accident. While scanning a large network,
looking for security weaknesses, JF and his colleagues came across a Web site
hosting company called EasySpace. The firm, based in Kingston upon Thames,
England, offers "virtual domain" hosting-an arrangement whereby multiple Web
sites are located on a single server. "We ... came across this, at first by
accident, then [we] realized what it was, and as we were planning a mass hack,
we decided to put it into operation," JF said. The teen said that he and
his colleagues-members of another group called Ashtray Lumberjacks-penetrated
EasySpace's network with what they claimed was a nonpublic attack, and ran
computer code that inserted the same altered Web page on all the sites hosted
at EasySpace. The entire operation was completed in approximately one hour,
he said. EasySpace representatives declined to comment, aside from
forwarding to Wired News a copy of the email the company sent to affected
customers. "This attacked (in the hacker's own spelling) coincided with
us preparing to move our Easypost mail system onto a new server and receive
upgraded software," the message read in part.
"We will be re-installing the operating systems of the server your Web site is
hosted on over the weekend and will be upgrading the security. Apologies for
any inconvenience that may have been caused," the message concluded. The
email included instructions for customers to restore their own Web sites,
suggesting that EasySpace had no backups of its own. The protest Web page
bore the logo of JF's group Milw0rm. Last month, the same group claimed
responsibility for stealing email and deleting Web servers at the Bhabha Atomic
Research Centre in Bombay, India. In the latest protest statement, the
crackers expressed their disappointment that peace talks had not begun on the
subcontinent. "This tension is not good, it scares you as much as it scares
us. For you all know that this could seriously escalate into a big conflict
between India and Pakistan and possibly even World War III, and this CANNOT
happen," the text read. John Vranesevich, founder of the computer security
Web site AntiOnline, said that mass Web page attacks, affecting multiple sites
at one time, are not common events. "Usually any Internet Service Provider
that hosts such a large number of domains has very good security procedures in
place simply because they are usually a larger operation," Vranesevich said.
Vranesevich added that the group was unusual in that its members appear to be
driven as much by politics as they are by computer security issues.
"They're not claiming to be hacking to help progress computer security and
to help make new exploits known. They're doing it for political reasons; it's
not the means that's important it's the end result," Vranesevich said.
(Reuters/Wired)
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AFTER ONLY ONE YEAR, AF BATTLELABS ARE 'HERE TO STAY' By Greg Caires
(Defense Daily; 07/02/98)
Jul 2, 1998 (DEFENSE DAILY, Vol. 199, No. 6) -- Only one year after their
formal establishment, the Air Force's six battlelabs are "for real and here to
stay," according to the chief of the service's battlelab integration division.
"Our's is a strategy of innovation...the traditional acquisition process is too
slow and too cumbersome to affect real change," Air Force Col. Ron Kurjanowicz
said yesterday. "The battlelabs can bring real change to how we do business
and impact the Air Force sooner rather than later."
Kurjanowicz, who ensures that the disparate battlelabs remain visible to the
service's headquarters at the Pentagon, made his remarks yesterday at an Eaker
Institute colloquium hosted by the Air Force Association (AFA) in Arlington,
Va. AFA held the event in part to commemorate the battlelabs' first
anniversary, as well as to expose industry representatives to the battlelab
concept and to their commanders.
The Air Force currently operates six battlelabs around the country. They
include: the Air Expeditionary Battlelab at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho; the Space
Battlelab at Schriever AFB, Colo.; the Information Warfare Battlelab at
Kelly AFB, Texas; the Force Protection Battlelab at Lackland AFB, Texas; the
Command and Control Battlelab at Hurlburt Field, Fla.; and the Unmanned Aerial
Vehicle Battlelab at Eglin AFB, Fla.
The role of the nascent battlelabs is to identify innovative operational and
logistical concepts, and to measure their potential for advancing the Air
Force's core competencies.
According to Kurjanowicz, the challenge facing the battlelabs during the next
year is "what to do with our initiatives next," meaning how to introduce the
battlelabs' more promising concepts into the Air Force.
"That's going to be an uphill fight, because innovation always threatens
existing paradigms," he said.
Despite that, Kurjanowicz is confident that the battlelabs "will solve the
implementation challenge...because the battlelabs enjoy the support of the Air
Force's senior leadership."
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Received on Tue Jul 7 11:19:38 1998