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Conference noted::hackers_v1

Title:	-={ H A C K E R S }=-
Notice:	Write locked - see NOTED::HACKERS
Moderator:	DIEHRD::MORRIS

Created:	Thu Feb 20 1986
Last Modified:	Mon Aug 03 1992
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	680
Total number of notes:	5456

471.0. "Computer hostage/blackmail" by OVDVAX::ROTH (Larry, Curly, Moe. Pick two.) Wed May 13 1987 03:36

Associated Press Tue 12-MAY-1987 19:12                       Computer-Hostage

parX12-MAY-8719

   Firm Cracks Code To Free Computer Held Hostage For Week

    BARTOW, Fla. (AP) - A man was charged with extortion Tuesday for
allegedly holding an insurance firm's computer hostage by using a
secret password to block access to data files before he quit in a
contract dispute.

   It took the company a week to break the coded password:
``w-g-a-c-a.''

   George C. Coker Jr., former chief financial officer for Golden
Eagle Group Inc. of Lakeland, also was charged with denying access
to an authorized user of computer systems services. Each count is a
felony, punishable by up to 15 years and $10,000.

   Jeff Homes, Golden Eagle president, said data on $400,000 in
accounts receivable and due on May 15 were frozen while half the
30-member staff worked overtime to find the password.

   ``We burned the midnight oil since last Wednesday,'' Homes said.
``Like President Reagan, we're not going to be held hostage through
acts of terrorism.

   ``There were 2.4 million possible combinations. He scrambled the
data so it couldn't be read by us, and he also encrypted our backup
data.''

   Up to eight digits could have been programmed in the password.
The digits could have been any combination of letters and numbers.

   The dispute centers on a question of ownership. The firm said it
was denied access to its information and will press its civil suits.

   Coker, 38, said he created command files to manage data. The
data, he said, was still available to the company. ``The computer
process to manipulate the data for an accounting purpose is what
we're talking about.''

   ``I feel they have stolen my property,'' Coker said. ``Those
files were my property, intellectual property. It was a process I
developed while I was there. I did it on my own.''

   And when he left, he said, ``I rendered them unusable to
unauthorized sources.''

   The company said Coker quit May 6 after itemizing demands in a
letter to executive vice president Dick Johnson.

   The company said he sought a $15,000 salary hike, wanted to keep
an IBM personal computer worth between $1,000 and $2,000 in
exchange for working overtime, and wanted his last paycheck, a
letter of reference and a $100 fee.

   ``His demands were unreasonable for our company,'' said Homes,
whose firm has $15 million in annual sales and offices in
Tallahassee and Atlanta as well as Lakeland.

   Coker, who worked for the company for 2 1/2 years, said Tuesday he
had been working without a contract and sought one, asking for a
salary review with it. When he heard nothing from the company after
a month, he considered his employment terminated, he said.

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
471.1	Betcha it wasn't a VAX!	FROST::HARRIMAN	Talk that trash	`Wed May 13 1987 12:50`	1

471.2		VINO::RASPUZZI	Michael Raspuzzi	`Wed May 13 1987 18:15`	3
	Or a DECsystem-10/DECSYSTEM-20. Mike
471.3		MKTUP1::EIBEN		`Thu May 14 1987 13:01`	10
	[re .-1] I currently believe, it could have been either one of ours .. just imagine having NO priviledged access to the thingy - NOT being able to 're-boot' and missing 'debugging' software and not having access to 'inhouse' info [i.e. being in the field with no 'direct' ties to DEC] Rgds, Bernie [who very well remembers chasing an intruder on a DEC-system without privs but some knowledge...]
471.4	Maybe,,,,but...	FROST::HARRIMAN	Expressions	`Thu May 14 1987 20:30`	9
	re: .-1,.-2 It might have been a '10 or a '20 - I still don't think it's possible on a VAX - we just had a +50 replies topic on this. Unless the guy took the keys and changed the combination on the machine room door, of course. /pjh
471.5	Back to the Article	TELCOM::MCVAY	Pete McVay, VRO Telecom	`Fri May 15 1987 16:10`	10
	However, the base note raises interesting questions... On every system that I've been a manager on, I usually get management to agree to inform users that they can develop [almost] anything they want or use the computer for anything they want [except for private gain]--but anything they develop belongs to DEC. Sounds to me like the company in question (1) didn't give this guy a fair shake and (2) didn't protect themselves adequately from hacking and software sabotage. It sounds as though he was a one-man operation (and was getting screwed at the same time).
471.6	Employee loses	TLE::RMEYERS	Randy Meyers	`Fri May 15 1987 19:54`	26
	Re: .4 I think both .1's and .2's point was with physical access to the machine, and a little knowledge, you can break in. Reply .3's point was that if you lack the little knowledge, you can't break in. This point is as valid for Vaxes, -10s/-20s, or even IBM pcs. (In the RT notesfile, was was a similar discussion about locking a user out of RT.) Its sometimes easy to frustrate the neophyte by methods that hardly slow down the wizard. Re: .5 I predict that things will go hard for the employee who wrote the software and then demanded that the company give him additional pay before the company could use it. In the absence of any agreement, common law holds. The common law position is that when ever an employee uses his employer's resources (tools, office space, computers) to invent something, the employee in effects gives the employer a non-exclusive license to use or sell the invention. Thus, the employee can use or sell the invention, but so can the employer. Also, the employer owes the employee nothing for this right. Of course, if the guy developed the programs on his home pc, the situation changes... Any other armchair lawyers care to comment?
471.7		VINO::RASPUZZI	Michael Raspuzzi	`Sat May 16 1987 00:39`	13
	.0 states that the data file was still intact. I assume that the perpetrator mucked with some .EXE file that was used to access the data files. Someone with strong working knowledge of a DEC-20 (I'm not a 10 type so I can't speak for them) would be able to poke around even without privs. However, it would take a strong background to figure out what the terrorist did. Also, it is easy to get privs on any directory on a 20 if you have access to the CTY and can reboot the system (this may not be intuitively obvious to someone familiar with TOPS-20). Mike
471.8	There is a lesson here....	FROST::HARRIMAN	Expressions	`Wed May 20 1987 14:44`	23
	re: .5 - .-1 Sure, you can gain "priv" on a '20 just by getting the password to the next higher directory structure - like if you have a password in <ROOT-DIRECTORY> you can know everyone's password on the particular structure - however, with physical access to the machine and some help from field service (or a backup system disk) you can defeat any of those. Now if the terrorist had changed the combination on the machine room door lock on the way out, now that's a different story. It definitely sounds like there was much more that occurred than the topic .0 indicated (maybe I'm reading between the lines too much). However it would seem that if the person was that intimate with the system and the rest of the staff wasn't then it was bound to happen sooner or later. That's a good lesson to learn: always have backups, whether it's people, data, software or hardware. /pjh
471.9	There is more than one way to skin a cat.	UTRTSC::GUEDHA	Is infertility hereditary?	`Thu Jun 11 1987 12:39`	20
	Re. > Now if the terrorist had changed the combination on the machine > room door lock on the way out, now that's a different story. On one (Unnamed) customer's site they had just installed a brand new all singing, full colour and sterio security system on the doors leading to the computer room. The equipment controlling this mess was located inside the secure area. Needless to say it screwed up, during the night when nobody was on the inside. I arrived to do a PM about 08:30 and found everyone, including the manager who had had the thing installed, standing outside looking a bit miffed. Taking the suction device I lifted a floor tile, dropped down the hole and came up on the other side of the security door. The manager didn't even say thank you. Jamie Anderson.