____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ THE SYNDICATE REPORT Information Transmittal No. 20 (Part 1 of 2) Released January 31, 1989 Featuring: Editor's Note Telenet / PC Pursuit Price Hike Phone Fraud Techniques Information Age Attacks Unix Hacker Caught at LLNL Briefs notes from The Report Vocabulary Tonic by The Sensei Editor Syndicate Report Magazine ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ EXPOSITION: TSR Once again, The Report accepts outside sources. Anybody can write/provide information to The Syndicate Report. Articles/Information may be provided through RADIO WAVES Bulletin Board System 612-471-0060. Any info such as Busts, Phreaking, Hacking, Data / Telecommunications, and new developments on any the previous mentioned specialties will be: accepted, labeled, and given full actual credit to the article/info provider(s), or writer(s). -- ** All articles have been presented by me unless shown at the end of the article as the information provider(s), or writer(s). ** ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ EDITOR'S NOTE: TSR A New-Year is upon us, 1989. The final year of the decade. Only ten more and we turn over another Century. Just think, only a few decades back the World had no wonderful high speed Computers, no means of Telecommunications via Computer, and not even a fraction of the amount of data being exchange over systems - a few decades back. Technology will have multiplied 4 times by the year 2000. I for one feel like I'm still in the Dark Ages. I'd like to be born around the year 2100 or 2150. Around that time, computers will be as common as the person - and probably more valuable to an extent. One bad point though: Phreaking and Hacking in the year 2100 would be in toto termination. In other words, suicide. Hackers, Crackers, Breakers, Phreakers, Terrorists - whatever you want to call'em are already talking about the end of phreaking and hacking. It's just a matter of time. You know what I really get tired of hearing? Bad news about 2 things. 1) The United States falling apart, and 2) Phreak/Hack world crumbling. And WHAT did I just report as an opinion? "The end of the Phreak/Hack soon." I've tried to turned myself away from writing depressing editorial opinions, but I've learned its basically impossible! Something that I never find myself writing, something like: "Hackers/Phreaks break into Government Bank and get rich...no suspects have been found." I'm babbling here, I'll have to edit half of this out... On with the Report #20. ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ TELENET / PCP PURSUIT PRICE HIKE: TSR (pc!p 1\2) This bit of news is probably all over the nation by now, but PCP is hanging itself - trying to get users to pay more $$ CASH. Here's a transcript from the 'C PURSUIT' Telenet accessible PCP Line: Here is a summary of the price change: o Monthly Charge. The new fixed charge is $30 per month. o Cap on Free Usage. Your $30 per month will now pay for up to 30 monthly hours of non-prime time usage. Using the full 30 hours in one month amounts to an hourly rate of only $1.00 -- more than 85% less than you would pay with the most popular long distance discount service. Only a small fraction of you will even be affected by this cap. o Over Cap Rate. Non-prime time usage, above the 30 hour cap, will be billed at $4.50 per hour, which is about half of the next lowest rate in the market place. o Second Tier Rates. There will be a second level of rates for those who use the service at business levels. When your total monthly usage exceeds 60 hours, both prime time and non-prime time rates will increase for those hours in excess of 60, as follows: PRIME TIME 2nd tier rate: $ 14.00 /hr Non-Prime 2nd tier rate: $ 7.50 /hr ....other changes are included, although the information is changing a lot - log into the PCP Via telenet to check all the latest info. The new pricing scheme goes into effect May. 1st, raises the monthly PC Pursuit charge to 30$, with a limit of 30 hours of service per month for that price, according to Peter Naleszkiewicz, Telenet's product manager for outdial services. After 30 hours, the cost of service rises to 4.50$ per hour, with another jump to $7.50 per hour coming at 60 hours per month. A Note from Mr. Naleszkiewicz "The service was far more popular that we ever expected it to be," Naleszkiewicz said. "Thirty hours per month is significantly more than the average use of the service, so most users will see only a five dollar per month increase. But it's not the average PC Pursuit user that concerns Telenet, according to Phil Sih, prez of Portal Communications CO. of Cupertino, Calif. "We have a population of heavy Pursuit users on out 10$ per month online service," Sih said. "Some of these people are using Pursuit 200 to 300 hours per month. You didn't have to be a rocket scientist to see this change coming." ::::::::::::::::: Information Provided by KM / 'C Pursuit' ::::::::::::::::: ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ PHONE FRAUD TECHNIQUES: TSR (usr 1\3) %&%&%&%&%&%&%&%&%&%&%&%&% %Phone Fraud, Part III% %&%&%&%&%&%&%&%&%&&&%&%&% Well in Part Three, I will discuss a part of phone fraud you very rarely see used, The Outside line, How you can get it and where. A very interesting thing I ran upon when I was hacking around on a PBX. I thought, How easy would it be to get a operator to give you an outside line from a hospital. In fact, I found it to be very simple, this is what ya do: You call your nearest hospital and when the switchboard operator answers ask her to send you to Radiology, (Doesn't really matter ask for any department) And when the department you asked for answers, tell them that you have made a mistake and that you would like to be transferred to the switchboard. You then will get sent back to the main switchboard but this time once the operator answers say, "Yes, This is Dr. Jones, I'm having trouble getting an outside line, Could give me an outside line please". Then most likely you will hear a Dial Tone! Now you can screw everything up and call Alliance, or anything your heart desires. The reason must call and get transferred to a different department before asking for the outside line is that if you just call up and ask for an outside line, the operator will see that your are on a Incoming Trunk, (If you don't know what that means, she'll simply tell you that your not in the hospital, but outside) But you see, once you get transferred, then again transferred back it looks like you're inside the hospital - so, it's more of a good chance of getting the outside line. I hope this File helps you out. Direct all questions to TSR #21/TS ::::::::::::::::::: Information Written by The Synergist ::::::::::::::::::: ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ INFORMATION AGE ATTACKS: TSR (fbs 1\30) Solicitors hit you at night with so many phone solicitations that you shelled out the extra bucks for an unlisted numbers, among other annoying reasons. Then they got through with random dialers. So you bought an answering machine. And now they've invaded your computer and your fax machine with junk mail. Is there no peace? This is the information age that the futurists talked about, the day when telephone technology, fax machines and electronic mail would make communications cheap and plentiful. Too plentiful. Says Lotus Corp.,: "It's a well-known phenomenon in large corporations that when you come back from a long weekend you'll find 50 pieces of electronic mail in your mailbox, spend hours going though it, and end up with most of it being stuff you don't want to see." LOTUS protects itself at home and with an unpublished telephone number, and opts for a public electronic mail address for his computer. Yet the unwanted messages still come through. WITH THIS, we have what could perhaps be called as a "War of Access", fought on the battleground of chips and software. Everyone, it seems, is screaming for your attention. Among the callers' weapons are electronic white pages, power dialers that can do 20k calls a day, and systems that hunt down unpublished fax numbers. Defensive strategies? These include PBX switchboards with software to route unwanted calls into answering machines and call blockers that reject calls from specific unwanted numbers. Tomorrow's strategies will include software that filters out sales pitches from electronic mail by looking for telltale words like "insurance" and "financial planner." While senders are spending more to reach out, some receivers are spending more not to be touched. Survey Sampling, a Fairfield, Conn researched firm, says 28% of all U.S. household have an unlisted number. LA is 56% unlisted. NEW JERSEY BELL, which already charges customers $12.50 a year for the privilege of not having their numbers published, is offering another defense this year, CALLER ID, in some parts of its territory. For 78.00$ a year plus a onetime charge of 60.00$ for a readout device, a residential customer sees the number of the caller when his phone rings. If he recognizes the number, he pickes up; if he doesn't, he might ignore the call or maybe let an answering machine get it. Then again, he can send it to the police or the Bell company to follow up annoying charges. This privilege, CLID, is fast sweeping the country...and becoming a necessity for prank/obscene phone calls. The Northern Bell is next in line for the feature. ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ UNIX HACKER CAUGHT AT LLNL: TSR (i.w 1\15) A remote caller who had repeatedly broken through the network security at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories has been detected and contacted by LLNL officials. The vulnerability of Unix networks to unauthorized intrusions has become a serious concern at the federal level, where a number of agencies are trying to standardize upon the use of Unix-based networks. The concern has prompted the establishment of a national crisis center for network break-ins, called the Computer Emergency Response Team. According to an LLNL document obtained by TSR, the most recent LLNL intruder gained access to the system by way of Internet computers at the University of Washington and Stanford University. Because of the remote accessibility of these computers through e Internet, however, it is possible that these computers were not the point of origin. Once the intruder gained access to the LLNL computers, he achieved "superuser" status, which permitted access to every nonclassified file at LLNL, the document states. This opportunity could have resulted in widespread destruction of unclassified data, but no files are known to have been damaged, according to officials. The intruder used a "cracker's dictionary" to obtain a small list of old and existing passwords, the document states. He also created the capability to reenter the system by giving himself an account number and his own password to make it appear that he was a legitimate user. "Our security people have been in touch with the intruder, and we have been assured that there will be no further intrusions from that source," said Ron Teunis, an LLNL spokesman. Teunis also said the matter had been turned over to the FBI for further investigation, and the intruder could be prosecuted for federal computer-security laws. Officials at LLNL said that fixes have been created to guard against the particular methods used in the Dec 3rd to 10 intrusions. The intruder had broken into the unclassified portion of LLNL's node of the Internet system on at least 10 occasions between December 3 and 10, according to a document released by LLNL. The intruder exploited one of the known weaknesses in the Unix systems running on many LLNL's computers. ::::::::::::::::::::: Information by The Sensei / TSR :::::::::::::::::::::: ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ::::::::::::::::::::::::SYNDICATE REPORT BRIEF NOTES:::::::::::::::::::::::: ... TID BITS ON BELL ... // Bell Atlantic Offers Email // Bell Atlantic and Telenet Com Corp., the US Sprint data communications company, have announced a strategic alliance that enables Bell Atlantic to enter the email business, pending regulatory approval by the FCC. The agreement is the first between a regional Bell operating co and an enhanced service provider for email service, and capitalizes on the ability of local exchange carriers to provide information services. Until recently, telephone companies subject to the Modified Final Judgment, the consent decree that resulted in the break-up of AT&T, were not allowed to provide such services. _____________________________________________________________ // AT&T, BellSouth Offer Cable TV // AT&T and BellSouth Corp. will be ushers, of sorts, for callers who want to order specific pay-per-view cable TV programs, reports Communications Week. The companies will use their respective equipment to furnish order-taking services for special pay-per-view cable broadcasts, such as first-run movies or live sporting events. Normally, cable TV phone operators handle the requests. _____________________________________________________________ // Phone Co's Reaching Overseas // The lure of overseas cable investments continues to draw the interest of U.S. cable operators and an increasing number of telephone companies. BellSouth, Bell Atlantic and GTE are on the prowl for foreign cable holdings, Broadcasting magazine says. Pacific Telesis and US West already have United Kingdom holdings. :::::::::::::::::: Information Provided by Delta #5 / 606 :::::::::::::::::: ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::VOCABULARY TONIC:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: This is the second in a series of Vocabulary Tonic sections. I decided to do this for a few reasons. 1) If a person has an extensive vocabulary, there are practically no limits to what he/she can learn. 2) It's a nice idea from a Technical. book I read occasionally. And lastly, 4) It gives The Report a bit more spice. The acronyms/words presented will relate to Telecommunications in one way or another, and only telcom. An average of 15 acronyms/words will appear monthly - along with The Report. ISDN - Integrated Services Digital Network: A planned hierarchy of digital switching and transmission systems. Final phase of modern day switches. AIS - Automatic Intercept System: System employing an audio-response unit under control of a processor to automatically provide pertinent info to callers routed to intercept. ESB - Emergency Service Bureau: A centralized agency to which 911 "Universal" emergency calls are routed. ADU - Automatic Dialing Unix: A device which automatically generates a predetermined set of dialing digits. FACS - Facility Assignment and Control System: Mechanizes the service order assignment process. CAROT- Centralized Automatic Reporting on Trunks: This takes transmission and trunk measurements. Does routine tests and forwards results to work control locations. TASC - Telecommunications Alarm Surveillance and Control: Provides centralized surveillance of telecom equipment. EC - Exchange Carrier: A company engaged in the business of furnishing access service in a franchised territory. (ie; US Sprint, MCI, AT&T) AC - Access Code: A uniform set digit code assigned by an Exchange Carrier to an individual customer. Gateway - A network element that permits communication between two organizationally or technically dissimilar networks. PJ - Phrase Jitter: The unwanted phase variations of a signal. Garble, or Garbage online. 3TS - 3-Tone Slope: The difference in loss between 1004 Hz and 404 Hz and 2804 Hz (AKA Attenuation Distortion). PAD - Packet Assembler/Disassembler: Information passed though an Information Service, translated to the computer's specifications. (ie; baud differences, computer emulations, and protocol handshaking). ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ TSR will accept additional sponsor/support Systems. If you have a certain interest in the Report, and wish to provide support to TSR -- Leave your BBS number -- also any other information on RADIO WAVES Bulletin Board System. ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ The End System TSR :: 915-821-1856 --------- Lunatic Labs :: 415-278-7421 At Login: Any UNIX Default PW P/H System PlaydoLand Systems :: 612-522-3959 --------- The Outlet @ :: 313-261-6141 P/H-Files BBS Private P/H Newuser:Kenwood Radio Waves System :: 612-471-0060 * #1 Syndicate Support BBS * ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ This concludes this Transmittal No. 20 (Part 1 of 1) Released January 31st, 1989 by The Sensei Editor of The Syndicate Report ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________