File: HACKING MCI MAIL Read 25 times -=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=- = = - MCI MAIL: The Adventure Continues - = [2600 -- July 1984] = - - = Word Processed by BIOC Agent 003 for Sherwood Forest ][ = - - -=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=- You really have to hand it to those folks over at MCI. First they tackle Ma Bell and now they're going after the U.S. Postal Service! MCI Mail's slogan, "The Nation's New Postal System," is printed on every bright orange envelope that they send through, you guessed it, U.S. Mail. On this system a user is assigned a "mailbox" that he can use to send and receive mail. Sending is done either electroncially, that is, to other people with MCI mailboxes or through the post office, which covers eveybody else in the world. The first type of letter will cost you $1 for the first three pages while the second type is double the cost. It's also possible to send an overnight letter ($6) or a four-hour letter ($25) to some places. The purpose of MCI Mail is to stimulate the use of electronic mail by making it more accessible to the average person. For that we must give them credit -- anybody can get an account on the system! There is no start-up fee and no monthly fee of any kind. To get an account, all you have to do is call them -- either by voice or data. If you call by data [800-323-7751/0905], you'll have to enter REGISTER as the username and REGISTER as the password. The rest is self-explanatory. After a couple of weeks, you'll get in the mail (regular mail, that is) one big orange envelope that has, among other things, your password. With this info, you're now free to log onto the system, look for people you know, send and retrieve messages, reall all of their help files, or even hop onto the Dow Jones News Service (watch it though -- that can get pretty expensive!) The system is set up on a network of Vaxes throughout the country. They've been operating since September 1983 and claim to have over 100,000 subscribers. Many of these are actually subscribers to the Dow Jones service, who are automatically given MCI accounts whether they want them or not. While the rates aren't overly expensive, they're certainly not cheap. Mailing regular letters is much cheaper an often just as fast since not every MCI Mail user checks their mailbox every day. Apart from that, though, there are many problems with the system as it stands now. For one thing, it can take forever getting on it, particularly through the 800 numbers. When you finally do get a carrier, you should get a message like this after hitting two returns: Port 20. Please enter your user name: Enter the username you selected and the password they assigned you. It should say, "Connection initiated....Opened." From that point, you're in. But the system will often appear to be bogged down. Often you have to hit twenty returns instead of two. Sometimes the system won't let you in because all the connections are "busy". Other times it will just drop the carrier. Real mail boxes don't do that. Another thing that will drive you crazy are the menus. Every time you enter a command, you get a whole new menu to choose from. If you're at 300 baud, this can get pretty annoying, especially it you know what all the options are. There are two ways around this: get the advanced version, which allows you to enter multi-word commands and even store some files, at a cost of $10 per month, or simply hit a control O. One part of the system that works fast and is very convenient is the user info. As soon as you type the command CREATE to begin writing a letter, you'll be asked who you want to send it to. Enter either the person's last name, first initial and last name, or username (which is usually one of the first two, but which can be almost anything the user desires). Immediately, you'll get a list of everyone with that name, as well as their city and state, which often don't fit properly on the line. There are no reports of any wildcards that allow you to see everybody at once. (The closest thing is *R, which will show all of the user names that you're sending to.) It's also impossible for a user not to be seen if you get his name or alias right. It's a good free information retrival system. But there's more. MCI Mail can also be used as a free word processor of sorts. The sytem will allow you to enter a letter, or for that matter, a manuscript. You can then hang up and do other things, come back within 24 hours, and your words will still be there. You can conceivably list them out using your own printer on a fresh sheet of paper and send it through the mail all by yourself, thus sparing MCI Mail's la6er printer the trouble. You could also share your account with somebody else and constantly leave unsent drafts for each other. Again, they have to be retrieved within 24 hours. Yet another way of getting "free" service from these people is to obtain many different accounts. There doesn't seem to be any kind of a limit on this and since each account comes with $2 of free messages, a few accounts can get you quite a bit of free service. And, of course, there's no charge for receiving messages on any of these accounts. 2600 has learned of several penetrations onto MCI Mail by hackers. This isn't really surprising considering: (a) there are multiple usernames, i.e. John Smith's username would always default to JSMITH, which means that several passwords can work for one username; (b) all passwords seem to follow a similar pattern -- 8 characters with the odd-numbered characters always being consonants or vowels -- any true hacker would obtain several accounts and look for any correspondence betwwen the random password and the account number everyone is assigned; (c) MCI Mail doesn't hand up after repeated tries -- the only thing that will make it disconnect intentionally is inactivity on your part. But by far, the biggest blunder that MCI Mail has made is not found on the system. It lies in their bills. There is no carry-over from month to month! If you get billed $8 one month and you don't pay it, then proceed to use the system for $3 more the next month, your next bill will only show the $3! The $8 has vanished! (This is by far the dumbest mistake we have ever reported in these pages.) You'll find quite a few unanswered quesitons in your travels through MCI Mail, which you can try to solve by reading the HELP files or sending a free message to MCIHELP. It usually takes them a couple of days to respond to you instantly, however. There are some software lapses as well. The system seems to be patterned largely after GTE Telemail, but it never really reaches that level of clarity. A small example can be seen in the scan tables, which have a heading of From, Subject, Size, etc. On outbound messages, the name of the person you're sending to appears under the From heading! Pretty silly. MCI Mail shows every indication of overspending with a passion. Free messages, free accounts, sloppy programming, toll-free dialups, single sheets of paper (like their bills) sent in huge envelopes, etc. Either they're very optimistic out there or they're very naive. (MCI Mail can be reached at 8004246677.) <> SF][G9:ba003.010585 [Courtesy of Sherwood Forest ][ -- (914) 359-1517] -----End of File Call The Works BBS - 1600+ Textfiles! - [914]/238-8195 - 300/1200 - Always Open